It's hard, when reading this, not to wonder where this esteemed gentleman was 3 or 4 years ago. If I do him a disservice I apologise, but was he taking tea and buns with Greenspan ? Cos this sure sounds like the sour grapes of somebody whose investment portfolio has gone west and wants to gripe about whose fault it is.

Still, such cavils aside, all I can say is, good luck with this lot cos I'm entirely unaware of anybody who's goin to be anywhere a lever of power in washington in the next decade who'll even dream of this.

What is required is in some ways simple to describe: it amounts to ceasing our current behavior and doing exactly the opposite. It means not spending money that we don't have, increasing taxes on the rich, reducing corporate welfare, strengthening the safety net for the less well off, and making greater investment in education, technology, and infrastructure.

keep to the Fen Causeway

LondonYank has posted this at Orange. It's one of the clear and present consequences.

there's some interesting investment advice in the comment thread too.

If you want a whiz-bang return, check out Matthews International China Hong Kong Fund - MCHFX.

Another cool new fund that we've recently bought is Guiness Atkinson Alternative Envergy Fund - GAAEX.

keep to the Fen Causeway

btw, does it strike anyone but me that the attempt to loot Soc Sec funds and put them into the stock market was an indicator that the made men knew some time ago that the house of cards was coming down and needed a multi-$B injection to keep it tottering a little while longer?  just a stray thought.  we attributed it to sheer greed at the time, but perhaps it was panic.

second-order thought:  is there always an element of fear and panic in greed?

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

the gold bugs and "end is nigh" gang are of course tickled by all this financial disaster:

Mike  Whitney proclaims End of Financial World At Hand

and disaster-entrepreneur Matt Savinar (one of the forces behind the increasingly popular little film Crude Awakening) is practically crowing:

Words can't begin to describe how much trouble we're in on all fronts: financial, energy, environment, etc. If you haven't begun preparing to the best of your abilities, I'm not sure what the hell you're waiting for:

Brace for Impact: The Unraveling Has Begun
<http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Archives2007/smithunraveling.html>

The Time to Take Evasive Maneuvers is Now
<http://www.peakoilstore.com/forum/index.php/topic,8569.msg97880.html#msg97880>

The End is Nigh as Heads Roll at Merrill Lynch and Citigroup
<http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Archives2007/whitneyheadsroll.html>

I tend to agree w/him about the trouble we are in, but imho the cowrie shell (money) problem is the least of our worries.

The Southern oceans are now mostly stripmined of fish as the big processors, having destroyed the northern hemi fish stocks, turned their giant shopvacs to the south.  India has deliberately overstated its water reserves and has been hyperexploiting them beyond safe reserve levels since 1997...  

"What the government has done is double accounting of one vital element of the water cycle and therefore ended up with an inflated figure. While the error looks simple, with the ground water data of the country being classified, it took us four years of digging and understanding the method of calculation to figure out this discrepancy," Garg, from the department of civil engineering, IIT-Delhi, told TOI.

Cutting through the reams of data and calculations mentioned in the paper, Garg explained, "During the lean period, the water in rivers that one sees is actually ground water as there is no rain at the time. But when the CWC calculated total utilisable water, it accounted for the water in the rivers at the time as surface water as well as ground water, leading to the inflated figures."

It sounds so much a clerical mistake but A K Gosain, also from the civil engineering department of IIT-Delhi and on the PM's expert committee on climate change, said, "The trouble is all the data on ground water is classified and never released to even scientists. Nobody outside the government has been able to evaluate the statistics. Even when we were doing simulation studies to look at impact of climate change on our rivers, we had to use American data on Indian rivers to validate our results."

Meanwhile, the S Hemi is being systematically stripped of forests (remember that oxygen generator that the Ferengi were breaking up to sell?) to produce palm oil and other commodity crops for the industrial market, even as the local populations go hungry in many cases.

It doesn't get madder than this. Swaziland is in the grip of a famine and receiving emergency food aid. Forty per cent of its people are facing acute food shortages. So what has the government decided to export? Biofuel made from one of its staple crops, cassava. The government has allocated several thousand hectares of farmland to ethanol production in the district of Lavumisa, which happens to be the place worst hit by drought. It would surely be quicker and more humane to refine the Swazi people and put them in our tanks. Doubtless a team of development consultants is already doing the sums.

This is one of many examples of a trade that was described last month by Jean Ziegler, the UN's special rapporteur, as "a crime against humanity". Ziegler took up the call first made by this column for a five-year moratorium on all government targets and incentives for biofuel: the trade should be frozen until second-generation fuels - made from wood or straw or waste - become commercially available. Otherwise, the superior purchasing power of drivers in the rich world means that they will snatch food from people's mouths. Run your car on virgin biofuel, and other people will starve.

Which anyone with half a brain could see coming;  all you need to know is the energy density of biofuels, the average yield per hectare (even with negative EROEI industrial farming which makes a mockery of the whole game), and the fuel consumption of even an "efficient" ICE automobile.

Our masters are lying to us.  They have always lied to us.  They will lie to us as the house burns down and the roof falls in -- while they're getting out the marshmallows.  I suppose things can be repaired, even now -- if the will were present, if the owner class didn't own the media and the schools and the brains of the people.  But I fear that repair will take longer than what is left of my personal lifetime.

For some reason all I can think of is this old poem of Berry's which an FS reader recently brought back to mind:

The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

---- Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...