The Forever Recession

[liveonearth]

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/09/the-forever-recession.html

This guy sees pretty clearly where we are headed....or at least, I share in his delusion.

Comments

[theheretic.livejournal.com]

I agree with the first part, that there are two kinds of recessions, though I'd rather think of the longer one the Greater Depression, but I disagree completely with his conclusion that connection is the answer. Is he smoking weed? That didn't work in the 1970's and it won't work now. Trade tariffs (blocking imports) is the only feasible answer. It forces nations to manufacture their own needed products and to prioritize what they actually need. When the USA has to go without imported electronic toys, the market for them will create jobs domestically. Same for housewares and scooters and passenger trains. Jobs to keep people occupied and Not Rioting. Globalism is what enabled this race to the bottom with manufacturing in the darkest hellholes. We stop allowing those products to be imported and we'll either learn to get by without them or make them here. Everything went wrong when we embraced globalism and imported Chinese junk. This will probably lead to a Dollar Default, but that's coming anyway thanks to the EU breakup, since the USA is so heavily invested in most of those nations. We're only 20% into the current economic collapse. Long way down still.

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I am with you in favoring local sustainability over global connectivity. Though communities become sustainable by way of local connectivity and cooperation, so in that sense it applies.