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<\/a><\/p>\nI have no idea how the financial cliff or cliff avoidance drama will lay out. The way it\u2019s playing out now, a New Recession \u2013 which will become a full Depression \u2013 is nearly inevitable. That means more unemployment, expansion of \u201csafety net\u201d expenses, more borrowing, more printing press money. <\/p>\n
Earth abides. God reigns, and the government at Washington still lives. It\u2019s not so clear about the rest of the country. One thing I think you can be sure of: prices of necessities are not likely to go down.<\/p>\n
As I understand it, soaking the rich might be a fine idea, but they just aren\u2019t rich enough: even total confiscation would not pay off the national debt. Disparity of wealth is always the big problem with democracy. The temptation is always to vote for equality. There is a sense in which the Constitution of 1787 was a conspiracy to suppress democracy in favor of property: it didn\u2019t seek to keep the States from becoming distributist by income or, more likely, death taxes. It simply forbade the Federal government from doing that. Mobility of wealth and capital would take care of the rest. I note that even now, with Federal dominance of so much of the economy, it\u2019s working: wealth flees California for Texas even as I write this. <\/p>\n Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free. But we all know that, don\u2019t we?<\/p>\n I am frequently asked to do more essays on survival preparations. Of course the preparation depends on what you hope to survive. If it\u2019s a solar flare that turns off the entire electrical grid permanently, the preparation is drastic, starting with a complete change in attitudes. How likely that is can be a matter of considerable debate. We know that in 1859 there was a flare that probably wouldn\u2019t have done that, although it could have caused a lot of damage: all we really know is that it started fires in telegraph offices, and during the flare some telegraph operators sent messages even though their battery power sources were not connected: there was that much current generated in the lines. That is the last known flare of that size after the development of electrical devices and the stringing of long lines of wire.<\/p>\n We have no real data on the frequency of such events over history, but we do know that such solar events cause big auroras. Again we don\u2019t have a lot of data on how far north the aurora australis has been seen throughout history. The 1859 event aurora was seen in the southern skies in the United States. We have better historical records of the aurora borealis being visible in Alexandria, and some have estimated that significant solar events capable of damaging the modern electrical system have taken place about every two hundred years, meaning that we are due for one in this century.<\/p>\n An event that destroys the electrical grid and shuts down the national electrical system \u2013 shutting it down for several months would probably cause enough disruption to have the effect of permanently ending it \u2013 is not very probable, but it is not impossible, and is about the worst thing short of an asteroid or comet strike.<\/p>\n Preparing for that is not easy, because it is hard to imagine the magnitude of the problem. For those who want more to think about, see Lloyd Tackett\u2019s A Distant Eden. The Kindle edition is available for a dollar, and it\u2019s fairly easy (if disturbing) reading. http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/A-Distant-Eden-ebook\/dp\/B007ODDGUC<\/a><\/p>\n The book is a hybrid: it\u2019s told as a fiction story, but there are significant elements of non-fiction lectures. It\u2019s easy enough to read \u2013 some of the characters are well drawn \u2013 and the fictional element allows Tackett to address the problem of psychological preparation and attitude change. You can quarrel with some of the details. I suspect that there will be far more pockets of civilized order in which the National Guard and local government manage to keep control, and far more pockets of localized feudalism (see Lucifer\u2019s Hammer), but A Distant Eden is easily read and a lot shorter than Hammer. Of course if you haven\u2019t read Lucifer\u2019s Hammer it\u2019s also available in a Kindle edition. http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Lucifers-Hammer-ebook\/dp\/B004478DOU\/ref=tmm_kin_title_0<\/a> Of course Hammer is pure fiction and doesn\u2019t try to be an introduction to survival attitudes and requirements.<\/p>\n Of course the more probable disaster is a collapse of much of the system due to financial failures. <\/p>\n Russell Seitz recommends http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Nh4QIvpdg-M<\/a> and http:\/\/live-webcast.com\/events\/agu\/2012\/webcast-fl-live.htm<\/a> which are the 2011 and 2012 AGU conferences on climate. He concludes that (1) \u201cthey\u2019ve got the sign right\u201d meaning that the Earth is getting warmer, and (2) they are making policy driven by factors other than scientific conclusions. Since the Earth has been getting warmer since the end of the Little Ice Age, and there are a lot of budgets riding on global warming policy, neither conclusion is startling. If you want to watch the sausage being made \u2013 and see what a few thousand freshmen geologists will be learning in the next few years \u2013 this is as good a way as any. I\u2019m getting a bit old to spend time listening to this, but Russell points out that the report coming out of all this is about 40,000 pages long, and you really have to be dedicated to read that. The 2012 presentation above summarizes what\u2019s to come \u2013 not necessarily what is in store for the Earth climatewise, but what is in store for us in the reports and science papers.<\/p>\n I confess I remain skeptical: we don\u2019t understand climate. Russell points out that we now have fairly good data on evaporation rates over the oceans, which is something new \u2013 prior to that we only knew things like fog and cloud cover in a few places where someone bothered to notice and record it \u2013 and that is another reason he\u2019s convinced they\u2019ve got the sign right. Perhaps so. I\u2019ve heard so much prattle about global warming \u2013 oops climate change \u2013 oops increased variability \u2013 increased frequency of hurricanes \u2013 oops \u2013 that I have trouble taking any of it seriously. Do recall that eventually there was a wolf in Aesop\u2019s tale. <\/p>\n I\u2019d feel a lot better about our understanding of climate if some portion \u2013 perhaps 10% — of study money were reserved for contrarian research. But then I\u2019ve thought that about a great number of publicly funded research programs. <\/p>\n View 752 Wednesday, December 05, 2012 Still somewhat under the weather. Recovering. I have no idea how the financial cliff or cliff avoidance drama will lay out. The way it\u2019s playing out now, a New Recession \u2013 which will become a full Depression \u2013 is nearly inevitable. That means more \u2026 Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"