The Coming Siege Of Austerity (James Kunstler)

[Tace]

Pieter Bruegel the Elder -- The Triumph of Death

So many forces are arrayed against a return to the previous "normal" that we will be lucky, in another eighteen months, to still find ourselves speaking English and celebrating Christmas

James Kunstler -- World News Trust

April 13, 2009 -- It's a curious symptom of the consensus trance zombifying the American public and its auditors in the media that something like a "recovery" is now deemed to be underway.

And, as events compel me to repeat in this space, it begs the question: recovery to what? To Wall Street booking stupendous profits by laundering "risk" out of bad loans with new issues of tranche-o-matic securitized paper? This I doubt, since there isn't a pension fund left from San Jose to Bratislava that would touch this stuff with a stick, even if it could be turned out in collector's editions of boxed sets.

Does it mean that American "consumers" (so-called) are awaited momentarily in the flat-screen TV sales parlors with their credit cards fanned-out like poker hands, ready for "action?" Not too likely with massive non-performance out in cardholder-land, and half the nation's electronics inventory wending its way onto Craig's List. Are we expecting more asteroid belts of new suburbs carved in the loamy outlands of Dallas and Minneapolis, complete with new highway strips of Big Box shopping and Chuck E. Cheeses? Go to banking's intensive care unit and inquire (if you can) among the flat-lining production home-builders and the real estate investment trusts on life support when they expect to rev up the heavy equipment.

The idea that we're about to resume the insane behavior that induced the current epochal malaise of economy is so absurd it will only be heard in the faculty dining halls of the Ivy League. And if America is not picking up where it left off eighteen months ago -- the orgy of spending future claims on wealth unlikely to accrue -- then what is our destiny? Based on what's out there in the organs of public thinking, it seems that we don't want to think about it.

So many forces are arrayed against a return to the previous "normal" that we will be lucky, in another eighteen months, to still find ourselves speaking English and celebrating Christmas.

more

http://www.worldnewstrust.com/wnt-reports/commentary/the-coming-siege-of-austerity-james-kunstler.html

[lostnotforgotten]

1. I So Like Kunstler's Writing Style

eom

[paparush]

2. Kunstler, wake up. We'll nuke the globe before we alter the "American Dream".

Manifest Destiny of All You can Eat Buffet of Endless Cheap Plastic Crap.

America does not adjust.

America does not alter course.

America surges forward, foaming at the mouth, prepared to tell any lie, break any law or treaty, suck the lifeblood out of any third world culture, to stay the Consumer Course (tm).

And I'm serious, our anointed/appointed "leaders" will go nuclear before admitting that America is bankrupt.

[Tace]

3. I Think Kunstler's Trying To Be Optimistic

He's often accused of being alarmist and negative.

[galileoreloaded]

5. Wow, Permission to qoute this??? n/t

[paparush]

6. Um..sure. I get a little hyperbolic sometimes.

[Tace]

7. Sure

While WNT has Kunstler's permission to run his Clusterfuck Nation stuff, you may want to attribute Clusterfuck Nation directly. Here's the Clusterfuck Nation link: http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2009/04/the-coming-siege-of-austerity.html

[katty]

8. yup

[rrneck]

4. I'm not gonna

start worrying until he starts illustrating his editorials with Hieronymus Bosch