Executive Summary

• The prevailing trends of the next several decades: contraction, down-scaling & re-localization
• How these trends will manifest in commerce, politics, employment & infrastructure
• Those who adapt now will be positioned to thrive
• Act now – ask forgiveness, not permission

If you have not yet read Part I: We've Dug a Pretty Damn Big Hole for Ourselves, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

We may never again restore trust in giant institutions ranging from the U.S. government to Harvard University to The New York Times. They have probably squandered their credibility and their legitimacy.

Anyway, the trends now moving human affairs are taking us away from both gigantism and the growth imperative that these things represent. The trends of the present moment in history are contraction, down-scaling, and re-localization.

Managing contraction is the only safe reality-based political response to the situation, and there is no constituency for it – though contraction is emphatically underway whether we like it or not, and it would be advantageous if we could manage our way through it rather than let it become a disorderly rout in which people starve and the rule of law disintegrates altogether.

As for re-localization and downscaling, there is a highly visible, easily identifiable constituency against them, in the form of everything from WalMart to JP Morgan, to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. These forces will do everything possible to retain their grip on our daily lives. They