It’s Official: The Crash Of The U.S. Economy Has Begun

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Well, yes, like wasn't TOO bad - except for the complete and utter lack of medical care and sanitation, restrictions on movement, lack of material wealth, lack of heat in winter, lack of cool in summer, lack of reliable clean water, maurauding criminals...

There weren't any restrictions on movement for the yeomanry, who did have material wealth in the form of property. You're thinking of the serfs, which were actually in some regions and periods of Europe very rare.

Sure, people CAN be happy even under such circumstances - but their lives will be shorter, with more illness and pain. In part, they didn't suffer because they didn't know anything else, but someone accustomed to 24/7 climate control, modern medicine, year round fresh food, and other modern luxuries will suffer until they adjust. And some won't ever adjust.

I think I could adjust - I live a pretty frugal life as it is, aside from aviation (which, in this hypothetical world, won't be happening for me anyway) but there sure as hell would be a lot of things I'd miss.

Life goes on. And there is something beautiful about farming, all things. For all its toughness as a life, to nurture the food of the world and see the Earth so close around you is quite pleasant really.

Me, if I'm well-to-do enough to put a sauna and a Japanese hot-bath on my house (both of the pre-modern designs, of course, not the modern ones ridiculously sold to people, but... http://www.cyberbohemia.com/Pages/sweat.htm More like the ones this fellow tells you how to build in your backyard), and the near presence of a few intimates (by which I mean close friends), and I shall consider myself happier than I am today, even without the sundry modern luxuries.

But really, we're not looking at things getting that bad. Total electrical loss of service is highly unlikely, except for a few years of temporary disruption. A slight majority of people should be able to at least maintain their positions in society if not improve them.This is more going to become the era of the 70-hour cross-country train trip, not of some sort of neo-serfdom.

[Coop D'etat]

Given the impending spectre of the shit hitting the fan, what would be some good prospects for future employment for a 20-year-old Canadian aspiring biochemist be?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Given the impending spectre of the shit hitting the fan, what would be some good prospects for future employment for a 20-year-old Canadian aspiring biochemist be?

Biochemistry, obviously.

[Coop D'etat]

I guess my question is whether there is going still be large amounts of money pumped into basic academic science research, or if I should place my sights on applied science in industry. Also what areas in biotechnology will be a priority in the future.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I guess my question is whether there is going still be large amounts of money pumped into basic academic science research, or if I should place my sights on applied science in industry. Also what areas in biotechnology will be a priority in the future.

Genetic engineering. It will be the main method by which we can compensate for the loss of industrialization in agriculture, and the coming global-warming related water shortages and the issues with soil depletion.

[Coop D'etat]

I guess my question is whether there is going still be large amounts of money pumped into basic academic science research, or if I should place my sights on applied science in industry. Also what areas in biotechnology will be a priority in the future.

Genetic engineering. It will be the main method by which we can compensate for the loss of industrialization in agriculture, and the coming global-warming related water shortages and the issues with soil depletion.

Thanks, I must say, the prospect of saving millions from starvation one SDS-PAGE at a time is appealing.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Must as I'm a proponent of biotech, being as how I'm always looking for inroads into the industry, let us not kid ourselves by thinking it is the be all, end all of agriculture. No matter how good your technology, the vast majority of arable land in the US will cease to be viable within the coming decades as climate change pushes the Goldilocks area northwards towards the Canadian border where there's little well cultivated topsoil for such monocultures.

On top of that, GM organisms don't have a recall option. It better be perfect when unleashed, or you risk making your environment even less hospitable.

[Mr Flibble]

Genetic engineering. It will be the main method by which we can compensate for the loss of industrialization in agriculture, and the coming global-warming related water shortages and the issues with soil depletion.

Do you have a good source on the global warming water shortage issue, it interests me, as from my background (geology) I would expect that in global warming water shortages for the majority of the world will not be a problem as precipitation should increase (I know that it will change the patterns and moe things around a bit, so some areas will decrease but overall there should be an increase, particularly as the surface area of the sea increase leading to more evaporation). Pretty much all the geological record says warmer world = better for plants = better for animals = better for biodeversity. Which is not to say that it won't cause huge problems in the transition time, and I'm guessing part of the issue would be the rate of the global warming. So I'm wondering what the climatologists are basing that prediction on.

[Admiral Valdemar]

It's global aquifers and freshwater bodies that are drying up, not rainfall being as much an issue. It rains a lot in the UK, but that doesn't mean we don't have hosepipe bans are warnings on water levels. Climate change will alter many weather patterns, but it will also eradicate glaciers, dry up lakes and force people to run down already critical underground reservoirs.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Must as I'm a proponent of biotech, being as how I'm always looking for inroads into the industry, let us not kid ourselves by thinking it is the be all, end all of agriculture. No matter how good your technology, the vast majority of arable land in the US will cease to be viable within the coming decades as climate change pushes the Goldilocks area northwards towards the Canadian border where there's little well cultivated topsoil for such monocultures.

On top of that, GM organisms don't have a recall option. It better be perfect when unleashed, or you risk making your environment even less hospitable.

If we can flood the area with water, we could even grow crops in the Sahara--quite successfully, I might add. I don't buy the idea that we'll lose the "vast majority" of our arable land, and that's simply rampant pessimism of the first order. All we need to do is get enough water to the land, and that's simply an issue of electrical power and pipelines. Electrical power which can, as I've noted before, be entirely off-grid and tied directly to the desalination plants, bypassing grid capacity issues entirely. I frankly expect that any losses in arable land will be entirely offset by the reversion of suburbs and abandoned farmland back into production, and the warming of Alaska.

The nice thing about Peak Oil is that it will place the economy under centrally directed control by necessity, which will allow us to actually engage in such massive projects to deal with global warming in turn. I am reasonably confident that we shall, in future days, be thankful of peak oil on that account.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Even saying you could get the capacity to do that and within a good time-frame, it doesn't alter the fact that the soil is overworked as it is today and while you can replenish nutrients in a small garden with compost, doing so on a national level with such farmland is far harder. The warmer climate means yields will be affected by new pests too, which needs to be taken into account. If you don't maintain some semblance of a modern agri-business, then your margins get slimmer.

[Mr Flibble]

It's global aquifers and freshwater bodies that are drying up, not rainfall being as much an issue. It rains a lot in the UK, but that doesn't mean we don't have hosepipe bans are warnings on water levels. Climate change will alter many weather patterns, but it will also eradicate glaciers, dry up lakes and force people to run down already critical underground reservoirs.

Which just means we will have to better store water when it falls, as it is falling. Of course governments will probably fuck this up. If we planned ahead it should be easy to mitigate the water effect as more rain is actually going to be falling, I guess it is the planning ahead bit that is the problem. I think the big problem with water (particularly here) really is mismanagement of the sytems more than anything else.

Geological history does not show the majority of fresh water sources drying up in greenhouse times, that happens in icehouse times, though peak lake size is also in icehouse times (it gets complicated). Water supplies are certainly going to move, and people the world over are going to have to institute better water management practices, already starting here but this is due to poor management not climate change. Colour me skeptical on the fresh water issue anyway, with more rain we should be able to store it. The will be problems in some areas of course due to the moving climate patterns. To reduce losses to evaporation we can store it in the depleting aquifers, again something which is already starting to be done here.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Well, sceptic or not, you better let the nations of the world know, because there is fighting over freshwater going on now on every continent. The US is even doing it with Mexico. The "water wars" are something we can see adding to energy wars.

And much as I'd love to put my faith in gov't to help us all out, I won't. Human ingenuity got us here in the first place.

[Mr Flibble]

[quote="Admiral Valdemar"]Well, sceptic or not, you better let the nations of the world know, because there is fighting over freshwater going on now on every continent. The US is even doing it with Mexico. The "water wars" are something we can see adding to energy wars.

Once again I say that most of the current water issues are due to poor management of the existing systems. What I'm getting at really is that I think water shouldn't be a problem from global warming, the problem is bad government, blaming global warming for it is a good way for governments to actually get away from doing anything about their poor management practices. I'm sceptical that global water shortages will be caused by global warming. I'm not sceptical that there will be plenty of water shortages caused by government incompetance.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Only the fact that China is going to lose its glaciers to the north that supply most of Asia with fresh water most assuredly is down to climate change. Whether gov'ts fuck up or not is beside the point, because the only reason this issue and the energy one are even cropping up is because of human incompetence, which is a fact of life, sadly.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Even saying you could get the capacity to do that and within a good time-frame, it doesn't alter the fact that the soil is overworked as it is today and while you can replenish nutrients in a small garden with compost, doing so on a national level with such farmland is far harder. The warmer climate means yields will be affected by new pests too, which needs to be taken into account. If you don't maintain some semblance of a modern agri-business, then your margins get slimmer.

*shrugs* We currently waste massive amounts of grain on feeding cattle in the states, we waste massive amounts of corn on ethanol, we have massive amounts of farmland which has been turned into suburbs or simply let fallow because of artificially depressed food prices, and we still over-produce for the needs of our population, substantially. We can ban feedlots and mandate that meat products only be produced on rangelands--including substantial portions of the Great American Desert which currently are used for producing crops, but where cropland in those areas is simply not viable in the long term--which will severely cut the amount of meat available, but there will be more than enough to keep all Americans healthy, which is, of course, all we need.

Considering that something like 70% of our grain production goes to producing meat right now, and beef production with grain can be up to 16 times less efficient than eating that grain yourself, the total elimination of all feedlot-based meat production would massively increase the available food stores in the country. Combined with restoring farmland by destroying the suburbs and exurbs and bringing fallow land back under crops, even the total abandonment of the Great American Desert for all but free-range grazing will be handily compensated for, and that's the majority of the land we stand to lose from global warming anyway.

In combination with extensive irrigation from desalination sources and GM crops, we should be able to hold our yields per acre with little loss even with a considerable reduction in pesticide use and mechanization. Even if we suffer more dramatic declines, it's obvious when you consider the figures above that under no circumstance will the amount of food the United States produces actually dip below a figure at which we can feed everyone. Even in the worst case scenarios with global warming it will simply mean that the available calories per person declines down to a level which is actually healthy, rather than the obscene consumption which now exists, and of course our transportation network is good enough by rail and barge to render distribution issues moot.

The simple fact is that eliminating feedlot-based meat production in this country would give us enough grains to feed another five hundred million people. And the reduction in available calories to each existing American from doing so wouldn't be enough to risk starvation for anyone currently consuming that food. This ignores export retention; though 11% of our existing consumption is imported, 23% of our existing production is exported--and that figure, of course, includes production of grains which get turned over to feedlots. That means that we lose only about 5% of overall production levels equivalent when we lose imports, yielding a net gain of 18% from instituting autarkist policies.

The end result is that the current capacity of United States agriculture, if feedlot based meat production were eliminated, could be as high as on the order of supporting 940 billion people at healthy food intake levels. This should not be a surprise to anyone, seeing that we currently provide in excess of 3,600 calories per day per person in this country (and that was from studies in the mid-90's, it's surely gotten worse), when an average of 1,800 calories per day per person would be entirely sufficient.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

We can lose 2/3rds of our existing food production, in short, and still feed everyone in the country. But, of course, we would be adding significant tracts of fertile land in plowed-under suburbs and exurbs, fallow terrain, and places like Alaska where climate change will make intensive agriculture possible, which will at least partially compensate. As a practical matter, considering there will still be population growth for at least a while, that will just serve to compensate for that growth.

And I seriously doubt we are going to lose 2/3rds of our existing food production. 1/3rd is more likely over the course of global warming, with when you factor in the fact that some of the land which will be made unsuitable for crops will still be available for free-range grazing, again assuming that new land or fallow land coming back under cultivation will just compensate for population growth. What that still results in is basically the United States managing to produce twice as much food as it actually needs.

[Darth Wong]

I think Valdy is just over-pessimistic on agriculture because he lives in the UK, which really is fucked for agriculture.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Food production doesn't concern me so much as sustainability and cost. We've always produced enough food in the world to feed people, whether they can afford it or not is the issue and how long such farming can be kept at a fair rate. Right now, only Cuba just about fits the sustainable ecological footprint for living with many Third World shitholes well out of that range and the First and Second Worlds on the other end of the spectrum.

That's a culture change needed more than anything, because we sure as shit aren't cutting back despite prices today and warnings from Al Gore and scientists about TEH END OF DA W0RLD!11! Apathy? Myopia? Simple ignorance? I don't know, somehow the masses need to see the ground crumble beneath their feet before they'll accept something might be amiss.

I think Valdy is just over-pessimistic on agriculture because he lives in the UK, which really is fucked for agriculture.

Once the last McDonald's is shut, where the hell will I get my much needed healthy nourishment? Local food? It looks as if it's already been eaten when served.

At least you have plenty of Mexicans.

[brianeyci]

People will be prevented from starving, by force if necessary, by the government enacting draconian legislation. No individual or group of companies will be allowed to profit obscenely from the crisis, except those directly linked to those in power (which can be many, but in places with proper anti-corruption legislation and public hatred of corruption like Canada, politicians will be greatly pressured to attack corporations.) I think you underestimate the social safety nets in place in first world nations Valdemar.

People will simply not be allowed to die on the streets of Toronto or New York.

That's the whole rationale behind homeless shelters. If it means the government has to commandeer food production, they will do it. I doubt Keynesian economics will have much pull after the dollar's destroyed.

[Cairber]

Ok, I read this entire thread and I still wonder to myself "what does this mean for my family?" I wish I would have paid more attention in economics Let's say they are right and something big is coming, what kinds of steps should people be taking?

Yeah this question probably sounds really stupid, but that's me when it comes to think kind of thing.

[Cairber]

ghetto edit.."this" kind of thing.


And another question: we were thinking about selling our house in about 5 years. Does an economic downturn like this fuck that over?

[Admiral Valdemar]

People will be prevented from starving, by force if necessary, by the government enacting draconian legislation. No individual or group of companies will be allowed to profit obscenely from the crisis, except those directly linked to those in power (which can be many, but in places with proper anti-corruption legislation and public hatred of corruption like Canada, politicians will be greatly pressured to attack corporations.) I think you underestimate the social safety nets in place in first world nations Valdemar.

People will simply not be allowed to die on the streets of Toronto or New York.

That's the whole rationale behind homeless shelters. If it means the government has to commandeer food production, they will do it. I doubt Keynesian economics will have much pull after the dollar's destroyed.

This throws a hilarious mental image of poor people being forced at gunpoint to clean their plates and demand a second serving, or else!

I think my cold, cold granite shard of a heart is just too uncaring tonight to really appreciate the power of human ingenuity to ingenuitise ourselves out of what we just ingenuitised our way into.

Where ideas are concerned, America can be counted on to do one of two things: take a good idea and run it completely into the ground, or take a bad idea and run it completely into the ground.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

ghetto edit.."this" kind of thing.


And another question: we were thinking about selling our house in about 5 years. Does an economic downturn like this fuck that over?

Position yourselves. Sell your house immediately if it is within a suburb, before the housing market collapses, to preserve your equity. Then relocate, at the least, to within a couple blocks of a railroad mass transit stop. Do not under any circumstance accept a high debt load even if this requires a reduced quality to your living situation.

If you already live in a dense urban area, your house is more precious than gold, and hang onto it, while paying off any mortgage as rapidly as possible.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I think Valdy is just over-pessimistic on agriculture because he lives in the UK, which really is fucked for agriculture.

I'm actually fairly confident that the USA and Canada will be able to collectively feed 500 million people beyond their own populations in 2100. 60 million of those will be about 90% of the population of the British Isles. In an amusing reversal, Canada will be able to make the UK its bitch, as the survival of essentially the whole population of the country will be dependent on Canadian grain traveling down the St. Lawrence Seaway and across the Atlantic. The French will be making continental Europe into their bitches with their own food production and excellently healthy economy that will barely suffer directly from peak oil.

If 15% of the food in India and 15% of the food in China comes from America and Canada, also, that is probably going to be the leverage which keeps us in a dominant position in the world. Of course, if the Russians can sort together their agriculture that will be very important, the same with the Ukraine--the Ukraine was the world's breadbasket in 1914 and it still hasn't recovered from what came after, to this day. Fortunately, we've got plenty of excess capacity...

...The problem is putting it to use before people start starving to death enmasse. That's the hard part.

And of course a lot of the third world is fucked anyway.