Forecast 2010
by ilene - December 28th, 2009 4:48 pm
Forecast 2010
Courtesy of James Howard Kunstler
The Center does Not Hold…
But Neither Does the Floor
Introduction
There are always disagreements in a society, differences of opinion, and contested ideas, but I don’t remember any period in my own longish life, even the Vietnam uproar, when the collective sense of purpose, intent, and self-confidence was so muddled in this country, so detached from reality. Obviously, in saying this I’m assuming that I have some reliable notion of what’s real. I admit the possibility that I’m as mistaken as anyone else. But for the purpose of this exercise I’ll ask you to regard me as a reliable narrator. Forecasting is a nasty job, usually thankless, often disappointing – but somebody’s got to do it. There are so many variables in motion, and so much of that motion is driven by randomness, and the best one can do in forecasting amounts to offering up some guesses for whatever they are worth.
I begin by restating my central theme of recent months: that we’re doing a poor job of constructing a coherent consensus about what is happening to us and what we are going to do about it.
There is a great clamor for "solutions" out there. I’ve noticed that what’s being clamored for is a set of rescue remedies – miracles even – that will allow us to keep living exactly the way we’re accustomed to in the USA, with all the trappings of comfort and convenience now taken as entitlements. I don’t believe that this will be remotely possible, so I avoid the term "solutions" entirely and suggest that we speak instead of "intelligent responses" to our changing circumstances. This implies that our well-being depends on our own behavior and the choices that we make, not on the lucky arrival of just-in-time miracles. It is an active stance, not a passive one. What will we do?
The great muddlement out there, this inability to form a coherent consensus about what’s happening, is especially frightening when, as is the case today, even the intelligent elites appear clueless or patently dishonest, in any case unreliable, in their relations with reality. President Obama, for instance – a charming, articulate man, with a winning smile, pectorals like Kansas City strip steaks, and a mandate for "change" – who speaks incessantly and implausibly of "the recovery" when all…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.