|
|
Going
broke fast is a very compelling problem. For ordinary people it tends to
induce chicken-with-no-head syndrome - a mad burst of pointless locomotion
ending in sudden collapse. If the US debt ceiling is raised - which I think
is a 90 percent bet - there will be a sigh of relief that resounds from the
lobster pounds of Penobscot Bay to the parking lots of Silicon Valley... and
poor dissolving America will still be stuck in its essential predicament of
being broke. So a lot of pointless locomotion will continue in the form of
positioning among a troop of clown candidates for the dumbshow
of the 2012 election. I wonder
lately whether that election will actually happen.
Europe
is arguably worse off money-wise, more broke, flimsier, crapped out,
crippled, and paralyzed. Sad, because in outward appearance Europe is - how
shall I put this? - better turned out than America.
Europe is a fit, silver-haired gentleman in a sleek Italian suit and a pair
of Michael Toschi swing lace wingtips, holding a
serious-looking Chiarugi leather briefcase.
America
is pear-shaped blob of semi-formed male flesh, in ankle-length cargo shorts,
a black T-shirt featuring skull motifs, tattoos randomly assigned (as if by
lottery) to visible flesh, a Sluggo buzz-cut, and a
low-rider sports cap designed to make your head look flat. In other words, he
lacks a certain savoir-faire compared to his European cousin. But both are
broke. Neither has any idea what he will do next - though, for the American,
it will probably involve the ingestion of melted cheese or drugs (or both).
When the European collapses, a certain air of delicacy will attend his
demise; the expired American will go up in flames in a trailer and they'll
have to sort out his remains from the melted goop of his dwelling-place with
a front-end loader.
This
is the way the world ends for the OECD, the nations that affected to be
developed and civilized. This phase of globalism is certainly not the end of
history, but it is looking like the end of accounting tricks, and possibly
democracy, which has discredited itself with accounting tricks. At a certain
point in time, the sickening recognition sets in that appearances are not the
same as reality - and then, all of a sudden, you're in a political maelstrom.
Citizens of the various lands will discover that the money being argued over,
shifted around from column A to column B, assigned
to this or that actuarial table or budget line or account or obligation or
vault or "structured vehicle"- that money is just... not... there.
There's no money. It was pretend money. From now on, none of you will get
paid. Imagine a world where nobody gets paid.
Europe
has run the money string to its bitter end and now it just remains to be seen
how each country blows up and where the dust settles. Greece and Portugal may
just shrug and retire on an economy based on goat-cheese and olives. Ireland
will get drunk and pass out for at least a century. Spain sinks back into an
age-old catatonic daze, having gone broke spectacularly once before. Italy
strings up Mr. Berlusconi on a lamp-post and breaks up into 112 warring
city-states. France elects DSK, whose first act is to declare war on the City
of New York. Religious wars leave England in embers. And Germany becomes the
world's first "green" police state.
It's
conceivable to me that Barack Obama may be the last president - for a while.
He was a decent fellow but, in the end, ineffectual, and of course he got no
help from the legislative branch, including especially colleagues in his own
party, a most remarkable class of maundering chickenshits
and grifters. Our money problems will not go away
and after a while this land will not be governable by familiar means. In case
you haven't noticed, the rule of law is already AWOL in many sectors of our
national life, most particularly money matters, but before long on every
street-corner, every highway strip, plus every GMO cornfield, and brownfield.
The two parties are unreformable and the Tea Party
is the stooge of one of the two parties, and there is no other party of earnest,
decisive, and sane individuals anywhere near the horizon. So some kind of
convulsion is in the cards and it will be the unfortunate duty of some
dutiful officer to step in and set an agenda based on something other than
bluster, fakery, and pocket pool.
While
there's a good chance the US debt ceiling will be extended, it seems to me
that meanwhile we have crossed an invisible line into a place where untoward
things happen.
James
Howard Kunstler
James
Howard Kunstler’s new novel of the post-oil future, World
Made By Hand, is available at all booksellers.
|
|
