Corporate financial guy: 'The West is finished'

Kind of a remarkable blatt from a corporate executive, saying something many eco and sustainability-minded people have been saying for a long time: The economies of the developed nations can't just keep expanding forever. In fact, he suggests we're at a sun-setting moment now.

"We suffer from no growth and we suffer from imported inflation -- that means we have negative real growth and societies fracture when you have negative real growth and quite simply our society faces fractures for trying to stick Europe back together again is not going to work with that underlying paradigm, unless you can create five percent growth to overcome that imported inflation," Murrin explained.

Murrin said that the East was depending less on the West and the rise of a consumer society was the first step in the expansion of an economic empire.

"If you look at the cycle of an empire system from regionalization to expansion to empire, the first phases of that catalyst are when you have a self fuelled consumer society and so actually that process of building your consumer base which is really what's going on in China, day by day their consumer base increases and the dependence on the West decreases," he said.

Murrin added that while China is by far the biggest emerging economy and would be at the center of a new economic order, other emerging nations were set to join the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and new political orders and alliances would come about as a result.

"This isn't just a BRIC story, this is the end of the Christian Western Empire versus the rise of the whole emerging world led by China as the foremost and most powerful," Murrin told CNBC.

Oh well! had to happen sometime!

And he's not even taking into account global warming and its catastrophic affects, which are in part the subject of this near-apocalyptic screed, on io9.com. So see, it's not just paranoid right-wingers who are sure the sky is falling. It's also depressed corporate types who see no chance for their 401Ks to recover, and futurist types, though that latter guy is probably a libertarian of the Scott Adams variety.

How collapsitarians find safe zones

On my favorite collapsitarian blog, today's post is a typical piece of baseless fear-mongering, so pointless I won't even describe it. And then the comments start.

First comment:

Most rural areas within a tank's worth of gas will be inundated by the Golden Horde. The few that can make it on foot will find their way through your retreat area and beyond scavenging, pillaging, and looting anything they can find to try and survive. No matter where you are you may get contact from people fleeing those cesspits that are major metro areas. Remember maintain good fields of fire/killing fields around your retreat and keep those mags topped off.

In the paranoid collapsitarian mind, once the Collapse happens, cities will become utterly consumed with rioting, leading some ("the Golden Horde," which I think refers to the people who have enough resources to escape the cities) to flee and attempt to find a safe place, leading to the now-hackneyed scenario described by the commenter.

The interesting part is the 4th comment down, in which someone creates a how-to for calculating the range of that "horde."

You have to draw lines out along every major highway from every major city, out to about 350 miles (the average distance someone could get on a full tank of gas, assuming all they do is drive). Shade all areas on the map to about 5-10 miles of each side of those highways from the 350 mile point, back to the city. Now draw a line about 30 miles out from the outer suburbs, and shade the area that it covers. You can throttle the lines back a bit for things like rough terrain, rivers, mountain ranges, and the like.

The result is the first two days of full-on zombie migration in your area. The outer edges will be lightly populated, while the inner ones will be heavily so (as traffic snarls up, etc).

However, here's the trick: Not everyone will be moving at the same time, or at the same rate. Also, not all situations would result in a mass evacuation. ...

It goes on like that for a bit, but you get the idea. At least someone has attempted to quantify the effects of this supposed mass migration.

Also, note how the term "zombie" is used for any individual who is part of this so-called horde. Cute of him, because you know what you do with zombies: shoot them in the head (or hey-ud, because I can't imagine anyone with this mindset not possessing a Southern accent). In the minds of the collapsitarians, any non-rightous person who has not armed himself and his God-fearing family and stocked up for ten years of apocalypse, who in the event of a Collapse therefore needs charity, is identical to a zombie -- that is, deserves to be shot on sight.

In fact, this is what they would secretly like to do now, before any apocalypse: kill everyone who is poor, in need of charity, anyone who might rob them or use up their tax dollars, which they feel is equal to stealing. But of course you can't have whole websites and crypto-fascist movements that openly advocate killing the poor, the disabled, petty criminals and the like, because that would make you a Nazi. So you just call the targets of your wrath "zombies," and pretend it's all about preparing for some societal apocalypse, and then you can talk about it all you want.

If you have any doubt that the main audience this appeals to is neo-fascist, just read the rest of the comments on that blog post. Holy crap.

Today in Collapse-obsessed foamer blogs

Everyone has heard the dictum "A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged." It means that when crime strikes you personally, you supposedly forget all your liberal pieties about race, gun ownership, non-violence and so on, and instead go out and buy a gun and start voting for Nixon.

How about this one: a real conservative is someone who goes through a natural disaster and, instead of forming compassion for others and realizing we all have to depend on each other in an emergency, comes away with a resolution to hoard, arm himself, and fortify his compound.

During a major disaster, food will quickly disappear. Living for over 3 decades on the Gulf Coast, I can tell you with absolute certainty that whenever disaster strikes (usually an approaching hurricane, for those folks), food and provisions at the store sell completely out in a matter of a few hours. People panic, and within hours, you cannot find food, bottled water, ice, generators, batteries, candles, etc. ... Furthermore, almost all disasters include a complete loss of electricity. The water supply is compromised. Bottled water becomes more valuable than bank accounts. Dehydration becomes a very real and present danger. I remember witnessing a man offer an ice vendor $100 for an extra bag of ice during Hurricane Ivan. My wife and I went 2 weeks (14 days) without electricity in the aftermath of that hurricane. Believe me, I got a taste of just how precious bottled water, ice, batteries, generators, fuel, etc., can become.

-- Far-right preacher-politician Chuck Baldwin

Okay, sure, preparedness. Good idea for everyone. But it's telling that the writer doesn't mention how he helped that man who wanted ice so badly, or his neighbors who were also suffering without electricity or water.

It's also telling that he doesn't mention how the National Guard was there within 48 hours to secure the area and then coordinate either evacuation or helping the survivors, including with water. Because for far-right conservatives, the government can never be seen in a positive role, it can only stand in your way (at least) or oppress and imprison you (more likely according to this worldview).

No, in Baldwin's world, there's only you and the free market against the elements and the devil. He probably wishes he was the ice vendor who anticipated there would be desperate people waving Franklins after a hurricane. (As for the man who offered $100 for ice, I have the feeling he needed it to keep his insulin cool, not his gin and tonic.)

Then in my favorite collapsitarian blog, the always-excitable Mac Slavo quotes someone predicting violence, death, dead cops, disaster in NYC.

According to the insider, the Obama White House and partisan organizations that support the President are now actively promoting chaos in New York and other cities as a form of punishment and intimidation against those on Wall Street (and elsewhere) who have spoken out against the administration. The chaos, he says, will lead to elevated levels of anger and the real possibility of nationwide violence and riots...

ZuccottiPark should have been cleared last week. ... Now if there is a move by law enforcement against the protesters, the dangers will be greatly increased than just a week ago. The violence will be much-much worse. Police will be harmed. Citizens will be harmed. Businesses harmed. ... I don't wish to be overly dramatic here -- but violence. Injury. Perhaps death. Most certainly destruction of property. It's getting dangerous. I can sense it. It's palpable. And you feel it too, don’t you? Something terrible is coming just around the turn. So for now, I'm getting out.

Oh well, it's a good thing he doesn't want to be overly dramatic. I guess if he were overly dramatic he would break out the exclamation marks. Then I'd really be terrified.

All supposedly because Obama somehow "promoted" this by not breaking the heads of protesters. I don't know if Occupy Wall Street is making the 1% afraid, but it's certainly successful in exciting the foamers.

Nutty goodness: Collapsitarian foamer skips easy pun

The collapsitarian foamer Mac Slavo posted a scare piece (which he does almost every day -- see yesterday's link in my blog) today about peanut butter -- no, really. The price is set to spike, following epic drought in peanut-producing lands.

What's funny is that the Collapse is often referred to by collapsitarians as the Crunch* -- and Slavo made it through the entire peanut butter price spike piece without making a pun once. Come on, man, sharpen up your game. Really.

* Not to be confused with the Big Crunch, in which the universe collapses into a black hole the size of Newt Gingrich's heart.

Collapsitarian: Mad Max-like collapse 'has to happen'

Here's some collapsitarian getting a hard-on about his favorite subject:

You are going to see, in metro areas, the absolute worst in humanity, as the people that are most dependent upon a collectivist system, whether they're these Occupy Well Street [sic] people, or people who are loaded up with debt, they are totally unprepared for an economic reality where their paradigm does not function.

As a result they’re going to go through the absolute most disgusting inhumanity that I think any American has ever seen as they go through this anger phase -- and it's going to result in riots, and starvation and bloodshed.

It has to happen. You don't have people's life savings and people becoming desperate and not have that happen.

It has to happen. Sure -- even though it's never happened before on the grand scale he predicts. Scattered food riots, yes -- in which maybe a shop, or at most a row of shops, gets burned. Widespread panic and pants-shitting, no. But they sure love to fantasize about it.

If you want to get a glimpse of one of these people in the wild, check out the guy's website. The article is about the Collapse and how to prepare for it -- buy lots of silver, oh and also send him money! -- but also great is the collection of advertisements on the right side of the page. Just looking at them is like being dragged by a pickup truck through a segregated whites-only trailer park in the most depressed town in Florida.

There are no real vampires, but you do have bedbugs

Scores were sickened and one person died over the past three years in amateur efforts to rid their homes of bedbugs, the CDC announced.

This review of the film Contagion discusses how vampires and body-snatching aliens are metaphors for contagion. And I've said before that the current obsession with zombies is pretty much the same thing as paranoid apocalyptic fantasies of an economic collapse. But it never occurred to me that we have blood-suckers in our midst that are causing similar fears.

I guess with bedbugs, "shoot 'em in the head" doesn't really work that well as a strategy.

Collapsitarian paranoid of the day: former New Orleans cop

What if gasoline hit $5 a gallon and unemployment was still hanging around the current ~15%? What if there were a few small protests that turned a bit violent -- not even on the scale of what we see in Europe -- but a few townhall meetings that get out of hand? The level of comfort in this country is quickly sliding downhill and it will only take a few provocations, a few simple emergencies and all hell will break loose.

That's from a post by "a former New Orleans police officer who has seen what societal collapse looks like first-hand during Hurricane Katrina" and now lives in Oklahoma (!) and has a website called "Truth is Treason." Man, that's credibility! That's JUST who I'd find believable about the sociology of the supposedly coming world collapse.

"A few town hall meetings that get out of hand?" That's what's going to trigger widespread panic?

Let's just try to imagine how that would happen. Gas is $5 a gallon, or 20% higher than it is now. (Or if you're in Oklahoma, maybe 25% higher.) Unemployment is 15%, which is not only what it pretty much is now, but is a laughably low number to justify anything like widespread discontent. And then... and then! A few townhall meetings get out of hand. To the barricades! No, to WalMart to stock up on water and ammo!

Maybe if you live in Oklahoma, suffering through the worst drought in 80 years, unemployed, bombarded by tornadoes for six months of the year, it all starts to sound believable. But really -- things like this are why people on the coasts mock people in places like Oklahoma.

Ron Paul and Lou Dobbs get hard thinking about the collapse

When the hoi polloi "don't get what they want," they "will be in the streets," Rep. Ron Paul says to a suitably excited Lou Dobbs. Both of whom have plenty to gain and nothing to lose from encouraging the fat-ass couch potato Fox News viewer to view the roiling masses with horror.

Because we just saw it in England, didn't we! Five nights of rioting and looting by the underclass. Except it wasn't quite all the underclass; plenty of privileged middle-class and even rich kids went out too, to see what they could grab.

He's right about one thing, if this is what he even means: that it's economic policies, not politics per se, that animates people. The Republicans' only problem is that it's their economic policies that have put the hoi polloi in this position. However, the smash-and-grab rioters of England were not doing it to feed their families, but to get hundred-dollar Nikes. Pure opportunism. And actually they have nothing to do with the kind of panic foreseen by the collapsitarians, no latter how much that crowd is pointing to the riots and yelling "See? See?!"

More hysteria from the collapsitarian center

Yes, the center, not the fringe. Given that the collapsitarians are all on the fringe anyway, it still makes sense that the movement itself has a left, right and center. Anyway:

Since "terrorism" is now a term we can use to describe just about any action deemed a threat to the public and government infrastructure, the possibilities for what the next "terror attack" will look like are endless. It can come in the form of suicide bombers at your local shopping mall, a cyber attack on financial markets launched via the internet, or any number of other potential threats that have been recently highlighted by our Department of Homeland Security. There need be only a single event that occurs at an opportune time and is pushed by the mainstream media and all hell will break loose.

Imagine, for a minute, what America would look like if nationwide curfews were implemented, civil rights were suspended (including confiscation of guns), the US dollar crashed, ATM's and credit card transactions were restricted, and food and gas purchases were limited.

-- Gerald Celente

The reasonable-sounding rhetoric in that example masks very poorly its hysterical premise: that somehow "a single event" such as a suicide bomber in a first-world country would be enough to push the entire world financial system into collapse. Frankly, a suicide bomber in a mall probably wouldn't have much effect, given that malls failed as a retail model years ago and are now passing from the scene and such an attack is likely to only blow up closed storefronts and lonely discount shoe stores. Now if you blew up a NASCAR race, that would get some attention. An attack on America!

Meanwhile, Dilbert jumped on the bandwagon in Sunday's strip:

Lonely, bitter man predicts that in collapse, everyone will become like him

This screed from a collapsitarian contains the usual laundry list of dire predictions of societal collapse. What makes it different is a few side comments the author adds to his prediction. For example:

Alcoholism, drug use and domestic violence will likely soar. I also expect the declining marriage rate to drop at an even faster pace.

Disclosure: I don't believe that a man should get married. There's nothing that marriage offers that he can't already get. Plus, the divorce and family courts will screw him over in a big way. Nevertheless, many women will not be interested in marrying a poor or working class man. And frankly, more men will fall into this category. Moreover, less men will want to get married because they will feel that they have little to offer.

What an insightful view of human behavior! I feel like I know him better now. Let me guess, he's a drunken old asshole whose wife left him after years of abuse, and he feels screwed over by everybody from his ex to the courts.

From what I can gather, this loser mentality seems only too prominent among survivalist and "sovereign" types.

According to the article, the Big Collapse can follow any number of catastrophes, from economic meltdown to a solar storm -- a vague assertion that makes it clear that the author's interest is not in how we get there, but what follows.

I think of this as a primarily pornographic view of the future. Collapsitarians love to repeat to each other the gory details of how bad it's all going to get following the B.C., but they're never too specific about exactly how we would get there. Harrumph, solar storm, ahem! The parallels to the Zombie Apocalypse are unmistakable. No one spends much time thinking about how the Z.A. actually originates; what's important is the stalking, growling, head-exploding, etc. Similarly, what's important to the collapsitarians is the rioting, shooting, general breakdown of everything. It makes them very excited.

Update a few hours later: The same blog has published an entry from one of its regular alarmists, saying that something called a super EMP would disable all electronics in the lower 48 states. Well, I guess it would have to be "super." The entry also includes links to several examples of collapsitarian porn such as the excitingly titled "One Second After."

Today's fake: Speculators pursue the Bitcoin, but ... whaaaat?

Last decade's virtual-goods mindfuck was the gold farming industry, in which American entrepreneurs went to China, hired educated but out-of-work tech grads, and put them to work for 12 to 16 hours at a time on repetitive tasks which generated virtual goods in the World of Warcraft game -- goods which could be sold for real money to game players who didn't want to put in the time and effort it took to accumulate those goods within the game. (These goods, such as a "magic sword" object, enable players to play the game at higher levels more successfully.) China made the practice illegal, but that hasn't stopped provincial prison officials from employing prisoners as gold farm slave laborers. So that's still going on.

Then there's the Zynga empire, which essentially turns all its games' players into slave laborers for the company's profit. In a way it's much simpler than the gold farming scheme, which is essentially a parasitical practice on a much larger operation (the WoW platform); Zynga simply creates an addictive product ¹ with no raw ingredients and a potentially worldwide customer base. Zynga is equivalent to a tobacco company which claims cigarette smoking isn't addictive, except it doesn't have to go to the trouble of buying raw materials, manufacturing cigarettes, and shipping them to wholesalers. It simply creates a compelling internet experience and collects an almost unlimited profit stream. It's like putting a video slot machine in everyone's home, only it's a slot machine that never pays out but simply provides its user with the mind-numbing experience of playing.

So it's one thing to create something of value out of nothing, or rather, out of electrons and human sweat. How could you go one better? How about creating nothing out of nothing, putting a value on it, and then having the unlimited greed of speculators do all the work for you? Well, it's happened. Behold the Bitcoin, a virtual currency with no meaning, no tie to any governmental or corporate entity, much less a game or virtual world. It is simply a computer algorithm (no doubt copyrighted) which permits licensees to generate units of valuation.

Bitcoins are snippets of code that use encryption to prevent counterfeiting and double-spending. Complex algorithms control the money supply, in theory replacing the need for banks or a central regulator. Right now Bitcoins can be generated -- or "mined" -- by running a program on a powerful computer. This task requires exponentially more time and processing power as the number of Bitcoins grows, and the absolute number of Bitcoins is capped at 21 million, mimicking the scarcity of gold.

Yes, you too can buy the code and generate your own Bitcoin, but notice that caveat about the "exponentially more time and processing power" needed to do so at a meaningful scale. Indeed:

One college student sustained permanent minor brain damage due to heatstroke after he dozed off in his room next to four computers furiously mining Bitcoins. "I wish I was joking," he said in a forum post that was reposted on the website BitcoinMiningAccidents.com.

Yes, there is a website devoted to "Bitcoin mining accidents"!! It's at this point you wonder what the world is coming to.

Certain cynics and libertarian critics of the monetary system -- the kind who yearn for a return to the gold standard -- would say this isn't much different from the current state of affairs in which we endow pieces of paper, some printed with "1" and others printed with "100," with value simply because we agree to. And they would also point out the similarities of limiting the total number of units of exchange and the ability to produce it. (Only the government can print money, and it controls the supply; in the same way only those holding the code for Bitcoin can generate it, and the code contains a self-limiting feature which will prevent more than a certain amount of Bitcoin to be "mined.") To them, our whole monetary system is a similar hoax.

I see this trend continuing. Last week lots of people were transfixed by the "fake lesbian bloggers," and there are still postings and articles being written on its implications for identity politics, online activism, and the whole question of online identity. At root of this issue is the question of whether or not there is substance behind what we value. The fact that Bitcoin exists and that apparently rational people are investing in it calls this into question even further.

Meanwhile, on Gawker just now: A virus that scans computers for Bitcoin and steals it.


¹ The piece on "my Farmville addiction" is not that informative, but notice the article's raison d'etre: the writer is explaining to his readers why he disappeared for two weeks. In other words, he went into a k-hole, or rather an internet hole, and didn't come out for weeks. Because he was playing Farmville. And couldn't stop.

Right-wing collapsitarians' racist beliefs

One of the core beliefs of the crypto-fascist collapsitarians, who think the western world is headed for an economic and social apocalypse, is that when "the end" comes, all cities will collapse into hellholes of violence, rioting, looting, pillaging, and so on. This is one of the main reasons they believe in "prepping" for the catastrophe -- which they refer to as The End of The World As We Know It, or TEOTWAWKI -- and "bugging out" to a well-stocked, heavily armed and fortified compound in, say, Montana. 

When this collapse of the cities is predicted, the example almost always cited is the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. According to this way of thinking, that aftermath was almost exclusively characterized by, on the one hand, looting and violence, and on the other, pathetic dependency on government to save the people. Cable TV coverage of the event stressed both these themes, because they made for dramatic images, and that is what right-wingers have in mind when they say the collapse of the cities will look like that.

They are, of course, ignoring all the incidents where people helped others, acted with compassion, shared their resources, and made peace. TV ignored these incidents too, for the most part, because they aren't conflict-y, and are therefore boring.

But the other reason the crypto-fascist collapsitarians talk about the collapse of the cities, and assume they will descend into a cauldron of violence, is that they're racist. Take a look at this post on a prominent collapsitarian blog. About the cities, the author says: 

Misconception number four: Roving criminal hordes will come from the urban environment to your rural home or Bug Out Location (BOL). Nope, these people do not play chess or even checkers; they do not plan ahead much at all. Criminals, with few exceptions are lazy. And many are on drugs. Yes, a few will flee at the very beginning if they have a specific refuge in mind, the uncle with the farm, but most will not leave their familiar comfortable environment. Even if they have an operational vehicle capable of the trip it is likely to be low on fuel, particularly these days. They will burn up what little fuel they have driving around their usual haunts, to the liquor and drug stores, then to the convenience or grocery store like they did before the event, until their tank is empty. Walking or biking to save fuel will never cross their mind. No gas means no travel for this group.

They are stupid, lazy, and many are on drugs! Really!

Refuting those ideas, which are based on such an idiotic image of city dwellers, would be a waste of time. The only thing I can say in response is that that paragraph actually represents a more moderate prediction than the usual one, where crazed and armed city dwellers, having used up and then burned all the resources in their city, then go out to attack the good Christians in their Montana bunkers. (See my previous entry, Grim Dystopians Hoping for Complete Collapse.) So never mind that -- they are simply too lazy to do so!

It would be laughable, if not for the utter gullibility and ignorance of these collapsitarians, many of whom are elderly people who fall victim to tax-dodging schemes rooted in weird, almost schizophrenic ideas (such as so-called "truth language"). There is lots of money to be made from all the paranoia being served out there.

To conspiracy theorists, it all fits together

Despite the fact that the messy pro-democracy upheaval in the Middle East will actually make the world safer by ridding the region of the dictators driving the hoi polloi into the arms of Al Qaeda, to right-wing conspiracy nuts It's All Part of the New World Order's Master (and they do mean master) Plan -- so says the latest post from the Shit Hits The Fan blog, Turning Off the Tap: Population Reduction Through Designed Economic Collapse.

According to their conspiracy theory, the rebellions in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and other lands are all part of a plan by "banksters [sic], the oil cartel and ... Wall Street" to "(drive) up prices for essentials like food and energy to the breaking point, ... shaking every nation on earth to its core. The effect of such manipulation seems destined to lead toward a severe reduction in numbers of the human population, and a tightening of control over those who remain."

Yes, depopulation! That's all part of it! Of course, this prophecy depends on the vast majority of the population losing its mind and reducing itself through riots and unrest to a fragment. Or as they put it:

The oil and Wall Street powers seem satisfied to allow the civil unrest to spread in order to feed their greed for higher oil prices and resulting control. Surely they recognize that higher oil prices will suck the remaining wealth out of the poor and middle classes around the world. This scenario will obviously cause starvation, illness, and other life-shortening effects, as increasing numbers join the ranks of the poor... and the poor have no where [sic] else to go.

Obviously. Of course, there's no evidence that the events of the last couple of months are the result of outside influence from anyone other than democracy-minded people themselves. Secondly, it seems odd for a cabal of "banksters" and other members of a shadowy financial oligarchy -- of course "Wall Street" is simply modern crypto-fascist code for "the Jews" -- to launch a global takeover by means of increased democracy. Thirdly, if there are "Jews" behind countless democratic Arab movements, that would be very strange. And finally, there is no evidence that anyone is losing their minds as a result of the turmoil, except maybe Moammar Gadhafi. In fact, newly-freed zones seem to be taking up the challenge of self-governance with optimism and a reasonable amount of decorum.

But an essential part of the conspiracy theorist's practice is to ignore everything that doesn't fit the theory's template. For them, the conspiracy is constantly in the process of proving itself true.

Warren Buffett also a collapsitarian?

Financial guru Warren Buffett, who in this generation fills the same niche as Billy Graham did in the 1960s and 1970s, this week issued an annual letter to shareholders of his company in which he said:

The prophets of doom have overlooked the all-important factor that is certain: Human potential is far from exhausted, and the American system for unleashing that potential -- a system that has worked wonders for over two centuries despite frequent interruptions for recessions and even a Civil War -- remains alive and effective. Now, as in 1776, 1861, 1932 and 1941, America's best day's lie ahead."

Oh, great. It's like he thinks everyone wiped their forehead in 1865 at the end of the Civil Way and said, "All right -- the system worked!" People in 1932 -- "The Dust Bowl and 40% unemployment? Is that all you got!? Happy days are here again!"

(Indeed, the song Happy Days Are Here Again -- written in 1929 -- appeared in no fewer than 19 films from 1930 to 1932, and was the theme for FDR's first presidential campaign. No doubt Buffett remembers it from that -- oh, he was only 2 at the time. But it's interesting to think that this happy little song, which is associated with American optimism in the depths of the Depression, might summarize Buffett's thinking.)

Does this make you feel optimistic about investing in the stock market? The company you invest in might be burned to the ground. And it isn't that far from what the dystopian collapsitarians are saying. (See my post from November, 'End Is Near' warning just as timely as it was a year ago!)

It's Bad Behavior Friday™! Bring Down JP Morgan edition

According to this blog entry -- on the "Vatic Project" blog which, you should be warned, is usually not only insane but anti-Semitic in the process -- someone has the bright idea that if everyone will just buy one ounce of silver today, it will fuck with JP Morgan bank's plan to make money shorting the precious metal. I have no idea whether this is based in anything like fact, but it's sort of a cool idea, and one example of the maxim that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

"End is near' warning just as 'timely' as it was a year ago!

The funny thing about prophets who warn of the coming apocalypse is that it's always coming. The end is near, it's constantly near. If it hasn't come by the time predicted, that doesn't make the prophecy wrong. In fact, the prophecy is even righter than ever, because as time passes we truly are nearer and nearer the end!

That sort of logic can be seen in the introduction to this post on from our favorite collapsitarian blog: We Have Some Hard Decisions Ahead. The post talks about how, since the end is near, we may as well all stop participating in the economy, since faithful readers of the blog (the collapsitarian blog, that is) are all busy "prepping" for the Big Collapse. For example, stop paying your car loan and your mortgage; plan to downsize, because soon we will all be forced to downsize.

Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. But this is what I found really amusing:

This article was originally published at Survival Blog and has been reprinted with permission from the author. The article's original publish date was December of 2009, but it is as timely today as it was a year ago.

Yes -- for all those who didn't follow its advice, that is! Because if they really stopped paying their mortgage and car payments and everything else last year, they sure as hell don't have them now, because they no longer have the house and the car.

And they say fascism depends on people having short memories. I guess so!

Breaking news from the paranoid front

A website called The Survival Retreat -- you know, that well-stocked fuhrerbunker that will allow you to get through the supposedly coming apocalypse -- alerts us that now is the time to stock up on ammunition.

It just occurred to me that perhaps all the zombie movies and zombie TV shows are really about our anxiety about this eventuality, where there's total societal collapse, everyone attempts to flee, and the well-stocked right-wing Christian survivalist is vindicated. (See my entry from yesterday. (Speaking of which, the title of a post from another collapsitarian blog says it all: The US Government Is Preparing For Unlikely Events Like War, Catastrophic Collapse of Society, and Even Asteroids -- Are You?.)

Related: the Seattle Times reports that it's a buyer's market for islands. Which might help protect you from zombies, who (which?) presumably can't swim, but not from the desperate marauders imagined by the apocalyptic collapsitarians whom I mentioned yesterday.

By the way, can you guess which famous 1960s musician wrote a song about this topic? None other than Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary, whose 1971 song "John Henry Bosworth" imagined the same riots, flight from the cities and suburbs, and survival on a remote piece of property -- but minus the guns and with a much more truly Christian vision than the apocalyptic right-wing Christianity the survivalists apply to their fantasies.

For another optimistic alternative, see this April 2009 NYT magazine article about what was called the Transition movement, which I linked to before. It says something about the appeal of the more horrific fantasies that they're 99 percent of what you hear and read about.

Collapsitarian screed: You're SOL

Last month I mentioned a book I was reading, a so-called novel which described a claque of well-prepared paranoids and how they survive the total collapse of society, including riots, cannibalism, and the end of all political and economic systems, which (according to the novel) will be a swift and inevitable consequence of our current political-economic course.

If you really want a sample of the way these people think, without slogging through that ridiculous (though self-righteously humorless) "novel," take a look at this blog post. It's on the website of the author of that book, and though the post itself was not written by the book's author, it partakes of exactly the same mentality -- only even grimmer. Here's just one sentence, following a passage in which the author says that if you do make it out of the riot-torn cities, it won't do you much good to try to hunt for food because your gunshots will attract other refugees.

Deciding not to risk your life to kill what's left of God's little animals, you might innocently/ignorantly believe that you can sustain yourself and your family by foraging for wild, edible plants, but so does every other unprepared refugee who has fled to the country, and they are all scouring the countryside, grazing on everything that is green or was green or might be green someday.

The whole thing's like that, wild-eyed and detailed to a pornographic degree -- because that's what it is, pornography. It's porn for paranoid right-wing foamers.

This apocalyptic event, known to right-wing paranoids as The End Of The World As We Know It or TEOTWAWKI*, is almost as widely predicted among the gun-crazy right wing as the Rapture itself, and perhaps even more widely yearned for -- because amid all the suffering that comes with it, the well-prepared right-wing paranoid will be vindicated. Plus, he'll get to do what he's always wanted to do, and that's kill everyone in sight that's not in his little survival group. It goes without saying that the end point of this fantasy is that the only other people around will be like-minded right-wing fascists just like him. No wonder he's looking forward to it.

* I think having an acronym that's impossible to pronounce pretty much defeats the purpose of having an acronym, especially when the phrase "The end of the world as we know it" is so easy and fun to say and even has its own rock song, which you are probably already humming along with. They also refer to this event as "When the Schumer hits the fan," apparently a cryptic anti-Semitic reference and one that allows them to piously avoid saying "shit." Because when you're planning a survival strategy that requires you to kill or leave to rot every other human being who isn't as well-armed and well-prepared as you, you'd better not cuss. The post-Schumer world, awash in blood, would be a terrible place if people took the Lord's name in vain.

There's crazy and then there's certifiably insane

One of the more truly insane blogs I follow is The Vatic Project, which regularly posts anti-Semitic economics-related rants and other forms of paranoid fantasies about the state of the world. Just another dot on the spectrum of collapsitarian nuttery, this particular dot pretty far out on the spectrum. Today he -- whoever it is -- posted something and included an introduction, as he often does. A preface of sorts. And this preface is priceless.

They do not want this one up. Taking control of my cursor again so I can't put it up. So do not know when you will get this. I was trying for today, but it may not be til later when I can do this without the messing around. Be patient, ITS GOING UP NO MATTER HOW HARD THEY TRY, I AM FULLY AND UNEQUVICALLY STUBBORN. THIS MEANS YOU NOW HAVE TO READ IT, BECAUSE THEY ONLY DO THIS ON INFO THEY DO NOT WANT OUT THERE.... SO GET THIS OUT THERE ALL OVER THE PLACE. THANKS. Its about waiting til I get a different shift. hehehe.

It appears that its the OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL TREASURY THEY DO NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT. SO PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THAT AND DIG EVEN FURTHER SINCE THEY SEEM TO HATE THAT ONE WHICH IS WHERE I GET THE WORSE MESSING OF THE CURSOR.

Wow, "they" must really not want it up on the internet -- whoever "they" are -- because no sooner did I click on the link than I get a "Page Not Found" message. It Really Makes You Think, Doesn't It??!?

For those really interested, here is a screenshot of the feed from Google Reader from which I pulled his text. I was able to get only a couple of the lines of the actual article, but it's the preface I love.

'Uniquely Southern' panic rooms also serve as storm shelters

Coincidental to my research on nutbag collapsitarians and survivalists (don't miss The Biggest Threat to Your Survival? An American Economic Collapse) is a piece in the Wall Street Journal today about storm shelters-cum-panic rooms which are said to be "the new must-have" in amenities.

These aren't the dank bunkers your father hid in, as we discuss in today's WSJ story. And they aren't cheap. Many of the new shelters are above-ground $4,000-$15,000 prefabricated pads that can be bolted to the garage's concrete pad, or even installed inside the home. They boast names like "StormRoom" and "Iron Eagle II" and often lead double lives of offices, tool sheds and even wine cellars in less turbulent times. DuPont makes one reinforced with bullet-resistant Kevlar. Builder Rhonda House, owner of Uniquely Southern Homes in Ward, Ark. says she regularly includes safe rooms in her new custom homes, calling it a "must-have item."

Did you catch that? Not only is the owner of a house-building company named Rhonda House -- un nom du destin, as my French teacher would say -- but her company is called Uniquely Southern Homes. I think a bullet-proof storm shelter really is a uniquely Southern idea, don't you? Doesn't say if they also come with gun racks.

I also liked this bit:

Above-ground designs are particularly popular among families with elderly members who might not be able to navigate stairs or make it across the yard into a bunker quickly.

Wow, what could possibly go wrong?

"Hello Momma? ... No, Momma, those aren't tornado sirens, that's probably just an ambulance. ... Because I'm looking at the weather on the internet and there's nothing on the radar. ... Well of course the internet knows. ... Momma, please don't lock yourself in the storm shelter again. Hello? Momma? Hello?"

Yes: If your elderly mother locks herself in the tornado-proof, bullet-proof storm shelter and can't remember how to get out, how do you get her out?