A review before the exam
Actually, this review is too late for the many people who have already endured economic collapse. As any of those folks can tell the rest of us, we do not want to receive the lesson after the exam. I've written…
A Day in the Life: Further Adventures at the Mud Hut
People keep asking me what my days are like. How do I spend a typical day? Now that I'm retired from the academic life -- or rather, now that I've departed the academy in disgust and despair -- I no…
Time to bury the dead
The final nail in the global financial coffin was hammered into place this morning by the masters of the Eurozone. The trillion-dollar bailout Ponzi scheme to save Greece is yet another example of kicking the proverbial can down the road,…
What works, maybe: individual options
Like global climate change, peak oil represents a predicament, not a problem. There is no politically viable solution to either of these great challenges. Political solutions require economic growth, forever, and therefore no significant sacrifice on the behalf of the…
Surveying the Field and Charting a Course
It's all the rage to talk about a double-dip in the industrial economy. That would be an economic trend in the shape of a W. I think an M is far more likely. The assumption of never-ending growth underlies all…
Going back to the land in the Age of Entitlement
This essay is rife with the type of self-indulgence I try to avoid, often unsuccessfully. It’s a summary of my life’s story. It begins by insulting the readers, before the end of this first paragraph, and it ends with an…
Leadership in the post-carbon era
I’m getting cranky, judging from several comments on this blog and on Facebook (where my latest entries have been posted and then re-posted by contacts there). Not to pick nits, but I’m getting crankier. But, like all rationalizing animals, I…