City of Fort Collins and CFORSE Joint Effort

Thanks to my friend Fred Kirsch at Community For Sustainable Energy for publicizing a new effort to reduce VMT.

What is a VMT and why do I want to eliminate it?

VMT stands for: Vehicle Miles Traveled

It is a measurement of how many miles you drive. We are calculating VMT on a weekly basis and working to reduce it as part of a city-wide program to raise awareness and understanding of driving habits, as well as to help participants reduce driving.

Reasons to eliminate VMT: High gas prices, traffic, mental well-being, air pollution (VMT are the leading source of toxic air pollution in Fort Collins), less accident risk, and I bet you can think of some others!

Sounds Great – How Do I Cut My VMT?

Fred has a blog post for this. Here is a heavily edited summary plus a way to say goodby to your car without completely going back to horse and buggy days:

Traffic produces smog, congestion and high costs.
Populations grow, infrastructure lags. While researching
the role electric vehicles might play to improve these problems,
I discovered car sharing and decided to propose a program
for the city. I wanted to include electric cars for short trips.
Also, I suspected that lower weight, lower energy,
lower impact vehicles, operating primarily in bike lanes would
be another terrific addition to the car share menu. People can
choose exactly the vehicle and energy use that is perfect for each trip.

We call it “full spectrum vehicle sharing”. It really is just a car share
menu with more choices. High impact choices cost more,
low impact choices cost less. So, got car sharing approved for
CSU, got Fort Collins CarShare operating, and are ramping Fort Collins
“full spectrum” Vehicle Share up to launch the first program of its kind!
Go to our website at Fort Collins Car Share for a quick look, and contact us for more information, or if you want to get involved.
Help us close the circle and make a positive changes in how people move around.
We have a dream that is so exciting, it makes us feel 14 again!
Shane Miller

Shane makes the point that you could take the bus or ride your bike whenever you need to get to your car share. I like the idea of not having to have my own insurance policy if I only drive a few times a year. I have been automobile free for 16 years and it is a little tough when it snows in Fort Collins. My neighbor said that I gave up freedom when I went auto-free. What I gave up was dealing with DMV, parking tickets, bridge tolls, gas, oil, tires, auto maintenance, car insurance, etc. Now there is another alternative in Fort Collins.

This is Freedom

Related: Sourced from AlterNet Do We Have To Live Like Peasants To Be Truly Sustainable?

Posted by Gypsy Chief

Follow @GypsyChief

From Wikipedia Commons

We need a map for uncharted territory as we enter this New Year, as the realization is dawning we are dealing with an economic crisis of an entirely different character than ever before. Our industrial civilization is reaching limits to growth, and we don’t know how to live with that.

Part I of this series of three articles addressed the four major challenges we now face, there dubbed “The Four Horsemen of the Economic Apocalypse“: 1) Too Much Debt; 2) Resource Limits; 3) Destruction and Decay of Infrastructure; and 4) Greed. Bottom line: this crisis is much deeper and more permanent than we’ve been led us to believe. “Recovery” to former patterns of growth simply won’t happen. We must now adapt to new realities, as individuals and as a society.

Part II of this series, “Out With The Old“, discussed the end of seven “Dead End” unsustainable practices that will falter and decline. We won’t pay our unpayable debts or keep impossible promises. We can’t keep importing more than we export and borrowing the difference. Our Empire will shrink back. Our use of fossil fuels will decline as we experience Peak Oil and Peak Coal . We must cure Sick Care. We will repeal laws that mandate opulence and forbid prosperity. Finally, we will “drop the shopping” for worthless junk and refocus on the best of what it means to be human.

In With The New: Seven New Ways of Living That Will Work.

In this third and final article in this series, we will discuss seven new ways of living which we can adopt as economic growth fails. They are not revolutionary (revolutions never achieve their utopian visions because of something called “human nature”). Rather, they may allow us to “muddle through” the best we can right now with what we already know how to do.

We will do these things because they will work — and we certainly need to stop doing things that don’t work, and find new ways that will work:

1. Debt for Investment, Not Consumption.

Like a cook who has dreadfully botched a recipe by adding a cup of salt where a teaspoon was called for, we have overused debt and are now suffering the consequences.

For decades we have used more, and more, and more debt for consumption, allowing us to live beyond our means, consuming more than our income and kicking the can down the road to be paid later. We even rationalized that our houses were investments rather than consumption. Now it is “Later” — and we have to pay the price. Taking on more debt allowed us to live above our incomes, but now we must live below our incomes to pay it down.

Like the post-Depression generation that avoided debt like the plague that it had turned out to be for their parents, we are now losing our desire for and ability to take on more consumption debt. Our equity has vanished, and we can’t count on ever-increasing (or even steady) earnings for families or businesses. Simply put, most of us are no longer a good “credit risk”. Many bank failures and contractions will also occur and reduce the availability of credit. European banks are already reducing their lending in many sectors because they must build reserves.

Whether we like or not, therefore, we will borrow less for consumption. More of us will pay up front for consumer goods, buy used cars (or no cars), and even build our own small houses, debt-free. Debt for consumption, the “bad debt”, must decline, and of course this also means we are likely to see a Deflationary spiral of lower consumption, failing businesses, failing banks, and a decreased money supply as our debt overload goes back into the thin air from whence it came.

Like the cook who used too much salt, we are experiencing the bitter taste of Too Much Debt. This does not mean, however, that all salt, or all debt, is bad.

Investments that allow us to reduce our expenses, or produce more income, pay for themselves. Like “good cholesterol”, in the right proportions, “good debt” can be good for us. For instance, an energy investment that saves $100/month but has a loan payment of only $50/month frees up funds. The investment also creates jobs in the local community.

Many commenters rightly point out, however, that the current financial crisis is crippling our ability to finance such needed energy conversions. The average homeowner in our example, for instance, cannot today mortgage their house to finance energy improvements.

This situation is reminiscent of the tales from the Great Depression of productive capacity going unused because of a shortage of credit. It is happening again — projects which make perfect economic sense, would create jobs, and would more than pay for themselves are once again not happening because there is no connection of these projects with available funding. Like the small town of Bedford Falls, we need a lender like George Bailey to extend credit where it can do some good, or we risk ending up in Pottersville.

public domain via Wikipedia Commons

Fortunately, we already have mechanisms in place that can solve this. Did homeowners directly finance all the power, natural gas, water and sewer lines that run into their homes? How about the streets and sidewalks? Those capital costs, and the central facilities that serve those networks, were financed by public utilities, or tax districts, with no thought of individually testing the credit worthiness of each occupant to borrow their individual share of the cost.

Whenever society has experienced a need for large capital investments that serve the public good — such as construction of an electric or water supply network — we have used utilities or tax districts to make them happen. They finance the infrastructure and customers pay for it through monthly bills.

These same financing structures can now be used to provide the capital for needed energy conversions to existing buildings, such as insulation and caulking, conversion off oil heat, solar hot water heating, passive solar, efficient lighting, and solar photovoltaics. Like a utility or sewer line, energy improvements aren’t going to pick up and be moved (and this can be a covenant), so they can reliably be billed monthly to whomever occupies the buildings.

Financing much of our energy conversion can thus be done in the same way we build water mains. On-Bill utility financing or PACE special improvement tax districts can give energy retrofits the opportunity to pay for themselves

Of course, for such a plan to work, it must deliberately apply minimal standards of credit worthiness. Existing energy utilities do not require a minimum percent of equity in one’s home or require mortgage liens on property to extend utility service. Disconnection from a basic service has proven a powerful enough incentive for utilities to be able to collect monthly utility bills.

If societal structures break down in future and people stop paying their monthly utility bills, it will still have been no small accomplishment that we managed to keep a sizable portion of the population warm in their homes and offices, and supplied with hot water and a fair amount of self-generated electricity. Buildings consume almost half of all U.S. energy use, as they are where we live and work.

By placing first priority on customer-level projects, we will have financed the most cost-effective energy conversions first — those that reduce waste, and tap diffuse solar energy to be used where it is collected. We will have created jobs for a great many workers to get this done, using common materials supplied mostly by USA manufacturers.

2. Location, Location, Location.

While we have for the last century used cheap oil powering our transportation systems to make distances virtually irrelevant, as oil prices rise it is going to matter a great deal where one is located.

At $5/gallon gasoline (not far in the future), a commuter with a 60 mile round trip and a 25 mpg vehicle would spend about $3,200/year just commuting to and from work. At $10/gallon gas, forget it. That bus pass or commuter rail line will look very good as an alternative — but only if the routes exist. Many communities never planned for Peak Oil, and they are likely to see stresses on their citizens and a migration away to areas where better transportation options exist, such as near light rail line stations.

It will increasingly make sense for manufacturers and distributors to locate on a rail line rather than near an Interstate Highway, as more freight will move to the rails. Railroads can already move a ton of freight 480 miles on a single gallon of diesel fuel, and require only 5 rail workers to staff a train hauling the equivalent freight that would otherwise require over 200 truck drivers to move. Rail lines can also be electrified so they require virtually no direct oil use. As resources become scarce, railroads can keep us moving.

Fortunately, the U.S. has maintained a robust mainline rail network, though thousands of miles of branchlines were abandoned, and those communities that were abandoned may need to rebuild.

Major Railroad Lines of the United States

national rail atlas

While other transport modes are government owned, U.S. railroads are still privately owned (e.g. Warren Buffett recently bought the Burlington Northern Railroad). As private companies, the railroads must maintain their own rail lines.

Governments, however, now maintain the highway system and due to Pork Barrel Lobby politics, force automobile owners to pay for massive road damage caused mostly by large trucks. If governments simply stop subsidizing trucking (either directly with fees on truckers, or by default by letting highways crumble), we won’t need to subsidize the railroads.

The “Global Economy” will also see its share of commerce decline as petroleum supplies become scarce, giving rise once again to the “Land Based Economy” (serviceable by rail transportation). When the price of oil reflects its highest value as the source of complex organic chemicals needed for much of industrial civilization, it will be insane to burn it in freighters churning across oceans.

The trend is clear: the prime “location, location, location” moving forward will be on an electrified rail line.

3. Collaborate and Conquer.

As the U.S. military Empire begins to shrink back, the self-appointed role of the U.S. as the world’s free-of-charge military security service must end.

DOD photo

If the purpose of an extended military Empire is to gather “tributes” to the home country of the Empire, where are the fruits for the U.S.? The first post-occupation Iraqi oil contracts were awarded to Asian and European countries. In Afghanistan, a multi-billion-dollar copper mine is under development, waiting for our soldiers to secure the country. Who is the owner of this copper mine? The Chinese.

The Chinese are proving again and again that a world made safe for free market commerce by the U.S. military can easily be exploited to their advantage with their “checkbook diplomacy“. They are simply buying up what we have spent our money and our soldiers’ lives to secure.

The U.S. has already demonstrated one way to force contributions from other countries: refuse to take actions unilaterally. Though many question NATO’s intrusion into Libya, it was a demonstration of this strategy. The U.S. successfully held back until meaningful participation by other NATO countries was secured.

Another way to share costs is to do joint ventures. The recently announced contingent of U.S. forces to be stationed in Australia will be housed at Australian, not U.S. owned, bases.

If world commerce actually does require protection from a massive military force, the test of this should be if those who benefit from world commerce are willing to pay for this security. If world shipping actually now requires protection by the largest Navy ever floated, the cost of this Navy could be assessed as a shipping fee on all transactions at U.S. ports. If we must protect Middle East oil fields to secure our oil imports, impose a fee on all oil imports to pay for this military presence.

We can work to impose such practical measures to assess the cost of the military Empire on those who most directly benefit from it. In the end, however, it is likely the only way to force collaboration by others will be for the U.S. to pull back. Protect our own borders, and if others want more done, let them step forward and propose collaborations.

4. Go With the Flow.

A standard admonishment to the younger generation in families of wealth has always been: Never Spend Your Capital. It’s ok to spend the annual Income, but never touch the Capital or you will destroy the family wealth.

We have been spending our Capital — the wealth of stored solar energy that grew as plant matter and that Nature concentrated in fossil fuels. In a matter of only three hundred years, we’ve raided this store of wealth that took hundreds of millions of years to create. It is now running down, and we won’t be able to keep pretending that raiding the family wealth is the same as making an honest living.

We now have to learn to live on our Income — the annual Inflow of solar energy that falls upon the Earth and is available in places and forms (direct sunlight, wind and water flows, and plant growth) and at times that we can utilize.

Image from NASA

The three key features of this Inflow were noted in the last sentence: the places it flows, the forms it takes, and the times it is available. The annual solar energy Inflow is enormously large and far more than we could ever need for all our energy requirements — but to tap this Inflow we must work intelligently with its places, forms, and timing.

As an example, I am writing this article from a home that is quite comfortably heated by the sun, but only because my windows face the right place — South — to gather winter sunlight. The form of solar heat is diffuse heat energy — perfect for heating my own house, but not so concentrated that I could pump heat to my neighbor. Finally, while I would love to collect sunlight through the cold winter night, that’s impossible so I work with its timing and my home stores heat in ceramic tile floors (which is also why I’m not too hot during the daytime).

Intelligent design, therefore, combined with the use of common enough building materials, has allowed me to work with my solar Income quite effectively. The same principles apply to all other forms of renewable energy. The available Inflow is adequate to our needs, but our projects must use materials we actually have available, and we must respect all the characteristics of the Flow.

The myth that renewable energy is anything like a fossil-fueled engine that can conveniently be “slapped on” to our houses and economy whenever we finally get around to it has never been true. My neighbor’s “stupid house” (north-south axis) faces the wrong direction and can never be made into a passive solar house. It can be made much more energy efficient, but if it comes time to hand back some homes to the banks, his would be a better choice than mine.

Similarly, those states with cheap land-based wind power such as the Midwest will have cheaper electricity than states who must adopt more expensive offshore wind power. Some places are better endowed with easily accessible renewable energy Flow than others, and will prosper more.

As utilities transition to supply a majority of our electricity from renewable power, it will be most economical to work with, rather than to ignore, natural flows. For instance, “Smart Meters” and dynamic pricing can give discounts when wind farms are blowing strongest and supplying cheap power. We will need to take advantage of these discounts through smart use, smart appliances, and charging electric cars at the right times, so we can cut power bills and minimize the need for fossil fuel backup or central utility storage of energy.

Another unexpected aspect of living within our annual Income of solar energy is that we may find ourselves once again relying on the form of solar powered plant growth to supply many of our needs — and this is not a discussion about biofuels. Rather than accomplish some tasks with machines, it may once again prove best to employ people(!). Localized agriculture and quality craftsmanship require manual human labor. This is not a bad thing when so many are unemployed. The “fuel” for manual human labor is food (supplied by Solar Inflow) rather than oil, natural gas, or coal.

Nothing about relying on an Income of renewable power will be the same as spending our stored energy in fossil fuels. However, with the Trust Fund of fossil fuels depleting, we must grow up and get an Income.

5. Patient, Heal Thyself!

Rather than heed the sign at the door to the nation’s health care system — “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here!” –
we must address our health, as this beast is already sucking 17% of our GDP and scheduled to go higher. It’s as big as our waistlines and growing just as fast.

The approach of taking responsibility for one’s own health is already familiar to the tens of millions who have no health insurance. They cannot buy health insurance, as it is completely out of reach for them, so most of the self-employed I know “do” health insurance. They go to the gym and work out. They work in their gardens. They watch their waistlines. They quit smoking. They monitor their blood pressures, and if they are diabetic they monitor their glucose and eat the right foods.

These same themes are now becoming standard practice in the health plans that place emphasis on primary care medicine. The most progressive employer-based plans require all employees to have annual physicals, and even require participation in “Reach Your Peak” health coaching where employees set goals of peak health with their family doctor, and come in for regular monitoring and coaching. A free gym, next door to the primary care clinic, is available for all employees. One plan in Colorado is even paying people to lose weight.

As the entire nation is about to be forced to buy private health insurance or pay penalties on their tax returns (a Republican idea which Democrats were foolish enough to pass with no Republican votes), resentment over the health care system is at a fever pitch.

Those middle class families who cannot afford health insurance (e.g. $20,000/year family premiums) will still be unable to afford it. However, they will now much more visibly pay into a system (through tax penalties) that gives free health insurance to others, but with no reciprocal benefits for themselves. It is utterly amazing Washington thinks the extra $20,000/year is going to magically materialize in family budgets to allow the middle class to buy health insurance. It is even more amazing Washington doesn’t “get it” why people are angry about how this turned out.

Since attention has been so forceably directed to the system, this resentment can be directed to accomplish some good. “What’s Good for the (Fat) Goose is Good for the (Fat) Gander” might be a good motto here. If employer-sponsored health plans now require Peak Performance programs, offer free gyms, and pay people to lose weight, such cost-saving ideas should be quickly adopted by government-paid plans. Perhaps the way to do this will be, if we have to keep the health insurance system albatross, at least get some use out of it by moving Medicare and Medicaid recipients into health plans that require participants to do these things.

A little personal responsibility will go a long way to improving our health and saving hundreds of billions of dollars we don’t have.

6. Connect the Dots.

It is always good to pay attention to broad-based grassroots movements. A “Common Wisdom” — such as the current idea that it might be better to tax consumption rather than earned income — may actually be a good idea, even though it flies in the face of “Conventional Wisdom”.

The proposal to not tax earned income has its roots in a very sound economic concept: we should tax the things we don’t want people to do, and not tax the things we want people to do.

Consider the benefits if the “real economy” productive activity of converting raw materials to goods and services — i.e. ordinary earned income — were not taxed (including for Social Security and Medicare taxes) except above a certain high level. Under such a proposal, earned income would not be taxed except above perhaps $250,000/year — a level that is more reflective of a CEO’s influence, or a bald attempt to abusively recategorize other income as “earned”, than the true value of hours worked.

If normal levels of earned income were not taxed, American workers would overnight become more competitive with foreign workers, promoting more Made in America production. Local small businesses and home-based labor, including bartering transactions, would flourish without the heavy hand of the IRS attempting to levy taxes. Finally, the middle class, which receives most of its income from working, would receive a much needed boost.

The math has to work, however, to recoup the lost taxes on earned income, by imposing more taxes on other types of activity. These should be things we either don’t want to happen, or which give income to their recipients without contributing benefits to the real economy that produces goods and services.

For instance, John Michael Greer, in his book The Wealth of Nature, proposes taxing the depletion of natural resources, which he deems the “Primary Economy” of Earth’s resources (because this depletion robs our Trust Fund of real wealth — and when our store of natural wealth is gone, we’re all in big trouble). Greer would not tax the “Secondary”, and equally real, economy of producing goods and services. However, the abstract and speculative “Tertiary Economy” of money made by money (capital gains, derivatives, interest, etc.) would be taxed.

In this taxation model, a tax on extraction of nonrenewable natural resources such as fossil fuels and minerals would discourage our depletion of these finite treasures, and also encourage recycling and renewable energies (which would not be taxed). Imported goods would pay the same tax on the nonrenewable content of their products, so they would not gain an advantage over American goods.

There would be no “sales taxes” however — as shopkeepers, artisans and homebuilders are productive to the economy. A product or building that included a lot of nonreplaceable resources would cost a lot more due to the raw material extraction taxes, but an artisan or builder who created a product from recycled or grown materials would see no taxes imposed either on the raw materials or their work.

In the wake of the financial frauds and explosion of financial “assets” which now lay claim to several hundreds of trillions of dollars more wealth than actually exists in the entire world and which still threaten to blow up the world economy, it is easy to see why taxes on money-making-money should discourage financial speculation.

It was Ronald Reagan who lowered tax rates on earned income and raised the tax rate on capital gains to equal the same as ordinary income, and yet this iconic conservative Republican’s ideas have been abandoned by modern neo-conservatives, even as they praise his image.

from Reagan Presidential Library

There are many other types of taxes and fees that can fill the tax gap and discourage things we don’t want. Tax truckers for the actual cost of damages they do to our highways. Tax junk food as it contributes to public health care costs (several states now have canceled food sales tax exemptions for junk foods). Tax carbon emissions and other pollutants. Tax international commerce for the cost of the worldwide military Empire that protects it.

You get the idea. Connect the Dots. Tax those activities which impose a burden on society, or which place the entire economy at risk through depletion and speculation. Don’t tax what we want to see more of, which is productive work.

The Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement might just be able to agree on this, if they could ever meet in the same room.

7. Become Producers Again.

Americans should recoil from the label we have so blithely accepted for ourselves: “Consumers”. This is not the label of a proud and free people, but a nation of sheep. We are a nation of borrowing consumers, gobbling up about 25% of the world’s resources as we consume “bread and circuses”. It is a measure of shame and ruin that 70% of our economy is devoted to consumer consumption.

It is no accident that the areas of the country that still produce something (e.g. food, manufactured products, energy) and sell it to others have been least affected by high unemployment. An economy functions by producing something.

Our cash economy will be strengthened if we can adopt many of the ideas in these articles, and create formal jobs. We need to Buy American, as we need manufacturing plants in the U.S.A. to employ Americans. Our agricultural products should be exported as food rather than burned in our gas tanks. Rethinking what we tax can make American workers competitive again.

As the “99′ers” now living on their 99th week of unemployment benefits see their cash income expire with still no jobs, however, none of these things have yet occurred. The cash economy is burdened with an overload of debt and taxes. We still buy almost everything from China. Ask any business owner and you hear the same phrase: No one has any money.

In such times, we have shown in the past that Cash is not necessarily King. If we go back just a century to the household economy of the early 1900′s, most families lived and work on small subsistence farms and produced what they needed themselves. Small craftspeople made products by hand and sold or bartered them to the local community. Multi-generational households did not send their kids to daycare centers, but grandparents played an active role caring for children, cooking, and maintaining the household.

If we go back even farther, we are given a detailed example of the productivity of a household economy, in Proverbs 31:

A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
Her husband has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.
She brings him good, not harm,
all the days of her life.
She selects wool and flax
and works with eager hands.
She is like the merchant ships,
bringing her food from afar.
She gets up while it is still night;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her female servants.
She considers a field and buys it;
out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks.
She sees that her trading is profitable,
and her lamp does not go out at night.
In her hand she holds the distaff
and grasps the spindle with her fingers.
She opens her arms to the poor
and extends her hands to the needy.
When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
She makes coverings for her bed;
she is clothed in fine linen and purple.
Her husband is respected at the city gate,
where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells them,
and supplies the merchants with sashes.
She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.
She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

That long list of activities reflects a very productive woman who makes useful goods, trades, invests earnings, and “speaks with wisdom and faithful instruction”. The woman extolled here was a successful businesswoman in every sense of the word, yet it is likely she rarely traded in cash.

Such was the household economy of our ancestors. A positive benefit of having no other option now but to produce things with our own hands (in the family garden, on the family spindles, etc.) will be that many will rediscover what it means to be a producer.

from Wikipedia Commons

Last night I slept under beautiful quilts made decades ago by my aunts who grew up on a small family farm. When I was a child, my mother sewed a lot of my own clothes. No one ever made a lot of money, but they lacked “nothing of value”.

If we learn to be producers again, we can be as the woman in Proverbs 31, who “can laugh at the days to come”.

Posted by Gypsy Chief

Follow @GypsyChief

From Wikipedia Commons

There is a growing consensus the world economy is in a lot more trouble than politicians and media talking heads are letting on. The four major headwinds to growth were covered in Part I of these three articles, and there dubbed “The Four Horsemen of the Economic Apocalype”:

1. Too Much Debt
2. Resource Limits
3. Destruction and Decay of Infrastructure
4. Greed

That article was a brief summary of the extreme challenges we now face. These next two articles are an attempt to move beyond this understanding of what has gone wrong, to develop a sense of what we can do now, as individuals and as a society.

We cannot “set things right” in the sense of restoring things to the way they once were, but we must begin now to adapt to the new realities if we are to reduce suffering and continue an advanced culture. Today’s article, “Out With the Old”, will discuss the end to seven unsustainable practices. In the next and final article in this series, “In With the New” will discuss new ways of living we can adopt as economic growth fails.

Out With The Old — Seven Outcomes as Economic Growth Fails:

Before we allow our society to sink into a chaos of devastation and deprivation, there are many wasteful, or otherwise doomed, practices that will end. The “Out With the Old” list is not a proposed agenda for politicians to adopt. They are too committed to the existing order to voluntarily make these changes. Rather, the end of these practices will come (and much of this is already happening) as pragmatic realities sink in. They are unsustainable Dead Ends, so they will not be sustained:

1. If You Can’t Pay the Debt — Don’t!

Debt that cannot be repaid, won’t be repaid. This is hard for conscientous borrowers to accept, but reality takes hold.

For those borrowers who wish to avoid default, “not paying the debt” may mean not paying it all oneself, but instead sharing the load. There will be a wave of down-sizing, as the cavernous spaces of McMansions are split into more affordable sized living spaces, through multiple-generation households, taking in housemate tenants, and physically splitting into townhomes and apartments.

Many borrowers who cannot repay, however, will need to get note holders to take losses through short sales, or outright defaults, foreclosures, and bankruptcies. Rather than help borrowers, the government has chosen to bail out banks, so the only way to access a Debt Jubilee will be to walk away. Many of those who borrowed during the boom years are now far underwater and asking themselves: what is the point in hanging onto a “debtor’s prison”, if my equity is wiped out?

Courtesy Craig A. Severance, CPA

Though many hope the freefall in real estate prices will soon end, consider this: what else can “give” when disposable incomes fall? If you visit an area of the country where jobs have been lost, is gasoline lower in price? How about food prices? Look for a home or a piece of commercial real estate in a depressed area, however, and you won’t believe the “bargains”. When there is a surplus of inventory compared to buyers who can afford to pay, prices fall.

Governments are now also reaching the point where they cannot repay their debts. Local government bankruptcies are escalating, and there is a move to allow U.S. states to declare bankruptcy. Insolvent governments such as Greece who do not control their own currency are forcing bondholders to take 50% “voluntary” reductions in principal owed. However, those insolvent governments (like the U.S.) who control their currency, will always fully repay bondholders — even if they need to “print” trillions in debased currency to do so!

Added to contractual debts are unfunded liabilities such as Social Security and Medicare. Those who paid all their lives into these systems will see promised benefits reduced, or paid “in full” but with debased dollars.

The resolution of this problem of Too Much Debt will be very messy and destructive. It gets confusing fast trying to figure out if loan defaults and bank failures in the private sector will cause a deflationary Depression, and/or if government money-printing will cause high inflation.

In the end, we are likely to see what we are already seeing — patterns driven by supply and demand. Resources in surplus such as real estate and labor will see their values drop. Homes will cost less to buy, but workers whose skills are in surplus will earn less. At the same time, resources in scarce supply such as energy, minerals and food will become less affordable. This is a very bad scenario if you make your living from wages but have to buy your energy or food — and it will be even worse if money-printing stokes inflation.

Because there is simply Too Much Debt compared to actual real wealth, the math is clear: trillions of dollars of claims on future real wealth will be voided through default, broken promises, and inflation. Most politics for the forseeable future will be about who has to absorb these losses (hint: so far, it’s been mostly taxpayers and the Middle Class).

The best way to cope will be to stop making plans to rely on payments that simply won’t be made. Write down debts that won’t be repaid, recognize the promises that will be broken, and move on.

2. Buy American, or Bye-Bye America.

Though economic growth now experiences serious challenges worldwide, there are clear imbalances among countries. For instance, per-capita GDP in China grew 35% in the same 2007-mid 2011 period that per-capita GDP in the U.S. fell 3.5%.

A country that buys more imports than it sells as exports, and finances this by borrowing and by selling off its assets to foreigners, is losing wealth. Averaged out over all Americans, the U.S. annual balance of payments deficit of $545 Billion equals about $7,000/year per 4-person family. How long can this go on?

The practice of outsourcing U.S. jobs, leaving us a nation of borrowing consumers, is unsustainable. If there aren’t enough good paying jobs here, we can’t afford to keep buying all those imports. Also, as oil prices rise, no longer will it make sense to ship products back and forth across thousands of miles to access cheap labor sweat shops.

Since roughly 70% of America’s economy is consumer demand, individual choices can matter. A “Buy American” campaign might actually make a difference if we spread the word and it becomes part of our culture.

Courtesy of Craig A. Severance

Americans are now making holiday purchases, and media drones keep telling us it is patriotic to run to the mall and spend money — but where are those products made? Checking the tags on where the products are made is likely to be very disappointing but eye opening.

If you are an American lucky enough to still have a job, consider for a moment why other Americans have not been so lucky, as you peruse the sea of product tags labeled “Made in China”. Then consider how likely it will be you get to keep your own job, if you keep buying this stuff.

Related: 10 Good Reasons To Shop Local

Related: Buy Local Campaigns Work National Survey Finds

Finding any product made in the U.S.A. is a major challenge. Food, art, quality products, and local services are often American made, and are usually sold by locally-owned businesses. However, even local “mom and pop” shops typically must now stock some “cheap Chinese crap”, as most shoppers do not look at any label but the price tag. Finding “Made in U.S.A.”on many products may counter-intuitively require bypassing most local stores and instead searching the Internet.

Some mottos to consider for patriotic buying: “Buy quality.” (Any product still made here is likely of high quality.) “If it’s made in China, I don’t need it.” (Pick something else.) “I really do need it and it’s not Made in U.S.A., so I’ll buy it used.” (Local resale shops, and Internet buying sites will be glad to help.) “Won’t this just add to clutter anyway?” (Reconsider.)

The very act of avoiding a trip to the big box store is another way to keep money in the U.S.A. — as money spent on gasoline is sent out of the country to pay for imported oil. At $100/barrel oil, if U.S. oil imports continue at 2010 levels we will spend about $430 billion/year for foreign oil.

We can also work to increase exports of those products the U.S.A. still does make. A good place to start would be to stop burning our corn exports as ethanol in our gasoline tanks.

We cannot continue importing more than we export and borrowing the difference.

3. The Empire Shrinks Back.

After the failure of the Congressional Super Committee, it is widely believed the Defense budget will suffer huge automatic spending cuts. In fact, defense spending is still projected to increase — just at a slower pace. With hundreds of military bases worldwide projecting the world’s largest ever military Empire, the U.S. is still on track to keep spending more than the next 17 countries’ militaries combined. Our military continues to prepare to fight the last war (and the one before that, and the one before that).

While Republicans had traditionally been the ones to cut military spending (Eisenhower, Nixon, and even George H.W. Bush moderated Defense spending), only one of the major Republican Presidential candidates is taking a stance of fiscal discipline for the military, and both sides of the aisle in Congress can hardly wait to spend more of your tax dollars.

What is the purpose of all this spending? Increasingly, the answer seems to be “Federal spending in MY Congressional District”. Security contractors have astutely spread their activities all over the country, targeting especially the districts of powerful Members of Congress. Thus, if military cuts are proposed, the discussion is not about whether cuts will make America less secure (who believes that?), but about the “jobs on the line” in each Congressional District. Simply put, the military budget is the world’s biggest Pork Barrel project.

If the true purpose of military largesse is to create jobs in each Congressional District, a reallocation of military spending to infrastructure projects would keep the local jobs but actually accomplish something. Instead of building high technology bombs to be taken to another country and blown up, we can do “nation building” here at home.

The Interstate Highway system was originally justified as a Defense project. With Peak Oil now making reliance on those highways a security threat, we can make the nation more secure with a National Defense Railway System to rebuild the nation’s rail lines.

Of course, any change to how Federal dollars are spent may raise the question of whether the Federal government actually has so much money to spend. Will Social Security recipients gladly take cuts to benefits in order to continue the scale of military spending?

public domain image

These Federal budget tensions are what have already led both parties to agree (by default) to a moderation of military spending, and will ultimately lead to the Empire shrinking back.

4. Stop Heating the Outdoors.

The centerpiece of the 7 unsustainable practices that will soon end is our wasteful use of fossil fuels — oil, coal, and natural gas.

When we burn these fossil fuels we “heat the outdoors”, by emitting greenhouse gases that are already causing extreme climate disruption resulting in a string of billion-dollar-plus weather disasters. The wasteful use of fossil fuels is also epitomized by shoddy building practices that leak heat to the outdoors, and inefficient engines that expend a majority of energy input as waste heat rather than useful work.

These practices will come to an end, as the bonanza era of cheap fossil fuels draws to a close. We’ve known this day was coming since the oil shocks of the 1970′s. If we had not wasted the last almost 40 years our transition could have been much easier, but now we have already waited too long to avoid disruptions to our way of life. From here forward, our use of fossil fuels will be characterized by fuel shortages and price spikes as production rates for these finite fuels decline.

It is easy to let that last sentence coast by. We are talking about, for an ever larger share of people each year: No. Fuel. Available. That. You. Can. Afford. To. Buy. This is not the same as a shortage of cheez whiz or the cancellation of your favorite TV show. Fuel is central to our lives. As fossil fuels decline, we must urgently “make other arrangements“.

Peak Oil is upon us, so we must finally take actions to End Our Addiction to Oil. The end of cheap coal is also coming soon, and coal is a massive contributor to extreme climate disruption so its use must be cut anyway. Since most coal is used for electricity production, implementing a practical and affordable plan to achieve “Clean Electricity” will place us on the least-business-risk path to reduce coal use. Natural gas will be available for a bit longer as a bridge fuel, but even our natural gas supplies will be in shortfall well before this century’s end.

Successful transition off cheap fossil fuels will not be a “top-down” fix, but must take place at the level where fuels are burned. This means making our buildings and equipment (e.g. appliances and vehicles) more efficient, and powering the remaining needs with sustainable energy sources. The sooner we act the better. At least for now, it will take fossil fuels to build the new equipment and retrofit the buildings, so the longer we wait the more expensive (and less achievable) the conversion may be.

While frustrating for central policy makers, the distributed nature of our energy use also means that individual households and businesses can get ahead of the curve. Protecting one’s own livelihood and family is a powerful incentive, and many are already taking action to wean themselves off a dependence on disappearing resources. What better security in today’s turbulent times than owning a solar-powered car and a passive solar home?

5. Cure “Sick-Care”.

Like a cancer, the cost of our nation’s “health care” system has been growing out of control and is killing its host. Now at 17% of GDP, this uncontrollable growth is giving employers a powerful incentive to offshore workers, and through Medicare and Medicaid costs, is bankrupting the Federal and state governments.

Much of this cost is pure transactional waste that contributes nothing to patient care. A mind-warping complexity of medical billing now burdens the system, requiring up to 30% of staffing in medical offices merely to wrangle with insurance companies (Medicare and Medicaid being the worst). This waste is doubled by its mirror image, in the claims processors at the insurance companies and agencies.

The meat-cleaver approach to “cost control” so far taken by Congress — cutting real $ fees paid to all physicians for the last decade — has been driving primary care doctors out of business and forcing patients to seek routine care at emergency rooms. So much for “cost control” — primary care doctors are the very ones who would have saved the entire system money by keeping patients healthy.

At the same time the primary care shortage has been exacerbated, most specialists and surgeons in the U.S. are still counted among the “1%” of top income earners (those earning over roughly $350,000 per year) — earning more than they can make anywhere else in the developed world. If Congress has to cut physician fees, these are the doctors’ fees to cut.

Some insurers and large employers are now pioneering new solutions, such as placing doctors on salary, free of medical billing hassles, and simply allowing them to be doctors. This common sense idea emulates how doctors are employed in the military and the VA systems.

We have proven we cannot afford our current system that requires enormous waste and spends most of its resources on “sick care”.

6. Repeal Laws that Mandate Opulence and Forbid Prosperity.

As people are now seeking innovative solutions to adapt to new realities, we are constantly seeing reports of “stupid laws” getting in the way.

For instance, as the size of our housing spaces must now come in line with our income, there is a growing demand for smaller, more space efficient dwellings. It will be a prosperous “win/win/win” move for builders, families, and communities to convert devalued McMansions into townhomes and apartments. Yet, most of the communities where these palaces were built have zoning laws and restrictive covenants against multi-family housing, vainly hoping to wall out lower value housing when lower valuations have already stormed the gates.

Courtesy of Craig A. Severance, CPA

Similar suburban restrictions often forbid homeowners from erecting clothelines to save electricity, and even ban vegetable gardens that can be seen by others. New families and empty nesters are eagerly seeking the affordability of high quality “tiny houses“, but have found that building codes requiring minimum sizes forbid these efficient ways of construction.

The extremes of our auto culture went to such excess that many cities and counties can no longer afford to maintain the roads they built. Many are saddled with the cost of maintaining extremely wide roads because of fire chiefs who wanted enough room, even in residential neighborhoods, for two fire trucks to pass at 60 mph! Such wide streets create heat islands and destroy aesthetic proportions. These ugly streets could be narrowed and the freed-up land devoted to fruit or shade trees, or community gardens.

Unnecessary tax laws are also acting as a hindrance. As millions find the best option for available work is their own household-based labor, it would be helpful to exempt a certain amount of barter-economy transactions from taxation. Is it really worth it to tax neighbors who set up a surplus-eggs for surplus-vegetables swap?

Small food producers have also seen unimaginable oppression tactics from the USDA. At the same time the government “works with” large corporate farms even when they are guilty of serious food safety violations, allowing the large agribusinesses to continue operating, it seems hell bent on shutting down small food producers. Yet it is exactly this more localized agriculture we need to see flourish.

While government regulation is clearly needed of amoral large corporations who will otherwise recklessly destroy the environment and endanger public health, sanity must rule. We need to encourage people to do more at the local and household economy level, and “stupid laws” must not forbid this new localized prosperity.

7. Drop the Shopping.

We need to hit the pause button on thoughtless shopping. Stop the shopping in big-box stores that send profits out of our local communities. Stop buying poor quality crap made in foreign sweat shops, that falls apart and brings no joy or beauty into our lives. Block the commercials (hit the mute button — or better yet cancel the tv and just watch Colbert on-line).

Courtesy Craig A. Severance, CPA

Shopping for worthless junk will decline automatically, as disposable incomes fall. Another trend that will reduce our shopping will be downsizing to smaller more affordable living spaces. Though smaller spaces give us more money to spend, there is no space for clutter, so we will avoid buying physical objects we have nowhere to keep. In a small space, a few beautiful objects of art trump roomfuls of consumer goods.

A moratorium on shopping for new junk also allows us to focus our minds and resources toward peace of mind, beauty, and joy.

Regarding peace of mind, each family and business should think about the trends noted in these articles, and consider: are you already prepared for what lies ahead? Are you ready for your pension and Social Security and Medicare benefits — and maybe your job as well — to be voided through broken promises, inflation, and economic turmoil? How dependent are you on fossil fuels? When will it be your family’s turn to fall from the comforts of the middle class?

If you take stock and find you are not prepared, perhaps brown rice & dried beans, a water filter, wind-up flashlights, caulk to seal wasteful air leaks, a solar hot water heater, and an electric bicycle should be placed higher on your “shopping list” than the latest consumer item. Knowing you can still eat and drink, have lights, stay warm and clean, and get around town no matter what happens gives peace of mind — and saves money right now.

Beyond mere sustenance, however, we need beauty and joy.

If we simply pay attention to how our younger generation finds vibrance in their lives — as most young people have virtually no physical possessions — we can relearn how to live well as humans.

Since civilizations began, all people everywhere have found beauty and joy through simple things, none of which require massive energy use, gigantic houses, or truckloads of material possessions.

We share stories (think: movies, books, plays, oral histories such as StoryCorps). We play games. We love — friends, pets, spouses, family. We experience the ecstasy of music and dance. We share extraordinary art (including quality craftmanship). We find meaning in our lives by giving of ourselves to others and to a higher purpose. We guard and care for our souls.

The unsatisfying tide of soul-destroying ugliness and exploitation from industrial society has shown us This World may have all we could want, but it has nothing that we need.

Without the distraction of a flood of material objects, we can now return to the rich traditions of thousands of years, focusing more fully on the best of what it means to be human.

Related: Part I of this III part series

Posted by Gypsy Chief

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by Craig A. Severance
December 15, 2011

Courtesy of Dmitry Orlov

As recently as a year ago it was considered heresy to suggest economic growth would not soon resume. Now, however, as The Big Engine That Couldn’t has faltered for several years, it is becoming increasingly clear the economy is running off the tracks. Both investors and the public are beginning to realize the long-revered goal of endless economic growth is failing.

Anger and fear are widespread, as the livelihoods and hopes of ordinary Americans are being destroyed. Anger runs among the “99%” over economic injustices that favor the “1%”. Fear, however, may run among 100% over this question: How do we live when economic growth fails?

How Do We Live?

These three articles will briefly lay out our current predicament, and discuss ways we can cope. Today’s post will cover four major reasons — dubbed here “The Four Horsemen of the Economic Apocalypse” — why nothing seems to work anymore. In the second post, next week, “Out With the Old”, will cover the inevitable end to seven unsustainable practices. The final post in this series, “In With the New”, will discuss seven ways of living which we can embrace in a world with failing economic growth.

If we act purposefully now as individuals and as a society, we may help to avoid the most chaotic and destructive effects of collapse. First, we need to understand what has gone wrong — which we will discuss in today’s post. The adaptations laid out in the next two posts represent ways we may find a “softer landing” — but we cannot expect a return to what we came to believe was “normal”.

Three Years to Get Back to 2007 Levels.

After the close of 2nd Quarter 2011, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis published its official estimates of U.S. Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP). By the end of 2nd Quarter 2011 the U.S. economy was officially producing about the same as its end of 2007 peak — in other words, essentially no overall economic growth for 3 1/2 years.

Less Per Person.

Though the economy was no larger, U.S. population had increased, so as of the end of 2nd Qtr 2011 there was 3.5% less GDP to go around per person in the U.S. than at the end of 2007. (By comparison, there was a 35% increase per person in China over this same period.)

Heading Into Decline Again?

Having just officially climbed back to 2007 GDP levels, it seems like a really bad dream the economy could once again start heading backwards. Yet that is exactly the prediction experts are now making. On November 7th, the Economic Cycle Research Institute, a group with a stellar record of predicting recessions, re-affirmed its recent call the U.S. economy is once again slipping into recession. So that no one would mistake what that means, in its September 30 press release, the group said bluntly, “Here’s what ECRI’s recession call really says: if you think this is a bad economy, you haven’t seen anything yet.” Also, on November 25th, Deutsche Bank revised it projections and is now warning of a “deeper” Eurozone recession.

Even Worse Than We’re Being Told?

As bad as the official numbers noted above may seem, the actual story is likely even worse. John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics notes that government methods of counting inflation in prices have chosen to statistically ignore many price increases, and thus count a misleading share of observed sales as economic growth. Calculating the same way the government previously used to measure the inflation rate, SGS shows a much higher inflation rate that is more in keeping with everyone’s experience of skyrocketing fuel and food costs, health premiums, etc. With distortions removed, SGS estimates the U.S. economy has actually been stagnant or shrinking for most of the last decade:

Image Source: ShadowStats.com

Why Nothing Seems to Work Anymore: The Four Horsemen of the Economic Apocalyse.

The news that a bad economy is now expected to get even worse is particularly crushing with so many still out of work, and after so much money has been spent. Leaders debate austerity or stimulus, but common sense says something more must be happening.

The “Four Horsemen of the Economic Apocalypse” have been revealed by many astute observers. Researchers and analysts such as Chris Martenson ( “The Crash Course” video course, and book) and Richard Heinberg (“The End of Growth“) have written extensively about the first three Horsemen. The original Tea Party movement (which began as anger over government bailouts of Wall Street), and the Occupy Wall Street movement have focused attention on the fourth Horseman. To know what lies ahead, we need to know what is wrong:

The Four Horsemen of the Economic Apocalypse

1. Too Much Debt.

Chris Martenson has plotted a striking pattern of total private and public debt in the U.S. doubling roughly every 30 quarters since the early 1970′s — five doublings of total debt levels in four decades. This might have been fine had our incomes grown that fast and we could support the extra debt — or if the debt had been used for investments that would now save us money. Instead, like a teenager who ran to the mall with Mommy’s credit card, we racked up debts with no way to pay them back. We were living high, but it was all phony, fueled by more, and more, and more borrowed money.

Now, families, small businesses, local and state governments, and even the Federal government are reaching a condition of debt max-out. Our incomes would need to suddenly grow much more rapidly than we have seen to be able to handle so much debt. However, with everyone weighed down making burdensome debt payments, where are the customers who could kick-start economic activity and cause such increases to income? The Federal Reserve’s policy of encouraging people to consume by taking on even more debt is failing, as banks aren’t loaning to consumers and businesses who already have too much debt.

The day of reckoning has arrived. Because our incomes are not rising fast enough to service this much debt, our spending must shift into reverse. Running up the debt allowed us to spend more than our income, but now we have to cut our spending to less than our income if we are to pay back the money we borrowed. Many observers expect this “de-leveraging” process to take at least a decade.

2. Resource Limits.

If we had just run up a big credit card bill and now need to pay it off, that would be hard but perhaps possible as long as we still have our jobs. Now, however, we literally may not be able to afford to fill our gas tanks to get to work. Peak Oil — reaching the limit of world oil production — changes everything.

Oil is just one example of how the economy is merely a way to channel real physical wealth. Physical scientists regard the very idea of endless economic growth on a finite planet as ludicrous. Growing the economy, after all, is just another way of saying we are going to keep converting more and more energy, physical resources and labor into more and more — and even more! — goods and services.

What happens when there isn’t more?

Rapidly Increasing Prices for Key Resources.

The high consumer price inflation noted by John Williams is likely one sign of increasing resource prices recently noted by GMO, a major asset management firm. GMO principal Jeremy Grantham’s April 2011 report Time to Wake Up: Days of Abundant Resources and Falling Prices are Over Forever plotted real prices for a mix of resource inputs to the global economy since 1900.

Though the last century achieved huge increases in the use of natural resources, technology allowed an average 1.2% per year decline in real prices throughout the 20th century. However, with massive new demands from China and other emerging economies, Grantham writes of resource prices “they are now rising, and in the last eight years have undone, remarkably, the effects of the last 100-year decline!”. With analysis indicating the trend of abundance has now reversed to scarcity, Grantham calls this “one of the giant inflection points in economic history”.

The Wolf at the Door.

Hitting resource limits means that growth has a new limiting valve: escalating resource prices. For instance, if companies begin to hire more workers, they will want to drive more and use more gasoline. However, when we have reached physical limits on world oil extraction, more demand will drive up gasoline prices — for everyone.

from Wikipedia Commons

The increased gas prices act as a “Wolf at the Door” to steal prosperity. Paying more for gasoline means people must cut back on other purchases. The economy then sinks back into recession and many of the new jobs will be lost.

Traditional economics would argue the extra money we spend for gasoline should simply loop back and be spent again. However, with increased energy needs to extract harder-to-get new oil sources such as deep ocean drilling and tar sands, much is literally burned “up in smoke”. Also, the money we send abroad for imported oil has no guarantee of returning.

Peak Oil is just one example of limited resources curtailing our hopes of affordable expansion. There are now warnings of Peak Coal and limits to many other key resources. For instance, dreams of a greatly expanded electric grid may be costly given short supplies of copper recently noted by Goldman Sachs.

3. Destruction and Decay of Infrastructure.

Richard Heinberg has noted that destructive forces from climate change, oil and chemical spills, and other environmental effects of producing more and more goods are acting as a third major drag on growth and prosperity.

If this sounds far-fetched, consider this: has New Orleans been fully restored? What became of the homeowners and farmers, many who were uninsured, affected by massive Australian wildfires and floods? What of U.S. communities affected by the record dozen billion-dollar-plus weather disasters so far in 2011? FEMA is now essentially broke, and cannot provide enough assistance to help communities fully recover. Looking ahead, how will major ports continue operations once sea levels begin to rise?

From NOAA

The already inadequate responses to destructive events are highly visible. We are even in denial about basic maintenance. As our cars jolt down decaying roads, we can ask ourselves whether we ever considered what it would cost to maintain all the roads, bridges, electric lines, satellites, schools and other critical structures we built on the run-up to where we now stand. Will we repair our crumbling infrastructure and be able to keep building even more?

4. Greed.

With average citizens deeply struggling, it is particularly galling that a powerful elite are stealing money, power, and hope away from the middle class.

publicity photo

In the last Great Depression and at least through the 1950′s, even the wealthiest saw the need to preserve a robust middle class, and a path for the poorest Americans to improve their lot. This was not altruism but a pragmatic sense that customers who can afford to spend are the real “Job Creators”. Today, however, the levers of power are jiggered to funnel contracts, bailouts and tax breaks to the most powerful, protected by enormous corporate bribes campaign contributions.

The greatest harm done by this political corruption is our inability to address problems. In the financial arena, the option of letting reckless banks fail and protecting depositors, rather than preserving banks and bonuses, was never seriously considered. Regarding energy and climate, the depths of avarice may be seen by campaigns to confuse the public. Similar to the well educated cigarette lobbyists who knew perfectly well the real scientific evidence, today’s oil and coal lobbyists are willing that energy shortages, harmful pollutants, and climate disruption will inflict great suffering (even on their own grandchildren), merely to reap current profits.

While the most pyschopathic behavior has been exhibited by an amoral few, we must also admit that any extreme “con job” is fueled by encouraging greed in the victim. How many who are now burdened with debts they cannot repay, wondered at the time why the bank was willing to lend them so much money? Too many of us succombed to bubble madness, and the desire to have more than we could afford.

Offering Nothing but “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat”?

The above four challenges point to a stark future with severe changes ahead. It is long past time for someone to sound a wake-up call like Winston Churchill’s famous speech to the British House of Commons shortly after the outset of WWII. We need such a frank talk that lays out the real prospects ahead, pulling no punches. However, with the quality of today’s “leaders”, such truth won’t come from a politician.

Instead, the public must look to the experts themselves. Gail Tverberg, Editor of Our Finite World, has just such a presentation, which she gave this year to her church group, posted at Energy Bulletin here. By the time you read to the end, you feel a real sense of the onslaught of an entirely new reality. She concludes “there is no real solution to our predicament”. She might just as well have said, as Churchill, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

Too Scary to Think About?

Though we can intellectually accept that resource limits will inevitably shut down economic expansion, the idea this is already happening is terrifying. It is hard to contemplate without a deep fear settling in one’s stomach. Will I lose my job? Will my children ever be able to find work? Will we be reduced, like Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With The Wind after the South’s defeat caused the devastation of her life, to scratching hungrily in the dirt for a lone turnip?

Before We All Start Scratching for Turnips…

Before we allow our society to sink into a chaos of devastation and deprivation, there are many unsustainable practices we will jettison, and new ways of living we can adopt in a world with failing economic growth.

In the next two posts, we will cover these “Out with the Old” practices that must end, and “In With the New” options — for individuals and for our nation. We can and will adapt, which is what humans do best.

Our prosperity — the ability to live comfortably in an advanced culture — will not long continue to be measured by owning more and more things, and living in bigger and bigger houses.

It will be much better than that.

Copyright 2009 – 2011 by Craig Severance, CPA

Posted by Gypsy Chief

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Published on November 23, just in time for Thanksgiving, 2011 in Of Two Minds Blog by Charles Hugh Smith.

When 86% of Americans have a chronic lifestyle illness, then the national security of the nation is at risk.

Every once in a while a report surfaces from the Pentagon or the C.I.A. which identifies key threats to the national security of the U.S. Some finger the obvious: dependence on foreign oil, for example, and dependence on foreign oil extracted from unstable regimes and regions.

Other official reports from the national security complex “surprise” by saying what the “conventional wisdom” has marginalized or rejected, for example, that climate change has the potential to threaten the national security of the U.S.

One obvious threat to national security that is never mentioned by the Pentagon, the C.I.A., the Mainstream Media or anyone else: systemic chronic ill-health resulting directly from “lifestyle” choices of diet and fitness. Lest you think this an exaggeration of some fanatical “health nut” (I would reject that classification, by the way, as I consider myself entirely reasonable), then please read this lengthy report on another great nation’s looming “national security” problem: widespread chronic ill health in China. (The article is behind a paywall, but you may be able to borrow the issue from your local library. I highly recommend reading it somewhere, somehow.)

The Sick Man of Asia: China’s Health Crisis (Foreign Affairs, by Yanzhong Huang)

The essay traces out the devolution of China’s once-universal if basic healthcare system for all into a U.S.-type system of full coverage for Elites and a more brutal one for everyone else: if you don’t have the cash to pay for care, you die.

If you think this is an exaggeration, you need better local sources on the ground in China.

China has the largest population of diabetics and pre-diabetics in the world. China’s diabetes rate has skyrocketed to 11% of the adult population, slightly higher than that of the U.S., while its rates of other non-communicable “lifestyle” diseases such as heart disease have also soared to U.S. levels.

The number of people who are addicted to tobacco is also very high in China, as tobacco is a key revenue generator for the Central Government.

Pollution levels in the air and water are high throughout much of China, and efforts to clean up industrial waste and improve air and water quality are fitful and uneven, as economic growth trumps every other concern.

The U.S. may have fewer industrialization-related health issues, but it has crushing, seemingly intractable lifestyle-related health issues: 86% of Workers Are Obese or Have Other Health Issue Just 1 in 7 U.S. workers is of normal weight without a chronic health problem.

If you don’t think chronic ill-health is a threat to national security, please read on, starting with this slideshow map of the U.S. which depicts the obesity epidemic on a state-by-state basis:

Center for Disease Control, U. S. Obesity Trends 1985 2007

The cost of treating heart disease and stroke in the United States is expected to triple in the next 20 years, to $818 billion, a new report says.

To curb this rise in costs, the panel said that “effective prevention strategies a re needed if we are to limit the growing burden of cardiovascular disease.”

American Heart Association CEO Nancy Brown said in a news release that “unhealthy behaviors and unhealthy environments have contributed to a tidal wave of risk factors among many Americans. Early intervention and evidence-based public policies are absolute musts to significantly reduce alarming rates of obesity, hypertension, tobacco use and cholesterol levels.”

Right now, 36.9 percent of Americans have some type of heart disease, including high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, heart failure, stroke and other conditions. By 2030, that number will rise to 40.5 percent of the population, or about 116 million people, according to the report.

Here’s a chart which depicts how U.S. healthcare costs are rising geometrically, far outstripping our economic competitors:

The central tenet of the Survival+ critique is that no problem can even begin to be solved without an integrated understanding of the interlocking chains of causality which create the problem.

In the U.S., healthcare costs are exploding for a number of powerful reasons, but the most important one is the deterioration of the citizens’ health which can be causally traced to the nation’s deteriorating food supply, diet, nutrition and fitness–all integrated parts of a massively unhealthy lifestyle.

While we don’t know everything about human health, of course, we do know that extra weight (obesity) and lack of exercise are causally linked to a number of interlinked chronic diseases, all of which lead to early death (Diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, etc.).

The problem is global:

Diabetes cases to skyrocket globally

(Calculate Your Own Body Mass Index)

The U.S. “sickcare” system is perverse enough and costly enough to bankrupt the nation and lay waste to the health of the citizenry. Here is my depiction of the entire sickcare system, which includes diet, the food cartel, an obsession with convenience, and a system that profits from chronic illness rather than health:

Here’s the simple truth: garbage in, garbage out. Eating garbage food can only generate chronic ill-health.

Here’s another simple truth: the human body’s insulin system breaks down if the body is sedentary. Humans have been selected to eat a variety of foods and be very active, walking, running and trotting great distances, harvesting scattered food sources, and hunting game by basically running many of them to exhaustion.

Once we stop being active to the point that we no longer stress our muscles and bones, we start falling apart, and no pill can stop that degradation.

Granted, it’s horribly inconvenient to prepare real food and maintain some modest level of fitness; we might even sweat (ugh) or feel some sort of minor temporary discomfort.

Here is the Army Physical Fitness Test, which lists three basic tests for strength and endurance: situps, pushups and a 2-mile run, broken down into age and male/female categories.

You must score at least a 50 in each event in order to graduate Basic Combat Training. Active Duty soldiers need to score at least 60 to pass the APFT.

NOTE: do not attempt the tests if you are out of shape, in poor health, etc.

I am 57 years old and I can pass this test without doing anything more than I do already. I am not a marathon runner, nor do I work out at a gym; I have what is called “an active lifestyle” of the sort that was once considered fairly typical. I am not a natural athlete, i.e. I sweated blood to get on high school sports teams as a benchwarmer.

Based on the number of push-ups and sit-ups I can do in a minute, my score is 61 and 62, meaning I am fit for active duty in the U.S. Army as a 37 to 41-year old male. I confess to running a couple of kilometers occasionally, and using a bicycle whenever possible as my mode of transport. These are enjoyable activities to me, and the sacrifice isn’t pursing them, it’s being deprived of them.

I mention this not to claim extraordinary accomplishment, but rather to say this test isn’t that arduous, and anyone under 50 should be able to pass it once they start eating a real-food diet and slowly work their way up to a modest level of fitness. The very fact that most Americans will reject this as “impossible” shows how out of sync we are with a healthy lifestyle and a modest level of fitness.

I happened to see a video clip recently of an American farmer in the southeast discussing why native-born Americans don’t last more than a few hours working on his farm. His comment was memorable and sobering: “Americans just aren’t durable.”

Can chronic ill-health bring down a once-great nation? yes it can, and yes it will. We as a nation are going to have to get durable again, or our chronic ill-health will bankrupt the nation and cripple our key rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Posted by Gypsy Chief

Offshore drilling won’t do much to ease the pain at the pump that a lot of Americans are experiencing today, despite what the debate in Washington might lead you to believe. But what could make it easier is giving people alternatives to driving that are economically appealing—like financial incentives for carpooling, public transit, and biking.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), the resident bike guru of the House, introduced legislation this week that would level the playing field on transit benefits. The “Commuter Relief Act” would set a uniform cap of $200 per month for transportation fringe benefits, which can be used however the commuter prefers, rather than offering a bigger tax break for drivers than for bus riders. I also makes the transportation benefits more flexible in other ways, letting people pick how they want to get to work without forfeiting the cash savings. It’s the only real way, says Blumenauer, of liberating Americans from high gas prices.

“Petroleum is going to become increasingly expensive. It’s going to be increasingly scarce,” he tells Mother Jones. “What we really need to do is give American consumers choices so they are not tethered to the gas pump quite as tightly.”

Balance of Mother Jones article here

Bicycles In Fort Collins

City Installs Bike Sharrows on Mountain Ave

Spotted Denver CO bike conspiracy

Published on January 15, 2011 Of Two Minds Blog by Charles Hugh Smith.

The bicycle is both a mighty machine in its own right, and a mighty metaphor for solutions which are already well within our grasp. The debt-dependent Central State/Corporate Cartel Status Quo would have us believe that the ‘solution” is always more of everything that just so happens to cement their power over our minds, incomes and lived world.

That includes:

– more debt (always more debt, because the flip side of that rising debt is the Power Elites’ rising asset base and income stream)

– more McMansions (to keep the real estate lobby satiated)

– more roadways (highway lobby)

– more vehicles (auto lobby)

– more energy (as long as it’s controlled by a politically potent cartel)

– more technological “solutions” (as long as they are subject to fickle fashion and speedy obsolescence)

– more exquisitely vulnerable supply chains of the FEW (food, energy, water) essentials (think upside-down pyramid)

– more commodities (again, controlled by global cartels)

– more financial “innovations” (Wall Street and banking profits are private, losses are quickly shunted onto the taxpayers by their elected “public servants”)

– more medications (ideally, six or seven per resident above the age of five)

– more weaponry (again, provided by a cartel with a handy revolving door to the E-ring of the Pentagon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, etc.)

– more Central State powers (because we’re here to “protect you” from everything and everyone, you poor helpless dearies)

– more local government (that will be a $850 fine for failing to pay the $850 fee to begin the application process for a permit)

– more taxes (to pay the debt we’re adding at $2 trillion a year to avoid any cuts to the Status Quo)

– more consumption (of everything)

– more shopping (see above)

– more “entertainment” (gladiators, amateur and professional, fashion, celebrity, etc., lest the public’s entertainment-addled stupor recede)

– more bread along with the circuses (more entitlements, giveaways, “benefits,” “rights,” etc., so the recipients will be quiet and complicit, i,.e. bought off on the cheap)

– more “novelty” to distract the citizenry from the complete absence of structural innovation

– more lobbying and campaign contributions (if you want your voice heard, show me the money, honey: a “voice” in D.C. doesn’t come cheap)

– more systemic risks, so the Central State can appropriate more power and divert more of the national income to its favored Corporate Cartels as crises erupt

– more fat-larded, salt-riddled, sugar-laden “food” that would kill your dog or cat if you were cruel enough to feed it to them regularly

– more “extend and pretend,” more “deny and comply”

– more substitution of perception (the “recovery”) for reality (structural collapse)

– more lies, misinformation, misdirection, misrepresentions, manipulations, interventions, distortions, Orwell-speak (the “Save the Forest” bill that enables clear-cutting public forests for $1 an acre, the “Borrowers Bill of Rights” written by bank lobbies, etc.), and propaganda, because you can never have too much of a good thing.

The bicycle represents the efficiencies and benefits of using less of everything

A bicycle doesn’t become obsolescent, and it is easily repaired. Some parts corrode or break with wear, but they consume a small amount of resources to repair or replace.

A bicycle has a small footprint in every metric: it doesn’t take up much space, is easy to store/park, and requires only human muscle and nutrients as fuel. A 1,000 kilocalories will get you far on a bike, while 1,000 kilocalories of petroleum in an SUV might not get you out of the driveway.

For More: Blog Article

Photo Credit: ColoradoPols

Posted by Gypsy Chief

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ICLEI Conspiracy - Really?

Thanks to our friends at Ukiah (CA) Community Blog. This story by Jay Walljasper was adapted from a story first appearing on the Shareable Magazine website.

Minneapolis Nice Ride programs succeeds in its first season, with only two stolen bikes

Article Here

For all those who dismissed bike sharing as a woolly-headed European idea that would never work on the mean streets of U.S. cities, the success of the first season of MinneapolisNice Ride bike program will come as a surprise.

700 public bikes hit the streets in June at 65 stations, and they were taken for more than 100,000 rides until put away for the winter in mid-November. 1300 people signed up for an annual membership and 30,000 signed up for a $5 daily pass with the swipe of a credit card.

But the numbers that may be more significant for the future of bike sharing are three, two and none. That’s the number of bikes vandalized, the number of bikes stolen and the numbers of injuries reported. This conclusively answers numerous skeptics who thought that sharing bikes would never work here in the individualistic, auto-crazed USA.

Nice Ride, the non-profit organization running the Minneapolis bike share program, had budgeted for the loss of 10 percent of its bikes due to theft or vandalism, which is one reason why it wound up in the black in its first year, even while selling fewer annual memberships than anticipated.

Nice Ride was the largest public bike program in the U.S. when it was launched. Washington D.C. debuted the Capital Bikeshare system in September with 400 bikes that will grow to 1100 by the end of the year. Denver debuted a system in April with 425 bikes, which was criticized by the Republican governor candidate Tom Maes as a sinister attempt at “converting Denver into a United Nations community”:http://shareable.net/blog/this-just-in-black-helicopters-are-behind-bikesharing

Correction: The GOP candidate was Dan Maes

Photo Credit: Ukiah Community Blog

Posted by Gypsy Chief

BTWD Image Stolen from City of Fort Collins

Winter 2010 Bike to Work Day occurred on Wednesday, December 15. Almost a week later I’m blogging about it. Thank heavens that the Coloradoan covered the event with two good stories, one on the 15th and again on Friday the 17th. No need to repeat what the newspaper said; I’ll just say thank you Coloradoan.

While I am thanking people I need to thank Molly North assistant Fort Collins Bicycle Coordinator. She answered my question about breakfast counts … and added enough extra info for more than one story. I got my breakfast at Fort Collins Food Co-op. Yum.

Fort Collins is Bicycle Friendly

You already knew that I bet. What does that mean? There is an organized group of bicycle advocates and volunteers at FC Bike Coop. There is a supportive city administration that takes bicycle transportation seriously. Fort Collins is a gold city with the League of American Bicyclists. These things make Fort Collins a bicycle friendly community … but there is more. As this year’s figures show bicycling in Fort Collins also has significant support from the business community. The coverage in The Coloradoan signals this. More businesses sponsor breakfast stations or become breakfast locations themselves. For the first time this year there was an afternoon event sponsored by Odell Brewing.

In 2008 the City of Fort Collins updated its bicycle transportation program plan. That update emphasized business involvement much more than the original 1995 plan that it replaced. They said that bicycle activities could be destination events. Now just recently we learn that Fort Collins has snagged a major cycling event in 2011. I think that could not have happened without strong business involvement.

Eclipsed How?

My excuse for not posting this sooner is that I watched the total eclipse of the moon on December 21. The last total lunar eclipse on winter solstice was in 1638… at the time I was too young to remember much about it. The next such event will be in 2094. Astronomers will keep us informed.

Posted by Gypsy Chief