Crisis and Complacency

This is a very interesting lull we're in. Markets are flat, housing starts are flat, gas prices are flat -- all of which came crashing down from all time highs recently. We are complacently awaiting the next crisis.

I blabber on that as oil again goes on the cheap, we'll lose our collective ability to see very far down the road. In 2003 gas was uber-cheap and Detroit couldn't produce large vehicles fast enough. There was zero discussion regarding drill, baby, drill. Five years later, for a brief moment, we all thought we could only afford scooters and hybrids to keep our perpetual motoring dreams alive. My guess -- we're going to see a fresh resurgence in the volume of big vehicles on the road again, because the used car lots are stuffed with such inventory and credit to those least likely to pay it back will soon be available again. They will overextend themselves to get the 'steal' of '09-- the used '06 Yukon that had been defaulted on by its previous 'owner.'

On Franklin Blvd., I've noticed a substantial reduction in the really big bling. There aren't nearly as many $48k Escalades and Hummers with $5k rims and $6k sound/DVD systems as there were even two years back. It's no coincidence that I see fewer of them at the same time we see the failure of cheap credit, telling me that these machines were never owned by their drivers.

This fresh SUV resurgence will soon again put upward pressure on global oil production, again raising both price and alarms. Merika can only live in two states it seems; crisis and complacency. For a very brief moment here we are living in a complacent lull, waiting for the smoldering remnants of the last crisis to ash over and the tsunami of the next crisis to wash over. As we wait, we do nothing to prevent/prepare ourselves for the next [inevitable] crisis, even though we can see each of them coming a hundred miles down the road. Ecological unsustainability? The end of cheap oil? Aging population/aging infrastructure? 27% annual health care premium increases? Eviscerated manufacturing? Failure of Medicare & Social Security?