Sorry, Class. Peak Oil has not gone away.

EA Oil Forecast Unrealistically High; Misses Diminishing Returns

Read the original article at The Oil Drum.  

Posted by Gail the Actuary on November 16, 2012 - 3:30pm

The International Energy Agency (IEA) provides unrealistically high oil forecasts in its new 2012 World Energy Outlook (WEO). It claims, among other things, that the United States North America will become the world’s largest oil producer by around 2020, and North America will become a net oil exporter by around 2030.

One serious error in her analysis was her mistaken impression, taken from a large number of equally mistaken media stories on this report, is that the US is in fact the country producing the supposed extra oil. It is not.  The oil is owned by Canada.  As one person in the comments section pointed out:

As a Canadian, I am allway amused that Americans assume our oil is your oil. We do love our big brothers and sisters to the south, but you do take us a little bit for granted and that is why the Canadian government would like to develop some friends for our oil in Asia by building a big pipeline to the BC coast. 

So much for that.  The article continues:

...this increase comes solely from the expected rise in tight oil production and natural gas liquids. The idea that we will become an exporter in later years occurs despite falling production, because “demand” will drop so much.

We've talked about demand destruction before, but I will recap briefly for those who may be unfamiliar with the term.  Basically, it works like this:  Prices rise to the point where so many people are priced out of the market that prices can then fall a bit again, because so many families can no longer afford the product and supply is somewhat strengthened due to falling use.   The fall in prices does not benefit those who have previously been priced out, because if they start using the product again the prices goes back up due to increased demand.  Eventually, only the wealthy can use the product freely - everybody else is basically in austerity measure mode.  

...One reason the WEO 2012 estimates are unreasonable is because the oil prices shown are unrealistically low relative to the production amounts forecast in the report. This seems to occur because the IEA misses the problem of diminishing returns. As the easy-to-produce oil becomes more depleted, and we need to move to more difficult reservoirs, the cost of extraction increases.
In fact, there is evidence that the “tight” oil referenced in Exhibit 1 is already starting to reach production limits, at current prices. The only way these production limits might be reasonably overcome is with higher oil prices–much higher than the IEA is assuming in any of its forecasts.

In other words, the stuff at the bottom of the wells is sludgier, more contaminated, and requires more processing to be useable.  Worse, the shale rocks they are now fracking residue out of is basically completely sludge, highly contaminated, and costs a lot more to refine.  Relying on this for our supply of oil guarantees prices will only go up.  

...Higher oil prices cause a huge problem because of their impact on the world economy. The IEA in fact mentions that current high oil prices are already acting as a brake on the global economy in its first slide for the press. Higher oil prices also mean that investment costs required to reach target production levels will be even higher than forecast by the IEA, adding another impediment to reaching its forecast production levels.

If higher prices put the economies of oil importing nations into recession, then oil prices will drop lower, reducing the incentive to invest in new oil production infrastructure. In fact, we could find ourselves reaching “peak oil” because of an economic dilemma: while there seems to be plenty of oil available, the cost of extracting it may be reaching a point where it is more expensive than consumers can afford. As a result, some oil that we know about, and have been counting as reserves, will have to be left in the ground.

The long and short of it is that if you're pining for $2 a gallon gas, don't hold your breath.  The companies doing the extraction have to cover their costs, cover profits for their shareholders, save some for future development, and so forth.  Although there may be a lot in the ground, a great deal of it is going to stay there because they can't charge enough for the end product to cover costs and make a healthy profit. 

...The IMF has recently done modeling that is relevant to this issue in a working paper called “Oil and the World Economy: Some Possible Futures.” This analysis may provide some insight as to what the real situation will be.

At the very end, almost as a footnote, the IMF admits that if their rosy projections don't pan out (which they haven't so far), things don't look great for the economy:

...First, if the economy attempted to substitute away from oil, it might
encounter a lower limit of oil use dictated by entropy. Second, the contribution of oil to
output could be much larger than its cost share, because oil is an essential precondition
for the continued viability of many modern technologies. Third, the income elasticity of
oil demand could be equal to one third as in some empirical studies, rather than one as in
our model. And if two or more of these aggravating factors were to occur in combination,
the effects could range from dramatic to downright implausible.

"Implausible" is the polite way of saying everybody bend over and kiss private automobiles goodbye. The Oil Drum article continues:

...The Problem of Diminishing Returns
One issue that the IEA has not properly modeled is the issue of declining resource quality, leading to diminishing returns and a rising “real” (inflation adjusted) cost of production. This situation is often described as reflecting declining Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI).

The reason diminishing returns are a problem is because when a producer decides to extract oil, or gas or coal, the producer looks for the cheapest, easiest to extract, resource first. It is only when this resource is mostly depleted that the producer will seek locations where more expensive, harder to extract resource is available. Thus, over time, the inflation adjusted cost of extracting a resource tends to increase.

Companies always go for the low-hanging fruit first, because it is the most profitable.  If they can't extract enough profit, they will eventually close up shop.

...producers tend to start at the top, with the “best” of the resource, and work their way toward the bottom. One result of this approach is that the cost per unit of production tends to rise, even as there are technology advances and efficiency gains, because the quality of the resource is declining.

Reserves tend to increase over time with this approach, because as producers work their way down...they always see an increasing quantity of lower quality resources. The new reserves are increasingly expensive to extract, in inflation adjusted terms. There is no flashing light that says, “Above this price, customers won’t be able to afford to purchase this resource any more,” though. As a result, the increasingly low quality reserves get added to reported amounts, even though in some cases, the cost of products made with these reserves (say gasoline or diesel) will send economies into recession.

Of course, we're already in pretty bad shape, and there are already entire neighborhoods of my community that are priced out of being able to drive a private automobile.  That will only get worse and the problem will again start creeping up the economic ladder to more and more people who once considered themselves to be middle class.  It's hard for a relatively affluent Jewish area to understand how we will be impacted by this, but it hasn't gone away and it isn't going to.

...It should be noted that the issue of diminishing returns exists for almost any kind of resource. It exists for uranium extraction, since there is always more available, just harder to reach, or in lower concentration. Diminishing returns exists for gold, copper, and for nearly any other kind of metal. This means we often need more oil for metal extraction and processing, as we dig deeper or find ore that is mixed with a higher proportion of waste product.

The problem of diminishing returns also seems to hold for renewables. The first biofuel developed was ethanol from corn, since the process of making alcohol from corn has been known for ages. Newer approaches, such as ethanol from biomass and biofuel from algae, tend to be much more expensive. As a result, when we add new biofuel production, it is likely to be more expensive, and thus harder for the customer to afford. If we want it, we will need increasingly high subsidies.

Wind energy is also subject to diminishing returns. Onshore wind was developed first, and it is far less expensive than offshore wind, which was developed later. Early units of wind added to an electric grid do not disturb the electric grid to too great an extent. Later units of wind energy add increasingly large costs: long distance transmission lines, electrical storage, and other balancing–something that is generally overlooked in making early cost analyses.

Those who still imagine some techo-miracle will save us all from having to change our preferred methods of transportation, growing food, and manufacturing don't understand the staggering costs of changing over to new technologies, even if they could be done in a reasonable amount of time (which they can't now).  Climate change is already in progress and the economy as we know it will not survive the protracted costs of increased energy expenses and natural disaster cleanups. 

...Tight oil, also referred to as “shale oil,” is supposed to be the United States’ oil savior, if we believe the IEA. The Bakken and Eagle Ford plays are the best known examples.

Rune Likvern of The Oil Drum has shown that drilling wells in the Bakken already seems to be reaching diminishing returns. The choicest locations appear to have been drilled first, and the locations being drilled now give poorer yields. He has also shown that the average well in the Bakken now requires a price of $80 to $90 barrel, which is close to the recent selling price. If increased production is desired, the price of oil will need to start increasing (and keep increasing) to provide the incentive needed to drill wells in less-choice location.

There are other issues as well. If there is a need to drill an increasing number of wells just to stay even, or an even larger number, to increase the amount of oil produced, we start to reach limits on many kinds: number of rigs available, number of workers available, miles driven for water to be used for fracking. Perhaps the issue that will limit production first, though, is limits on debt available to producers. Rune Likvern has also shown that cash flows from tight oil extraction tend to run “in the red,” so an increasing amount of debt financing is needed as operations ramp up. At some point, companies hit their credit limit and have to stop adding new wells until cash flow catches up.

The inability of the usury system to correct itself without banking collapses is well-documented by history and the US is no exception.  Banks have already tightened credit to a point that is strangling people's ability to buy homes and conduct business, and that situation cannot improve in a low-growth (i.e. recession prone) system.   The banks, like the oil companies themselves, are for-profit enterprises and will not loan money to people who cannot pay them back with interest in sufficient quantity to satisfy shareholders.  A business plan of diminishing returns and huge technological expenses is not going to impress loan officers.

...Evidence Regarding Rate of Growth of Oil Extraction Costs 

Bernstein Research recently published information showing that the marginal cost of oil production was $92 barrel in 2011 for non-OPEC, non Former Soviet Union oil producers at the 90th percentile of production. This cost is increasing at 14% per year (or about 12% a year in inflation adjusted terms). Even at the median marginal cost level, costs appear to be increasing at a compound annual growth rate of 9% (or about 7% in inflation adjusted terms). See also this FTAlphaville post.

If we take the $92 barrel cost in 2011 at the 90th percentile of production and increase it by 7% a year (arguably we should be using 12% per year), the real cost will be $169 barrel in 2020, and $467 a barrel in 2035. These are far in excess of the IEA oil price estimates shown on Figure 2. There is no reason to believe that Bakken and other tight oil production costs would be substantially cheaper.

And there's the ugly truth.  Yes, there is plenty of oil. No, middle class families won't be able to afford it.

...My View of What is Happening Now
As noted above, world crude oil production seems to have hit a plateau, starting about 2005. This is working its way through the economy with varying effects over time. The major effect at this point of time seems to be on the finances of governments that import oil, although it started earlier, with different aspects more apparent.

In general, what happens as we reach a situation of diminishing returns, and thus rising real oil prices, seems to be as follows:

As the price of oil rises, the price of food and commuting tend to rise. Both of these are considered essential by most consumers, so consumers cut back in discretionary spending, to have sufficient funds for the essentials. This leads to layoffs in discretionary industries, such as vacation travel and restaurant eating. The rise in laid off workers leads to an increase in debt defaults, and problems for banks. Housing and commercial real estate prices tend to fall, because of reduced demand, further adding to debt default problems.

Governments of oil importers get drawn into this in many ways: (1) Their revenues are reduced, because they receive less tax revenue from people who are laid off from work and from businesses with fewer sales. (2) They are asked to prop up failing banks, and to stimulate the economy. (3) They are also asked to pay workers who have been laid off from work. The net of all of this is that the governments of many oil importers find themselves with huge budget deficits, and declining ability to fix these deficits. This pattern is precisely what we are seeing today in many of Eurozone countries, the United States, Japan.

The statements about rising oil production in the US are just a distraction. Diminishing returns mean that US oil production will never increase very much. Oil costs will remain high, and this will be the real issue disturbing economies around the world.

Readers of this blog are not unfamiliar with these facts.  The question is, how can our communities deal with them in a constructive manner?

Leaders of Jewish communities need to look at the situation realistically and plan ahead.  Where does everybody live?   How walkable is the community?  How will people get to work?  To groceries? To school?  To a doctor?  To activities?  Who will help the elderly and sick get where they need to go? 

Everybody cannot switch to electric cars because the cost is prohibitive and electricity costs themselves will go up - could the community invest in a few?  Set up a taxi service?  Buy a bus?  Can the community order things in bulk from Israel and various companies and have them delivered so they can be distributed locally?  Can you partner with other communities?  Can you become more self-sufficient? 

Each community has a unique mix of needs, skills and resources - but one thing is certain.  Relying on the government to help you is surely a waste of time.    Make 2013 the year your community gets serious about putting its house in order.

The Plantation Mentality returns with a vengeance.

It's fun, sometimes, to troll.

I received a letter today from the Andy Barr campaign asking "which agenda I choose" for this "future of America ballot." The choices were:

___ Andy Barr

* Lower Taxes
* Less spending/fiscal responsibility
* Pro-Business/Employment Policies
* Independent, common-sense
conservative solutions
* Repeal Obamacare

_____ Ben Chander

* Ballooning Deficits, Reckless Spending
* Job-Killing Taxation/Regulation
* Special Interest Favoritism
* A willing tool of Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama
* Works hand-in-glove with Obama
to kill the coal industry

I decided to respond to this fair and well-balanced assessment of the respective party platforms with some written comments that I put in the mail in the envelope Barr sent with his survey. It goes like this:

Dear Mr. Barr,
I have received your recent mailing entitled “ballot for America's future” and noticed several errors. I would like to submit, for your reference, a corrected version of the mailing:

____ Andy Barr for Congress:

* Lower taxes on the wealthy, shifting of the tax burden onto the poor

* Less Spending on American citizen's actual needs, more spending on the military industrial complex instead of guaranteed retirement, free education and non-profit single-payer healthcare enjoyed by people in real first world nations.

* Pro-Robber Baron policies that enable employers to continue to deny their employees living wages and benefits, policies that return American working conditions to the days of sweatshops (as American employers are doing to their developing nations employees already), and of course the gutting of all worker safety and environmental regulations so we can all enjoy acid rain once again, along with poisoned well water, air and soil like the third-world backwaters American employers enjoy trashing to this day – and let's not forget the leveling of American wages with serfs in developing nations who are paid pennies on the dollar for their day's work.

* Solutions that represent only the minority white evangelical Christian view while simultaneously violating every principle ever taught in the Bible, such as public support (via mandatory tithing) for the poor, elderly, widowed, sick and fatherless, as well as violating the Biblical prohibition against profiteering off the poor by charging fellow citizens interest and usury, to name just two. (Since the primary backers of the Republican party are those self-same usurers and CEOs profiteering off the poor and sick I can see how this might cause you some cognitive dissonance.)

* Enabling for-profit insurers to once again deny treatment to people, especially children, with chronic illnesses by capping their lifetime benefits, excluding people with pre-existing conditions, excluding college kids from their parents policies, and excluding co-pay free contraception so that poor people who can't afford prescriptions continue to produce more kids than they can support.

You might want to add a few more points that you missed in your mailing, probably due to lack of space. For instance, you might include this graphic that shows where the Republican party as led this country by perpetually minding other people's business, warmongering and pushing American Imperialism:

Sincerely...

I didn't address the coal issue, in part because it is too baffling for me to understand why energy independence and new jobs galore in various new factories and domestic energy production facilities would be something Republicans oppose in the first place. That makes no sense.

The rest of it is exactly what I blogged about last time - the Republican party has no interest whatsoever in meeting the needs of the American citizens the government is theoretically supposed to serve. Instead, it wants to turn citizens into surfs.

I have come to the conclusion that Southern Republicans, in particular, still suffer from a plantation mentality. On the plantations, the old white guy was in charge, and everybody else were lesser beings who neither received nor deserved (in his opinion) decent wages, housing, working conditions, or education. Now this mentality has spread to the whole party.

That's the only explanation I can think of for the Republican policies that favor the 1% and literally leave the poor on the street to die if they have no housing or insurance. This is not what a moral country should look like, and it isn't what any real first world country looks like. Only "conservative" Republicans want to throw away every bit of progress made for ordinary citizens in the last 200 years and replace it with a corrupt and oppressive reign of Robber Barons that is Mitch "let them eat cake" McConnell's wet dream.

So if a de-facto return to slavery and indentured servitude isn't your idea of fun, then don't vote Republican, class. It's that simple.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach Rosh Chodesh. Way we all live in a fair, peaceful and just new year.

The Election: Short, Concise and to the Point

With the elections this November permeating every news story (whether it's about the election or not) I wanted to make a point that I think has been lost in the shuffle. The two main parties in this country are, at the core, promoting diametrically opposed ideas of what this nation should be doing with its tax dollars. The voters need to decide how they want their money to be spent, and the choices are extremely clear.

If you vote Democrat (or any similarly inclined third party) you are voting to put American Citizens first. You are voting to strengthen the social safety net, to recognize a basic human right to healthcare, and to protect social security. You are voting to stop pretending that the US has any right to butt into other country's political and religious beliefs, to stop using warfare as a means of securing other nation's resources and as a means of imposing economic imperialism on other peoples. You are voting to make sure people have the right to a real free market that not manipulated by corporations who refuse to label their products and continue to sell you unsafe garbage. You are voting to ensure that there is not a separate special rarified elite who are entitled to benefits and privileges unavailable to average citizens. You are voting to put education and our people's future wellbeing above militancy and strongarming.

If you vote Republican (or any similarly inclined third party), you are voting to put American Citizens last on the priority list. You are voting to gut the social safety net, to let people die on the street due to lack of healthcare and housing, and to force old people to be a burden to their children and grandchildren. You are voting to continue making enemies around the world, to endanger US citizens everywhere, and to use gunpoint as a legitimate means of "diplomacy." You are voting to oppress and enslave citizens of less developed countries, pay pennies on the dollar for their resources and keep their economies unable to support themselves due to our exploitation. You are voting to continue to allow Congress to vote national single-payer non-profit insurance for themselves while denying it to everyone else. You are voting to continue to allow corporation to hide the ingredients of their products and grease the palms of FDA and USDA officials who are supposed to be regulating them (ha!). You are voting to create a super-wealthy above-the-law class of people that is answerable to no one because they're "too big to fail" and "too big to prosecute" (because not shaking their lobbyist money revenue stream is far more important to Republicans than justice of any kind).

This man is the representative of my state, and I am so ashamed of him that every time he is shown on TV I cringe at what sort of unethical and immoral let-them-eat-cake sentiment is going to be spewing from his mouth this time.

This party of wealthy elitist hypocrites used to be my party. I am truly horrified that I used to be affiliated with these narcissistic people. Even worse, many of them actually claim a religious basis for their refusal to help the poor, widows & orphans, sick and elderly, and their willingness to use military force to steal their unfair share of the world's resources. It's such a perversion of either part of the Judeo-Christian heritage that I don't see how ANY reasonably educated person can believe such garbage.


Yet they do. It makes me want to puke.

Why is it that Americans can't understand what these policies are really about? If it was about "spreading democracy" and "protecting ethnic minorities" they'd be gung-ho about Tibet, and Darfur, and countless other places where cultural and ethnic genocide is taking place daily - and they'd be falling all over themselves to return lands and funds to Native American tribes, the first victims of American's "Manifest Destiny" delusion. But those other places don't have natural resources, so America doesn't care. And the Native American tribes don't have anything of value, either, since any such things were taken from them by force long ago.

Or...the world's other victims are being occupied by bigger bullies, such as China. Funny republicans are willing to antagonize poor, relatively undeveloped countries but suddenly their "values" melt when it comes to China, the largest holder of US debt. China's officials force women to have late-term abortions against their will and even resort to infanticide to punish poor couples who can't pay the exorbitant "fines" for having a child (if they can, no problem!). So where is the republican "pro-life" stance now? China is positioning its military to seize lands belonging to other nations in the Pacific Rim. Do the Republicans openly challenge that? Do they have an official unambiguous position on defending Taiwan? So much for "America's moral leadership" McCain was blathering about this morning on Face the Nation.

Republicans can hardly blame China for doing what they themselves are doing - special privileges for the wealthy elite, colonizing other nations to exploit their land and resources (in China's case, Africa), and leaving the African nationals with no recourse, and buying oil futures like there's no tomorrow. The pot would be calling the kettle black, so they can't say anything. And truthfully, Republicans only have a problem with this because THEY want all the world's resources for themselves. They don't have any problem at all with the methods. I've even heard republicans talk about sterilizing the poor in return for public assistance, and punishing people who have children when they aren't in a "traditional" conservative style marriage relationship. This kind of junk slips out of their mouths on a regular basis. Rush Limbaugh recently even said, out loud on the air, that this country went to pot as soon as women got the vote. And do you ever hear Republicans saying how Saudi Arabia forbids people to have any religion other than Islam? Or do you hear them ever say how Islamic nations oppress women's rights? No. In short, everything oppressive Islamic and communist governments are doing, Republicans would like to do, too - just without the complications from China, Russia, and OPEC.

If you vote Republican, this is what you are voting for: a failed theory of "trickle-down" economics that doesn't have a SHRED of proof that anyone other than the 1% actually benefits, and an even worse theory of "perpetual growth" which ignores ecological limits in a short-sighted tragedy of the commons, endangers future generations, and asserts that Americans are somehow "entitled" to 40% of the world's resources every year when we have only 5% of the world's population. Worse, American parades this lifestyle of excessive consumption, dangling it in front of their poor exploited trading partners, as if EVERY 5% of the world could be the same! (Math obviously not being Republicans strong point - they're too busy praying and fighting against science in school to actually be educated, apparently. But I digress.)

Why would anybody agree with this bizarre agenda? I don't understand how any of this could even be debatable! It's all pretty clear to me. America's government should serve America's people, period. It's NOT our job to provide free policing for the rest of the world. Foreign military bases should be closed and wars stopped immediately. It's NOT our job to ram globalism and economic imperialism down other nations' throats. No more "free trade" that promotes outsourcing and rewards third world despots who refuse to grant their own people wage and labour, safety and environmental laws that the American people insist on for ourselves. It's NOT a fair and free democracy if Congress and the wealthy elite enjoy privileges the rest of us don't have, and are above the law. Congress's special healthcare and retirement plans should be disbanded immediately, and they should have to use the same social security the rest of us get and buy the same private for-profit insurance that they insist the rest of us buy. And they shouldn't get ANY retirement plan other than their own private savings. Congress was never intended to be a person's primary employment - even the founding fathers agree to that. But Republicans are fighting to the death to deny you non-profit single-payer healthcare and defined benefit retirement while they themselves enjoy both.

That's what you're voting for when you vote Republican. If that's not what you want, then don't do it. Walk away. I did it, and so can you. It's time to say "NO!" to their insanity and vote to use our tax dollars for our own benefit for a change - to provide for our own people, to secure our own borders, and to invest in self-sufficiency at every level: homegrown food, home generated power, mass transportation for everyone, high-tech k-college education for our own kids future, high quality research at colleges to propel innovation, and a strong social safety net that recognizes the basic human right to life via healthcare and decent housing, and so on. If this is what you want our tax dollars to do, then don't vote Republican. It's that simple.

If you think enriching the 1% further will actually benefit you, that pouring money into overseas wars and military occupation of other nations will actually benefit you, if you think continuing to use resources as if they will last forever and destroying the environment in the process is a good idea, if you think gutting the social safety net will actually benefit you and your family, if you think being dependent on foreign nations that hate us for our fuel and food and technology is a good idea, and if you think there's nothing wrong with social darwinism (i.e. the survival of the richest), if you think you and your kids and their family can survive on mc-wally-wort wage jobs with no benefits, then you need to ask yourself where you got these ideas, because they are not based on any sort of factual reality. And if you vote for these myths, you will get what you asked for. And they'll be laughing all the way to the bank - with your money - just like McConnell.

Not sure if I should be happy or sad.

A while back our state representative sent us, and the rest of her constituency I presume, a note asking for comments regarding our state budget, which was under review. I'm sure she expected, and received, a great many brief notes from people who had a problem with this or that line item, and wanted it increased or decreased accordingly.

But you know me - I couldn't help myself. I wrote up a several pages long analysis of current and future economic trends, included many of my favorite charts and graphs, related them to various industries and policies of our state and how our budget priorities need to be changed to deal with changing economic conditions. My husband added in a few observations of his own, as someone with several decades of experience in the city's long range planning division. And so we sent it off, being fairly certain some aide would glance at it and then its final resting place would be "file 13." (If you're not familiar with that term, you're way younger than I am, LOL.) A short while later, we received a customary "thank you for your input" reply, as I recall. Oh, well. We did our civic duty - even if nobody listened.

Or did they?

Imagine my surprise when I returned home after a long and crazy day (including a very lively job interview), and found this note on my desk with the mail pile:

Wow. She actually read it - herself! And agreed with it, no less. Woo-hoo! Yea! My paper was well received and proved accurate!

But alas, it was to no avail, apparently. Darn (or insert expletive of your choice here), it didn't make a bit of difference.

Should I be happy? Sad? Or simply resigned to the inevitable? I'm not sure.

Back in February of 2007 I made a similar type of presentation (but with somewhat different content and focus) to our local city-county planning commission, which does our local area development plan revision every 5 years (as is required by our state law). I prepared a mere 10 minute speech and gave copies of it to all the commission members. I was one of several presenters. I decided not to mince words, but to explain very clearly and directly what the problems were going to be over the projected 20 year range of the plan and what actions needed to take place to address those problems. After all, a few minutes is not a lot of time. So it's not like they didn't understand the problems or their future severity, because I made sure I wasn't beating around the bush at all. My sources were from the US Govt and international agencies, top economists and highly regarded analysts - not crackpot fringe elements.

But not a single one of those recommendations was adopted into the development plan, nor any acknowledgement of the actual problems and issues I presented to them, even if they didn't like my solutions and preferred to come up with their own.

Not one.

Oh, well. I did my civic duty, even if nobody listened.

And I will continue to do it, however a long shot it may be. As I recently replied to a comment from a good friend on my facebook page, "if we just keep hitting the flint, surely some spark will eventually catch."

And if nothing else, I have passed my love of the community on to my son, who has just been accepted to the University this fall with a major in political science.

I was surprised at his choice of major, since he has taken so many architectural and engineering courses and done well with them as part of his high school studies. I said, jokingly, "Didn't I disabuse you of all that silly youthful idealism?"

He replied, "Apparently not."

Hope springs eternal. For that, we should be happy. The quest for a fair and economically sound future will go forward, however slowly - and that is a good thing.

The Death of the American Empire.

I have often stated in the past that the US, which currently appropriates around 40% of the worlds natural resources every year (including oil), can't keep expecting to use that much.  We only have 5% of the world's population.  We are therefore only entitled to 5% of the world's natural resources.

Republicans, in particular, are having a great deal of difficulty grasping this concept, calling American lifestyle of excessive consumption "non-negotiable."  As this chart shows, however, not only is it negotiable, we are increasingly less able to outbid our competitors in developing nations from buying those resources.

The people in the exploited part of the world are starting to demand their fair share - and get it.  We, on the other hand, don't "get it."  The myth of progress is the founding philosophy of America - the future must always be better than the past.   It's a myth we need to get over, quickly, because now that we make nothing of significant value, have 50 million uninsured and 40+ million un-or-under-employed, we just don't have the assets or the money to bid against rapidly developing nations for oil or anything else for that matter.  And even if we did, the nations we have exploited in the past do not have to sell us their resources.  They can sell to whomever they please, and the countries harboring the transnational corporations that have been exploiting them may just not be on that list, regardless of how many devalued dollars they can bring to the table.  In the American idea of a "free market," an item always goes to the person with the most money.  Out here in real life land, people can and do refuse to sell or buy for reasons that are purely ideological, religious, or political.  Americans think money can buy anything.  American dollars, increasingly, cannot.

Going from using 40% of the world's resources to using only 5% or so represents an 80% reduction in our usage of resources.  Some might say that's an 80% reduction in our standard of living.  It's hard to argue with that logic, since American wages and benefits are being ground down slowly but surely to match those of our exploited "trade partners."  However, the chart above shows their wages and benefits are rising slightly as they begin to demand sufficient income to live in a "western" style.  So maybe we'll get lucky and only have to lower our standard of living 50% or so.

That means having 50% less gasoline, for starters.  When it was recently reported that the US became a net exporter of petroleum products, dumb Republicans acted as if this was a good thing.

As you can see, we have in fact increased our exports. Yeah?  Ummm, no.  Refining capacity has remained essentially unchanged since the 1960s and production of US crude oil went into terminal decline in the 1970s. Our population has increased by some 30 million annually, mostly due to immigration.  So we have more people but the same refining capacity.  In other words, our use of petroleum products should have gone up.  But it hasn't. 

Improvements in technology have barely increased production since the mid-2000s, as you can see.  Worse, increasing production from existing wells simply depletes them faster.  It doesn't make more oil actually appear.  But I digress.  As we saw above, use of oil in the US, Europe and Japan is declining.  In Europe and Japan it is declining due to development of high-speed rail and other advanced public transportation systems, integrated from individual neighborhoods all the way to cross-continent, in Europe's case, and a similar available-to-nearly-all approach has been taken in Japan.  But we KNOW that hasn't happened here in the US.

The ugly truth is that Americans are slowly but surely being priced out of the gasoline market.  The US increased exports not because we had more production capacity than ever but because we had fewer people than ever able to financially afford buy the petroleum products produced in our refineries, despite having increased population. 

Republicans also keep saying we need to return to "growth" - in fact, even some Democrats say that.  No one is saying the obvious.  There isn't going to be any growth in a country of diminishing ability to compete on the world market for natural resources (except for those we are taking by force at gunpoint).  There isn't going to be any growth in a country whose business is increasingly unwelcome in the nations we have been exploiting.  And there isn't going to be any growth in a country that can't outbid other nations for the resources we need to maintain our excessive consumption.  China has secured petroleum contracts for decades worth of future oil production.  Our current suppliers eye us with mistrust and a very public wish to rid themselves of us and our influence.  And as our standard of living continues to fall toward our third world competitors, there is simply no way ordinary families can keep up the excessive consumption that would be required for "growth" in our economy.  It just ain't gonna happen.

But we keep pretending things will go back to "normal" - refusing to understand that "normal" was anything but.  The old "normal" was predicated on us being able to exploit other nations and take far more than our fair share of everything.  That "normal" is never coming back, class.  Never.  Oh, sure, the US will no doubt embark on further resource wars, but it will be to no avail.  The only thing that will accomplish is to bankrupt our government and make US dollars more worthless faster.

The smart thing to do would be to start acknowledging that the whole myth of progress paradigm no longer functions in a world of resource depletion and start living within our means, personally and as a nation.  But that isn't going to happen, either.  It's clear from all the idiocy coming from our current crop of political candidates that no one is willing to face the truth, no matter how many charts and graphs, books and articles, blogs and coffee-table conversations are out here.  The people in the US are simply not interested in a 50% reduction in their excessive consumption way of life, and they'd rather collapse the economy than do it.  It's that simple.

This path only has one end - the death of the American empire, with possibly the death of the republic itself as an unavoidable side effect.  Greed and selfishness has killed America.  We're a dead man walking.  The only question now is when we will finally fall down.  The sad part is that this will be a good thing for the rest of the world.  With us no longer greedily sucking the life out of their exploited peoples, they will do much better.  And if we were a moral people, we would be ok with everyone having their fair share.  But we're not - even as more and more Americans fall into a lower and lower standard of living, Republicans are striving to make sure they stay there, with more lies about "progress" and "growth" and a return to "normal" right around the corner.  After all, the 1% has theirs, they vote Republican, and that's all that matters to them.  As for the rest of us, "let them eat cake."

Unfortunately, the cake is a lie.

Time for us to revolt against the usurpers, again.

The Conversion Controversies Continue

blog by Rabbi Marc D. Angel (jewishideas.org)

Received by email Friday, December 23, 2011

The Israeli Chief Rabbinate has recently rejected the applications of several Orthodox Jewish converts who have applied to live in Israel. This rejection has been reported widely in the Jewish media, and has generated much discussion--and anger, frustration, disgust. These cases are being appealed, and we hope that these converts will indeed be allowed to settle in Israel as Jews...

As long time readers of this blog and many others know, the Chief Rabbinate in Israel has the ultimate goal of de-legitimizing all Jews who are not ultra-orthodox and who do not accept ultra-orthodox authority over all Jews, and to de-legitimize all Jewish communities in the Diaspora except the few that give their express allegiance to and completely accept the authority of the ultra-orthodox faction in Israel.  They began waging this war against the other sects of Judaism several years ago, and that war has not even begun to make waves in the diaspora as it should be doing.  Jews in America don't realize the danger.  They think the UO are a minority fringe bunch of quacks that have nothing to do with them.  

...The Chief Rabbinate only accepts Orthodox conversions performed under their jurisdiction and/or with their express approval. Orthodox rabbis who refuse to bend to the will of the Chief Rabbinate are excluded from the Chief Rabbinate's "approved" list.
This policy is problematic on many levels...

This list has been in existence for several years now.  Few non ultra-orthodox American Jews know about it.  The long and short of it is, if you can't secure a letter of confirmation or a conversion certificate from one of these specific ultra-orthodox rabbis proving your Jewish heritage to their satisfaction or a "proper" conversion, then even orthodox American Jews are not considered Jewish by the Rabbinate in Israel.  They want a document showing at least three generations of observant Jews in a woman's family before they will certify her as Jewish.  Who has that after the holocaust?  Very few.  In cases of orthodox Jews, natural born or converts, the Rabbinate then has the authority to deny them the right of return, as has done so countless times in the past five or six years.  

...1. Conversions performed by non-Orthodox rabbis in the diaspora are routinely accepted in Israel as proof of Jewishness for the purposes of the law of return. Such converts are not subject to the authority of the Chief Rabbinate. Only Orthodox converts are under the aegis of the Chief Rabbinate, so only Orthodox converts must suffer the injustices and indignities inflicted upon them by the Chief Rabbinate...

The key phrase above is "for the purpose of the law of return."  Being a non ultra-orthodox Jew will get you into the country.  You can make aliyah.  What you can't do is get married, divorced, buried in a Jewish cemetery, or have any other right or privilege accorded to Jews in Israel because the Chief Rabbinate does not consider anyone who is not ultra-orthodox to be Jewish and they control all civil rights for Jews in Israel. 

...2. Conversions performed by Orthodox rabbis are done in conformity with the requirements of halakha. For the Chief Rabbinate to deny the Jewishness of such converts is a sin of the first magnitude. It causes pain and humiliation to such converts, and thus violates 36 (some say 46) Torah commandments. It also undermines the status of Orthodox rabbis in the diaspora (and in Israel!) who refuse to comply with the most extreme, Hareidi views on conversion...

They don't see it that way, obviously.  To them, they are weeding out "unfit" natural born Jews and "illegitimate" converts (i.e. all those who are not ultra-orthodox to their specifications, which are riddled with stringencies far and above halacha).  And they don't care who it hurts.  Their idea of racial and religious purity is their only concern. 

...3. In rejecting the Jewishness of Orthodox converts, the Chief Rabbinate wittingly or unwittingly turns potential converts away from halakha. It encourages them to prefer non-Orthodox conversions, so as to avoid confrontation with the Chief Rabbinate. Moreover, if Orthodox converts were really to take the Chief Rabbinate seriously, they would feel free to violate halakha--even though they are in fact halakhically Jewish!

Ironic, isn't it?  But again, the Rabbinate says to themselves, "So what if they don't follow halacha?  They shouldn't be pretending to in the first place, since they aren't really Jewish."

...4. The Chief Rabbinate has itself agreed to have Orthodox converts approved by the Jewish Agency, rather than through the Chief Rabbinate. This agreement was reached so that Orthodox converts would have a means of having their Jewishness validated by a body that is familiar with the Orthodox rabbinate worldwide, and that is able to evaluate properly the credentials of the sponsoring rabbis of conversions. Now, the Chief Rabbinate is reneging on its own formal agreement with the Jewish Agency...

Because the Jewish Agency recognizes conversions and lineages of modern orthodox and "orthodox-lite" Jews, which the Rabbinate can't stand any more than they can stand Conservative Jews, not to mention Reform (which they consider to be another religion entirely.  At least Conservatives give lip-service to halacha) . 

...5. The policy of the Chief Rabbinate is detrimental to the interests of the State of Israel. It alienates the very people who have shown great desire to be Jewish and to live in Israel...

Can't argue with that one.   I would love to have my family make aliyah, but I'm not going to subject my kids to the insanity of having to leave the country to get married, or having to go through an ultra-orthodox conversion even though they are natural born Jews just because their grandparents and parents were secular, not observant, for one example.  There are few people in American Jewry who don't have such ancestors hanging about in their family tree, and the Rabbinate considers these things proof a person isn't "really" Jewish.  Who wants to go through such idiocy?    

...6. A person who has undergone a halakhic conversion is 100% Jewish, regardless of anything the Chief Rabbinate says or does. The halakhot of conversion must not be allowed to be held hostage to the misguided and extreme views of the Chief Rabbinate or to the Chief Rabbinate's struggle to maintain power and authority for itself...

Unfortunately, it IS being held hostage by a bunch of extremists who insist on stringencies and practices which are not, and historically have never been, normative halacha.  They have all the power and authority, and that is not likely to change in light of the strange fact that moderate, liberal, conservative, and secular Jewish families don't have many children.  (That's a whole other blog post in itself - Jews are hardly overpopulating the world.)

...7. A great many Jews are rightly outraged by the Chief Rabbinate's egregious sins against converts, and its blatant disregard for the best interests of converts and the State of Israel. Many see this as a rabbinic power grab, not as a righteous way of providing religious leadership...

Yes.  And?  Diaspora Jews have no influence at all on this process, and Israeli Jews are either apathetic or out-manned and out-gunned, so to speak. 

...The Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals has been outspoken on behalf of a halakhically valid, compassionate and inclusive policy relating to conversion to Judaism. We have worked with like-minded people in Israel and the diaspora to defend the honor and rights of halakhic converts. At the forefront of these battles in Israel is Rabbi Shaul Farber, who heads an organization known at Itim. He deserves our appreciation and support.

Please stand with and support the work of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals (jewishideas.org) and the work of Itim (itim.org.il), and of other like-minded organizations that fight for an intellectually vibrant, compassionate and inclusive Orthodox Judaism. Together, we can accomplish great things.

Amein, class.  Let us hope that Jews in Israel are accorded the basic human rights to marry and to freedom of religious practice that the democratic government is supposed to guarantee.  Otherwise, more educated, moderate, working class Jews will leave, or stay away in the first place.  Israel can't afford to be intellectually and religiously dis-invested by the majority of Diaspora Jewry, or it can't survive.   If they think otherwise, they are sadly mistaken.  We, the reasonable center of Judaism, need to take back our government from the usurpers, or the nation will fail.  It's that simple.  And quite apropos for this time of year.

Shabbat Shalom and a peaceful Chanukkah to you all.

Support Occupy Wall Street!

I just taped this sign to the back of my car, right in the middle of the back windshield.

REAL UNEMPLOYMENT – 22.5%
REAL INFLATION – 7% a year
REAL WAGES – Stagnant since '70s
(since CEOs only want to pay $1 an hour in places
with no wage, safety or environmental laws)
REAL VALUE OF THE DOLLAR -
Down 55% since 1985!
REAL COST OF THE ONGOING WARS?
No healthcare, no Soc. Sec., & no unempl. benefits!
WHOSE FAULT IS IT?!?
WASHINGTON & WALL STREET!!!!

Figures above straight from August 2011 charts on Shadow Government Statistics – www.shadowstats.com

There is a protest in my town, in front of the Chase Bank building. It is most active in the afternoons and evenings, and I plan to spend some time there with a copy of this sign mounted on cardboard.

I hope that you will all do the same at your nearest Occupy Wall Street protest, with this or a similar sign. Or, if you aren't near one, there are links online to give money to support those who have camped out in major cities full-time. For more information on protests in major cities, go to this website.  If you are near one, please take some snacks or other food so the protesters can stay in place as long as possible.

It's time TPTB stop ignoring the 99% of us at the bottom of the wealth chart.  The only way we are going to be heard is to stop pretending anyone is listening to our letters to our representatives and complaints to CEOs, because these things are clearly going straight to file 13.

Support Occupy Wall Street!  We need a louder voice!  Speak out!

Or, do nothing.  Then don't be surprised when nothing changes.

A not so happy new year?

With the new year only days away, there seems to be little to celebrate and plenty to worry about. Indefensible Israeli borders forced on us by the UN? An oil embargo when America vetoes the new division of the holy land? A currency collapse when Russia and China decide to drop US dollars as the world reserve currency? A US govt shutdown as bipartisanship tears the fabric of this country apart? (Though it's awfully tempting let it shut Congress down and keep it that way, isn't it? Bunch of slimeballs!)

Still, there are things that the government needs to do, because for-profit companies simply won't do them. It is precisely because they are not "profitable" in the capitali$tic sense, but are profitable to society, that government must impose laws on corporations to protect people from being exploited (and the earth, too) and to provide for the needs of society that should be done in a non-profit manner - and need to be done even if the cost exceeds the revenue.

For example, what will we do when there's no US govt post office? How will the poor (who can't afford internet bill-paying and can't afford gas or time off work to visit everywhere in person) get by? Do the Republicans even care? Jim Kunstler made these comments today:

...Speaking of the constitution, I'm getting a little sick of these corporate CEO knuckleheads who come on CNBC and complain that the US Postal Service is running at a loss, and therefore we should abolish it. There is actually little beyond all those post offices that holds the fabric of small town America together anymore. And anyway, delivering the mail is one of the few actual government services that is spelled out in the US constitution in no uncertain terms in Article One, Section 8. It doesn't say the postal service must run at a profit, by the way. ...Neither does the war in Afghanistan (if you don't count the drug money). Congress runs at a profit, but not in any way that the constitution provides for. Before long, a lot of people are going to want to abolish it.

I don't think even the opium profits are putting a dent in the costs of the war, much less the costs to the ordinary people as Congress continues to serve their real lords & masters and gleefully leaves the average US citizen out on the street, homeless, exploited, and left with no retirement or healthcare.

In case you hadn't heard, the Republicans are just fine with that. Some teapartiers actually cheered at the thought of the elderly and poor dying off. With Christians like these set to run the country, we should worry. If they're willing to let their fellow co-religionists rot in shantytowns and die in the street, I don't think they're going to worry much if Jews do.

Especially since, you know, we secretly control all the world's wealth and we're conspiring with the "new world order" atheists to take over all their banks and steal all their gold - and brand them with microchips called "the mark of the beast" so they can't work, buy or sell unless they're part of our evil economic system.

Yes, a great many teapartiers and republicans really think that. And there's little doubt they intend to have control of the US government, one way or another. What joy!

Not that making aliyah looks to be a better option - the probability is high that Jerusalem will end up in a bloodbath, neighborhood against neighborhood, Muslims, Christians, and Jews - and it's questionable which side some of the chereidi are really on, to boot. A four way free-for-all? Kill them all and let God sort them out? International peacekeepers, anyone? Throw in a little biological or chemical warfare for good measure (they won't use nukes because we'd toast Mecca if they did, I presume). M-A-D!

Oy.

Or is that "ouch?" Duck and cover! And L'Shana Tova!

A very sobering video.

You need to watch this video. This is a report by a well-respected investment and economic analyst which basically confirms things we have worried about here for a long time: loss of the American Dollar as the world's reserve currency and the terrible hyperinflationary results that will follow in the US. We've talked about everything he discusses. And he's a very rich and influential guy. Listen to him.

Stansberry's Investment Advisory

Ignore it at your own peril.

Of course, there are some caveats. The author is a right-wing republican, so he blames "taxes on corporations" and "regulations" (meaning health, safety and environmental laws) instead of the elephant in the room: the endless wars and the military industrial complex. (And he does pitch some not-really-free booklets and pitches his investment firm at the end.)

Alternately, if you hate long videos, you can read this article posted today at Market Oracle. The title is, and I quote: Monetary System in Ruin, Signals of Systematic Collapse.

Either way, no matter what we overspent on and what has hindered living wages, the end result will be the same. It's inevitable at this point. We owe far more than what we can pay. How we got here is no longer relevant. The outcome would be the same if we did actually spend all the money on the sick and poor. The fact that we spent it on economic imperialism and warmongering is water under the bridge. The debt itself, no matter how we got here, is now itself a staggering problem.

And the effects of this are going to hit America hard. Believe it.

Look out below!

I have frequently lamented about the unwillingness or inability of Jewish communities in general, and my community in particular, to adapt to the new economic realities. I have been particularly alarmed at the reduction in benefits for the unemployed that are coming down the pipeline, for obvious reasons:

[Hat tip: Shadow Govt Statistics]

Approximately 1/4 of all able-bodied adult persons who need or want a job in this county either can't find one at all or have had their hours and/or wages involuntarily reduced to less than full time status. That is the blue line at the top - real unemployment. As you have heard in several speeches and debates so far, most candidates intend to refuse to extend unemployment benefits any further, and all of the have talked about reducing the benefits that are being offered. Excluding Chereidi communities, which have a much higher poverty rate and unemployment for different reasons, most other Jewish communities are typical of the overall American workforce - meaning about 1/4 of Jewish adults are also un- or under-employed and will be negatively affected by the policies that are coming down the pipeline to eliminate or reduce benefits. What will happen to these Jewish families when their unemployment runs out?

An article last year pointed out that 43% of American workers had less than $10,000 saved for retirement. That's maybe three months of income for someone forced into early retirement who still has a mortgage - six months tops for a mortgage-free household. Again, excluding Chereidi communities, average Jewish communities are in the same boat. Most people have little to no retirement savings. So what happens to these elderly Jews when Social Security benefits are reduced?

As we all have heard ad nauseum, 50+ million people in the US have no health insurance at all, not even Medicare or Medicaid. And those on Medicare and Medicaid can expect benefit reductions also. Where are these Jewish families going to turn to for money when they need healthcare?

On August 4th, if you recall, I posted an blog article I called The Debt Crisis and Jewish Communities. I also submitted a copy of that post to a local Jewish newspaper, changing only a word or two. They declined to print it, of course, saying it needed to be "toned down" because it was too over the top, said the editor after consulting with the editorial committee. They don't want to have the conversation that I pointed out needs to be had - that we do not have resources or programs in place to take care of fellow Jews in those situations, and the need is going to continue to grow by leaps and bounds over the next several years.

Now, mind you, this same article got 5 stars from the editors at JBlog, I presume because they found it well-written, important and timely. [Granted, I have no actual idea how the editors at JBlog rate the posts submitted to them - but I don't have a perfect 5-star rating (click here and scroll down to "Shalom Bayit" to see my overall rating, which was 4.76 for 207 articles, last time I checked.)] At least the JBlog editors thought that particular article was good, as did I - which is why I submitted it to the paper.

This community, not so much.

I must confess at this point I am at a loss. I mentioned in my blog post before last that the leaders in my community just do not believe any of this is real. It seems there is no way to get my community to open their eyes and prepare for the inevitable. There are books and articles, blogs and reports galore, by authors far more famous, well-respected and educated than me. But the community is just not interested in them. No amount of data, sources, or persuasion seems adequate to the task. As I pointed out at the beginning of this year, nothing I do or say seems to make any difference here, and I'm getting tired of even trying.

Sad, but true. I have a saying at my house, when it's time to give up and move on from some misadventure. I tell the boys that I have "reached the I-don't-care portion of this program." I'm just not willing to invest any more emotion or energy into the situation - some moms say "I've had it!" instead, and perhaps literally throw down their towel. This being the internet and all, the effect isn't quite the same, I guess, but you get the idea:

You'll just have to imagine it in a wad on the floor.

9/11 then and now

This was my blog entry for September 11, 2006:

Five years ago today, I slept late. The phone rang. A friend of mine told me turn on the TV. There, on the screen, was the world trade center. One of the towers was burning. My friend was telling me what had happened so far. I was in the front room - the room which would later be our bedroom after our foster son moved in, but at that time it was being used as a TV room. I was standing in the middle of the floor, talking on the phone and halfway listening to the TV, my eyes fixed on the burning figure of the first tower.

And then, there was a plane on the screen.

And my mind went in two different directions at that point. One part said, "Oh, this must be an instant replay." The other said, "Wait a minute, the first tower is still burning."

It seemed like an eternity before my brain could process this information. I could no longer hear what they were saying on the TV, because my mind was furiously trying to make 2 and 2 not equal four. But no, I had just personally witnessed a second tragedy. Another plane. Another burning tower. Now there were two.

I think I said, "Oh, my God." I can't remember what my friend said. Now I began trying to hear what they were saying on the TV. They were, of course, realizing what I was realizing. No accident. No possible accident. On purpose. Terrorism.

I probably mentally arrived at this conclusion before they did, because I follow the news from Israel. Buses and cafes full of kids and old ladies were blowing up on a regular basis there, and always that wonder in the back of your mind: when will terror come to these shores? It's only a matter of time, we always said.

That time was here.

The rest of the day, and for the next several days, I was glued to the television - as were millions of other people. And in the next weeks and months, I waiting to hear what target was hit next - the Sears tower? The Golden Gate Bridge? The Arch of St. Louis? The Space Needle of Seattle? The Statue of Liberty? The Washington Monument? Much of the nation waited with me.

And were were shown pictures on tv, also, of entire Kurdish villages in Iraq where Saddam had lobbed his missiles, test firing them onto his long time ethnic enemies. There were bloated dead bodies of women, children, the elderly, even cattle. Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, obviously, and was trying to develop a missile that would fire all the way to Israel, and to Europe, and even farther. Maybe even to our shores, he hoped. And, he was hosting terrorist training camps on his land, and giving money to terrorist groups - when he wasn't busy slaughtering his own political enemies and firing more deadly chemical and biological weapons at the Kurds. A nasty guy. We should get rid of him.

So we did.

And then things went back to normal.

Now, let me tell you a parable of Y2K. Remember Y2K? A few years before the turn of the century, unix and dos programmers noticed that there was no way to enter the year 2000 into programs that had only a two digit way of calculating the year. When you put in zero-zero for the year, and tried to do basic calculations such as "how much interest has your account earned since last month," and "what amount of electricity needs to be generated today based on the average use for last month," and so on and so on, that the computers malfunctioned. After all, you can't take away 99 from 00. That's an illegal mathematical operation. The programmers were concerned. Just how many banks, utilities, stock brokerages, communications, and business computers out there only used two digits in their year calculations?

Well, class, the answer was, almost all of them.

Oops. So the programmer, my father being one, worked furiously for almost four years to update, rewrite, recompile, and re-test nearly every computer program running every major computer in the entire United States. The deadline was looming. But guess what?

They did it! Every major system was updated on time. And as a result, there was no major malfunctions in the computer backbone of our country's life. And you know what happened then?

People said there was never a problem in the first place. It was just hype.

"WHAT?" The programmers said. "We worked our butts off for years to make sure the problem was fixed and no major disruptions occurred - how can you say the problem never existed?"

For the record, there was one program of mine that I didn't replace. It was my favorite fax-modem program. In it was saved all my important faxes. And sure enough, when I tried to use it after January 1st, 2000, it kept saying I was sending a fax from the year 1739. Why that year, I'll never know. But since faxes need an accurate date/time stamp, I had to reluctantly part with my favorite program. That was my experience with Y2K, because hundreds of programmers had worked themselves countless hours to make sure nothing worse than that happened.

Fast forward to 2006. Now, we have people saying that Saddam was never a problem, terrorism isn't really a threat to us, and this whole thing is a lot of hype. They want to stop all of the hundreds and thousands of people from doing their jobs who are working their butts off to make sure the problem is fixed and no major disruptions occur.

And of course, the people who are doing this job are saying, "WHAT?"

Have we really already forgotten the bloated bodies of people gassed to death in Iraq by chemical and biological weapons? Are we not grateful that the people doing their jobs have stopped plot after plot here in the US, making sure that nothing worse happens here? Do we really think that if those people stop working, we will still be safe?

I hope not, class, because that would be incredibly stupid.

I was wrong about one thing. The time for buses and cafes full of children and old ladies blowing up here on these shores is not yet. It is not yet because of the diligence of the people working countless hours night and day to make sure it doesn't happen. Make no mistake, class, the Muslims want to blow them up. They want America to fall to pieces. They say so ever day in their news, in their children's shows, in their movies, on their radios. And the second we relax our vigilance, we are doomed.

I, being a realist, believe this will in fact happen. It's only a matter of time before bombs start going off in public places here. Even here in our town, our Temple and our Synagogue will most likely be blown to kingdom come. Why? Americans are selfish, lazy, and incredibly short-sighted. Americans think if they just be nice, everyone else will be, too. Americans have no sense of history or reality. They are stupid. So the day will come. And there will be no satisfaction when I say, "I told you so." Your stupidity endangers my children, too.

Baruch Hashem, that day is still not yet here - though they actually took time after the president's jobs speech last night to ignore the teabaggers and other republicans long enough to mention that a credible threat involving car bombs in the US at major 9/11 memorial services did in fact exist, and authorities were working furiously to defuse it.

However, my views on the war have aged along with the war. What should have been a fairly reasonable get-Hussein-and-get-out has turned into a decade long fight for natural resources in Iraq and Afghanistan that has little to nothing to do with 9/11 and a lot to do with opium profits and access to oil reserves. Yes, I do still believe that he had chemical weapons and biological weapons - it's pretty stupid to say he didn't when there is ample footage even yet of the bloated dead bodies of his Kurdish victims. Nonetheless, and I know the brave men and women fighting there in our name may not believe this, but the war has long ceased to be about security and is now solidly a trade of blood for economic imperialism.

I voted for the President Obama because as commander-in-chief of America's armed forces, he could have stopped the wars and brought all our kids home with the stroke of a pen. But he didn't. He could have ordered Guantanomo Bay closed the same way. But he didn't. (I'll leave the topic of national non-profit single payer healthcare for another day.) The military industrial complex has a life of its own, now, and the teapartiers are all for it. Such ignorance disgusts me.

Like Y2K, the results of our war on Islam, er, I mean war on terror are so minimal as to be forgotten by most people. We don't have checkpoints and internal passports. We have annoying scanners at the airport, easily avoided by not flying. That's it. That's our everyday legacy of 9/11 - TSA agents who molest little kids and grandmas so they can appear to be non-discriminatary. But we all know it's a lie. The teabaggers hate Islam with a fervor they will gladly apply to Judaism as soon as they figure out we aren't going to stop believing in the social safety net and the obligation of the government to enforce people's right to life, liberty and happiness by providing non-profit healthcare, old age pensions, unemployment, and stipends for children. As "liberals" and "progressives" we are just as evil as Muslims, in their opinion.

At some point, however, we have to acknowledge that continued cultural and economic warfare against other nations is not really in America's best interests. At this point, some ten years later, we are provoking violence against ourselves, not preventing it. The leaders, including Osama bin Laden, who are responsible for the 9/11 attacks are dead. We are waging war against people who are no threat to these shores. Our vigilant men and women of homeland security make sure of that, and our border patrol, every day. Yet we continue to antagonize people halfway around the world - not for security, but for oil and opium profits. And they have been fighting back - even on these shores, if they can.

Isn't that wonderful? The real result of all this warmongering has been - and will continue to be - an America that is a less safe place.

May the memory of those who died at the Pentagon, on the flight in Pennsylvania, and at the World Trade Center be a blessing for us and for their loved ones.

And may they no longer be used as grist for the war mill.

Facing the New Reality

It turns out I don't have to write a great booklet about the economic future America faces - somebody else beat me to the punch.

Facing the new reality
by Various contributors including Sharon Astyk, Nate Hagens, Richard Heinberg, Dmitry Orlov...

The Community Action Partnership, which is the umbrella organization of Community Action Agencies--which in turn administer the lion's share of anti-poverty programs in the US--has just come out with a report, Facing the New Reality: Preparing Poor America for Harder Times Ahead. Input for the report came from (among others) Nate Hagens, Dmitry Orlov, Sharon Astyk, Dave Room, John Michael Greer, Megan Bachman, and Richard Heinberg.

From the report:

Letter of Introduction

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

The Community Action Partnership presents here an unprecedented and extraordinary report: "Facing the New Reality: Preparing Poor America for Harder Times Ahead." This report is based on the equally extraordinary premise that much of what passes for reality in "the popular narrative" is not based on reality but instead on a collective denial of a genuine reality too difficult for most Americans to fully comprehend or accept.

There are many versions of the popular narrative but it tends to include the following beliefs: the United States will fully recover from a strong but temporary recession; we have access to enough energy from coal, natural gas and nuclear power to meet our needs for decades; our economy will return to growth and keep growing for the foreseeable future; technology will solve our energy and climate problems; conventional agriculture will continue to feed our nation and much of the rest of the world; and American prosperity will solve our collective debt crisis and bring a higher standard of living to all in a promising future.

This report suggests that these beliefs are fictions that serve many special interests while deterring us from facing the real and pressing need to prepare society now for unprecedented hardship, economic turmoil, resource scarcity and greatly increasing ranks of Americans living in poverty...

What is the "New Reality"?

The phrase the "New Reality" is used in this report as shorthand for the near future, a period that we have already entered, projected out over several decades. The report factors in three global mega-trends that the report's authors believe will be the dominant drivers shaping this period. These are: resource depletion, climate change and economic turmoil. While not yet fully developed, these mega-trends will interact in ways that will profoundly affect daily life.

To put it plainly, the movers and shakers in my community simply do not believe this. At all. They are unwilling to commit a single iota of time or resources toward preparing my community for the new reality.

The first two sections of the introduction discuss resource depletion and climate change. I'll skip those here because they've been discussed ad nauseum and people are solidly in one camp or the other: deniers or realists. No amount of further blather will change their minds - only the painful results of reality will sway the deniers (and even then the deniers, who are largely evangelical right-wing Christians, are likely to claim God is punishing America - still denying that climate change is real or that they had anything whatsoever to do with it.) As for resource depletion, a lot of them claim the high prices of natural resources are some sort of evil plot that the "new world order" is using for world domination. For some reason, they can't grok the thought that you can only get so much stuff out of every hole in the ground, and there are only so many holes.

No, it's an international plot to bring America down, they believe. They can't or won't admit that they have brought themselves down with greed and extreme misuse of limited resources. They externalize all the blame, rather like spoiled 4 year olds throwing a tantrum because they ate all the lollipops in the box and it's now empty. Mommy and Daddy are just being mean!

So, let's move on to the section on economics.

...Economic Turmoil: While most agree that the global economy nearly collapsed in the fall of 2008, few acknowledge that nothing has fundamentally changed to prevent this from happening again. Recent bailouts of fragile European economies like Greece, Iceland and Portugal (like the bailouts of American financial institutions) increased the debt that first caused the defaults and likely set the stage for more economic chaos not far down the road.

Also, the bewildering array of derivatives— exotic financial instruments that create money but not real wealth, out of thin air—are now monetarily valued to far exceed the value of real goods and services on the planet. As the hard physical limits to growth begin to appear in the forms noted above, the entire growth-dependent financial system may be headed for a very hard landing. We can expect:

1. High inflation or deflation, either one further contracting the economy.

2. Scarce capital or credit for job-creating development or badly needed infrastructure projects.

3. Dramatic cuts in government services as debt liabilities grow and tax revenues shrink.

4. Growing ranks of the unemployed and families descending into poverty.

5. Possible, some experts say, inevitable, global economic collapse...

Let's take a look at these for a few minutes.

Regarding point one: In my personal opinion, we are reaching the end of the deflationary part of this cycle. Prices of housing may continue to fall due to inability of people to qualify for credit because of income stagnation, but the price of everything else is holding steady or increasing. Food has never deflated in price, actually. It has been plateaued or rising steadily even as housing and some other segments of the economy crash and burn. What will follow is the beginning of an inflation spiral. This ends in only one way - worthless paper money (and that "paper money" includes your electronic banking and direct deposit, class) and prices of everything shooting through the roof.

Again, few believe it can happen here, but there is really no other foreseeable outcome at this point. Nobody is buying US Treasuries except the Federal Reserve - an incestuous accounting practice if there ever was one. Other countries are quietly dumping their dollar reserves and buying gold, or other commodities such as land and oil futures. There is an international move to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Once that happens (and it will, eventually) nobody outside the US will accept dollars for anything and people in the US won't be able to buy imports at anything less than their entire income. That's a problem since we import most of our food, clothing and everyday household items. Even a short-term confidence crisis of the dollar would wreak havoc in main street stores everywhere, as they would not be able to come up with the ridiculously high cash payments wanted by overseas suppliers. Hope you've got a garden going.

Regarding point two: to cite just one example, streets and roads in this country are maintained and paved largely using gasoline tax dollars. More and more people being priced out of gasoline, switching to efficient cars, telecommuting and other such options means less $ in the pot. This has been going on for some time, by the way. There are bridges and overpasses in this country that are in desperate need of replacing or being structurally updated and there are simply no funds to do it. Many counties are simply letting rural roads go back to gravel. More and more toll roads will spring up. And finally, the government will have to switch to taxing you by your mileage every year instead of your gasoline. You will have to pay a big mileage fee when you renew the tags on your car every year. This will simply price people out of the market for cars even faster. Thus the money for road and bridge repairs is disappearing fast, will soon disappear even faster, and will not reappear. That's just one example out of how many government offices?

Regarding point three: The US has sold other countries and our own citizens trillions of dollars worth of bonds that will have to be paid back. And more is added to the total every day - tax revenues aren't coming anywhere near close to paying the debt load. How could it when everyone has been moved to part time mc-wally-wort jobs at low pay and no benefits? These kinds of jobs do not produce adequate tax revenue to run local and state governments, much less the federal government. As these debts mature, more and more tax dollars will have to be spent to pay them. I believe it was Larry Burkett who predicted that the US govt debt payments would equal the entire federal revenue brought in sometime in the 90s or 2000s. He was a few years off, but his prediction was not fundamentally wrong. There will be less and less money available for social services, as I pointed out in my last blog.

Point four: Since there really isn't any combination of agencies or charities out there who can realistically take up that much social need, do you really think the homeless and starving people are going to just quietly lay down and die? I wouldn't count on it. Civil unrest, to put it mildly, will follow.

And finally, the second great depression in the US will take down a lot of other countries with it - countries that get a lot of their own income from exporting stuff to the US. Nobody here will get it, or be able to buy it. A great deal of it will end up stolen, looted, or on the black market. Either way, our "free trade" partners are going to figure out fast that letting the US rape them of their self-sufficiency and steal their resources for pennies on the dollar wasn't such a great strategy after all. So much for globalization.

...For most of you, the future this report depicts is in marked contrast to the future you expect. The authors know this and understand that many of you may be very skeptical of the information and points of view expressed here. Some of you, like most Americans, may consider this report "doomer" nonsense. But it isn't, and we simply can't wait for the "popular narrative" to finally catch up with the facts.

As the New Reality advances, we have the opportunity to help recreate something wonderful that diminished during the age of abundance but will be essential during the age of scarcity: authentic community.

Peter H. Kilde
Third Vice President and Strategic Initiatives Task Force Chair
The Community Action Partnership Board of Directors

I'm not holding my breath on that, though.

READ THE FULL REPORT HERE.

The Debt Crisis and Jewish Communities

As I write this, the stock market has just dropped like a rock, a 500+ plunge, which is the 9th decline in the last 10 days of trading. It has been only a few days since Congress passed the debt ceiling extension. Mitch McConnell et al promised that if this extension was passed without raising taxes and with sufficient spending cuts, that everything would by hunky-dory and our problems would be on their way to being solved. Unfortunately, this fairy tale isn't fooling anybody.

Here's my analogy of the current US economy: Mrs. Silver-Spoon and Mr. Wall-Street used to pay a big chunk of the household expenses in their home – when the marginal tax rate approached 90% for very high income groups, this couple gladly stepped up to the plate and supported their household, and still had plenty of luxuries in their lives. But they are no longer willing.

Also in the household are the couple's aged parents and their own children, Miss Unwed-mother, Mr. Un-or-under-employed, Miss Has-cancer, Mr. Underwater-mortgage, and Miss Still-marginally-middle-class. They have some undocumented household servants, too, who shall remain nameless. But since the 80s in particular, Mrs. Silver-Spoon and Mr. Wall-Street have paid less and less of the household expenses, even putting the family into more debt and quietly dipping into grandma and grandpa's funds, mostly by hiring Uncle Warmonger to send his thugs to intimidate or “take care of” little problems with their overseas “business partners,” or to be a token show for “allies.” They made a pile of money doing this, both for themselves and Uncle Warmonger, but the grandparents and kids have benefited in no real way. In fact, thanks to Dad, the kids now get to compete for jobs with people willing to work for fifty cents an hour.

Now, Mrs. Silver-Spoon or Mr. Wall-Street could easily retire the household debt and give the family a new clean slate and a balanced budget, but they choose not to. Some would argue they have no obligation to do so. Either way, they have announced clearly that they will contribute nothing further to the mess they made. Instead, they expect their kids to take up the slack. Of course, even all five of the kids combined cannot make enough money to cover the household expenses and support grandma and grandpa, much less get out of debt. Mrs. Silver-Spoon and Mr. Wall-Street don't care. In fact, they have hired new legislators to gut all the programs that would help the grandparents and the kids.

Needless to say, this household is careening towards bankruptcy, and their accountants know it – hence the lack of confidence in US currency/treasuries and the declining stock market.

What does this mean for us, in this particular Jewish community? In the past, Jewish communities had organizations that hired their own community doctors, took care of stipends for their own elderly and unemployed, formed co-ops, utilized interest-free loan societies, provided scholarships for young people, etc. But since the “New Deal” we have stopped taking care of our own and expected government to do it. And worse, here in the 21st century, even in the face of declining government social services, JFS offices all over the country rely on other charities, especially Christian ones, to take care of our own. My community is guilty, too.

I have blogged several times in the past that the IMF or World Bank would impose austerity measures on the US eventually. Even if such are self-imposed from within, it is unlikely that the “reformers” intend to cut off Uncle Warmonger et al or protect basic human rights to life (healthcare), etc. – their priorities are just not our priorities. We need to get real about this. Complicate all that with the ongoing issues of the continuing rising costs of goods and of gasoline due to peak oil, and you have a recipe for disaster. G-d forbid we get hyperinflation. Even without that, households will increasingly sink, because they just can't swim in these waters.

“Reformers” intend for already overburdened charities to do what govt. is no longer willing or able to do. But it is not realistic to expect other charities to continue to support people who will not agree with their religious or political philosophies. As the Teapartiers and Republicans gut the govt. social safety net, the need will be overwhelming and charities will all have to pick and choose whom they will serve.

Will they still serve Jews? When push comes to shove (and it will) I fear the answer is likely to be “no.” Of course, this won't happen right away, but it will snowball quickly when it starts. They will be too busy taking care of their own.

That brings us to the next question: Is our community willing to pick up the slack and take care of our own? We have some small bit of time to plan for the future. Is our community willing to put the funds and programs in place to take care of these problems as they careen toward us? What should the Federation's role be? This is the question we have to ask ourselves now. It's a discussion we urgently need to have and we aren't having it.