2009 Predictions

I'ven't been blogging for long, but I will forecast for the following year on all the subjects I blog about. Some predictions are about local issues, but most are state/national. My forecasts for 2009:

• Energy
  
• Solar -- I predict we won't even come close to our 2009 projections for meeting the state mandate of a million solar rooftops by 2018. This was set by Schwarzenegger in 2006 with SB1. With the state in fiscal Armageddon, with homeowners at near record levels of private debt, and with natural gas at 5-year lows, solar will be put on hold for 2009. I predict no substantial breakthroughs in lowered PV panel costs, nanosolar, or any other alt.solar technologies.
• Oil -- I don't see significant changes in production or demand over the next year. We've moved away from the crisis of 2008 into the complacency of 2009, so we won't even consider ANWR or any other domestic development in 2009. I predict that all our 2008 chattering about moving us towards "energy independence" will result in 2009 importing 65% of our oil instead of 63% by the end of the year. We will be more dependent, not less. Drill! Baby! Drill! will be replaced by Drive! Baby! Drive! Oil will rise again and average above $60 a barrel for 2009, if nothing else but to keep the Canadian tar sands in production.
• Natural Gas -- A bright spot for sure, as we've likely over committed our domestic production due to the 2008 price spike. This will keep electricity rates the same for 2009 with a corresponding flat demand.
• Wind -- No significant developments expansion will occur as fossil fuels are too cheap to concern ourselves with wind. Sure, we'll put up a few turbines here and there, but the rate of wind expansion will flatline in 2009 relative to the heady days of yesteryear.
  
  
• My Public Realm
  
  
  • Architecture -- We'll see no Elk Grovian building erected in 2009 with any ruin value or worthy of heritage preservation. No buildings will be erected that enhance the public realm, only private enterprise. No mixed use developments will be installed in Elk Grove this year.
• Franklin Blvd. -- more automobiles than ever will ply the Franklin roadway in 2009, and a larger share of them will be unregistered, unable to pass emissions tests, and will be driven by unlicensed drivers. This will be verified only through my direct observations by bicycle and will be subject to my bias, but I predict that more jalopies will be driven, as we aren't selling new vehicles, putting your Monologueonian at further risk of dismemberment and/or permanent disfigurement.
  
  
• Transportation
  
  
  • Public Transportation -- the state will continue to slash funding for RT and E-tran and I predict a reduction in the level of service available to me as a user.
• Cars -- The Big Three will all remain on life support, but alive, at our expense. Their detailed plans for marketing efficient cars as stipulated in the original auto bailout bill will never see the light of day because we shunted that requirement when we used TARP monies. Hybrid sales as a percentage of sales will be less in 2009 than last year. No progress will be made on higher CAFE standards set to start to take effect in 2012 -- that is, they won't bother getting a head start on fuel efficiencies. I predict the demise of the Escalade and Chevy Tahoe Hybrid models. GM will announce a price tag (MSRP) in excess of $37,500 for the 2010 Chevy Volt. Environmentalism for rich guilty white people only.
• Rail -- Light Rail into Elk Grove (RTs Phase II southern expansion) will not begin in 2009. It will be delayed due to lack of interest. It will fall back by yet another year and will not meet the 2012 time frame for service. It might even be cancelled in 2009, forever ending any hope for Elk Grovian rail.
• California Diesel Emissions Standards -- They will be delayed sometime in 2009 due to these "tough economic times," pushed from beginning in 2010 to at least 2012.
• The Highway 50 HOV project will be ramrodded through a porous environmental review and construction will begin in 2009, same with the Lincoln Bypass project.
• The new EPA administrator will grant California the waiver request for AB32.
  
  
• Economy
  
  
• Housal Units -- Elk Grove will permit less than 500 new housal units in 2009, and every one of them will be located in an area not readily accessible by transit.
• The Dow -- The Dow will remain near or below 9,500 by Dec 31st.
• Inflation -- I don't see anything happening immediately, but I predict that towards the end of 2009 we will see the beginnings of a hyper-inflation period that will continue long after 2009. I don't truly expect a lengthy bout of deflation for 2009 because we've created so damn much money this last coupla weeks.
• Gold -- An ounce will command no less than $900 by the end of '09, especially if inflation occurs.
• Unemployment -- I predict a 9.8% average for 2009, plus or minus 0.2%.

• War -- Mr. O will not extract more than 50% of the current levels of troops in Iraq in 2009, try as he might. I predict that we will have in excess of 80,000 still there by Dec. 31st, and we will have more troops, not less, in Afghanistan.

I suppose my meme for ought nine is complacency. At this moment I'm not projecting a much worse "condition" than now...other than we will be yet one more year farther from true, meaningful progress on energy and our living environments. A complacent year overall, unlike 2008 which could be seen as a crisis year. What we'll need, in my opinion, to install correct energy/carbon pricing, to start creating better cities and towns, to start living as socially and environmentally responsible beings, is a few back to back years of crisis. I don't think we're there yet. We will have to work though our exceptional beliefs first, beliefs that we are all entitled to have 1080p TVs, two cars and one truck each, guaranteed pensions, 3400 square feet that grows in value at 20% ad infinitum, six hundred thousand more miles of freeways to holiday at Six Flags four times a year, and free limitless health care.

Again, I don't think we're there yet.

Another Unit Gone

I'm convinced my next-door neighbor abandoned his house in late October.

Here was a guy who moved from the Bay Area sometime in 2004-5, just like fifty thousand other Bay Areans since the dot.com bust. For 3+ years, he and his wife would climb into a vehicle at 4:30AM, drive to I-80 then to the I-680 to drop off his wife in Dublin, then he'd drive back up I-680 to his job in Concord. Then at the end of the day he'd drive from Concord to Dublin, pick up his wife, then drive back home to Elk Grove. I guess around 170 miles a day.

Total insanity if you ask me. But Bay Area homes were expensive, gas was cheap, and Elk Grovian homes even cheaper yet. Eleven hours a week in a car was something you just did for the sake of progress, for the sake of home ownership, for the sake of a Bay Area wage premium. Ain't that right? Wouldn't you spend 550 hours a year driving to get that $30k or $35k premium that a Bay Area wage brings? And tens of thousands of Elk Grovians and Stocktonians did just that, and are still doing just that.

Well, truth be told, my neighbor didn't actually own his home. The bank owned most of it, because he admitted earlier this year how he couldn't afford 20% down for a Bay Area home, otherwise he would have already left this [shithole]. And I think that as home values in Elk Grove are now down to levels not seen since 1999-2000, he was underwater. Underwater, driving 170 miles a day, I think he said screw it, packed up, and in less than an afternoon, having not said anything to anyone, they quietly moved to Vacaville.

No one's been living there since. No for sale signs. Lawn unmowed. Leaves piling up. Chalk up one more Elk Grovian "unit" to the economy. Pile it on to the thousands of other abandoned units here in my fair burg.

This guy was a real prick, too, so losing him as a neighbor was no loss. Losing his two German Shepards and their constant barking while locked in a cage in his backyard all day was a real blessing. But I digress...

VI, Six, 6

I'm always stunned when I hear the percentage of jobs in the financial sector -- 9.5% of America. One out of ten Americans are needed to handle the monetary affairs of the other nine.

It seems to me that I could well do without Bear Sterns or AIG...I really only need access to my money, and my local bank branch does a good job of that. However, with a 401(k), whoa! Now I "need" advisers, mutual fund managers, management analysts, fund counselors, accountants, auditors, SEC oversight regulators, and fund insurance underwriters -- and all these folks have done a bang-up job recently, haven't they?

And I'm further stunned by the percentage of jobs in the sales sector -- 11% of America. One of of ten Americans are needed to handle the exchange of goods for the other nine. And the vast, vast majority of these jobs are retail sales associates.

Say there's a new retail sales opening at the local Old Navy...$6.66 an hour, an exceedingly good rate. The problem I see is that this new retail sales position is not a net gain, it's a net drain. This is a job that isn't self sufficient. It doesn't generate enough tax payments to offset the services the person uses. The Old Navy is built on the edge of town in a strip mall in the middle of a public transit no-man's-land, so most of the costs of the public infrastructure of longer sewers, longer sidewalks that no one walks on, longer roads and longer utility services used to support the Old Navy's employee's commute and store breakroom are borne by someone else...not to mention the billions and billions of public freeway costs we subsidize to allow Old Navy trucks to deliver cheap goods from a Chinese container ship in Long Beach to a store in Roanoke, VA. The $6.66 hour employee is forced to drive back and forth to work, incrementally adding to the health care costs for everyone in lost time accidents and asthma attacks.

Creating more of these kinds of jobs is not healthy. Not healthy to have two out of ten Americans engaged in the selling of retail junk and engaged in the management of the finances needed to carry out these sales of retail junk.

What Price, Green?

Well, well, well...now that GMAC has been injected with $6,000,000,000 newly printed dollars, they said yesterday they've immediately implemented lending to people with lower credit scores (from 700 now down to 621) as well as offering financing at 0% for 5 years.

So, borrow from a debt ridden public to assist other indebted borrowers (with a dubious record of paying back what they owe) borrow more. That's the ticket -- pay off your gambling debts by gambling more.

But I have a question...if they are now charging 0% interest, where is the source of income used to pay back this $6,000,000,000? Perhaps the prices of GM vehicles are sufficiently inflated to offset zero percent interest. Or perhaps those with a 622 credit score will pay 18% interest. Either way, this is a shitload of money to pay back, and I'd really be surprised if we don't end up taking it in the shorts sometime down the road.

I saw the red tag special this last week for a '09 Cadillac Escalade, $57,180. They hybrid model is $67,779. No, GM's prices aren't inflated. The hybrid premium is about ten grand while the cost of a gallon of gas is about a buck and a half. If you drive the hybrid 15k miles a year and get 17 mpg instead of 14 mpg, it'll take 35 years to pay back that premium, not including what you're gonna shell out every 7 years for a new bank of batteries. But...you'll feel GREEN, won't you. What price, Green?

I'm green thinking of the lost dollars we just were forced to spend.

Two Shakes of a Lamb's Tail

Our fractional reserve system "creates" money whenever a bank loans. If I deposit a hundred thousand bucks in a bank and the bank loans out eighty thousand in a NINJA loan, there's a hundred eighty thousand floating around when there was really only a hundred thousand to begin with.

But now, the person who took out the eighty thousand loan defaults on his mortgage. Walks away. Leaves the keys in the mailbox and moves in to his brother's guest bedroom, eats his food, burns his furnace, and plays his niece's video games all day. The failure to pay back his mortgage is instant money destruction, flowing back into the black hole from which it came. If the money supply shrinks faster relative to GDP, we have deflation.

That's what I think is happening now. It makes no sense to carry debt, any debt, in a deflation. But do you think we're gonna flip right into inflation in 2009, what with Helicopter Ben "creating" hundreds of billions of dollars faster than two shakes of a lamb's tail? Anyone carrying a crippling, crushing, hopeless burden of debt (i.e., Uncle Sam, state governments, local governments, municipalities and most Merikans) always does better, much better, under inflation. It makes sense that we might find a way to just inflate our way out of our problems.

If hyperinflation is right around the corner, I'd prolly re-finance and carry out my energy efficiency directives now, to allow inflation to erode my debt before I have to pay it back.

What do you predict?

Y & T

Barack -- Mr. O -- Well, he's going to be plowing more money into freeways in today's dollars than FDR ever did to restore Europe and Japan. More money in today's dollars than Eisenhower ever did to build the interstate highway system. That's the plan to get our economy moving again.

We're gonna build hundreds and hundreds of thousands of new lane-miles when only yesterday (July, to be exact) we were all bitching about the price of gasoline, that we'd have to Drill!, Baby!, Drill! our way out of our supply problem. Now we're gonna solve all our economic ills through further consumption of a non-renewable resource by laying down non-renewable asphalt and allow a bailed out and likely bankrupt auto manufacturing sector to build more cars to motor upon them by drivers who only pretend to own them.

This is sustaining the unsustainable. The last thing we should be doing is to promote continued perpetual private automobiling but that's exactly what we're going to do, because it's all we're capable of.

Just yesterday we thought we had an oil supply problem. Just yesterday we saw transit ridership hit all time marks. Just yesterday we received another hint of what a supply disruption might bring. Just today, supplies are seemingly limitless. Just today, we are seeing the percentage of trucks and large vehicle sales rise again with cheap gasoline. Just today, transit ridership is down, transit funding is cut off, transit services eliminated, while borrowed billions are being allocated towards new freeways.

Yesterday & Today are being ignored. Tomorrow will look no different -- but with several million more acres of parking lots, several million more miles of roads, and several hundred million more motor vehicles.

The Service Sector

I understand Arizona retained the top state in population growth last year -- lots of people flocking to the sun belt apparently, but I was wondering, what sorts of jobs might be available in the desert -- are any derived from local resources?

I ask because Phoenix is ground zero for surburbanized sprawl, with leapfrog development separated by distances impossible to manage by transit and brutal daily temperatures that force an aging population into perpetual air conditioning. A person can breakfast bathed in AC comfort, motor to work in an AC equipped vehicle to an office cubicle conditioned all night long to ensure a comfortable temperature upon arrival, and return home to a home programmed to condition the air starting at 3:00 PM.

A quick visit to the bureau of labor statistics informs me that nearly 1/3rd of Arizona, 27%, is employed in the services sector, compared to 17% for the U.S. general. Marriage counselors, paralegals, vocational education specialists, graphic designers, public relations specialists, respiratory therapists, dental assistants, bailiffs, short order cooks, card dealers and hairdressers. Apparently, Arizona employs more people for the leisure and comfort of much smaller professional and management sectors. There are about 35% more automobile service technicians per capita in Arizona than in the rest of the US, on average. I wonder why.

To keep this sunbelt service machine running, they import timber from elsewhere, coal from elsewhere, oil from elsewhere, agriculture from elsewhere, natural gas from elsewhere, and a few hundred thousand new trucks and automobiles each year from elsewhere. They have no local economy, other than the selling and servicing of cars and the building of sprawl. It's an economic backwater now that homes ain't being built are cars ain't being sold. I've stated that you can't have a community without also having a local economy. Arizona produces little. It takes in federal dollars to support its disproportionate military sector and social security and medicare to support its ever aging population.

What would happen if faced with an chronic energy shortage or depression? I think the whole state would just shut down. After the entitled residents stopped their bitching and whining, they might end up abandoning their precious golf courses and the state might lose population in the long run. There's a reason that American deserts were never home to a few million indigenous or early European peoples.

It might someday return to those historic population levels.

Gas Fees

I'm hoping this week that the California legislature kills the $0.18 per gallon gas tax and installs a new $0.39 gas fee. The governor didn't have an objection per se about this little Democrat end-around and perhaps this week he'll agree to sign on to it.

Oddly, the governor wants environmental reviews removed, more or less, to spur more road building while the legislature jacks up gas taxes. Watered down environmental review will now allow El Dorado county to more easily grab state money to fund a $41 million carpool lane expansion from the Sacramento county line to the Bass Lake road to help alleviate commuter and Red Hawk (kree-eh-ahhhhh) casino traffic. Beautiful. Let's build more lanes to encourage more gas usage.

In my view, a dollar in gas "fees" does not equate to a dollar removed from the California economy. Indeed, with a higher price, some people will be using less gasoline. It just won't be those in Elk Grove. No, it might be those on the economic margins in South Sacramento, but Elk Grovians will continue their gasoline usage because our city planning department mandated forced automobile usage with exclusive zoning and their intentional failure to integrate housing with an economy.

A gas fee will also marginally reduce the real price of gasoline as demand is slaked. More people will then choose higher efficiency. And because this greenest state in the nation also has the most vehicles and vehicles per capita, a gas fee would push oil exporting nations to subsidize our usage via a lowered real price.

A gas fee isn't a bad thing. It really isn't in my opinion. I certainly endorse it because:

1. I don't use much -- let all of you pay it. And if you don't want to pay it, don't drive so damn much
2. It's a perfect consumption tax
3. Pushes the cost of road building more to those who actually use the roads
4. It might actually encourage alt.energy development
5. Keeps us farther removed from invading Nigeria in 2019 to promote "democracy"
6. We have the teeny, tiny issue of our $14,867,228,938 state deficit.

GMAC The Knife

It appears that once I'm done sending my mortgage payment to GMAC here in about 21 months, I'll be sending my tax payments to GMAC for the next 21 years. They've been TARPED.

I was sorta hoping GMAC would fail and I'd be able to write down my mortgage debt to them. Unfortunately, with their bailing they're gonna stick around for a while longer and now I still gotta make my mortgage payment.

Damn.

The number floating around the web is $6,000,000,000, which means you and I will be sending twenty tax dollars each to help keep my mortgage financing company in business. This shot in the arm will allow them to float even more credit to over-extended Americans to buy cars they don't want and can't afford, while the rest of our tax dollars will go to build several hundred thousand miles of new roads and bridges we'll need to carry all these newly financed vehicles. A solid use of our tax dollars, eh?

Out comes the flick knife, slicing off hunks of future wealth and feeding it to the newly approved bank holding company of GMAC.

Red Hawk

Elk Grove has new casino, Kemo Sabe.

Sacramento region now has Red Hawk (kree-eh-ahhhhh), fabulous new casino by Shingle Springs Miwok tribe. 2,000 slots, 75 tables, premier high limit room.

Dim-witted White Man no longer huddle family around AM radio on three-legged dinette for weekly powerball drawing. Now he can pack wife, gas up Pacer for few dollars, drive to Red Hawk (kree-eh-ahhhhh) on new, $200 million overpass off-ramp.

White Man feel good while losing rent money, because White Man know 1,750 jobs created. Red Hawk (kree-eh-ahhhhhh) now biggest employer in El Dorado county.

Raised Ranch

There aren't too many of these kinds of houses built here in Elk Grove, but the principles of bad urban design aren't just limited to my little burg; they exist all throughout the U.S. Here's a beautiful example of just how wretched we've built things:


This is the raised ranch style. The sole purpose for any raised ranch, as I see it, is to provide for sheltered automobile parking underneath living structures so the builder can share the roof and save material.

If you stare at this house long enough, you'll notice the garage door and the two windows above it form a sorta pac-man like face. Several times a day the garage door "mouth" opens up to swallow or regurgitate dad's minivan and mom's sedan. There would be no need for the front door on this house, but alas, codes require one. Codes don't require shutters; yet, some colored vinyl slabs are stapled up and we call them shutters, because otherwise, this house might look like shit.

It still looks like shit!

I understand, I really do, the need for cheap, affordable housing. But this is cheap expensive housing. Even today this unit would command a hundred eighty five in most places. The new owners will throw up some mismatched vegetative units, perhaps an Italian pencil pine on each side, juniper in front of the lower windows, agapanthus near the downspouts where the water fails to drain...

It's expensive, looks terrible, and will have no, absolutely no, enduring value. Ever. This is all we are capable of building anymore. The building of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of units like this is what defines the bulk of our economy. We could choose to do better, but we don't.

Sit Down and Shut Up

My mom has these little pictures in her dining room of houses in France. She thought they were extraordinary enough while visiting France that she photographed them, had them developed, framed them, and put them up in her dining room.

I find it absolutely amazing that she couldn't, or wouldn't, find a house within a 5-mile radius of her own home here in SACTOWN that she'd photograph, develop, frame, and post up in her dining room. Perhaps because there aren't any worthy of photographing.

Here's a house that I snapped just this morning on Broadway on my bike ride into work:

Note the poorly proportioned shutters that are non-functional and purely decorative. Poorly proportioned because they couldn't enclose the entire window if they did work. These "shutters" simply make an architectural abortion even more shitty. What's more, these fake shutters are presumably in the open position, but note how the louvers are facing -- they are in the closed position. If they really did close, they'd be backward. Rainwater would blow right through, negating most of their effectiveness. The damn builder couldn't even build fake shutters correctly!

Shutters had/have an important function in other climes, but here in SACTOWN they are pointless. They are louvered, raised panel, board and batten, faux wood, poly, vinyl, plantation, traditional, colonial, painted, unpainted, stained, unfinished...but all of them, ALL! are non-functional and always out of proportion.

The house in the photo in my mom's dining room from France, the shutters are functional, enclose the windows, contain the view, are proportional to the window box and window...they look correct and serve a real purpose.

Here in my Merika, we spend inordinate time embellishing utter pieces of architectural shit with doodads. That's because we long for real places and real buildings, but are unwilling to pay Merikans to build them and instead pay Mexican immigrants feudal wages to tack on fakery on the outside to give the illusion that we have culture, that we use housal equipment appropriate to the climate, that we know what we're doing when we build a home.

Indeed, building fake shutters only makes the places we live in worse. We might as well be living in Wonderland with all this pointless, disproportionate junk we've been fabricating. They make all our depressing buildings even more depressing.

I know we could build better. But I also know that this is Merika, where building better plays second fiddle to growth. Living better, in better environments, in better houses; this apparently isn't what the American dream is about. The American Dream is a raised ranch with no money down, with no charm, with no character, with no sense of community, with three motor vehicles in the driveway to service it. We're pretty good at providing that.

Thirty Percent Tomorrow

I simply cannot believe that auto sales are down, in some cases by thirty percent. If you ply the Elk Grovian roadways you would certainly come to the same conclusion.

There are as many cars as ever. Driving home at 1:30 PM on Christmas Eve, one of the few days I've driven to work this year, was a total fiasco. A holiday afternoon in the midst of a "deep recession," and there were four hundred thousand other cars I had to fight with to get home.

I refuse to believe there is any marked reduction in oil demand, at least within the "personal transportation" sector. All my Elk Grovian neighbors haven't backed off one bit from their regular perpetual motoring lifestyles. Elk Grove prides itself on having no economy of its own, prides itself on being one of the most energy inefficient cities, and prides itself that it hasn't had to cut many jobs during this economic downturn...because it didn't have any to begin with. Driving to other communities where there are jobs is mandated by law, as is their consumption of oil.

All these cretins will need new vehicles someday. Once they dig themselves out of their current vehicular financing holes they will just dig themselves into newer deeper ones because they can't afford to pay for them outright. Perpetual vehicular motoring comes with perpetual motor vehicular financing.

That they are buying 30% fewer today only means that they will be buying 30% more tomorrow. This is an undeniable truth. Suburban Elk Grovian housewives will never never! be denigrated to have to drive a three year old vehicle, god forbid. They will demand of their working spouses that they receive a new family vehicle every few years because:

• We need a new vehicle to keep our children safe. Newer vehicles are safer than those deathtraps built back in 2006. Wouldn't want us to die in a fiery crash, would you?
• New cars don't break down. Wouldn't want me and our kids stranded on Highway 99, would you?
• New cars come with standard navigation systems. Wouldn't want me and our kids lost off Highway 99, would you?
• New cars have backseat DVDs. Wouldn't want our kids to have to look out the windows at our shitty neighborhoods, would you?
• A new car will make me feel superior to Marta next door. Wouldn't want me to feel inferior to a Mexican immigrant, would you?

95821

I spent an hour yesterday evening (Christmas day) walking around my mom's Sacramento neighborhood in a failed attempt to work off all those excessive holiday calories eaten.

Twenty six years ago I used to walk the same route I did last night, from my old house to my high school, Mira Loma. It took me about 23 minutes each way, something kids cannot do in Elk Grove these days. No, today they must be chauffeured by SUV, because of the six hundred and fifty thousand child molesters that now live among us, because of the incredible distances between home and school, and because of the horrible social stigmas put upon children who pedestrianate. Only poor kids walk to school. But I digress.

I wondered why the 95821 zip code hadn't turned into the suburban slum that I know 95758 will become. My premise is that all suburban areas eventually turn to liquid shit, but this one hasn't. Why?

One thing that was immediately evident, during the full hour of walking (about three miles) around 95821 is that I didn't pass one single speed bump. Not one. And this in a neighborhood that uniformly lacks sidewalks and whose streets are as seemingly wide as any Elk Grovian "neighborhood." I'm forced to walk in the street, yet I felt safe. I felt safe because the few cars that did pass me did so at a reasonable speed and with a sufficient margin that I did not feel threatened. I might have actually been threatened, but if pedestrians don't feel it, they are willing to walk.

Why was it safe? Why weren't there any speed bumps, traffic circles, neckdowns, raised crosswalks, textured pavements, chicanes, realigned intersections, reversing curves, jigglebumps, hammerheads, lateral shifts, split medians or angle points?

There were also six other groups or individuals who were doing the same thing! Walking! I overtook an old man walking at Greenwood and North, and passed him up again on my way back at Greenwood and Robertson. We exchanged greetings twice, and chuckled at the second passing. This neighborhood has a fair degree of vibrancy because it has pedestrians. They are eyes and ears on the neighborhood. They make casing difficult. They make it just a little bit harder for chowderheads to conduct crimes. In Elk Grove, pedestrians are criminals. No one should be out walking, and if they are they are most definitely up to no good.

But I ask again...why does 95821 not have traffic calming devices? There is some intrinsic quality that I haven't yet been able to define that makes it better than anything we've ever built in the past twenty five years.

Something for me to discover and to blog about in the future...

A Tale of Two Cities

I rode the bike today to work, the day after Christmas, under a 34 degree cold front (cold for Northern CA). Not too many folks will ride a bike with gas at a buck fifty, let alone ride when you can see your breath. "What is that dolt doing?" they ask, as they motor around him in their heated vehicles. "Thank God I'm not as poor as that schlub."

As I ride up Franklin towards East Sacramento, where I work at SMUD, I've noticed how much better the roads are as I get closer. This is the pedestrian crossing at 59th and Broadway, about .6 miles from SMUD:



Last spring, road construction crews ripped out two inches of existing asphalt and installed a whole new, quiet, rubberized open grade asphalt along the entire length of 59th. They also bricked this crosswalk across Broadway. Where I'm standing while taking this picture is the north entrance to Curtis Park. Smaller, older homes in Curtis Park command many tens of thousands of dollars more than newer, bigger homes in Elk Grove precisely because of the park (embedded in the neighborhood and accessible by foot, not only by car), of their arrangements (walkable & engaging), of their architectural character (where 2/3rds of the facades aren't swallowed up by blank garage doors). Not just because they are located in East Sacramento.

So...as I rode the bike home today down Franklin Blvd., I passed the new signaled intersection of Franklin and Turnbridge, where road construction crews recently performed a state/federal tax funded road beautification project. Look at this mess:

If you click on the photo, you'll notice that this ain't brick. It's a simulated brick paint job on top of a chip-sealed surface that was deteriorated to begin with. In a few years this chip seal is going to slough off, the cracked bottom road bed will become re-exposed and this whole intersection will fall apart. They stopped the chip seal just south of this intersection, too. Just couldn't seal it all the way to Florin. Nope. That old section of road will always be even worse than this 'new' road.

Tell me...on this road, across this intersection...who is going to push that walk button, huh? Who? You? Who is going to walk that one and a quarter miles from this intersection to Florin Rd, or to anything of interest? You? Yeah, right. I've not seen a single person hoofing it across this intersection in the past nine months.

The city, however, also knows this. They assume any pedestrian here in South Sacramento is a fucking moron who wouldn't know the difference between a brick walkway and a faux brick asphalt strip. It's the only possible explanation why city-core neighborhoods get "real" roadways, new quiet asphalt surfaces, and brick walks while the fringe neighborhoods get painted bricks and thinly sprayed hydrocarbon sealers. It's just one more little example of how and why I believe that suburban neighborhoods are always destined to become slums.

This is not an intersection worth caring about, and it shows. Pedestrians don't care about it (why there aren't any), the city doesn't care about it (why it gets thermo-plastic paint bricks), and drivers don't care about it (why they travel 75 mph past it).

Everything Down

My Bangladeshi co-worker recently bought a house in Natomas with 20% down. 20% is now the norm, as it was fifteen years ago and in earlier times when we weren't drunk on easy credit.

It's interesting to hear him describe how, in Dhaka, 20% down wouldn't buy you any house, home, condo, townhouse, brownstone, dormitory, studio, shanty, mudhut, or even a brick shithouse...what you need is 100% down. Credit doesn't appreciably exist in Asia.

Suppose credit didn't exist here, or even suppose 50% down was the norm. This nation would fall apart. You mean, I have to save up cash beforehand to buy that Durango? Layaway? What, you think this is 1977? You mean I can't take 10% off my purchases today when I get that new department store credit card?

I deserve to have what I want now, and to defer payments. I should also be allowed to defer payments indefinitely (i.e., bankruptcy). Consumers have rights, you know. What do you think the latest "major overhaul" to the credit card industry is gonna do? Make it easier or harder for Merikans to have access to credit? Credit issuers were screaming when this passed, as they now have to stop the practice of universal default.

Many people today in America find ways to work with everything down, and more of us should be doing it. Interest payments are probably the #2 expense behind taxes. In 2005, $800 billion in home equity was pulled out to refinance existing debt and to keep spending. This year that figure has dropped $36 billion. This is borrowed money, folks, it ain't yours...technically you gotta pay it back.

Business Decisions

I've noticed a massive increase in the number of cars with expired registration.

I've always had an eye for the colored yearly tag on California license plates, and within seconds I can spot an expired car. I've seen a lot more than ever before these days, what with our "tough economic times."

These are your neighbors, perhaps even yourselves, who only pretend to have a registered car. No matter, you'll just fall in with the several hundred thousand other Californians who elect to get away with it because enforcement is minimal. When was the last time a CHP cruiser was right behind you? Seventeen months ago? And even then, don't you think you could have found a way to avoid detection (if you had expired tags?) You would find a way if you did.

I've seen many cars, many, driving with 2007 tags, and a few with 2006. It's almost 2009. No matter; they've been dodging it for so long now that the cost of registration is far in excess of the penalty. It's a business decision.

As there are several hundred thousand vehicles who's owners only pretend to have current registration, there are also over a thousand thousand vehicles who's owners only pretend to have insurance. No matter; they've been dodging it for so long now that the cost of insurance is far in excess of the penalty. It's a business decision.

I gotta think that the DMV is well aware of the falling quantity of registrations, but no matter; they've been understaffed for so long now that the cost of enforcement is far in excess of the potential recovered revenue. It's a business decision.

California Greenin'

Today, Schwarzenegger announced, with I-405 traffic in the background, that the I-405's 10-mile long carpool lane (aka high occupancy lanes) construction project has been delayed. The $730 million project, ( yeah, the one that will absorb Los Angelenos' latent use the second it opens), is delayed.

We never learn. We cannot, we will not, ever!, build our way out of congested freeways, until the day we realize the only way to do so is to reduce driving. I propose we throw just a few hundred thousand to a couple of paint trucks and convert two of the existing lanes into HOV lanes. Project done. Perhaps then, with a total crush of traffic squeezed into a few less lanes, Southern Californians will get out of their fucking cars.

Nonetheless, California, the greenest state in the union, assumes [incorrectly] that several billion more towards roads and bridges will help push us out of our wretched economy. That's because that's all our economy is based on...perpetual motoring. California is hoping, indeed begging, that freshly printed federal dollars will be pumped into this golden, green state to spur more freeway building. Obama to the rescue.

Mr. O is in an interesting position. How to you re-employ a few million more Merikans without pushing them towards "road and bridge" building? Truth is, he won't. We're gonna have a few hundred thousand more miles of pavement by the time he's out of office, with a few million more motor vehicles plying them, supporting farther flung suburban sprawl (i.e., construction jobs) with the corresponding increase in VMT. We will increase our alternative fueled cars from the existing 0.02% to 0.09% and declare we've won the battle against foreign oil and global warming.

Yep. Our "green" state of California won't immediately get the 405 expansion, the Lincoln highway bypass, or the fourth bore of the Caldecott tunnel. That is, we won't be able to shove several hundred thousand more motor vehicle commuters daily from Long Beach to Irvine, from Wheatland to Roseville, or from Walnut Creek to Alameda.

Pity.

The TARP Tithe

We are being made aware how charitable donations are down, coincident with greater need. This is never a good thing. I can't say I've ever really made great strides towards charitable donations. It isn't something I've been conditioned to do. One thing I've done for years, because I claim single zero on both Federal and State income tax witholding, is donate considerably to the charities listed on the state tax return, and also to endangered native animals. They need my money too. I fully admit to donating less than 10% of my income, yet I should do more.

As donations are down, so are tithes to the church. The church building boom has also gone bust. It's a minor overall point, but some churches have fallen into the economic abyss and have declared Chapter 11, attempting to wipe out all or a portion of their debts.

I find it interesting that someone who's all powerful, all perfect, all knowing, and all wise, somehow can't handle money...just like much of his flock. Churches pay no property taxes but enjoy the economic privilege to declare bankruptcy and/or foreclose. I'd bet the Evangelical Christian Credit Union has its collection plate out, asking for a TARP tithe, too. The money wouldn't be used, of course, to lend to other underwater churches; it'd be used to shore up the credit union's balance sheet and to write-down parishioner's losses.

The good news in all of this, if you can call it good, is that there is going to be an awful lot of empty Mervyn's stores, Linen N' Things stores, skating rinks, sporting goods outlets, failed supermarkets, bowling alleys, auto dealership showrooms and U-Stor-It warehouses ripe for ready conversion into churches. They won't need to build whole new buildings. All they'll need are small construction loans to renova...wait, scratch that.

Merikan Express

Earlier today, American Express, the credit card company, received three thousand three hundred and ninety million dollars in bailout money. The federal government went out of their way today to put us into that much more debt by shoveling money over to a company who's existence is predicated on millions of Merikans staying in debt. Apparently, debt servicing payments to American Express aren't enough to keep the company out of debt, so we further indebt the same indebted public to de-debt them.

People are foreclosing on their debts to American Express. All you have to do is listen to AM talk radio to figure out why. All the Hannity, Rush and Savage broadcasts are espousing "personal responsibility," no government intervention and free markets, while every commercial break has advertisements for debt consolidation and debt elimination programs. How to settle your debt for a fraction of what you owe...that is, how to fuck over everyone who ever lent you money. People are doing this in droves, American Express is losing, and now I the taxpayer am forced to their rescue.

American Express applied for and won commercial bank status last month to allow them access to TARP funds. Now they can run out into the financial shitstorm with a tarp overhead to keep them high and dry from the toxic rain pouring down on the industry, while I get wet holding up my corner of the tarp.

Why do we even need American Express? Would their loss be catastrophic to you? To me? Would we implode without that 8th credit card in our wallets? Consider that all this TARP money will not, not! be used by American Express to make lending easier to the hordes of plastic junkies in this great nation. Not used to reduce rates. Not used to lend to others. Nope, it'll be used to offset "heavier than expected" losses in credit markets they ventured recklessly expanded into during the Grand Boom of 2001-2006.

The Solstice

I've never been to Detroit, save for a connecting Northwest flight through Detroit Metro. I blog from two thousand miles away in Northern California, where today on the Winter Solstice I can ride my bicycle around town, to work, wherever. It's easy for me to criticize others for their perpetual driving habits because I don't have to worry about three inch thick black ice and where accidentally leaving a window open at night could result in death.

Because it's easy, I will continue to criticize. It's easy not only because I can claim environmental superiority, but also because the big three have done [nearly] everything they could to dig themselves into this hole, a black hole. It is indeed black; black because my family of three is going to be shelling out about $250 ($83 each) to support their cause to potentially get them out of the red. And Detroit will be happy:

That's $83 bucks per Merikan, if we float them twenty five thousand million more dollars we don't have. While the government remains busy employing Merikans in dollar bill making, Chrysler will be furloughing employees for the entire month of January.

I wonder...will their gates swing open come the first of February? With this injection of monopoly money and with a car czar or czarina overlooking their operations, will they develop a sustainable long term business plan? Can they, when government encourages price fluctuations in gasoline that creates Prius demand one day and Ram truck demand the next?



It's been said that Christmas falls about four or five days following the winter solstice, because ancient peoples needed a few days to verify the sun was indeed rising again. After watching it slowly fall for the last six months they celebrated the birth of the sun (the birth of the Son). Today, the sun continues to fall on Detroit, just a few degrees more each day, their nights are longer, their days shorter. Their sun isn't going to start rising tomorrow; it's sinking slowly towards the horizon, someday never to rise again.

Bonded By Blood

California Legislative Democrats pushed a bill earlier this week that:

1. Eliminated the state gas tax of $0.18 a gallon.
2. Raised taxes in the same amount, offsetting the lost gas tax, and
3. Created a new state gas "fee" of $0.39 a gallon.

This would have raised several billion dollars to close the gap on our state budget deficit.

The two "taxes" offset one another, preserving revenue neutrality, so they don't need a 2/3rds majority and can piss on the Republicans. Fees aren't taxes...so the Democrats, who don't have 2/3rds of the votes in the legislature but who do have more than 50%, sent this bill to Schwarzenegger.

Who promptly vetoed the bill.

It's really too bad because I would have liked to see higher gas taxes. Err...gas fees. Maybe they're gas surcharges. Perhaps gas assessments? Or gas tariffs? Call them what you will.

The Republican legislators won't raise taxes. They either bonded by blood or convened a circle jerk but they are steadfast in their opposition to raising taxes. And the Democrats are steadfast in finding shortcuts around them to raise taxes and/or not cut as much spending.

This is La Boisselle, 1916. A stagnate, ineffective legislature. They are failing in their most fundamental role; they are failing to govern. State workers may soon be sent to furlough...and this might only be the start of a total fiscal meltdown. EDD will be running a $2+ billion deficit by the end of '09 -- too many unemployment checks written and not enough unemployment insurance payments to cover them. And of course, we recently extended the number of weeks people are eligible, making the whole fucking problem worse.

We fail, we consistently, utterly, and hopelessly fail, to recognize that we want services but refuse to pay for them. We want home values to appreciate 20% per year but refuse to pay when they don't. We want our vehicular toys but refuse to pay for them today, and if we're asked to pay for them in the future, we refuse and declare bankruptcy. We want the cheapest shit we can buy from discounted big box retailers, wiping out whole local communities, while we refuse to pay Merkian wages to make them.

And we refuse to believe our drunk-on-credit, drunk-on-indebtedness could be the cause.

Forks, Knives, and Spoons

In a little more than 30 days we'll have a new EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, who'll slice the head off Stephen Johnson with a butter knife. All accounts suggest she will overturn six years of litigation, unwarranted delays, claiming-no-authority-to-regulate and dubious waiver denial decisions, and will overturn last years' California waiver denial.

First of all, I don't like guys named Stephen. That's like Steff-en. PH is not a V. So my bias is clear. Secondly, this man wasn't just in bed with the Bush administration, he was spooning Dubya.

The removal of any possible doubt of his politics occurred on Dec. 19, 2007, following two years, two! of delays in issuing a decision on California's waiver request for implementing tougher emissions standards for vehicles. He stalled and hemmed and hawed for two fucking years, only to announce his decision to deny the waiver on the same day -- within hours, in fact -- that less substantive federal legislation was signed into law, H.R. 6. Had that law not been signed (with near virtual bipartisian voting) Johnson would still be sitting on the waiver request.

At the time, there were 12 other states who signed to follow California. Today, even though we still don't have a federal waiver, there are 19 states signed on. These twenty states will likely have the ability to follow the California standards once Johnson is out on his ass thirty days from now and the next EPA reverses this asinine decision.

Well, that's my hope anyway.

What's of further interest to me is that in the text of the auto bailing bill, lies the requirement of a restructuring plan that:

• achieves and sustains the long term viability, international competitiveness, and energy efficiency of the three autos.

We will find a way to float money we don't have to these companies, watch. This nation will soon be spending another thirty thousand million dollars that we don't have to help the big three to implement this restructuring plan.

Now that we'll be a few more billion in the hole, the Republican leadership in Congress writes (here) that to force tougher emissions regulations on Detroit would "effectively bar the American auto manufacturers from competing in...America." To do so would stick a fork through our economic heart during this "most desperate hour."

So -- Don't force tougher emission standards, to which they can't comply, yet force a restructuring plan that considers energy efficiency, presumably because their 'failure to consider' is what led them to die on the vine in the first place.

Unbelievable. Only in My Merika.

Green Collars

I had mentioned the futility of going into debt to finance home energy improvement projects under deflation; it doesn't make much sense to do it if I can defer it, particularly if deflation impacts the price of energy.

It might be cheaper in the future to purchase goods and services. Future energy might be cheaper such that the goal of an energy improvement project (that is, saving money) is negated. And paying interest on debt is much more corrosive during a deflation.

But man! The nominal cost of borrowing money is so low! I could refinance my existing mortgage of $37,800 plus another $20,000 and take care of a great many things: AC, duct sealing, attic insulation, low-e windows, hot water recirc pumps, envelope sealing, water heater, and the nominal rate would likely be around 5%! Lower than my current 5.625%.

But...I will defer. Energy is now too cheap to save. If deflation continues it is better not to take on any more debt, and to focus on paying down existing debt. And as I hoard my dollars, the economy slows. The HVAC guys will have one less job to do. It's a fascinating dynamic.

I wrote all that to say this: if someone like myself, who proclaims to give a shit about energy consumption, won't ignore these deflationary costs, then who would? I consider my direct cost, to be sure, but within a basket of other considerations; non-renewable resource depletion, global warming, military adventures expenditures, air quality, etc. I am willing to consider a great many other hidden social benefits, and very few people would...so if I won't take the plunge to reduce my energy use, who would?

Remember, Obama wants 5 million green jobs. My home projects would employ green workers. He wants 5 million green jobs in a nation that employs 1.5 million jobs in the non-renewable energy sector -- when gas is a buck fifty, when there's a 16 year payback on solar panels, and when people like myself are not debt-financing improvements and not hiring green collar workers...is this possible?

Who Speaks For Tree?

Aside from numbered streets (like Fifth Ave.), the most popular street names are Oak, Pine, Maple, Cedar, and Elm. You know what this is leading to.

In Sacramento, (SACTOWN) there are numerous heritage trees -- both trees that existed before any development and planted trees. On SMUD property, we have two Quercus Lobata trees that might have been acorns three hundred years ago (or more). However, thousands of other heritage trees line many Sactown streets as they were planted several generations ago by 'developers' with a keen sense of the future.

Now even my little burg of Elk Grove has heritage trees...but only those in Elk Grove park (planted ~120 years ago) and any tree that stood before Elk Grove ever existed.

There will never be any more.

There won't be any more because Elk Grove planning guidelines outlaw development patterns conducive to heritage tree formation. There may well be towering canopy trees 50 years hence, but the questions are, will they be considered an integral part of Elk Grove? Will they help define communities? Would their loss result in the degradation of neighborhoods?

The answer is a resounding NO. Elk Grovian trees don't mean a thing to the occupants of this city, aside from those especially set aside in Elk Grove park, a park exclusively set away from the large format retail strip malls, high speed collector roads, and dozens of square miles of suburbanized shitbox sprawl that defines Elk Grove.

Find me one tree, planted in any 24/7 illuminated parking lot of any Best Buy, Target, or Petco that you think will one day rise to a condition that future Elk Grovians would want to preserve. Find me one. Truth is, you won't.

Find me one tree, planted on the margins or on the median of any four-lane collector roads such as Bruceville Rd., Elk Grove Blvd., or Elk Grove-Florin Rd., that you think will one day rise to a condition that future Elk Grovians would want to preserve. You won't.

Find me one tree, privately owned and planted in someone's yard, that you think might have intrinsic value to the Elk Grove public because of its size, historical association, or ecological value...sufficiently worthy to future Elk Grovians. You won't.

If they don't mean shit to us now, they will be worth less to us in the future.

The Consumer of No Resort

One thing to watch out for is how exporting countries will fare in our pleasant economic environment -- China, Venezuela, Mexico, Korea, Iraq, Taiwan (if you can call it a separate country), India, Japan... If the U.S. indeed is consuming less, then that affects imported cars from Germany, cheap Chinese household shit, computer components from Korea, oil from Mexico -- because the U.S. is the Consumer of Last Resort.

Without us to suck up all these manufactured goods to fill U-Stor-It rental warehouses and county landfills, these nations will either have to turn towards domestic consumption or face reductions in production.

Really...do you think the telephone headset assembly worker in Guangzhou will take in $80 shoes while the sole-stitcher at a shoe plant in Whenzhou takes in a new $63.99 cordless telephone? I don't see this happening when the hourly Chinese wage is, say, $3 bucks. So another option is to reduce production, and the obvious downsizing firings that will follow. The latter option is not comforting, but is a probable consequence of the failing of a U.S. consumer market that spent decades buying things it didn't need with money it didn't have.

My own personal consumption reduction program began in December of 2006. An epiphany in that month -- I sold off many of my own consumer trappings and have not once regretted the decision. Since then I've focused mightily on not following a hyper-consumptive lifestyle. My actions were consistent through 2008 and I did not increase my debt, so therefore I did not contribute to this U.S. financial 'crisis.'

I am a Consumer of No Resort.

Motoring IS Our Economy

I'm curious...if GM turns to bankruptcy, would GMAC go under? And if so, does that mean I can stop making my mortgage payments to GMAC? Would I/Should I be absolved of my debt? Just write it off?

Prolly 6 years ago now, I re-financed through Ditech...which I think is just a web front for GMAC mortgage. GM made more money in home mortgages (and the subsequent mortgage derivatives) than they ever did selling cars. Some of my earnings supported this endeavor, I suppose. But since then I've substantially paid off my debt and today I owe them $37,8oo. Interest payments are less than $185 a month now. Next year, for the first time in fifteen years, I don't expect to itemize.

If I were a typical Elk Grovian like my next door neighbors, in 2005 I would have never bothered with paying down my mortgage, and would have spent in excess of $37,800 to purchase a new family rig. A Tahoe. A Yukon. A Highlander. I find it surreal that a vehicle would cost that much, but now I find it more surreal that my mortgage is less than what an average suburban rig would cost.

The vast majority of all these owners are still paying on them...and they will still be paying on them through 2011. The end result, of course, is that GM made a fucking killing on the initial sale of each SUV and then in the financing of the vast majority of them...and even though people are still paying on them today, that's obviously not enough to keep them afloat.

I particularly love the argument we're now hearing that "we can't allow them to fail in this tough economic enviroment." This is total horseshit, because that's the argument we would have heard in any economic environment. Good or bad.

To validate everything I've ever wrote about how our economy is wholly based on the development of suburbanized sprawl and the building of motor vehicles necessary to live in and service it, comes doomerish projections that to allow any of these three to fail would precipitate a collapse in parts supply manufacturers, in thousands of dealerships, in the complete drying up of local tax revenues upon which local services are wholly dependent on the sales taxes of said vehicles.

CARB

The CARB (California Air Resources Board) website is down right now, but the internet chatter confirms that CARB today approved the most sweeping regulation on diesel truck particulate and NOx emissions in state history...and will prove to be the most expensive regulation as well. I'm thrilled.

The line from the American Truckers Association is that this is going to bankrupt many truckers. Well...good. Those that do make it through the regulations (read: most of them) will come through with cleaner trucks. As they all have to retrofit, all will stand to pass on these costs. If several go bankrupt, well, that's the price to pay for better air. I've got not one shred of sympathy.

I saw almost a dozen cars today with expired tags and the DMV "12" on the window. Most of these cars failed emissions tests. It costs to prevent emissions. Period. It always has. If these cars can't pass SMOG then they are [eventually] removed from the road...and the drivers be damned. We wouldn't exempt a driver of a gross polluter just because he's bankrupt, would we?

This is a bullshit argument and they know it...but they need to tow the line. The whole bankrupt thing. Detroit said the same thing about catalytic converters; the single most effective piece of emissions control equipment ever, and when introduced it was going to bankrupt Detroit. It didn't happen, and today they're perfectly capable of bankrupting themselves with or without catalytic converters.

The next argument, we're going to hear over and over and over in the coming months and years from every sector -- "given the dire state of the economy, we should not be expected to comply at this time."

Civic Lessons

I started my blog to broadcast how to self-install a PV solar system, and it morphed into little more than delusional rants about energy and our living environments. The two are wholly linked, however. I live squarely in suburbia and despise it...and it took over a decade to develop a set of coherent thoughts on exactly why I despise it. I knew the day I moved to Elk Grove I'd be just another motorized, blinkered consumer...and I did it anyway.

Truthfully...I didn't have much choice.

I spent most of today in the Sacramento county court building. I received a jury summons, and in the span of less than 5 minutes this afternoon I went from being a remote prospective juror to landing the juror #5 spot. I am actually totally thrilled that I was selected, having never done this before. I have a distinct memory of my dad describing to me, many years ago, the first time he had to do this and how he relished the experience. I will be doing my civic duty starting next week.


At lunch, I walked about two miles to the Blue Diamond almond factory store. Lunch was a homemade cabbage salad before hoofing it to the store and a half a can of almonds on my walk back. On my lunch break, breaking from my civic duty, I walked through the civic fabric of two distinct neighborhoods that were made for walking.


There were several dozen Japanese Zelcova, Dutch Elm, London Plane, and Tulip trees formally planted four generations ago along the roadside that provided both a physical barrier between me and traffic and a canopy to 'contain' the neighborhood. These were fantastic trees and without them the neighborhoods would have felt entirely barren. I passed corner stores that weren't slumified, several streetfronts with two or three story buildings (lofts, condos, what have you), and street-level businesses mixed in here and there. For someone willing to walk, as I did today, virtually all of my daily living needs could be addressed within a half hour's distance, as well as access to two light rail tracks. There were other people outside walking as well. A neighborhood with a steady volume of people engaging in human interactions, however minimal they might seem, is vibrant and safe.

I said I didn't have much choice but to live in suburbia. This is because the neighborhoods I walked through today are only available to the wealthy. The homes are outrageously expensive precisely because they are in neighborhoods scaled to Homo Sapiens, not General Motors. That they are located in the city core is really incidental; people find value in such arrangements everywhere, but which haven't been built since World War II. Elk Grove could have done the same thing -- build a vibrant city core that's connected to Sacramento but distinct and separate, a complete community. But they didn't.


Instead, Elk Grove chose the route towards inevitable suburbanized slumification. Think of all the earlier generations of failed suburban Sacramento experiments: Del Paso Heights, Valley Hi, Rosemont, Colonial Heights, Orangevale, Rancho Cordova; this is what Elk Grove will become, just another place people won't care about.

They won't care about it because Elk Grove is a place not worth caring about. Homes are somewhat kept up for now, but after a few more years, without corner stores, without formally planted trees, without the feel of it being a human enterprise, it will drift into non-owner occupation. Rentals. Dead cars in driveways. Dead cars in garages. Dead cars in backyards. Absolutely no interaction between humans in one private dwelling with humans in adjacent private dwellings. Unpruned trees. Speeding thru commuters. Recalcitrant teenagers. Latchkeyed adolescents.

Styrofoam

The bailing of the big three looks to be eminent.

I read the other day how many homeowners who have been 'rescued' -- that is, they found a way to renegotiate their deals, etc. -- end up defaulting anyway. Even though these jokers hapless victims staved off massive rate adjustments, many now are losing their jobs...so the end result is the same. Default.

Now as the gov'ment is set to throw borrowed cash at Detroit, it's at least plausible that they will still default farther down the road. Restructuring or not, if they can't sell cars to people who can't buy them because they're either in debt from neck to nuts or they're out of work... the end result is the same. Default.

Two things about this bailing really, really pisses this Monologueonian off -- 1) by March 31, the big three are supposed to "submit detailed plans for profitability producing fuel efficient vehicles that can succeed in the marketplace." and 2) dropped out of the bill was a provision that would have barred Detroit from pursuing lawsuits from states trying to implement tougher emissions requirements.


Detailed plans. Tell me how, exactly, how! will fuel efficient vehicles be profitable in a nation of moronic NASCAR idol worshippers when gasoline is a buck a gallon? Without a coherent NATIONAL ENERGY POLICY that sets a floor on oil prices or otherwise encourages conservation, why the fuck would anyone want to buy a fuel efficient Detroit.hybrid at a premium when they can get a Dodge SRT-10 truck that shits and gits? For that matter, why would anyone buy a Prius at a premium when a gas-only Camry accelerates faster?

Funneling borrowed money past the event horizon of this fiscal black hole is one thing, but that a portion of our tax dollars will be used to finance automotive lawyers' pursuits to keep state emissions requirements (read:fuel efficiencies) lower is unbelievable. Totally unbelievable. The detailed plans that they will submit, I'll bet you, would then be pinned upon "favorable judgements regarding state emissions litigation."


Therefore, I am hoping to see a large chunk of this nation's future wealth squandered in a bill that's the equivalent of drilling another hole in the boat to let the water out. I don't see this as a bailout, it's just bailing with a Styrofoam cup. I'm hoping the boat sinks with our money in the bilge. Then perhaps we'll learn not to loan out Styrofoam cups to any more sinking ships.

Twelve Grand

I admittedly had some harsh comments regarding the hordes of Christians who drive their precious Land Rovers and Mercedes to drop off their kids at Christian Bros. High School. These are the people I commute alongside on my little bicycle on MLK Jr. Blvd. in the morning.

I don't usually cast 'success' in a negative light. But when you're driving a $45k+ rig through Oak Park well in excess of the speed limit with complete disregard to the less-financially-abled local bicyclists and pedestrians, to drop off your children at a school located in a community you wouldn't be caught dead in at any other time other than child-drop-off-time, then I've got a problem with that.

I recently learned that Christian Bros. is suffering from the same economic quagmire that the rest of this great nation is suffering from. Lower enrollment quotas...primarily due to the $12,000 annual tuition fees.

Damn! Twelve grand! On top of the property taxes they pay to support public education, they also intentionally yield this expense to send their child to a private school. Now I understand why I see all these expensive motor vehicles driving through the most economically depressed section of the city; they have to make bank to fund this enterprise.

The wealthy, Christian or otherwise, never allow themselves to be put into a position to have to say they're sorry, and they make every effort to ensure you know they are successful, to show that they 'have arrived'. And what better way to demonstrate this than to drive a vehicle with wanton disregard through a neighborhood worth more than two times the annual gross income of any of its inhabitants?

It's surreal to see this, it really is. But it isn't anything I wouldn't come to expect from my Merika. We are fond of flaunting our excesses. I infer from my observations that this is what Jesus would do, too.

Ruminations

I made note of how all three level of governments that represent me are hemorrhaging -- bleeding red ink. I am a doomer for sure, but I no doubt remain optimistic regarding our ability to avoid complete societal meltdown. The truth is, I have to...because although I claim my job at SMUD is bomb-proof, no job would be.

I personally think this nation of over-consumptive over-entitled clowns is wholly ill prepared, wholly, to manage any level of scarcity. Any level. That's why I'm considering a rational pre-emptive hoarding program so I'm better prepared. That's all. Nothing wrong with that.

Here's a nuclear scenario: the state of California's bipolar legislature utterly fails to compromise and allows the state to run fiscally dry within a few months. The state happens to be SMUD's largest single customer, and I cannot envision any possible condition where we pull meters due to non-payment. No...we'll do that for any of you chumps who are 90-days late, but there's no way we'd have the balls to do that to the gov'na. Instead, we'd take it in the shorts and immediately suspend every capital project on our books.

SMUD could be forced to provide power without payment indefinitely methinks. While we expect consumers to pay for power, we absolutely could not live with a scenario where we didn't make it available. This could mean immediate, brutal layoffs firings and we'd maintain the barest of crews necessary to keep some degree of power flowing. As a 3-year employee, lower than all other protection engineers on the totem, the felling axe would find my neck first.

For any sustained depression, I think I'm most certainly safe for the reasons outlined in my previous post. But I think it prudent, really, to consider the catastrophic. Hell, my role as blogger and social critic is to ruminate on things that everyone else is indisposed to dwell on. Look -- we've got every one of these fucking clowns in charge, every one, who failed to see this economic shitstorm on the horizon. Isn't it at least plausible they might find a way to completely fucker everything up?

The Unretired

My coworker Hagen, at or near retirement age with his home long paid off and with sufficient time served at a few employers to guarantee a pension, will not retire.

His funeral and his retirement party will fall on the same day. But his is a matter of choice, not circumstance, because he loves his job.

That's how I feel about my job, it is so interesting and fun that they almost don't have to pay me to do it. A consequence of this might be that I continue to work beyond what I would have to, which is something I would have never had said, never! two years ago.

Contrast this with the hordes of baby boomers now donning new attire at Lowes, Home Depot, Wal-Mart (or substitute any big box store name you can think of). Retirement for them will be deferred until the situation improves. For now, they are the Unretired.

Long hoping to extract home value in the form of reverse mortgages or selling high and moving low, these sources of 'income' have been wiped out. Straddled with debt if they did the cash-out re-fi for that new Buick and other consumer Jonesing, or straddled with no income because they counted on using their housal unit as a retirement ATM, the Unretired will shortly appear in droves, looking for any work, menial or otherwise, they can find.

And it likely won't be work they'll enjoy nor feel very secure about keeping. Not a good position to be in if TSHTF.

As the doomer, I have positioned myself in a bomb-proof soceitally required job that I love, with a willingness and ability to work for less, (much less), than I make now if it meant keeping a job. I carry sufficient cash and commodity reserves to survive (however unpleasantly) for 60 months if I did lose my job without having to tap into any retirement accounts or home equity. I carry very little debt, and could eliminate it completely with a modest 401(k) withdrawal. I'm not Mormon...but I am wondering...does it make any sense to stockpile food?

The action of stockpiling food would immediately take me from being just a frugal, economically resourceful fellow to a paranoid, maniacal, fringe survivalist, wouldn't it? I mean, who does that sorta shit in this day and age? No one I know.

The thing is, we live in a just-in-time society. Inventory doesn't exist. If our economy suddenly devolves into a CAT V storm, I'd be out there wrestling with every other Elk Grovian for basic essentials, and I am not one for that.

So...how about having just a few months supply of propane and non-perishable food on hand? Is this lunacy? I already have made accommodations for a long supply of insulin, something that if lacking in any calamity for a sustained period would cost my life.

Should I?

Sofa King

I have long considered energy efficiency improvements to my bat cave -- I need to re-insulate the attic, replace my 10 SEER AC unit, upgrade my water heater, and install a hot water recirculation pump to the kitchen sink. But with energy prices in the dirt, why should I?

Gasoline is less than two bucks. That means I'm gonna drive the Chevy truck a few thousand miles more this winter to duck hunt. With natural gas less than $8 per mmbtu, I'll forgo the cost of weatherstripping and its burdensome installation and just turn up the furnace a few more degrees. And I'm gonna open a window or two to exchange the air more frequently. It's healthier that way.

And as natural gas is cheap, so is Californian electricity. This coming summer, I'll be running my 4kW AC load till I'm chilled to the core, because it'll be too cheap to concern myself with it. I will be consuming the cheap energy that would have been much more expensive had those few million 'others' not been laid off in this recession. They're not my problem.

Because my water isn't yet metered, and as water is so damn cheap anyway, I will continue to waste several thousand gallons per year waiting for the kitchen sink hot water to flow instead of installing a recirc pump to save it.

I will hoard my cash and only buy these things in the remote future when either they finally break or when energy becomes too expensive to blow off. I am not an economic idiot, which is why I'm such a strong proponent of a price floor on energy. With prices Sofa King low, there is no reason, no reason!, that I should spend several thousand dollars in efficiency upgrades at this point. My stuff works, it isn't broken, so on an economic basis, I will defer efficiency.

Unicycle

I reported here how much the new, unlikely RT light rail extension to Elk Grove is going to cost. I say unlikely, because RT fails to respond to any of my e-mails and provides absolutely no revised information on the RT website. This project is as good as dead, in my opinion.

Today their lack of communication might be a function of these "tough economic times," but they've failed to communicate this project's status now for over two full years. Two years ago all things were bright and beautiful, no? OK, maybe two wars were going on...but who in Elk Grove gave a damn about them? No one. Which credit card to use to finance that new Blackberry was foremost on their minds.

Without any hope for light rail to the outlying southern hinterlands, and with no respectable jobs in said outlying southern hinterlands, Elk Grovians will be forced into their vehicles for at least the next two decades. I use 'forced' lightly, only because they all knew when they moved in that public transportation wasn't a viable option and besides, what better way to express your individuality than through private vehicle ownership? If you're frugal, a Ford sedan. If you're a pretentious prick, a BMW. Gay, a Subaru Tribeca. An alpha male jerkoff, a Chevy Blazer. On a public bus, however, you're just another fucking chump.

If and when this fabled Phase II extension from the Meadowview station to Cosumnes college is ever built (at the low cost of only one thousand dollars per inch), I will have a light rail station 2.06 miles from my door...the Franklin Station!

2.06 miles is a long-ass way to be hoofing it, however. I would do it once or twice, just to say I've done it. For 99.996% of our population, walking is out of the question. Walk 2 miles? Ha! You can't even get overweight Elk Grovians to walk two hundred feet between their cars and the entrance to Target. Walking is out of the question.

But biking two miles is almost as pointless, as I'd have the pleasure of manhandling my bike four times on and off the two trains to get to work. So I was thinking...unicycle.

I mentioned this idea to more than a few people recently. On paper is sounds plausible. But nearly everyone told me that I'd be debasing myself, as only miscreants, chowderheads, dolts and meatheads ride them. Is this accurate?

Everything I've ever seen and known about unicyclists support this statement. They are only ever associated with ballons, clowns, juggling balls and costume. I could see myself as the only Elk Grovian who commutes (in part) by unicycle, as someone who rides one on a utilitarian basis. To get to work.

Imagine riding one to get to work! That alone would have me blogging for several years...up and down Franklin Blvd., four miles a day on one wheel. Today my bike and my observations fuel this blog; imagine what one wheel might add!

I have a picture of me on my cousin's unicycle here on my street corner, holding onto my street lightpost. It is as hard as it looks. It's gonna take me forever to ride one of these damn things.

Six Thousand To One

The NBC evening news last night reported that the "typical American carries ~$16,000 in non-mortgage debt...a record amount."

Although I don't doubt that we're mortgaged up to our eyeballs, this figure is suspicious because they've earlier reported household debt levels. This might be a household number instead...but either way...it's a big number.

It was also reported that the average household carries $8,800 in credit card debt. So non-credit card debt is the difference, or $7,200.

Nonetheless, the critical point I want to make is this: that $7,200 figure represents permanent, systemic debt -- debt that can never and will never be paid down. If everyone everywhere paid off every dime of credit card debt the debt floor would remain at $7,200.

Why?

Because each American requires motorized perpetual transport, required because our suburban living arrangements force private individual automobiling, and everyone only puts the minimum down and finances the rest. I'll bet 99% of that $7,200 is wrapped up in motor vehicle loans...cars, SUVs, fishing boats, ATVs, dirt bikes, trucks, scooters, motorcycles, airboats, private jets, helicopters, ultralights and mopeds.

A lady in Pennsylvania was interviewed in the news segment and said that to pay off their debt, their family will have to go without "eating out, fancy coffees, books from the bookstores, and toys for the kids." And the obvious glaring omission from her list? Their fucking cars! and all the 'required' shit that goes with them -- Tom Tom Go in-car navigation systems, Lowjack, car alarms, smog fees, car stereos, tire shine, rear window tinting, maintenance bills, oil filters, seat covers, wiper blades, trailer hitches, accident deductibles, carpeted dashboards, bedliners, air fresheners, spare lamp bulbs, Blueteeth, insurance payments and registration fees.

The news segment panned across her beautiful new vinyl-clad, poorly-proportioned, two-story, raised-ranch shitbox, and sitting in the driveway is what looked to be about a $24,000 minivan. Odds on this being the only vehicle in the family? 6,000:1.

Americans can never dig themselves out of this systemic automotive debt. If they happen to pay their auto loans off, they'll be forced into another set of loans a few years later. This is the equivalent of paying interest only on a $7,200 loan forever...just another sunk cost to maintain our auto-centric lifestyles.

Event Horizon

Mired in debt, I wonder if the City of Sacramento will go through with their plans to renovate the north end of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. this spring.

Along with Franklin Blvd., MLK is the other north-south street I bicycle along to get to work...along with a few thousand other Elk Grovian thru-commuters. Its 'renovation' is deemed a public works project.

It is indeed the public realm. But of course I take issue with 'roads and bridges' as the only assumed public realm we have, and also that somehow they're going to be our savior from this approaching CAT V economic shitstorm. Listen carefully through all this bailout horseshit and you'll hear that we're going to put all these hundreds of thousands of out-of-work Merikans back to work repairing our crumbling roads.

First of all, couple several million fewer vehicles produced each year with a significant decline in VMT, and these 'public works' projects will be utilized even less than now. But no matter -- we'll blindly continue roadbuilding in the face of oil depletion, global warming, public realm degradation, fewer miles traveled, etc...because it feels good. Same with the Sacramento airport expansion, another multi-billion public works project for an industry that can't survive looming $70+ oil and whose customers are increasingly choosing Top Ramen at home instead of lobster at the Vegas Bellagio.

The event horizon of California's black hole of debt was only expanded when voters agreed in 2006 to float $20 billion in bonds to 'ease' congestion with proposition 1B. More delusional thinking, folks. You can never, never! build more lanes to ease congestion. It has never worked and it never will work. Building more lanes only leads to more lanes of congestion. You know what will ease congestion? Less driving! Living patterns that aren't wholly dependent on motoring! How about those? Huh?

My disparate, random postings on energy, economic debt, and our suburban shitscapes all have a common thread -- we mortgaged everything we had and most everything we ever will have into building housal units, destined for slumification in unsustainable suburban living arrangements, accessible only by perpetually motoring vehicles powered by declining energy resources, stuffed to the rafters with cheap foreign manufactured shit that was never needed and paid for with money that never existed.

Cash Is King

We are in a recession! Wa-hey!

This arbitrary and capricious determination of our economic state was announced yesterday...and apparently we've been in one now since December of ought seven. I no longer have to use quotations around 'recession' anymore.

Of course, all I had to do was ride my bike along MLJ Jr. Blvd. and 47th Ave. here in SACTOWN to see the obvious recession. Day workers congregate at this intersection looking for both unskilled and trade work -- ditch digging, couch moving, plumbing, lathing, etc. When there used to be a few hundred every morning, now their numbers have been reduced to a handful of souls still hoping to land any job.

The recession is one thing, a supposed period of negative GDP...and its effects on employment. Being employed, however, I'm much more interested in the deflationary boom we've been in for the past few months. After a prolonged drunk-on-credit fiesta we're waking up to a punishingly painful hangover, and with credit drying up, we're seeing a massive flight away from everything -- cars, gold, boats, equities, housal units, oil, copper...everyone is selling everything not nailed down to grab cash, or extending their tin cups for bailout cash...because, for the moment, Cash is King. Deflation is negative inflation...dollars in the future are worth more than they are today...nevermind that there might be fewer dollars.

When there is more debt to pay than assets to pay it, the pie is shrinking and the last person hoarding the cash is the only winner. A few winners, and a whole lot of losers...just like every other group of humans you can think of...a few winners and a whole lot of losers.

Look at the interest rates on any treasury bill...almost zero! People aren't worrying about garnering any future interest...they just want their cash equivalents to hold value, unlike everything else that's crashed and burned by 50-60-70%. W.C. Fields once remarked, presumably when sober, that he didn't care for a return on his capital. He only wanted a return of his capital.

The most important thing you can do in an extended deflationary period is unload your debt. Will this be a prolonged phenomena? Who knows.

Say you bagged a 3% rate (yeah, right) on your new 72-month payment plan on that new GMC Sierra. Your real interest rate is the nominal rate (3%) minus inflation, which is now negative. Your real rate is higher. It might be a lot higher.

I suppose I was an idiot an idiot! for spending the last 12-odd years paying down my mortgage. It made less sense during inflationary times, for sure. But if we assume a prolonged period of deflation (and why not, after 15 years of expanding credit) not carrying debt is virtuous.

Local Dollars

I'm going to suggest we all spend, (if we spend,) buying local merchandise and services this holiday season, bypassing all the large format retailers.

Instincts tell me that a larger percentage of your money is recycled back into your community when you utilize local retailers. It is something I always perceived to be correct. Today I took the time to research this opinion and found several published studies, the foremost being the Andersonville study that confirmed my instincts.

Apparently, for every $100 used at a locally owned shop $68 will remain in the community compared to $43 if you use a chain. I can see why -- a local sandwich shop will buy its sourdough from a local baker, unlike Subway, which relies on its vast network of perpetually motoring tractor-trailers to deliver a precisely uniform remotely baked product to each of its franchises.

Yes -- there are economies of scale that favor Subway...but you're only gonna get what the suits in Milford, CT say you're gonna get, based on their R&D CLT (Central Location Test) studies at formal taste events. A local shop has a greater ability to cater to their customer's wants. What price do you put on that?

Additionally, the local baker is employed and his dollars are cycled right back into the economy. Local businesses keep neighborhoods vibrant and unique, and they are fundamentally tied into the future of their community. Subway doesn't give a damn about your local community -- aside from it meeting their demographic criteria and you meeting your franchise sales quotas. Now...perhaps I'm too harsh, and quite likely I don't have all the facts straight about what Subway does contribute to the local economy. But I can be absolutely assured that every Milford executive has no clue how unit #22,303 operates in Elk Grove, and what they might be doing to support the Thundering Herd.

I would like to know, when I buy a $5.99 footlong wheat veggie, how much of that six dollars is funneled to Connecticut to support all the Invoice Auditors, Market Report Administrators, DAI Invoicing Assistants, Paralegals, Customer Care Representatives, Field Consultants, Tax Accountants, and Packaging Technologists needed to keep the franchise axles greased. All I want is a fucking sandwich.

Adopt A Highway

While biking around Nimbus Lake last week in Folsom, I noticed that the American River Parkway has put up little signs where you can adopt a section of the trail. There's a little space for individual financial sponsors, and a space for corporate logos.

This is horseshit. We've clearly failed to spend our tax dollars, wisely enough, that is, to maintain the parkway without having to resort to corporate advertising to foot a portion of the maintenance bill.

The public realm, which is continually being chipped away by private enterprise, is the first thing on the chopping block when local or state governments fiscally run short. The American River Parkway is the most accessible, most significant public realm we have in Sacramento...and there really aren't a whole hell of a lot of maintenance costs associated with it. Sure, there are asphalt trails that require regular work, but there aren't guardrails that continue to get smashed, Oleander bushes that need constant trimming and spraying, resurfacing due to overweight 7-axle tractor trailers, new overpasses, on-ramps and off-ramps to support ever distant, far-flung subdivisions, CHP overtime pay to cover floating holidays...

We don't hesitate to throw billions into the 'public realm' of the California highway system but can't pony up a few hundred thousand or so to throw at the few real civic places we have left. No...corporate advertising is forced upon us even on the bike trail. Honestly, I really wouldn't expect anything less from my Merika.

I doubt that outside the U.S. a corporation could adopt a carriageway, freeway, or Autobahn like U.S. companies can adopt a highway. This is galactically stupid...adopting a highway, and this one is particularly galling:

The Cracker Barrel touts itself as an Old Country Store. The problem is, we're running out of country because we're paving over every damn acre we have left to make room for more highways. What's the message here? A lady leaves her city and drives seventeen miles on a six-lane thruway to get to what remains of the country, only to find her Cracker Barrel subjected to the same damn building code ordinances that plague the urban city she just left. She arrives at her "old country store," (as all old stores are), surrounded by a quarter acre moat of illuminated asphalt parking spaces with never more than 35% of them occupied. She doesn't dare walk...although there are several dozen empty parking spaces available, she circles her motor vehicle and waits for a spot nearer the entrance:


This is Adopt A Highway. Corporate sponsorship of litter removal for a section of highway. She climbs back into her car with a fat belly from the restaurant and a twine-handled bag of country trinkets from the store. She gets back on the thruway and as she's driving she reaches over to get a head start on removing the plastic wrapping and price tags on the shit she just bought...she passes the Cracker Barrel adopt a highway sign and throws the plastic wrap out the window. Two weeks later, maintenance workers, now subsidized by the Barrel, remove her roadside trash.