Everybody Knows

No recovery until 2018.  Came across that one today.  I'd love to travel forward until 2018 and see the similar comments from learned economists then.  'No recovery until 2025'.  It's looking to me like there is never going to be a recovery (whatever that means) and that makes sense from all I've been reading these recent years.  I guess this is the Long Emergency.  The funny thing is that the 'collapse' is very fragmented.  Many people are still going to do well, especially the rich, but slowly more and more families are going to move into challenging times. And greenhouse gas emissions are still going to rise.  I guess that no matter what, learning about food is still a good idea.  And having no debt. 

Last weekend I dropped my dad off at the bus and walked over to a yard sale at a recently shut down gas station (how's that for an image?).  Most of the stuff on display was pretty poor quality.  I found some solidly built baskets from a lady from down the road.  We had a nice chat.  Invariably she wanted to know 'where I was really from'.  Whatever, it only partly bothers me these days.  But most interestingly when I told her I moved here to learn about real things instead of sitting in front of a computer for the rest of my life (yes I recognize the irony right now).  She said pretty boldly that she thinks we're headed for a collapse and that we're going to need to remember how to do things the way they were always done.  But she lamented how much kids just know about cell phones and computers and don't even care to learn these essentials.  

Most times when I talk with people I bump into we never get much beyond the weather or some such surface detail.  But if we dig in, like I did with this lady, I think we all know that the party's over.  I should have pressed her to talk more.  Even the IMF's economists know it.  But it's hard to talk about it publicly.  It seems like a downer.  But it's real and I honestly don't see it as a downer.  But I'm crazy of course.