Insider
by
JHK
Executive Summary
- Downscaling complexity and increasing local sourcing through efficient net-energy means will be the hallmarks of the future
- Suburbia has three likely destinies, none mutually exclusive: slums, salvage, and ruins
- What elements to look for in sustainable town/city designs
- Why "managing contraction" will be society's main focus for a long time to come
If you have not yet read Part I: Why Our Current Way of Living Has No Future, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
Smaller, Closer, Simpler
First, circumstances imply that we have to downscale just about everything that supports civilized life – the size of enterprise (both private and public), the length of supply chains and distribution webs, the amount of capital expenditure, the complexity of organization. We’ll have to grow our food differently as industrial agri-business flounders on non-cheap oil. We’ll have to rethink transportation as commercial aviation withers and Happy Motoring enters its twilight. We’ll have to do commerce differently as the Wal-Mart model unravels. We’ll have to inhabit the terrain differently.
Second, as a consequence of the foregoing, we’ll see economies become much more local and regional again, as the current episode of globalism unwinds in the face of rancorous competition for increasingly scarce vital resources. Contrary to Tom Friedman of the New York Times, globalism is not a permanent fixture of the human condition; it was an episode of history. The world is getting less flat and more wide again.
Another is that…
The Essential Elements of a Sustainable Future
PREVIEW by JHKExecutive Summary
- Downscaling complexity and increasing local sourcing through efficient net-energy means will be the hallmarks of the future
- Suburbia has three likely destinies, none mutually exclusive: slums, salvage, and ruins
- What elements to look for in sustainable town/city designs
- Why "managing contraction" will be society's main focus for a long time to come
If you have not yet read Part I: Why Our Current Way of Living Has No Future, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
Smaller, Closer, Simpler
First, circumstances imply that we have to downscale just about everything that supports civilized life – the size of enterprise (both private and public), the length of supply chains and distribution webs, the amount of capital expenditure, the complexity of organization. We’ll have to grow our food differently as industrial agri-business flounders on non-cheap oil. We’ll have to rethink transportation as commercial aviation withers and Happy Motoring enters its twilight. We’ll have to do commerce differently as the Wal-Mart model unravels. We’ll have to inhabit the terrain differently.
Second, as a consequence of the foregoing, we’ll see economies become much more local and regional again, as the current episode of globalism unwinds in the face of rancorous competition for increasingly scarce vital resources. Contrary to Tom Friedman of the New York Times, globalism is not a permanent fixture of the human condition; it was an episode of history. The world is getting less flat and more wide again.
Another is that…
by
Chris Martenson
In this week's Off the Cuff podcast, Chris and Adam discuss:
- Rough Seas Ahead
- Chris issues a rare warning for a 40%+ correction in the stock market
- Happy Sequester!
- What will its impact be?
- The Japan Mess
- Looking more & more like it will be the first major country/currency to fail
- The "Affordable" Care Act
- A misnomer if there ever was one
- The Barnburner at Rowe
- This year's seminar is shaping up to be one for the ages
Off the Cuff: Red Sky at Morning
PREVIEW by Chris MartensonIn this week's Off the Cuff podcast, Chris and Adam discuss:
- Rough Seas Ahead
- Chris issues a rare warning for a 40%+ correction in the stock market
- Happy Sequester!
- What will its impact be?
- The Japan Mess
- Looking more & more like it will be the first major country/currency to fail
- The "Affordable" Care Act
- A misnomer if there ever was one
- The Barnburner at Rowe
- This year's seminar is shaping up to be one for the ages
by
charleshughsmith
Executive Summary
- Intervention in the housing market by central planners is experiencing diminishing returns
- The four major trend reversals most likely to depress housing prices in the coming future
- The power deflationary force of reversion to (or perhaps below?) the mean
- Why demographics do not support rising prices
If you have not yet read Part I: The Unsafe Foundation of Our Housing 'Recovery', available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part I, we sketched out the larger context of the housing market: the dramatic rise of mortgage debt, the stagnation of income for 90% of households and the unprecedented scope of Central Planning intervention in the housing and mortgage markets.
In Part II, examine what will likely cause this nascent rise in housing prices to reverse, and to resume the decline Central Planning halted in 2009.
Intervention Has Only One Way to Go: Diminishing Returns
As noted in Part I, every Central Planning support of the mortgage and housing markets has already been pushed to the maximum, so there is nowhere left to go. Interest rates are already negative, over 90% of the mortgage market is backed by Federal agencies, the Fed has already pledged to buy trillions of dollars in mortgages, etc.
Four years of this massive intervention has stripped the mortgage and housing markets of the ability to price risk, capital, and assets. This has created a culture of supreme complacency, as participants have come to believe interest rates will stay near-zero for the foreseeable future and Central Planning intervention is permanent.
But nothing is permanent in life. And the current extremes of intervention and complacency have set the stage for some important reversals:
The Forces That Will Reverse Housing’s Recent Gains
PREVIEW by charleshughsmithExecutive Summary
- Intervention in the housing market by central planners is experiencing diminishing returns
- The four major trend reversals most likely to depress housing prices in the coming future
- The power deflationary force of reversion to (or perhaps below?) the mean
- Why demographics do not support rising prices
If you have not yet read Part I: The Unsafe Foundation of Our Housing 'Recovery', available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part I, we sketched out the larger context of the housing market: the dramatic rise of mortgage debt, the stagnation of income for 90% of households and the unprecedented scope of Central Planning intervention in the housing and mortgage markets.
In Part II, examine what will likely cause this nascent rise in housing prices to reverse, and to resume the decline Central Planning halted in 2009.
Intervention Has Only One Way to Go: Diminishing Returns
As noted in Part I, every Central Planning support of the mortgage and housing markets has already been pushed to the maximum, so there is nowhere left to go. Interest rates are already negative, over 90% of the mortgage market is backed by Federal agencies, the Fed has already pledged to buy trillions of dollars in mortgages, etc.
Four years of this massive intervention has stripped the mortgage and housing markets of the ability to price risk, capital, and assets. This has created a culture of supreme complacency, as participants have come to believe interest rates will stay near-zero for the foreseeable future and Central Planning intervention is permanent.
But nothing is permanent in life. And the current extremes of intervention and complacency have set the stage for some important reversals:
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