Frank, here and elsewhere, perhaps my meaning hasn't been clear.
"I don't see the hard-stop after 10 years, or any other time frame, as you've suggested. All the pixels don't splash at once."
I've never said "hard stop", though I've noted that you and others seem prefer that view of what I've said. Perhaps it makes disagreement easier. For years, the common phrase has been "negative synergies" and the acceleration of same. To understand "negative synergies" we should look at the post-war period, when synergies were positive. The economy was strong; the US was the world's largest creditor; industrial capacity was growing to its zenith; financial markets and interest rates were stable; long-term risk capital was readily available at manageable and predictable cost; energy was cheap, easily-sourced and abundant; environmental costs were not paid; the workforce was young; infrastructure was new; commodities were nowhere near exhaustion, and so on.
Compare that to the present, and foreseeable future. What I've been attempting to describe (the phrase has been used repeatedly) is increasing marginalization of industries and individuals, A.K.A the economy. Somehow this gets distorted into "falling off a cliff", which was never stated, or even suggested.
However, at some point negative synergies become numerous and pervasive. Some are aware of the impending reality -- thus the rise of "technology will save us" messages -- despite the fact that the great body of evidence does not support that conclusion. To revisit the football metaphor people start looking for the Hail Mary pass: magic.
We're going through a period reminiscent of the Phony War in 1939; the prevailing mood is denial. Yet we had a sharp reminder only a few years ago:
"As unemployment rises and discretionary income shrinks, millions fewer Americans are driving."
Message 25602547
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In 10 years, will we fall off a cliff because of energy? No. Cutbacks, technological improvements and enforced metering (read: Smart Grid) will cushion the degradation. However, at that point many segments of the economy will be faced with decisions made more difficult because we did not prepare.
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At this point, perhaps we should revisit another recurring theme on this thread: top-down vs. bottom-up. Depending on who's speaking, and about what, this can be seen as reversion to Austrian economics, an ideology which pervades our elites, economics and finance. The idea here is that markets possess some divine wisdom, and will unerringly lead us in the right direction. Leadership comes from the bottom; government, regulation, laws, diligence, the public interest, foresight - all of these are deemed extraneous, even harmful. Do nothing, because The Market will guide us. Don't plan, don't save, don't re-invest, don't regulate. Ayn Rand on acid; ideological extremism, as bad as its Communist twin.
This kind of ideological hogwash colors everything we do these days - and worse, much that we don't do.
Example of how top-down can screw up usually include things like Soviet Gosplan failures, where 5,000 wrong-size doors are sent to a construction site, or two-year old "new" fashions are sent to women who don't want them. We find parallels in WWII stories, where we bombed our own troops because somebody didn't get the message, or soldiers in steaming jungles got a shipload of parkas. "Top-down bad; bottom-up good." It's Animal Farm Reverso: The New Ideology.
Market failures, particularly predictive failures, are swept under the rug. In their thousands big and small, they're simply ignored. In their multitrillion-dollar global failures and impacts, they're dismissed as inevitable.
Meanwhile, we forget the magnificent top-down accomplishments: marshaling America's industrial might to produce thousands of ships, planes, and tanks; the Hoover Dam and the TVA; Russia's relocation and revitalization of industry in the middle of ferocious and desperate warfare; US Interstate Highways; Chinese reconstruction and reformation; Norwegian economics and much more.
In the last 10 years and for the next, market forces have been unable to properly address existing energy-related deficiencies, nor have they adequately prepared us for the future. Unless we come to our senses (and again, the prediction is that we won't) we're going to face hard choices and increasingly negative synergies. At that time, we'll find larger fractions of the population and economy marginalized because we weren't ready.
Millions of sheeple and their elites enamored of another wrong-headed ideology, not preparing, not prepared. No: I've never said we'll go out with a bang. It'll be a long, protracted whimper.
Jim |
