Monday, April 28, 2008



Watch Out, It's Coming!

I have a feeling that something very bad is going to happen very soon.

I hope I'm wrong. I can't tell if it's going to be global or national, but there are ominous signs; black clouds on the horizon. If nothing else, I'm afraid that an economic crisis is inevitable, at least in the U.S. And if it's true that when America sneezes, the world catches cold, then the reverberations will have catastrophic effects.


In America, the ticking time-bomb is DEBT, both governmental and personal. The federal government has a 9 trillion dollar mortgage on "the land of the free," and it continues to re-finance, giving no thought (apparently) to possible repossession. Better start studying Chinese, friends. And then we have the Mt. St. Helens of personal debt rumbling under our feet. Credit card debt alone is staggering. "Buy now, pay later" has become the national mantra. Never mind that you're going to be paying double-digit interest on that trinket or restaurant meal for years to come. And now, the feds have created the "Economic Stinkulus" plan to "stave off a recession." Whoop-de-doo! They have borrowed more money from the Chinese, in order to send all of us peasants a check, with instructions to go out and spend it! Don't even THINK of using it to make a tiny dent in your credit card debt, or to (heaven forbid!) put it into savings! That would defeat the purpose. Take it directly to WalMart and buy some Chinese imports!

Okay, the next trainwreck-waiting-to-happen is, of course, OIL! We all know it, but nobody knows what to do about it. At present, oil is the lifeblood of civilization. Countries that don't have any of or enough of their own, have to buy it from the countries that have an excess. The price of oil is affected not only by supply and demand, but by politics. And boy-oh-boy, do we love to play politics with oil. This is not a good idea, people! I am horrified by attempts of various interest groups in the U.S. to get the government to "DO something about the price of gas!" Today the truckers are petioning the feds to open up the strategic oil reserves, in order to increase supply and thereby bring down the price. Good grief (please give me credit for my restraint in choosing not to use profanity here)!! The oil reserves are to be used in case of dire emergency - not to manipulate prices! I do feel sympathy for the truckers. Their livelihood is threatened, and they are desperate. But we can't try to stave off the inevitable, by artificially manipulating reality. Someday, we have to face the fact that oil is limited, demand is increasing (what is that giant sucking sound? It's China!) and price is rising. It's going to be a long, hard slog, but we have to find alternative fuels (NOT BIO-FUELS!), new technology and more economical ways of shipping (more railroad use, for instance).

Oh well.

9 comments:

Josh said...

I totally agree and at the same time say bring it on.

Turn this world on it's head. I am bored with the old world order. Some good old pain and suffering will help us snap out of it.

As long as it is the other bloke suffering that is :)

Anonymous said...

There just seem to much to be hopeful about. And it doesn't seem like we've hit bottom yet.

Yikes! I'm turning into my pessimistic father!

Mike from Adelaide said...

You be talking heresy there lady.....

One Man’s Opinion said...

I am not sure what bad is happening bad, as far as the world is concerned, but there is a lot of bad crap happening in the world of the Dallas Police Department and it is happening in a bad way and I am trying my best to fight it off.

Wait. What? said...

I looked into an electric car called a Kurrent - cute lil thing - and since I really only use my jeep ( did I say gas guzzeling jeep wrangler?) for errands now since gas is 4 dollars a gallon - I think electric would work well for me here in Chicago.

Madam Z said...

Josh: yeah! Pain and suffering, that's what we need more of in this world.

dcup: I'm sure there must be SOMETHING to be hopeful about. Hmmm...let's see...damn!

mike: Heresy is my middle name.

omo: Good for you for trying "to fight it off." I read your blog about police violence and it was excellent. Very well balanced, and helped me understand better what it's like out there for you policemen.

cat: A friend of mine drives a "Zap." It's a very small, all electric car, white, with zebra stripes! So cool!

Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein said...

I agree with you, something bad is coming and it's going to be economic related, I happen to think what we are going to see is a death, hopefully, of unrestrained out of control capitalism. The checks and balances of the New Deal days have been rolled back because corporations felt like they were not making enough money, the sorry state of our economy and our world is the result of those rollbacks.

This oil business is also going to cause things to come to a crashing halt. We could outfit every home, business, church, every building in America with solar panels to make electricity to power electric vehicles and move away from gas and oil powered cars but our coprorate government won't let us.

I'm sorry for rambling so much, I could use my own blog for this, but all this pisses me off to no end.

Distributorcap said...

you are so right
the oil addiction is deadly -- it is worse than cocaine.

and the money we spend on it is being transferred to the very groups we claim as terrorist

but while bush and cheney are partially to blame --- it also the american people who have shown little incentive to move off this product

yes it is scary

Dr. Zaius said...

Well said.