Nine more banks failed last weekend, bringing the year’s total to 115. Along with the banks, one of the largest companies in the country declared bankruptcy, further evidence every large entity in the world will go down with energy availability. Small businesses are joining the fiesta, declaring bankruptcy like Zimbabweans, and the mother of all carry trades is headed for a collapse the size of hell and half of Montana.
The world’s first peak-oil recession has come to a close, according to third-quarter numbers invented by the federal government. Apparently dumping trillions of dollars onto big banks, insurance companies, and automobile manufacturers interrupted the plummeting descent of American Empire. The stock markets skyrocketed expectedly. Predictably, so did the commodities markets.
Passing the world oil peak has had, and doubtless will continue to have, relatively little impact on the long-term price of gasoline. The economic implications of getting through the first half of the Oil Age have been much more significant, a trend that seems likely to continue until the collapse is complete.
We’ve seen 106 banks fail, so far, including some of the monsters. Others were perceived by the Obama adminstration as too big to fail, so we tacked on a series of taxes to future generations of Americans. A majority of those taxes will never be paid because the whole country is bankrupt (and not merely financially). Regional banks are suffering, too. We’ve seen house prices plummet under the weight of massive foreclosures and a bubble pumped up by the likes of Greenspan and Bernanke. We’ve seen entire airlines disappear, along with a plethora of other companies. The nation’s largest car company was socialized when we the people took ownership. (Against our wishes, of course. Isn’t faux democracy great?) Unemployment has risen, and continues to rise even as the Obummer administration throws massive fiat currency at every enterprise they deem worthy (expectedly excluding you and me). Suddenly, shopping at Wal-Mart is all the rage because, despite lies from the federal government, prices continue to rise for the average consumer.
I was among the final baby boomers born in the United States. Along with my entire generation, I owe the world an apology. My generation abandoned a worthy dream, and it will cost all of us, but nobody more than civilized members of industrial society.
Your medical doctor informs you: “You need to stop all industrial activities immediately, or you’ll be dead in twenty years. And so will your five-year-old child. You might die anyway — after all, nobody gets out alive — but your death is guaranteed if you do not stop relying on fossil fuels for travel, heating and cooling, water from the tap, and food from the grocery store.”
Naturally, you go straight from the clinic to the nearest store. You need liquor, and time to ponder whether the trade-off is worth it.
I suppose the king of Norway could endow me with the Nobel Prize for Medicine. After all, I’ve done no harm, thereby adhering to the first rule of medical practice. As a consequence, I demonstrate great promise.
But of course there would be no political reason to hand me a Nobel Prize. The Nobel committee is nothing if not political, and there is no more political act than awarding the Nobel Peace Prize.