BioDiverseCity Land Co-op

What was rescued?

You probably noted the paradoxical response of the stock markets today after the “rescue” plan or “bailout” bill passed. Was this a glitch, or a sign that the professional investor class really don’t have confidence [we were promised they would have] that this bill will rescue the faltering markets? What was actually rescued today? To me, it looks like the inevitable crisis was merely postponed–a few weeks? A few months? Time will tell.

Our “national debt” ceiling is inching toward the level where it will equal one full year’s Gross Domestic Product. I don’t believe that milestone has ever been reached before.

Did we rescue the present at the expense of future generations? I think the answer may be, yes, yes we did.

What bothers me is that both the major party candidates are still talking in terms of heaping more deficit on top of the existing deficits, helping to push the total debt ceiling over the level of one year’s GDP.

Tax cuts, whether they go to “the rich” or to “the middle class” both have the net effect of increasing that deficit. The rhetoric is meaningless in the face of what both parties propose to do: saddle future generations with ever-rising levels of unpayable deficits.

Some time ago, Sen. Obama proposes an additional “stimulus” plan. That, too, would merely add to the deficit and the overall debt ceiling. This is not what is needed. But it is an idea that hasn’t been taken off the table, so that thinking must still be operative in that campaign.

The Iraq-war damage to our economy having already been done, both candidates talk of prolonging the war in Afghanistan, perhaps widening it toward Pakistan and points far beyond. In all of this is no acknowledgement that we’re dead broke and in no shape to wage any further interventionist warfare.

What we need –as a whole nation–is some sort of plan that acknowledges the complete unsustainability of the entire consumption system in this nation/the global economy, where we have been using debt as if it were income. Our spending habits have already been overstimulated to the point where the system is breaking down right in front of us, yet politicians are proposing more overstimulation of consumption.

Quoting Dennis Hopper, “what we need is a plan.” This plan has to come from below, and it has to involve constriction of consumption, not further stimulation. We need to embark on a grass-roots, thought-out, careful and methodical disassembly and demolition of the entire economy of consumption. “Smart Shrinkage” if you will, and at a fairly rapid pace. Let’s begin a prairie-fire grassroots movement aiming for, say, a 5% decrease in GDP annually, combined with a meaningful one-time “charge-off” of most of US consumer debt.

I don’t see how the system can be “rescued” from above. Today’s looting of the treasury, along with the FNM/FRE looting, the AIG looting, and all the other events of the past month, just illustrate to me the complete bankruptcy of the Washington/Wall Street axis.

Neither party, Democrat nor Republican, neither neoliberal nor neoconservative, have anything left to offer us. The widespread corruption among all parties which brought the mortgage system down has been documented these past few months. Now we should act on our knowledge instead of giving these blokes one more chance, as we seem to keep doing unto eternity.

Those of us working in “sustainability work” locally need to step it up a notch once the “stimulation” of the election is over. We ought to be preparing the local population for further meltdowns, enduring crises, and helping construct the infrastructure of a radically simpler, more local, more autonomous way of living. With great energy and a sense of urgency.

We should be questioning, and where needed, replacing, local politicians who merely repeat the “talking points” of their national counterparts much as Sarah Palin has shown she can do so well. So far all I’m hearing are bland reassurances that somehow, this vast global contraction now underway will pass us by here in Central Wisconsin. Now, can a few job creation successes really offset the steady, grinding loss of employment which the crisis which brought on the “bailout/rescue” brings, or the erosion of employment which will surely follow now that the non-event of the bailout/rescue has been revealed for all to see?

I do not know what these local politicos say when in private, among trusted friends, whether they admit they too may be a bit worried. Or maybe it really is all pollyanna, all the time with them. But failing to do much or anything to prepare the local population for some severely trying hard times seems to me like abdication of leadership on the part of the local power structure. As above, so below, it seems.

We may have seen just the opening act in the global economy’s crisis of sustainability today. I’d give the likelihood of a greatly deepening crisis an 80% probability.

Bobby G
Oct. 3 2008