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[…] John Cole reads Kunstler like us, and if you’ve been reading us long, you’ve been reading him too. […]
Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?
We are aware of all internet traditions.
White supremacy is terrorism.
“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”
If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.
I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.
If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.
Not all heroes wear capes.
This really is a full service blog.
Technically true, but collectively nonsense
There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.
This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.
We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.
Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.
The willow is too close to the house.
If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.
Let’s not be the monsters we hate.
“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.
Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard
Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.
Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.
Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.
Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.
Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.
cleek
Billmon prefers to dwell on the bleakest of possible outcomes – run down the list of eventualities, find the worst, then project it into an even worse future.
he’s a smart guy, but i’m not sure what i get out of reading him – a glimpse of devastation yet to come ?
SGEW
Mr. Kunstler ends with some choice words:
Makes you almost optimistic.
Dreggas
Better start canning food. That’s all I can say.
zzyzx
This is why I don’t read pundits on the Internet. It’s a series of worst case scenarios spun out so they can feel superior to others. They’re fun to write but that doesn’t mean that they’re likely to happen.
Va Highlander
I got off of the Kunstler train to Armageddon a long time ago. He’s been forecasting doom for years, always claiming that collapse and chaos are just around an ever-receding corner. Even a stopped clock has the correct time twice a day and I feel just because he happens to be right at the moment doesn’t mean his masturbatory fantasies have been anything more than the wishful thinking of an overgrown and deeply alienated adolescent.
From what I’ve seen of the man, I suspect he’s been beside himself with glee ever since the market’s began to dive last week. If he were really so fucking clever and cared about anything more than drawing attention to himself, Kunstler would get off that dopey bike of his and do something constructive. He won’t. An idealist like Kunstler never sullies himself with such practical concerns.
Napoleon
I have a feeling that when its all done stagflation in the 70’s will look like the golden age of the US economically next to what is to come.
Dreggas
keep this in mind, the series of bail outs and ad hoc things we’ve done so far is nothing mor than putting a band aid on an arterial wound. The 700 billion dollar boondoggle they’re talking about is nothing more than a larger band aid on the wound. In other words it’s still bleeding and no tourniquet has been applied.
Snail
As long as we’re pondering our collective future bleakness, Sullivan recently linked to this story about peak oil prophet Matt Simmons.
Of course, a full-on economic collapse would forestall the effects of peak oil, but if we really are at peak, it will make it extremely difficult to mount any kind of economic recovery.
ChristieS
Here in the rural south, we’re already doing this. We do it every year, but this year there’s something a bit different.
We used to have pretty much only one section of a single aisle devoted to canning supplies during harvest season. However, yesterday when I went grocery shopping, there was an entire aisle devoted to supplies, and they were going like hotcakes. The fresh vegetable aisles were also fairly denuded of the types of food that are easily canned..(beans, corn, tomatoes, squash, fresh fruits like apples, etc.)
The Saturday farmers market also had a run on produce. It typically runs from 8am until noon. They closed at 10am because they were out of supplies.
Our foodbank ran out of food last week.
It’s getting fucking ugly here on the homefront.
montysano
First of all, if you really read Kunstler, you’d know that his blog, and especially his books, often include solutions, and suggestions for practical action.
Secondly, as one who commutes his 50-something ass 30+ miles per week on a “dopey bike”, feel free to piss off. The simple bicycle could be a useful tool on multiple levels: conservation, obesity, etc. That fact that not even BO (as far as I know) has touted this is a huge disappointment.
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
Billmon’s always a good read, even if there are times you can easily tell when he’s off the anti-depressants. His latest run on GOS has been solid stuff.
Kunstler, on the other hand, has been stuck on ‘SUBURBS ARE TEH EVIL!!!!1!1!!!’ since Levittsville. I take him with a whole can of Morton’s.
SGEW
We city dwellers are more or less screwed, it seems. Can I come and live with one of the semi-self-sufficient rural commenters? I’m a hard worker, I don’t eat much, and we can snark our way through the Apocalypse . . . . No?
Oh well. I’ve always wanted to see a food riot. It’ll be something to tell the grand kids.
Va Highlander
You may be right, but after reading Kunstler’s blog religiously for many months, I did not find his “solutions” practical at all. Most everything seemed to begin with, “Once it all goes to Hell, then they’ll listen to me. They won’t be laughing anymore. Bwa, ha, ha, ha, ha!”
This is not a practical solution, at least not one that avoids a shitload of human suffering. Tackling rampant American consumerism and waste is a behavioral problem. Thundering on and on about what fools these mortals be is an exercise in self-aggrandizement, not effecting meaningful change. I consider myself sympathetic and open to Kunstler’s arguments generally, but after a while even I couldn’t take his smug self-satisfaction and disaster-mongering ‘tude.
On a personal level, good for you and I mean that sincerely. Your disappointment in Obama, however, for not promoting your lifestyle choices proves little more than your low threshold for disappointment. Worse, going around with this chip on your shoulder is just the sort of eco-elitist rot that has kept the Greens and other ecologically sane voices from being heard in this country’s political discourse. It’s counterproductive to your own doubtless sincere and laudable intent.
Remember when Jimmy Carter turned down the thermostat, donned a cardigan sweater and bade all patriotic Americans do likewise? An excellent suggestion, in retrospect, but they laughed him out of the Oval Office for it. Good ideas, however vital and well-intentioned, only sell themselves to an informed and sympathetic public. You have to dangle a carrot in front of these stubborn jackasses. Frightening them with end-of-the-world scenarios and beating them with moralist sticks is only half the solution.
Mino
Jesus Christ on a crutch. They’re gonna buy this trash at near-mature value, not fire sale. That’s gonna work, I’m sure. Not.
If they do this, without any tax to try to pay for it, our currency will be justly punished and the net effect will be—Let’s do it again.
John PM
Assuming you live. If the riots don’t get you, the cannibalism probably will.
D-Chance.
Shorter (teary-eyed) Kunstler: Aaaaahhhh met maaaaahhhh Lincoln! Saaaaavior of the world!
What a load of shit.
D-Chance.
Eh, no. I got mine, screw the rest of ya. /grins
Going back to Kunstler, “we are a poorer nation”? No. We have the same number or houses, the same amount of oil is in the ground, the same crops are still there in the fields… we are not a poorer nation. However, we ARE a nation that will have to learn to re-value and re-prioritize its assets and wants/needs as a society. Those of us who did not get caught up in Bubblemania with the dot.coms and the McMansions and the need for new cars, new video systems, new stainless steel appliances, new EVERYTHING because “we don’t have to pay for it… just put it on plastic!” are doing just fine, thank you very much. Amazing how a little personal responsibility and fiscal conservatism can carry one through a “crisis”.
jon
Is the value of those things higher or lower? If the answer is “lower”, then our ass is poorer. Will we feel poorer? Hell yes. Will a change in how we look at things make us feel better? I doubt many will call poor people whiners, though we’ll certainly be hearing more whines from the newly poor and unskilled classes who have more debt than the old poor. You’re right about responsible money management being important, but I think you show a lack of objectivity in regard to whether or not we’re a poorer nation.
TenguPhule
The houses are worth a lot less then you think, the oil is being given away for hookers and blow and the crops are costing an arm and a leg to get to your table, FUCK YEAH we are a poorer nation then before.