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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>From: From: <a
href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/108481/zombie_economics:_don't_bail_out_the_system_that_gave_us_suvs_and_strip_malls/"
title="blocked::http://www.alternet.org/environment/108481/zombie_economics:_don't_bail_out_the_system_that_gave_us_suvs_and_strip_malls/">http://www.alternet.org/environment/108481/zombie_economics:_don't_bail_out_the_system_that_gave_us_suvs_and_strip_malls/</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Zombie Economics: Don't Bail out the System that Gave Us SUVs and Strip
Malls<br>
<br>
By James Howard Kunstler - November 25, 2008<br>
<br>
Why squander our remaining resources on a lifestyle that doesn't have a future?<br>
<br>
Though Citicorp is deemed too big to fail, it's hardly reassuring to know that
it's been allowed to sink its fangs into the Mother Zombie that the U.S.
Treasury has become and sucked out a multibillion dollar dose of embalming
fluid so it can go on pretending to be a bank for a while longer.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
I employ this somewhat clunky metaphor to point out that the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> government
is no more solvent than the financial zombies it is keeping on walking-dead
support. And so this serial mummery of weekend bailout schemes is as much of a
fraud and a swindle as the algorithm-derived-securities shenanigans that
induced the disease of bank zombification in the first place. The main question
it raises is whether, eventually, the creation of evermore zombified U.S.
dollars will exceed the amount of previously created U.S. dollars now vanishing
into oblivion through compressive debt deflation.<br>
<br>
My guess, given the usual time-lag factor, is that the super-inflation snapback
will occur 6 to 18 months from now. And the main result of all this will be our
inability to buy the imported oil that comprises two-thirds of the oil we
require to keep WalMart and Walt Disney World running. At some point, then, in
the early months of the Obama administration, we'll learn that
"change" is not a set of mere lifestyle choices but a wrenching
transition away from all our familiar and comfortable habits into a stark and
rigorous new economic landscape.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
The credit economy is dead, and the dead credit residue of that dead economy is
going where dead things go. It came into the world as "money," and it
is going out of this world as a death-dealing disease, and we're not going to get
over this disease until we stop generating additional zombie money out of no
productive activity whatsoever. The campaign to sustain the unsustainable is,
besides war, the greatest pitfall this society can stumble into. It represents
a squandering of our remaining scant resources and can only produce the kind of
extreme political disappointment that wrecks nations and leads to major
conflicts between them. I don't know how much Mr. Obama buys into the current
adopt-a-zombie program -- his Treasury designee, Timothy Geithner, was
apparently in on this weekend's Citicorp deal -- but the president-elect would
be wise to steer clear of whatever the walking dead in the Bush corner are
still up to.<br>
<br>
All the activities based on getting something for nothing are dead or dying
now, in particular, buying houses and cars on credit, and so it should not be a
surprise that the two major victims are the housing and car industries. Notice,
by the way, that these are the two major ingredients of an economy based on
building suburban sprawl. That's over, too. We're done building it, and the
stuff we've already built is destined to lose both money value and usefulness
as the wrenching transition goes forward.<br>
<br>
All this obviously begs the question: What kind of economy are we going to live
in if the old one is toast? Well, it's also pretty obvious that it will have to
be based on activities productively aimed at keeping human beings alive in an
ecology that has a future. Once you grasp this, you will see that there is no
reason to despair and more than enough for all of us to do, so we can recover
from the zombie nation disease and get on with the next chapter of American
history -- and I sure hope that Mr. Obama will get with the new program.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
To be specific about this new economy, we're going to have to make things
again, and raise things out of the earth, locally, and trade these things for
money of some kind that we earn through our own productive activities. Don't
make the mistake of thinking this is optional. The only other option is to go
through a violent sociopolitical convulsion. We ought to know from prior
examples in world history that this is not a desirable experience. So, to avoid
that, we really have to put our shoulders to the wheel and get to work on
things that matter, and do it at a scale that is consistent with what the world
really has to offer right now, especially in terms of available energy.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>In my view -- and I know this is controversial -- a much larger
proportion of the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
population will have to be employed in growing the food we eat. There are many
ways of arranging this, some more fair than others, and I hope the better
angels of our nature steer us in the direction of fairness and justice. The
prospects of a devalued dollar imply that we very shortly will not be able to
get the all the oil-and-gas-based "inputs" that have made
petro-agriculture possible the past century. The consequences of this are so
unthinkable that we have not been thinking about it. And, of course, the
further implications of current land-use allocation, and the property-ownership
issues entailed, suggests formidable difficulties in rearranging the farming
sector. The sooner we face all this, the better.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>CLIP - Please read the rest at <a
href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/108481/zombie_economics:_don't_bail_out_the_system_that_gave_us_suvs_and_strip_malls/"
title="blocked::http://www.alternet.org/environment/108481/zombie_economics:_don't_bail_out_the_system_that_gave_us_suvs_and_strip_malls/">http://www.alternet.org/environment/108481/zombie_economics:_don't_bail_out_the_system_that_gave_us_suvs_and_strip_malls/</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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12.0pt'><> <> <> <> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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