Re: Recession music

I know this has been a while, but I mentioned I would throw in my two
cents on some of Joe's comments, and I'd also like to counter pretty
much everything JKR has said in one fell swoop at the end. After this
post I'm done on this topic. Read on at your own peril!

Joe wrote:
The article you linked to mentioned "Civilization as we know it is coming to
an end soon", "cataclysmic consequences" including "resource wars" and
"economic collapse". That's what I refer to as irrational.

I'll focus on one part of this for now, namely "resource wars."
Resource wars have been going on ever since humans have been around,
and they're happening now, as we speak. Usually they get different
marketing to make them more palatable to the poor schmucks who have to
go fight them. WWI and WWII were both about resources, - in WWII
Germany and Japan were trying to secure oil supplies to fuel their
economies. Why do you think Hitler was going after the USSR? Oil, and
lots of it. Ditto with Japan attacking Pearl Harbor, but don't take my
word for it: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/pearlhbr/pearlhbr.htm

Why do you think the Gulf War happened in 1991? Why do you think we're
in Iraq now? Why do you think there's so much drum beating over Iran?
The PR is "The War on Terror," but it's about who has the oil and how
the US and her allies are going to take it from the countries who have
it. There are also a number of lower visibility "conflicts" that have
oil as a central issue, such as Colombia (marketed as "The Drug War"),
and the ones going on in Africa.

Joe said:
Brazil has an entire nation of drivers who's cars run on
ethanol.

Question: Which country produces more ethanol, the US or Brazil? If
you answered "the US" you answered correctly. Brazil is often touted
as an ethanol success story, but as usual there's more than the sound
bite version. Brazil launched its "energy independence" push in 1975,
when they were under a military dictatorship, so the citizens had no
choice but to go along. Short version: By 1980 everyone was driving
ethanol powered cars, but when they became democratized people went
back to using gasoline, because ethanol sucked as a fuel. Now, after
33 years of heavily government subsidized "energy independence"
ethanol accounts for 40% of their non-commercial transportation fuel
use. Commercial is mostly powered by diesel. And here's the kicker -
Brazilians don't drive anywhere near as much as we do! They don't do
hour + commutes to work, for example.

Even with the US being the top ethanol producer we only use a fraction
of it in fuel compounds. It's simply not nearly as effective as a fuel
and it's driving up the cost of food worldwide, if you checked out the
article I sent you before. The US relies heavily on oil for
agriculture, so the caloric output of corn-based ethanol is not good
compared to what goes into growing it. Some claim it's actually an
energy loss. It sells as an idea because corn growers in the Midwest
get government subsidies, part of that "free market" that we love so
much.

As the world transitions from oil to other forms of energy there will be
plenty of changes. You'll see cars that run on electricity and hydrogen fuel
cells.

Hydrogen is not a fuel, it's an energy carrier, similar to a battery.
It's effectively dead in the water as an option for a number of
reasons - lack of infrastructure, safety, and the fact that it doesn't
solve any energy issues.

Electric grids will run on nuclear, coal, wind, and solar.  

The grids ALREADY run on nuclear, coal, and some wind. Oil in this
country accounts for less than 2% of electrical production, so the
electrical equation doesn't reduce our need for it. Solar could be a
great thing for individual homes and businesses, but there's almost no
incentive at this point because of the high costs, fairly heavy
maintenance, and the fact that most appliances, etc. need the "big
current."

You'll
also see increased efforts in terms of conservation and resource
development.

Really? Like I said in my other post, I think this is bull***. Look
at what happened to Carter for suggesting this, 30 years ago. He's
still being ridiculed. It's been full steam ahead since Reagan, with
no gains in any kind of efficiency except insulation on new houses,
Carter's legacy. What's going to change this?

Joe said:
It was probably a little irresponsible of me to use the word recession in
the first place. I'm not sure the technical definition has been met at this
point. Some of the May numbers for things like consumer spending and foreign
trade were positive. The market closed in bear territory though. There's
plenty of cause for concern. The job market will be tough.      ........joe

Oh, please, Joe! The big three US auto makers are on life support,
airlines are going bankrupt, job losses are through the roof, home
foreclosures are off the charts, tent cities are starting to appear,
banks are failing, all kinds of businesses are shutting down or
scaling back, food prices have gone up (http://www.time.com/time/world/
article/0,8599,1717572,00.html). Remember, this isn't "just" the US,
it's everywhere. Oil prices affect the whole world.

The bottom line, folks, is our obsession with cars for personal
transport at some point will have to end. It's incredibly wasteful and
is going to continue to cost more until almost no one will be able to
afford it. The only sane option is to reinstate rail-based transport
for most land travel, and try and readapt our cities to walking,
bicycling, and public transport. But I don't think it will happen.

Now, as promised, my rebuttal for JKR. All I need to say concerning
your supposed superiority on reading the world's events can be summed
up in one short phrase, "Operation Iraqi Freedom." Everything that was
being said in the lead up and since, by "your side" - Fox news, the
White House, the conservative pundits, has proven catastrophically
wrong. Ya'll promised a short, low cost, low casualty war that would
find Saddam's WMDs and find the Iraqis cheering us for "liberating"
them. NONE of this happened, and I was one of the minority in this
country, it seems, who disagreed from the outset and called it exactly
as it has played. This can only mean one of two things, either ya'll
knew what you were touting was bull***, or you really believed your
own hype, and the lessons of history and common sense be damned. In
either case your credibility is so far down now that it would take ten
years of genuflecting to get back to zero. So STFU already.


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