My personal journey of transformation over this last year began with the discovery and internalization of the things found on The Oil Drum, coupled with health troubles that have only recently been connected to Lyme disease.
Along the path I’ve followed I’ve met others who were, intentionally or unintentionally, sliding out of this broad, self applied demographic of "middle class" and into the curious neverwhere inhabited by dispossessed Americans here at the beginning of the 21st century. Nerve and energy might just let me climb back out of it, but I believe this is going to be an all too common pattern for our nation.
We, as a society, have only the crash of 1987 or the distant memories of the Great Depression as ways to express what is happening, but Dmitry Orlov draws frightening connections between the situation we face today and the condition of the U.S.S.R. in the late 1980s in his marvelous new book, Reinventing Collapse.
I don’t recall where I’d first heard the name of this little 160 page tome. Probably on The Oil Drum, the source of great and terrible predictions for the future, or maybe it was in a comment stream here on DailyKos.
I recently chanced to speak with a Hungarian who’d emigrated here after the Soviet years and I was quite surprised at his personal efforts in peak oil preparation. A little house tucked away at the end of a little street sporting solar panels and rainwater collection (cue the laugh track, New England is preternaturally soggy this year), many bicycles and bike trailer related things populated his busy front porch, and a large amount of firewood was stacked behind the house. We didn’t talk about food or money but I’m sure efforts are made there, too.
We talked at length about his experiences in Hungary. Money? Needed for some things, but you had to have ‘contacts’. Most things one needed could be bought, but things one wanted required barter, and what good is life without an occasional want being filled? His attitude on how things would be ... and his outright certainty got me interested in tracking down more information on this time period.
I had already absorbed that things were going to get bad globally due to peak oil but I’d never considered that an outright collapse of the United States might precede this. I find after reading Orlov’s little book that most of his reasoning is quite solid. We have the same sky high debt, the very same unwinnable war, and instead of the Soviet’s collapse three years after local peak oil production the United States stands in the same precarious position three years after the global peak, with Bush having pissed away our global goodwill and convinced everyone we’re no longer qualified to be the global guarantor of stable oil supplies.
Orlov’s book is divided into six chapters – The Soviet Example, Superpower Simularities, The Collapse Gap, Collapse Mitigation, Adaptation, and lastly Career Opportunities.
The initial thesis statement is clear and concise ...
My method is one of comparative analysis, taking the actual pre and post-collapse conditions of the Soviet Union and comparing them to the hypothetical pre- and post-collapse conditions in the United States.
But black, biting Russian humor is sprinkled throughout, and the Career Opportunities chapter provides rich examples of this.
Lastly, a great many people would prefer to retain a profession, even if it no longer provides gainful employment. Post-collapse a medical marketing expert becomes an ex-medical marketing expert turned professional ditch-digger, while an expert on early 19th century French romanticism remains able to find perfect felicity in sharing specialized knowledge, even if necessity intrudes on it with episodes of tiresome freelance ditch-digging.
I’m not sure just who I’m going to hand this book to next, but given its thought provoking nature it’s definitely getting passed on to someone else in my peak oil aware circle.
(UPDATE:
I must credit the sources for my understanding of financial issues - thanks obviously go to bonddad and Jerome a Paris but beyond this site I read:
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com - Stoneleigh and Ilargi, well, they freakin' rule.
http://ml-implode.com, http://hf-implode.com, and http://bankimplode.com I check for their marvelous scoreboards.
http://creditwritedowns.com has a wonderful credit crisis timeline for anyone new to the story and trying to sort it out.
http://boombustblog.com is my new favorite, with Reggie Middleton at the helm. He was also at the helm for our cruise around the southern tip of Manhattan Saturday ... a very, very interesting guy and he draws a fascinating, diverse crowd when he wants to throw a party. He's in white on the left here, facing away, but there is a good picture of him on his blog.
Oh, I just got a nice note from the author, Dmitry Orlov ...
Thanks for letting me know. Great review, and the comments are interesting. Many different shades of denial. There is even a Dr. Grishka, with a response so typical it's almost comic: "Nooo! It can't be happening here too! Because... blah blah blah..."
Diaryless commenter Bunny Colvin is simply on fire downthread and his well thought out comments deserve some attention. I'm packing for a trip so I don't know how much time I have to wade in, so y'all check it out.
I expected this to be a ten comment sinker in the wee hours that I'd be referring to later in other writing. I've written at length about the condition of our economy and it seems not inappropriate to post these links here. The one entitled "8,500 U.S. Banks ..." made the rec list and has 600+ juicy comments regarding the situation - a very full exposition on the impending FDIC bailout(read: dollar devaluation)
http://www.dailykos.com/... Shruburb: watchword for the 2008 election
http://www.dailykos.com/... The Bad Friday Banking Massacre of 2008
http://www.dailykos.com/... Housing sales down 23.8% despite propaganda
http://www.dailykos.com/... Bank nationalization and you're not paying attention.
http://www.dailykos.com/... Icelandic bank failures could sink us(UPDATED)
http://www.dailykos.com/... The Ginormous Banking Enema of 2008
http://www.dailykos.com/... Our banking system is collapsing
http://www.dailykos.com/... Global Depression? Bankers think so ...
http://www.dailykos.com/... Indymac Bancorp trading halted (mortgage disaster)
http://www.dailykos.com/... Privatizing Bank Oversight? (Bernankepanky)
http://www.dailykos.com/... Hospice care for Fannie & Freddie
http://www.dailykos.com/... Federal Home Loan & Mortgage Corp is BANKRUPT(updated)
http://www.dailykos.com/... Widespread Panic: Bank of America
http://www.dailykos.com/... 8,500 U.S. banks; many will die soon(updated 3x)
http://www.dailykos.com/... Economic Disaster Roundup 7/24/2008
http://www.dailykos.com/... Two new dead banks, 2,200 more coming, FDIC bailout
http://www.dailykos.com/... Does Wall Street come apart next week?
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