Debtquity

And I thought I was a doomer.

I drove my Indian co-worker up to Loon Lake powerhouse the other day, among 14-feet of snow on the first brilliantly clear day in weeks. The conversation, however, was quite dark.

We've differing perspectives on things, having spent the first 35 years of our lives 13,000 miles apart. He is much, much more socially conservative than I, but we share in interest in fiscal conservatism. I think it is this facet that has turned him to the dark side -- he's effectively bankrupt. He got caught up in the bubble/boom as did a few other million consumers Americans and now owes much more on two Elk Grovian housal units than they are worth. He didn't just stop at one; no, he decided that the two of them needed 3,000 square feet instead of that ridiculously cramped 2,300 unit, and "purchased" it two years ago. Today even that unit maintains a fair degree of debtquity, having also fallen in value since 2009.

Nonetheless, I was taken aback at how the world is going to fall apart over the next ten years, in a completely different way that I had envisioned, according to him.

I enjoy opposing viewpoints; not that I'm very good debating them, but man, this conversation led me to wonder how, exactly, is this blog viewed from the outside...I like to believe that I'm not really that far out in left field, more like shortstop. But I do know I take a position that doesn't fall within general consensus. Maybe because it doesn't feel good to read.

He's lost most of his wealth since immigrating, and most certainly that contributed to his jaded outlook. Perhaps that was the basis for such a position; he does so because he fuckered away ten years' output on bad investments. I wonder, then, how is it that I maintain a fairly similar prediction for this nation without having had such an experience.

My Garden Of Eden

Harvest time is near.

I took a few horticulture classes at the local Cosumnes college about fifteen years ago, trying to extend my interest in learning after I graduated.

I was terrible at it.

I did learn that I'd starve within weeks if I had to coax food out of the ground, so in some respects it was a valuable education. I realize how totally dependent I am on others who have carried on the culture of growing food, and I suppose this isn't a good thing for someone who thinks we're going to enter a long period of austerity in this nation, what with double digit health care increases and triple digit deficits. Nonetheless, I am able to grow weeds pretty well. Harvest time is indeed near.

With that in mind, I was thinking today about how our American culture chooses to invalidate nature. Why do we have these double digit health care increases? I'd argue in part due to our failures to see value in plants. We eat fewer and fewer of them as they come straight out of the earth, the tree, the bush or the vine. Wheat and sugar beets are taken by diesel machines and processed into Pop Tarts and sprayed with just the essence of strawberries. The strawberry is no longer the source of provision for most of us; the Pop Tart is.

Marijuana is a plant that can (or could) provide, too. I find the paradox interesting, how a conservative Republican can choose to declare war on a plant yet will swill several vodkas on the rocks each night -- and will make the rocks pills.

I've oft mentioned how I do not fear getting run down on my bicycle by a stoned driver but obviously worry about someone laden with prescription drugs or/and alcohol. In all cases, impaired driving is illegal, but it's a plant that gets outlawed outright. Interesting.

Interesting, indeed...but not without precedent. We have a long and glorious history of suppressing plants. The religious right ought to know all about this: not only do they enjoy taxation to suppress the possession of a dried flower, they know that Eve was busted out of the garden trying to extract knowledge from a plant. Were it not for plants (and talking snakes), there'd be no original sin.

Today we look to Big Pharma to provide the same knowledge an apple from a tree of knowledge may have provided....er, rather, to provide ignorance -- we want to ignore our high blood pressures, ignore our low blood sugars, ignore our pain. Pharma does this, and does this well, but with a steep price. Steep, both in dollars and in overall health. If Eve could just have been allowed to finish that apple...

If we could reconnect our health care system to a good plant-based diet, nutrition, and fitness, we'd perhaps not have to worry about it absorbing 16% of our GDP as it barrels towards 30%. I'd also argue that emotional well being and community would go a long way towards that as well...both of which are advanced through the use of plants. If we chose not to subdue them, as we have been told to do in Genesis, we might have an out.

But the odds of that happening are zero. Along with hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles at a million+ a pop, we're well on our way towards insolvency, financially and socially. I shall hope that I learn from my little garden of eden, where I can go to reflect on nature, my garden a place where I might find wisdom. I sure as shit won't find inside a box of Pop Tarts.

Disposable Razors, Disposable Income

I use Sensor razor blades and they're expensive. I noticed some time ago that the blades I use at work (following my bicycle commute) stay sharper longer than those I use at home, but I just accepted it for some reason.

I recently decided to investigate this phenomenon and discovered that blades will last much longer if you simply dry them off afterwards. The blades at home are in the shower and subjected to continuous moisture while those in my bike pannier get dried off, consistent with this dry-it-off theory. I now dry the blade off as best I can at home. I use a razor blade as an analogy with all my consumption. I have more than enough disposable income -- I could easily just buy more disposable razors with that disposable income. But I don't. Indeed, I'm willing to take efforts to extent the life on a razor simply to save a buck or two each year.

Yet, I counter these savings by throwing every penny I get in change into the garbage. I'll extent the life of a razor but I don't want pennies in the cruising kitty. I probably throw out 650 to 700 pennies a year, 'cause I hate 'em -- you can't buy a newspaper or a candy bar with them and you can't pay your Bay Bridge toll with them. They cost the government more than a cent to produce. They are inherently worthless because of that; this is the real reason I toss 'em. I earn 10,000,000 of them each year, so this represents a loss of about 0.007%.

My hope is that in forty seven million years, when the next generation of curious mammals decide to chip away at shale formations created by several thousand years of human waste looking for fossils, they'll no doubt think that historic man was a small, half-inch, single-eyed, bearded, bodiless creature. But getting back to the present, when a clerk decides to offer me a quarter instead of the $0.23 cents I'm due, when I see she also realizes the idiocy of pennies, I throw that quarter into her tip jar. Otherwise, the three pennies will find their way down the storm drain.

Today I smashed aluminum cans and carted off the plastics into a garbage bag. I save a few cents a day by doing this. I have enough disposable income -- I could just as easily dispose of them and get on with the NASCAR race. But no, I take the time to do this. I believe that these small acts, like maintaining my 16-year old lawn mower or reusing a bolt -- when aggregated, demonstrate a belief system in the slow, gradual accumulation of wealth through frugality, mindfulness, and thriftiness.

Mr. Fusion

Ask yourself -- how is it that the only country in the world that was on the receiving end of two intentional nuclear detonations would today derive a third of its electric energy from nuclear? Probably because Japan knows how utterly screwed they are without it, what with their feeble global energy allotment. Just like South Korea that imports 98% of their energy, nuclear is an increasingly growing segment of electric production in those two nations.

Japan's electric demand approaches 170,000 megawatts, or 170 gigawatts. To provide scale, California, last I recall, was ~60,000 MW. California derives 20% of its total electric energy from nuclear. It is wholly relevant to the discussion -- without it, this blog wouldn't exist...at least not in its present form. Without nuclear today, we'd never be able to power our iPhones or our high-definition colorized television sets to the extent we do. Sorry, but if we want these things we need to power them.

I mentioned this earlier, but the moment even the most stalwart anti-nuclear, anti-coal, anti-oil environmental activist has to endure one snowy New England evening without power for light, but more importantly to charge her batterized vehicle, nuclear and coal will cease to be such bete noirs. In my mind, for the foreseeable future nuclear is the only scalable base loaded electric energy resource for 1) a western pacific rim nation tethered to their personal electronica 24/7, and 2) an eastern pacific rim nation tethered to their personal electronica 24/7.

I argue that we as a species will crack every last hydrocarbon chain for its stored energy, regardless. Regardless. It's perhaps only an issue for how long. There is no doubt in my mind that we will extract every last shovelful of West Virginian coal over the next 400 years; every last drop of Angolan crude; every last wisp of Indonesian natural gas; every last grain of sand in Alberta.

I again got into a lively discussion about 400 years out with my co-workers. Each one felt that because 400 years ago, in 1600, as the same issues of energy weren't in play, it's ridiculous to suppose anything about 400 years from now. In their eyes, Mr. Fusion is on that horizon -- banana peels and coffee grounds will power Mr. Fusion and personal, mobile power will be at hand. Yes, perhaps. But what about the more immediate future, say, 30-60 years?

I asked them to consider the past 30 years, to look at the range of all of our technological achievements. Thirty years is forever. In 1981 you actually had to get off the couch to adjust the vertical hold on the back of that gargantuan tele-box. But then I asked them to realize that the same thing powering TVs then is the same thing powering iPods today -- coal, natural gas, hydro and nuclear. They are smart guys; they know this. The energy sources haven't changed, and over the next thirty years they still won't change...not appreciably. We'll perhaps have higher penetrations of wind and solar, yes, but no Mr. Fusion.

I want to forward the notion, again, that technology is not energy. In 2041 our technological advancements will still be powered off 74.2 million year old coal, just as they were thirty years ago. Coking coal will be needed to smelt the iron ore to build the wind turbine pedestals and solar array frames, and natural gas-powered generation stations will be needed to provide for the 75% reserve requirement for intermittent wind and solar, and diesel will be needed to power the large Bolivian vehicles needed to mine the earth's surface for lithium for car batteries or to dig the holes for hundreds of acres of diesel producing algae pools or nano-biologics.

The Japanese are on the leading edge of technology yet they still need 7 billion year old uranium to power it.

Tomorrow Is Here

Tomorrow has arrived.

I received an unexpected bonus at work, and by this time tomorrow I will have ended my lifelong quest to pay off my housal unit mortgage.

I chatted with a co-worker from Bangladesh over a cheese steak lunch today (yep, a poor dietary choice, I know), who is somewhat distraught regarding his purchase of his Natomas housal unit in 2007. He lived in Dhaka for most of his life and from 10:00AM to 10:PM every day, trucks were allowed to rumble down his street. Tens of millions of people. He hated the noise. Now, twenty years later, he cannot stand the sound of the silence of suburbia. He longs for the ability to walk his girls to the park, but the park is too far. He drives. If he does take them outside after work, they get mosquito bites, much to the consternation of his American wife. He knows that cable television, the Internet, and various other forms of personal electronica will consume his young family, alienating themselves intentionally in their own electronic silos, inside their own rooms, inside their own housal unit, inside a "community" where no one talks to one another, where no one visits because no one knows their neighbors' names, inside a nation that could care less about real social interactions outside of Twitter and Twatter.

I'm ten hours away from my final payment on a housal unit I have no real attachment to, because it's firmly planted inside Elk Grove, a city with no future. Suburbian housing provides a living arrangement that has no future. While I intend on continuing to make this housal unit my home, while I intend on taking the time and care to fix things that break and to make it presentable to the rest of the world, I know that many of my "neighbors" won't. Indeed, they already aren't. I enjoy their company, yes, when they make themselves available outside of just opening the garage remotely, driving in, and closing it behind them. But I also know that they are generally mobile, moving from one unit to the next, with absolutely nothing nothing! to pin them down to this community. If they want a better unit, they'll have to leave. If they want a smaller unit, they'll have to leave. If they change jobs, the new commute would be even more unbearable and they'll have to leave. When their unit ages, they'll leave to newer units afar. When maintenance calls, they'll have to leave because to perform maintenance on "maintenance-free" housal unit materials like seamless gutters or vinyl siding defeats the purpose of buying the stuff.

Truthfully, I cannot hope to live here for the rest of my days. I will be forced out someday. I think that as energy becomes scarce the true cost of building shit miles from everything else will be revealed. I think that as this neighborhood ages, people who have even less attachment to things will move in, to rent, to care even less for the place they inhabit. This is the endgame of suburbia.

My plan going forward is to finally save some money for a change, to allow for the future possibility to live in a desirable, human scaled, walkable, architecturally relevant neighborhood, but all those places around here are so fucking expensive because people know their value and people care about them. I'm forced to live in sterile, lifeless, stucco-clad suburbia until I can amass enough wealth to afford a real community.

Tomorrow marks the first day towards that new goal, now that my seventeen year goal has been reached.

Wa-hey.

Optimus

So. Have you sprung for that new dual-core cellularized phone, or will you hold out 'till 2012 when quad-core phones are released? What will you do?

Huh?

What will you do?

Looking at what the new LG dual-core phone offers, I wonder why I'm not out bidding up the price for such electronica. I mean, I've been anticipating 1080p HD video playback for forty one years and it's finally here. Wa-hey. Not only is the beautiful 4" screen in HD but I can view all my digital videos recorded in 1080p on my compatible HDTV at home via HDMI. I should thank our all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise God in heaven that this new LG Optimus 2X phone supports Android 2.3.

A phone that can support mobile gaming. A phone that can support multitasking, such as mobile gaming and browsing. A phone that can provide smoother web browsing with little to no screen lag to make mobile gaming even more enjoyable. Yes, this is what our "new" economy is based on; a coupla different high-end cell-phones so we can play Angry Birds in high-def.

This is our new economy.

Exit, Stage Left

I surmise that [the gains from increased productivity] are flowing to the multinational/political machinery.

This statement from my post To Get Rich Is Glorious led me thinking this morning on the bus about how pernicious money in politics has become.

For those of you living in California, I ask you, when have you last heard/read/thought about Meg Whitman, the most recent major party gubernatorial candidate to lose? For a woman who spent the most money in history on an election to gain her first elected seat, indeed, one of the most powerful seats in this nation, she's completely fallen off the radar.

It seems to me that only the financial elite, the top 1%, ever stands a chance to win against the backdrop of a nation far more interested in the affairs of the Kardashians than anything in reality. And by financial elite, I don't necessarily mean that the candidate falls into that category per se, but regardless, he/she still requires the financial backing of those in the top 1% to even enter the party.

This is a vicious cycle and it's amplifying; it's growing geometrically. The ever growing concentrations of wealth creates a feedback loop, and it's obvious to any casual observer who's eyes are not glued to Kim's ass that for every additional election cycle the cost of competing rises dramatically.

Meg Whitman enters, stage right, and drops a colossal deposit (money, by the way, earned not in a truly productive activity but earned by a digital vacuum sucking all those loose nickels from what would have been yard sales) just to enter the fray. She gains the support of a small cadre of other 1% Republicans organized in political action groups or other front groups. She also contributes mountains of her own wealth above and beyond her initial "investment" to chug forward.

Jerry Brown and company needs to raise a shitload of money to counter the $178,500,000 this single wealthy woman raised, and he himself is forced to draw on contributions from the wealthy elite on the other side. State-level groups such as teachers unions and other PACs form the other side of the power balance equation.

Jerry wins, due in part to Whitman's inability to appeal to non-financial elites like my co-worker, who as a registered Republican chose not to support the overt buying of an election. Nonetheless, he failed to realize how Brown only won based on the covert purchasing of the governorship by the California Corrections Union et al. Meg Whitman, a la Snagglepuss, exits, stage left, never to be seen or heard from again.

The real issue I have is that, if wealth wasn't so concentrated in that top razor-thin tranche of well-connected people, then all these political candidates couldn't amass such huge sums from such a small cadre of people. They would have to seek campaign contributions from a broader base, like people who read this Monologue. But more critically, any new candidate, trying to counter the war chest of an incumbent, is wholly reliant on an ever decreasing number of wealthy elitists on his/her political side to raise even more money to compete, much less win.

And more critically still, the influence of that small financially powerful group over the elected grows as well.

A teacher's union is only ever interested in maintaining the status quo. I'm simplifying things greatly, I know, but their focus is to ensure they remain in the debate. Witness the power these sorts of groups have had in Wisconsin recently. Here we have several immense, politically powerful groups competing for a dwindling resource base. If any candidate alienates any of these competing factions their millions will simply flow to others who won't.

The next level of Snagglepuss Politics now enters, stage right, when we have the Supreme Court ruling that unlimited sums of contribution cash can now flow from corporations who are "individuals" who are simply exercising "free speech." These are, obviously, boarded and CEO'ed by the very same top 1% (who own as much as the bottom 60%), and so the dependence of political candidates on these financial elites is only strengthened.

This is how, when someone like Chris Dodd gets a sweetheart deal from Countrywide as a Friend of Angelo, Congress overrides the will of the American consumers people who, by a 600-1 margin, did not want to bailout the financial industry in 2008 to the tune of seven hundred billion dollars. The American consumer exits, stage left.

I like to think about such things on my bus ride. I think about the coming energy constrained future, but it's clear to me that there is far, far too much inertia in the existing form of democratic repression representation for us to galvanize any rational energy policy. Thus, I plan things around a possible future of resource constraints, financial implosion, and subsequent social meltdown. I have conditioned myself to these Snagglepuss Politics, and I'm conditioned by riding the bus.

Buy China

American appliance salesmen are full of shit.


Before my recent purchase of a replacement dishwasher the other day, I just wanted to know where the dishwashers were built. I just wanted to know where these things were built. Are these appliances just final-assembled at that location, are the parts actually sourced from there or from elsewhere, etc. Simple, basic questions. That's all. But no! They have no idea, no idea!, about the origins of the products they are selling. Perhaps because I'm the only one in the U.S. who asks. Just because a dishwasher's label is written in the Latin alphabet and model number is written in Arabic numerals doesn't mean the damn thing wasn't made in China.

I absolutely needed to know that whatever dishwasher I bought wasn't made in China. The reason is obvious; I want a dishwasher that won't have to be replaced again in three years' time. The Chinese manufacture such god-awful junk that I refuse to subject myself to the pain and discomfort of trying to fit a poorly spec'ed Chinese dishwasher into an exact 24" hole, of trying to fuck around with a door that won't latch correctly every eighth try, of stripping a cheaply built plastic 7/8" nut on the water hose flange, a lower rack that falls off the rails on its plastic wheels every ninth withdrawal, of having to replace a malfunctioning drain solenoid at quarterly intervals...I am willing to pay five to six times more for a well-built dishwasher so that I don't have to endure such torture, so that I don't have to enable the perpetual conveyor belt of Chinese junk to landfills in the United States.

That means I have to buy outside China. It means my Buy China program stops short at major appliances. I have an $1800 bill burning a hole in my pocket from the 2% Social Security payroll tax cut Obama gave us last winter and I blogged about how I was going to spend that on imported Chinese junk to goose our economy, but admittedly I can't do it when it comes to important energy consuming housal unit items such as dishwashers. I just can't do it. I will spend that $1800 on other less-important stuff from China like tuna, duct tape, alligator clips, tweezers, telephones, cuddle soft fabric softeners, barbecue tools, tackle boxes, dog grooming brushes, lead-laced toys for donation to disadvantaged American children at Christmas, shower curtains, compact fluorescent light bulbs, paper clips, erasers, sheet rock screws, flip flops, door knobs, carpet tacks, 9-volt batteries, gutter guards, binoculars, flower pots, zinc screws, American flags, toilet seats, shop towels, watering cans, spray bottles, shop vacs, scissors, latex gloves, envelopes, non-toxic fine tip markers, solar calculators, candle holders, mini-screwdrivers, backpacks, salt shakers, bicycle chain locks, liquid soap dispensers, fishing poles, NFL licensed wall clocks, boat fenders, jumper cables, personal space heaters, window coverings, toothbrushes, playing cards, thumbtacks, lip balm, #2 pencils, vinyl air mattresses, plastic rubbish pails, digital answering machines, staplers, hex nuts and magnifying glasses.

So all I wanted to know was where Bosch dishwashers were made. The answer I got from the salesman was "Germany."

Bosch, yes, is a multinational corporation headquartered in Gerlingen, Germany, but I had already looked over the labels affixed to the inside of the prospective dishwashing unit. I am fully knowledgeable regarding Bosch products because most of my woodworking power tools are Bosch and I'm completely satisfied with their production, with their fit and finish, with how they are built. I knew ahead of time that the Bosch dishwasher model I was pining for wasn't manufactured in Germany; indeed, this model was final assembled in New Bern, North Carolina.

The point is, we are not conditioned to think about such things as where stuff is built. As consumers we aren't conditioned to ask and consequently salesman are not conditioned to know. In much the same way the Dodge salesmen in 2006 had no fucking idea what gas mileage their products drew when we were buying their car; they were never asked before.

I suppose I shouldn't be so astounded at the level of willful incompetence around me. After all, I do live in the United States; I do live in the most feckless, consumerist nation on earth. I do live in a nation that gives not one consideration towards quality in consumerism, but a nation that gives price the only nod.

If I were an appliance salesman, I would take the same care as I do in my job as an electrical protection engineer -- I would understand the fundamentals. I would take the time to know about the stuff I'm selling, about who made it, about why one product is better or worse than the other. I would go beyond. Perhaps this is precisely why I don't sell appliances -- because I would care, while no other American would.

The Oil Century

The Oil Century
South Belridge, California
Discovered in 1911, this field pumped on as cities were rebuilt for cars and as ancient petroleum molecules were spun into household products such as plastics, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. South Belridge today produces 32 million barrels a year—enough for nine hours of world demand. In this century the world's supply may plummet.


Are you at all disquieted by the notion that this Californian oil field, one of the oldest and most productive fields in the state, annually provides just enough oil as used by half the people of the world for half a day?

To Get Rich Is Glorious

I remember in 2003 calling for the bursting of the housing bubble. I couldn't have been more wrong. The inertia of our collective hubris, of our intentional, willful ignorance of the avarice and folly of a housing market rising 20% per year ad infinitium blinded us as our retirement funds were goosed higher by a rising stock market, our lives were made more comfortable with the purchasing of new 3,200 sq ft housal units on historic volumes of abundant, cheap credit, when local, state, and federal governmental services were adequate and flush with tax revenues, when gasoline was about as cheap as it was in 1989. We began a war in Iraq that year? Really? Ho-hum.

I have often commented here on The Franklin Monologues that all this wealth was hallucinated; all our prosperity, our economic growth, our wealth, all an illusion. Housal unit prices have fallen closer to their norms (well, I'd really argue that they would have fallen to the norm if not for the trillions in government intervention). They are still above the historic norm yet we ache for a return to the valuations of 2003...even though it was all fake.

What I find interesting is that the prosperity we felt between 1995 and 2006 was fantasy, yet the pain of this last recession and current jobless recovery is quite real.

Here's a nice, real statistic for you -- our productivity has statistically increased 2.6% in the last quarter, but real hourly compensation dropped 0.6%. There is no doubt that, on balance, we are earning less than what we used to, even though:

• Medical premiums are higher than a year ago;
• Gasoline is higher than a year ago;
• Public utility bills are higher than a year ago;
• Eggs are more expensive than a year ago;
• Housal unit prices are higher than a year ago;
• Government debt is substantially higher than a year ago.

As I understand things -- if productivity is increasing faster than wages, then the gains from such endeavors aren't flowing to the worker. I surmise that they are instead flowing to the multinational corporate/political machinery. This makes sense, when you realize that the inequality in wealth has only widened over time, is wider than at any other time in history.

I post this like I've a dog in the fight. Nope, far from it. Outside of the loss of two bus routes and slightly higher fares, I've remained completely insulated from the actions of these bubbles growing and bursting. I like to think that a modicum of my own preparation has led to this condition, along with holding the contrarian vision that our economy is as unsustainable as is suburban sprawl and dependence on foreign energy. To this end, I've:

• Remained employed in a recession proof industry, electrical power generation, that has zero chance of being outsourced;
• Not once cash out re-fi'ed my housal unit, even though I've refinanced multiple times;
• Not engaged in speculative flipping, not getting stuck with an inflated property at the crash;
• Not transferred all that hallucinated wealth into goods that demand real repayment, like waverunners or dot-matrix printers;
• Held on to cash and cash equivalents, not subjecting all my assets to stock market bubbling;
• Ridden a bicycle to work in the wind, rain, snow and ice.
• OK, not really snow and ice, that's just hyperbole to see if you are really reading this shit;
• Lived within my means, lived with single-zero Federal and State withholding, my non-interest bearing winter accounts;
• Not developed $10,000 in credit card debt, at which bankruptcy is a probable option;
• Lived in the same housal unit for fifteen years, paying property taxes at a lower rate than all my neighbors;
• Remained more valuable to my employer than what I am being paid;
• Held little to no revolving debt, and paying down my mortgage;
• Held physical assets that offset losses in equities;

These are things than many of us could do, but we choose not to...because they aren't sexy. Riding a bicycle to work is work, and among the most un-sexy things one can engage in. Wearing a helmet, padded shorts, with panniers and fenders...god, I look downright awful on two wheels. But I digress...the slow, methodical method of gasp! saving to create future wealth pales compared to flipping a unit for re-sale, to winning the mega-jackpot at Red Hawk (kree-ee-ahhhh) Casino, along with countless other methods for deriving unearned riches.

This all has bearing on an energy blog because the way we squander our personal energies is similar to the way we squander physical energy. We've been left with an impressive panorama of devalued towns filled with demoralized people because we chose to save $30 on a dishwasher by outsourcing its manufacture to Asia and not having to pay an American worker a bloated living-wage to manufacture it. We've been left with miles of asphalt leading to defunct communities where the consumer lives in one place and consumes in another, requiring heroic volumes of energy to function. We have a Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) economy that produces nothing of real value -- it's simply a large, cyclonic vacuum sucking up an endless supply of loose nickles earned by the dwindling number people who still produce things of value in this nation.

To get rich quick is glorious in our society. However, this isn't new, nor is it much different in other societies:

The difference between the U.S. consumer and the Chinaman, however, is that we pin our economic hopes not on the slow, gradual accumulation of assets as he does, but on bubbles, on fiscal stimulati, on the privitatization of fast gains (think high-frequency stock trading) and the socialization of even faster losses.

I like to think that the difference between financial speculation/unearned riches and the slow, gradual development of riches will only become more apparent in the coming years as our economy, built upon the sands of services and financial avarice, falls apart.

Inertia

I rode shotgun thrice today; once on the bus to work, once with an Indian born co-worker to lunch, and lastly with my German born co-worker home.

On the bus ride I sparked a conversation with my neighbor. As we passed the Shell station at Laguna and I-5 I commented on the price of gas. He claimed it was all political.

Rakesh, at lunch today, after I sparked the conversation by commenting on the price of gas at the station at 16th and W street, suggested that it's all politics...with a little finanacial speculation thrown in.

Hagen, driving me home and after sparking the conversation by commenting on the price of gas as 65th and 5th, suggested that it's not an issue; when he worked for PG&E in the late '60s he earned $10,000 a year and gas was $0.40 a gallon. Today he makes ten times as much and gas is ten times as expensive. It hasn't changed in 40 years, so $4.00 gas is about right.

In a way, all three don't shoulder any beliefs that domestic demand might have something to do with the price of gas. The cause is either natural or political. That we all live energy intensive lives, that we all consume three gallons of fuel each day on average (directly and indirectly), that we all simply expect cheap energy...well, none of this has any bearing. I understand our collective ignorance. I blog about its consequences; it's what keeps The Franklin Monologues going. If we didn't maintain ignorance on our energy use this blog would cease to exist.

Regardless, $4.00 gasoline is nowhere near the price at which U.S. consumers change their consumptive habits. There is far, far too much inertia in suburban sprawl, in mega-malls, in single-use zoned "office parks," in personal mobility, such that a few nickels more for a tankard of petrol is hardly worth changing our habits for. We don't adapt; we don't adjust; we don't overcome. We don't need to. We just sacrifice a little. Here and there.

Inertia is going to be a critical point going forward in my little view. Think -- what would it really take for you to get out of your car and use the bus, light rail, train, bicycle, or your two legs to buy groceries at your local store? $4.00 gas? $5.00 gas? $6.00 gas? More?

This is where I have an advantage, I believe. I am already conditioned to think outside the car. If I'm willing to ride a bike in the rain to work when gas is $2.78, I think I'm willing to ride anytime. I believe that the biggest hurdle most U.S. consumers will face in the coming years of convergent predicaments such as peak oil, climate disruption and economic peril is that they simply are not psychologically prepared to do things differently. Inertia is so strong even the most stalwart environmentalists are only thinking of alternative ways to power our cars - not thinking of ways to live without the mandatory use of one for every facet of living.

Look around Elk Grove. In fifteen years of bicycle commuting, in fifteen years of driving my own car, I've not once ever seen an Elk Grovian woman commuting by bicycle. Inertia in car-dependency is just too strong to get a woman on a bicycle around here. This isn't misogyny, it's observation; there simply are no suburban Elk Grove women riding bicycles. I think that their belief in the entitlements to an auto-centric lifestyle prevent them from engaging such an activity. They didn't move to Elk Grove to ride a fucking bike. Women will not ride bikes at $4, nor at $5 in my estimation, and by that I mean riding for utility. It would take $7.82 gasoline to find an Elk Grovian woman riding her bike to the Safeway to buy groceries.

Neither would you find an Elk Grove immigrant commute by bike. None of my immigrant neighbors has ever, ever! mounted two wheels instead of four. Many left countries where the bike is the primary mode of movement and they immigrated to leave that behind, among other reasons. They would need $9.56 gasoline to even consider ditching the Mercedes, Land Cruiser or Acura for a bicycle. They didn't immigrate to America to ride a fucking bike. Often the Elk Grovian immigrant spends an inordinate amount on his/her private automobile, showing just how important car culture is.

The inertia of such cultural things or of sexual orientation; these are impossibly difficult to overcome. This is why, in my opinion, that trying to assert my little minority view against an entire population willing to roll over and tacitly approve the invasion of an oil rich foreign country is not worth the effort. I'm the minority here. I'm a white guy; indeed, a member of the only group of people in Elk Grove who commutes by bicycle, yet I also hold a minority position on why I do it. I hold it, apparently, because I'm a member of a group who has access to everything, whose neck has never been pinned down by the boot of someone else.

I believe that this inertia will cause us great harm; we will enagage in foreign wars and occupations to preserve our energy intensive suburban way of life, when it becomes clear that the rest of the developing world also wants access to the same extravagant lifestyles and we have to competed for the resources to power them. We will compete for these resources; indeed, we already are. The Elk Grove immigrant, the Elk Grove woman, the guy on the bus and my co-workers all think they are six degrees removed from the actions we collectively take to ensure our liberal, timely deliveries of Nigerian and Canadian crude but indeed they are only one degree separated. Both of their actions and inactions contribute to a nation that can't support itself.

Inertia is strong, yes...

A Return To What?

Now that we are on this supposed upward arc of economic revitalization, the question becomes "what exactly are we to revitalize?" 25% gains in housal unit valuations each year? Massive, perpetual increases in tax receipts by governments? A continuation of debt-based suburban sprawl? Another round of bank lending fakery and cash-out re-fi's for every housal unit owner?

I wonder what year most Americans would pick as the year they'd like to return to -- 1958? 1963? 1987? 1995? 2005? Underlying the assumption that our economy is being "restored" is that there's a benchmark to compare it to. Restored to what? Which one of the above year's economic and social measures would you like to return to?

I remember my extremely liberal state government professor at CSUS pined for 1958; he was convinced that year was the pinnacle of US culture, and he made the argument that every year since we've fallen farther away. Uh-huh. 1958 was possibly pretty good for him, yes, as a white man. It wasn't quite so good if you were a Jew, a negro, a woman, were gay, or otherwise a non-white non-Christian, non-male.

Any year in question is subjected to bias, to personal preference, or personal history. 1958 marked the peak of familial units, the peak in domestic oil production was still a decade away, all our global economic competitors hadn't yet fully recovered from near total devastation from war a little over a decade earlier; the U.S. had all the good manufacturing jobs, and one good job held by the white man could support a middle class family. But imagine you were an atheistic Black lesbian. 1958 would hardly have been the peak.

I believe that most people now in 2011 probably think that a return to 2005 is what they'd prefer...at least economically. Their housal unit values were on a tear, everyone had access to cheap credit, access to multiple vehicular units, they could pick amongst a litany of service jobs, gasoline was cheap and readily accessible, the engagement of our two wars went un-noticed unless you happened to be in the service, liberalization of homophobic laws was on the horizon along with the decriminalization of marijuana -- things were bright and beautiful.

I wonder if we've reached our economic pinnacle. No matter what you may believe, there's always the possibility that 2006 represented our peak. I argue that there's a possibility that the constraints of global oil might prevent us from surpassing 2006. We may discover that the lack of credit, the deflation occurring, may presage a decades long economic calamity as has befallen Japan. Or perhaps any of a number of other things that might occur; war, disease, destruction, or corruption.

Look to Wisconsin, whose constituents can't accept that a perpetual $3,000,000,000 state deficit might require a change to the way things have been conducted in the past. Here in my little state of California our governor has eliminated the use of 55,000 cell phones by state employees; a drop in the bucket but cumulative droppings do count; there's a $20,000,000,000 deficit to undo. The point is, there's been consideration for a change to the way things have been done.

In my estimation, if we indeed do emerge from recession, we will inherit an economy that's less able to weather any future calamity. We will continue to build new bridges and freeways per our highway lobby's prerogatives just as the era of cheap oil wanes, expecting technology (like batterized cars) to pull us forward. We will continue our suburban sprawl madness, building housal units 32 miles from everything, forcing each "owner" to charge his batterized car twice a day just to get to work and back. And all these things we import will be built by foreigners and all the things we build domestically will be built by foreign born laborers because we've lost our ability to build shit ourselves. We will have lost our ability to weather 1)an oil supply disruption, 2) global wage arbitrage, or 3) another financial "scandal".

M preference for which year we should return to would be 1987. My natural bias shows. I'm 41. This was a pretty good year for me. If we returned to the economy of that year we'd 1) likely find a domestic job producing things of value, 2) the relationships between the top 1% and bottom 20% were narrower, 3) domestic energy wasn't at the forefront but we still had the chance to alter our ways, and 4) thrash metal was at its heyday.

When our economy revives, what period do you think it look like?

The Day The Music Died

Sitting in a chain restaurant this evening, after ordering I asked the waitress if the music could be turned down -- it was just loud enough to be distracting. I determined it wouldn't have mattered where we sat -- it was loud everywhere.

She claimed "No, we can't lower it, it's too hard. Lots of customers have asked but there's nothing I can do. Sorry."

I thought this was a pretty ridiculous answer. But then I thought about how this woman has no real incentive to manage such things. She likely has no real connection to the restaurant. "It's a job, man," she's not the owner. If business boomed she'd do OK, yes, but if it tanked she'd just find another job down the thoroughfare.

I thought about how this parallels our use of energy, too. If this were a matter of energy consumption she again doesn't have any incentive to manage such things. Leave the lights on in the broom closet? No matter, she doesn't pay the bill. I know I'm simplifying things greatly, but I have to think that if this weren't a chain restaurant, if the real management were local, indeed, if they were actively running the place, she might take a different tack. She might care.

There are a hundred million such people around us, everyday arguing that there's "nothing I can do" regarding their energy use. This is the consequence of building cities such as Elk Grove whose zoning codes mandate auto-dependency, whose citizens generally aren't old enough to recall past events such as 1) world instability, 2) depressions, 3) resource scarcities, 4) oil embargoes. This leads to complacency in extreme energy use, but it's not as if this didn't make sense. Our pattern of living is profitable and creates millions of jobs. We choose to remain ignorant of the chance that energy may become constrained because this whole system is utterly dependent on cheap, reliable energy.

I live in suburbia. I enjoy what suburban living provides, yes; however, for 41 years it's the only place I've ever lived ; it's all I know. The nature of such low density living along with profligate energy consumption, I believe, has led to many of the ills now manifesting: the assignment of cheap labor to Asia to manufacture goods for the rest of the developed world, destroying the manufacturing base in our country; depot sized consumption centers destroying the old sense of town centers and meaningful destinations; social degradation through solo-occupant motorized commuting, no sense of "we" anymore; sterile, lifeless suburban living where no one has any "obligation" to their neighborhoods...

We have invested so much into this way of living that we're now forced to continue to support it even as energy rises in relative price; we seemingly have no other options. We'll pull up to the fill station, murmur to ourselves and feign frustration but in the end we have no choice. Neither do we have a choice regarding the price of romaine lettuce at our suburban grocery depot, or the tax increases needed by our local governments to pay for the cost of busing students to centralized educational depots.

It's not as if we can stop driving. It's not as if we can stop eating. It's not as if we can allow our kids to walk 3.5 miles along a suburban freeway to school. We have never accepted these things and we will do everything we can to never have to do them. So we internalize hope that technology will rescue us; batterized cars.

This has to work, because there aren't many good alternatives. Indeed, it might. I remain skeptical, but it might. We're like the waitress who can't do anything about the loud music -- too set in our patterns to want to do anything about it. If energy becomes an albatross around the neck of our suburban way of life, well, we'll gladly listen to the music until the day it dies.

Gas Buddy!

I, for one, am in total agreement that we extract some oil from our vast, vast strategic reserve storage facilites to goose the gasoline market lower. Soccer Sally in Laguna Vista needs some relief. So does Joe the Plumber out there in Old Town Elk Grove -- his work truck's fuel appetite is really straining his small business. And, they vote.

Rachelle the Elk Grovian Realtor, boy, does she ever drive a lot for business. Suburban-sprawl housal-unit salespersons -- a car dealer's ideal customer. Her white Mercedes isn't sold in a hybrid version, nor would she find it acceptable to show a house to prospective buyers if she arrived in a Smart Car, a Fisher-Price version of a real car. Not very professional. She eagerly awaits our government tapping into our strategic reserves, as this would signal all those on-the-fence exurban buyers that cheap gas is right around the corner again. If they continue to buy in the burbs, well, she'll make healthy commissions on each one. As she spends a large portion of her day inside the carapace of a motorized vehicle, luxury is paramount.

Each story saddening. Each consumer at wit's end. As gasoline and diesel rise due to all those wicked oil companies and their Arab co-conspirators, well, at least we, like, have technology, dude. Gas Buddy! dude, the hot new app on the 4G. Just scroll on down, dude, and you'll instantly find the cheapest gas in all the land.

Gas Buddy! Man, what a fantastic solution to soaring prices! It's like having an invisible concierge riding shotgun! Relief is at hand. In fact, the second lowest price in Sacramento is right here on my blog's namesake, Franklin Boulevard, at the Franklin Gas & Shop. The absolute lowest price is, of course, at the WalMart affiliate Sam's Club.

Without being entirely sure, I would suppose that WalMart consumes more oil than any other American company, even more than, say, United Airlines. They've an awful fuel requirement to keep their warehouse-on-wheels in perpetual motion, delivering junk from Asia to large depots for us consumers to motor to, to consume. As the largest private purchaser of refined oil products I'd suspect they they have a significant pricing advantage over everyone else, thus they can offer it a few cents cheaper...

And of course, in our broad land, Lowest Prices, Always should be our new national motto.

I'm interested to know -- do you think that Gas Buddy! is self defeating? Assume this scenario: a foggy Elk Grovian morning, and you break California law by palming your iPhone in your lap while driving, looking to your favorite new buddy, Gas Buddy! to find the cheapest gas for your commute to the Bay Area to your telemarketing job. You know Gas Buddy! is updated by other purchasers of gasoline, and you discover that a station not six miles out of your way has the cheapest gas, updated less than 30 minutes ago. So you drive the additional six miles to purchase it, but you notice it's a full penny lower than what was posted by your other consumptive buddies. You stop for a second -- you ponder whether it's in your best interests to post the new lower price to Gas Buddy! If you do, then more people will show up there, spoiling your future chances of getting timely access to a pump. Higher demand and the station owner might jack up the price! Do you hold this station a secret? Do you intentionally withhold this economy-saving one cent differential? If this information got out, you know you might have to wait behind three other cars on your next visit, while you idle away all your new-found savings.

Maybe you intentionally post a one cent increase! Yes! That way, other buddy users will flee for even cheaper gasoline, leaving your station high and dry for your next visit.

Man, all these things running through your head as you exit the station, wondering how to post a new price to Gas Buddy! on your iPhone while commuting to Oakland that morning. You smile as you board I-80, realizing that technology = energy. You just saved yourself thirty two cents, after adding the savings but subtracting the additional six miles. You chortle how that imbicile over at Gone Solar has been arguing that technology <> energy for three years yet here's a perfect example of how that dumb blogger doesn't know shit.

Pharmer's Market

Having had my first surgery in thirty nine years, I finally reached into the higher tiers of health care -- the most expensive tier III...

17% of our GDP is bound up with health care, a much larger percentage than most other advanced nations spend, although as I look around I find it rather hard to imagine we are a much healthier group of people than we were in 1969 when I arrived on this third stone:

When I was born health care required 5-6% of GDP. I know that there's a lot more to it, but we've tripled the share we spend on health care since then, but we most certainly haven't seen a tripling in our actual health.

This is an unfair argument, I know. The truth is, well before 1969 we had already cumulatively spent trillions to develop "public health infrastructure" that provides good bang for the buck -- vaccinations, clean water, sanitation networks, food safety, emergency medical facilities -- things that by themselves separate us from second and third world status. This is the first tier in health care. To expose my ignorance on this topic, I have no idea whether or not sanitation/waste water treatment should be included in that 17% or not. You could argue it either way.

The next level of health care is basic primary care, the second tier: Dental check ups, cavity filling, tooth extractions, turn-and-cough hernia identification, prostate exams, gynecological visits, prenatal care, sleep studies, ingrown toenail extractions, gonorrhea shots, nutritional guidance, lower back pain management, asthma medication, insulin delivery, arthritis care, high blood pressure medicine, alcohol and substance abuse treatment, admonishments to exercise, admonishments to eat fruits and vegetables, admonishments to avoid trans-fats, stitches for knife wounds, elderly care, tetanus shots, well-baby plans, physical therapy....

The problem is, primary care is affordable. The other problem is that it has major health benefits. It provides the biggest bang for the buck. These pose huge problems. It interferes with the ability to turn 8-15% annualized profits for for-profit pharmaceutical, biotech and health care organizations. I argued some time ago how we could hire teams of $50,000 preventative care specialists to assist people to live more correctly, but instead our government subsidizes corn syrup and dead, processed food production for mass consumption while consumers are then carted off to $384,000 surgeons and specialists to pull out gall bladders and perform gastric bypasses and knee surgeries for the chronically obese...


Gastric bypasses, boner pills, CAT scans, acid-reflux disease solutions, breast enhancements, MRIs, botox, Paxil & Zoloft, hydrocelectomies -- This represents the third tier of health care, the high-tech solutions, the first of which I participated in last week. If things go well for the rest of my life, I should expect to consume about $837,360 in tier III care for all my future diabetes and elder care management. Even while declaring my ignorance of the true breakdown of health care costs, I'm pretty sure this third tier is the most expensive, produces the least benefit, but man, is it ever profitable. I argue that most of these ailments come as a result of failures to manage basic primary care. Failure to get out of our cars and walk to the corner stores...um...er, scratch that; we don't have any corner stores. Failure to get out of our cars and bicycle to our consumptive depots.

Republicans sold us the idea of pre-emptive war in 2003. Not surprisingly, Republicans today are not trying to sell us the idea of pre-emptive health care; no, campaign contributions & quarterly reports from Astra Zeneca trump long term health care sustainability. They are also doing everything they can to upend the latest health care bill, to ensure continuation of an unsustainable trajectory in existing health care that makes most of its money from third tier care.

There's no doubt our health care lobbies would argue that if we just ate from the Pharmer's market rather than the farmers market we'd all be healthier.

Indeed we are healthier. Just look at yourself in a full-length mirror...

Call It A Tax

I find it quite interesting how, when gasoline rises in price, pundits always refer to it as a "tax on American consumers."

Really?

When a loaf of bread costs more do you think of that as a "tax?" When your next $599 iPad 2 costs more to replace your iPad just because you want the latest gadget, do you think of that as a "tax?" No, you don't.

To suggest that the rising cost of gasoline is somehow a tax shows just how arrogant and mindless this nation is regarding energy consumption. It shows how we don't understand that someone else's resources are theirs, that if they elect to charge more for their resource, or if the dollar falls, it simply will cost more. To call it a tax is blockheaded.

But we routinely do it, allowing us to ignore our complete, total dependence on foreign oil. Doing so implicitly suggests that our government is creating this tax increase, as only governments levy taxes. It shifts the burden of our own failures to live sustainably with our own domestic resources to the "failures of government" to keep the price reasonable.

A no-fly zone over Libya is being considered. But had Mubarak decided to quell public unrest via air bombing we would never have considered a no-fly zone over Egypt. Why? Libya has oil, represents an astonishing 2% of world oil production, and if a new student at Pomona can't fill her graduation gift, her new car, with reliable cheap imported fuel, well, the government has to step in. Aircraft carriers and destroyers and no-fly zones and naval escorts for supertankers all to keep Isabella's fuel bill modest. If it does rise, it's a tax, and it's the government's fault.


What I do enjoy about all this is that the use of oil is so democratic -- Financial services CFOs and high school janitors both have to heat their homes, and both have equal access to our gold-plated roadways. In this sense, both are equally liable for why we consume 25% of the world's oil with 4.5% of its population. This isn't something that we can freely blame the rich for causing, and because we can't, and because we ourselves refuse to acknowledge that our 52-mile round trip commutes to our florist's or real-estate jobs may be the cause, we call it a "tax," and passively assume our government ought to do something.

Like drain our strategic petroleum reserve to shave a nickel off a gallon of gas! There's a smart idea if I ever heard of one! Let's use our reserve to quell pending domestic social instability when Los Angelino's have to gasp! use the bus to get to work or pay $4 to drive around the most auto-centric city in the world.

This photo took up nearly an entire page in the Elk Grove Citizen newspaper two weeks ago, as the article went on to say how gasoline rose $0.02 that week. Like that's fucking news. But...it's news around here, boy. It's news to a city that pinned its entire future and economic health on the cheap, reliable, and timely delivery of Norwegian/Libyan/Canadian/Mexican oil. Every resident is affected, because every housal unit needs two or more cars just to function, just to live here, just to buy a pack of smokes or watch a soccer game at a friend's house. The city council approved acre after acre of low density sprawl with no jobs and no meaningful destinations that forces its residents to contribute to global warming even if they don't believe it, to contribute to two foreign wars and no-fly zones even if they don't support it, to depress Nigerians rights even if they don't know where Nigeria is on the map, to set ourselves up for economic calamity when oil begins its inevitable decline while we happily motor ninety miles a day to our Bay Area jobs.

Yep, call it a tax.

Disgruntled Commuters

Over the next few weeks I'll be riding the bus to work instead of my preferred bicycle on Franklin Blvd. I'm going to miss it, while trying to recover from crotch surgery. That's something any bicyclist can't simply get performed on a Monday and jump back on the saddle on a Friday. It's going to take some time.

I expect that my e-Tran bus service from Elk Grove to Sacramento will be packed up beyond reason over these few weeks for three reasons:

1) When the "recession" ended in 2009, that same year Elk Grove couldn't stop funding its precious freeway over crossings, and when tax revenues tightened, the city council instead elected to curtail two of my bus routes. Remember -- funding public transit is a "subsidy" while funding freeway expansion is a "Republican mandate." We conveniently ignore the tax dollars used to subsidize, er, encourage-free-market-enterprise like Target's warehouse on wheels, but cry havoc when we fund transit routes for all those slack-jawed yokels sucking off the public teat riding buses. E-Tran bus #52 now runs less often while ridership has increased.

2) The cost of gasoline is approaching "painful" levels. An economy-busting, job-killing $3.65 a gallon. When it broached $4 bucks back in 2008, Elk Grovian commuter bus services were stretched, filled with a whole lot of new faces, and interestingly, a whole lot of disgruntled commuters. An awful lot of people didn't like the "public" part of public transportation but they didn't like $4.25 gas, either. Now that gasoline is a wee-bit more costly than it was a few months ago I'm gonna see crammed buses full of disgruntled riders again. Wa-hey.

3) I'm riding the bus, leading to more congestion on the bus. I am traffic; I am congestion. If I could ride my bike there'd be one more seat available, or more importantly, one more "hole" such that the afternoon Elk Grove bound bus will not have to strand one less passenger because the bus is so damn packed.

I'm really going to be yoked if the weather over the next six weeks is sunny, warm, and inviting, with no rain and wind. Just like I would prefer to ride my bicycle when there's a fatality on the freeway (so I'm not stuck in traffic), I would prefer to be riding my bicycle when the weather is good. These are perfectly normal human responses, and I won't be made to feel guilty due to my "insensitivity" towards drivers losing their lives on the roadway. There's nothing wrong with hoping they lose their lives on days I'm not behind the wheel; when I'm not near them; during holidays and weekends when I'm not commuting. They are going to kill themselves and others regardless, the way we [collectively] drive.

I will be bus-bound for a while.