It’s getting close to the time of the year to think about, and plan for, what the coming year, or years, will be like. I have pretty much stopped writing about the future since most folks don’t seem to want to think about it, but I might change and write about it anyway in the coming year.
I recently read an article on the web by John Michael Greer that seems to bring it all together … and since I can’t say it any better, I suggest you read the following and then go to the link and read the whole article by clicking on the title.
What Peak Oil Looks Like
“The point that has to be grasped just now, it seems to me, is that this is what peak oil looks like. Get past the fantasies of sudden collapse on the one hand, and the fantasies of limitless progress on the other, and what you get is what we’re getting—a long ragged slope of rising energy prices, economic contraction, and political failure, punctuated with a crisis here, a local or regional catastrophe there, a war somewhere else—all against a backdrop of disintegrating infrastructure, declining living standards, decreasing access to health care and similar services, and the like, which of course has been happening here in the United States for some years already. A detached observer with an Olympian view of the country would be able to watch things unravel, as such an observer could have done up to now, but none of us have been or will be detached observers; at each point on the downward trajectory, those of us who still have jobs will be struggling to hang onto them, those who have lost their jobs will be struggling to stay fed and clothed and housed, and those crises and catastrophes and wars, not to mention the human cost of the broader background of decline, will throw enough smoke in the air to make a clear view of the situation uncommonly difficult to obtain.”
Katharine
December 13, 2011 at 11:21 pm
I have followed JM Greer’s thoughts for years now, via his blog and his books. He has some valuable things to say. I watch my husband’s workplace struggle to do the same amount of work with fewer people, and it is obvious to me that major change in the way business is conducted is inevitable. On many fronts we will have to live more imaginatively. We need our visionaries.
Jeff Anderson
December 16, 2011 at 10:15 pm
I like your 2012 outlook. From an investment perspective, it’s all about inflation or deflation and what the central banks will do in 2012. No doubt the world economy is facing serious challenges and who really knows the end game.
Something to contemplate..
Those in power will remain in power…only those in power understand the game…what is the game?
John
December 17, 2011 at 6:33 am
I think that inflation and deflation are only symptoms and that the only game the politicians are playing is one of how to stay in power. The under lying problem is that we, in a global sense, have been living in an unsustainable manner. Now we have to pay and make some unwanted adjustments to live within our means.
slpmartin
December 17, 2011 at 10:46 am
I think historically the game has always been about ‘gaining and staying in power’…but now the power brokers have little to offer those whom they wish to control in return for that power…because of limited world resources…as always in these types of posts… you bring a complex issue into clear focus.
Dee
December 21, 2011 at 9:42 am
It’s time to stop playing the game and bring our world house in order