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353 comments on The Expected Economic Impact of an Energy Downturn

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Ignorant on March 26, 2008 - 11:09am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I also heard the NJ State Department of Agriculture, as well as funding of equipment acquisitions for volunteer fire departments (as if they don't get paid little enough as is).

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artaxt on March 26, 2008 - 12:53pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I live in NJ too and was a volunteer fire fighter a couple of years ago. I'm not sure that the state has ever had a significant hand in providing money for local departements to buy gear. Most of the money comes from private donations or fire distric taxes. Still, the budget situation in NJ is something to be concerned with. Gov. Corzine, as far as I'm concerned, is being realistic about the situation, and a lot of people in the state assembly simply don't want to face up to reality.

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shastatodd on March 26, 2008 - 2:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

California has a 16 BILLION dollar deficit... so you can imagine the cuts going out here on the left coast.

Todd

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Gail the Actuary on March 26, 2008 - 2:30pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

If I were a lender, I would have serious questions about lending California anything, with that kind of deficit. California looks like a problem waiting to happen.

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mudduck on March 26, 2008 - 6:27pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

California is a problem in progress.

Interesting that the Bush regime has brought down three sitting Democratic governors. Gray Davis in California by recall, Don Siegelman in Alabama by dubious prosecution, and Eliot Spitzer in New York State by combing his financial records. (Spitzer is shamefully guilty, but his offenses were uncovered by opposition research. Siegelman seems to have been railroaded.)

The "no growth" situation cannot be recognized too soon.

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ChrisN on March 26, 2008 - 11:21pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I wasn't able to quickly find the last time that the CA budget was actually balanced, but it's been broken for a long time. At least 10 years, but my memory says much longer than that. We've been running on borrowed money forever. As in many other things, CA is a microcosm of the bigger picture, and it wouldn't suprise me a bit if, in the same way that we have led the country in pursuit of renewable energy and emissions controls, we also lead it in playing out the inevitable end of the borrowing game.

Great work on this article, Gail! It's not a pretty picture but you told it straight and simply, and you did it well.

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pi on March 26, 2008 - 2:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Governments downsizing is something that I hadn't really thought much about until I read Kunstler's new book "World Made By Hand", where the State government in Albany is down to one guy working alone in the Capitol building (He has no authority, everything is really run by a warlord). As for medical care, it's just a GP in the little town (Union Grove) which is the main setting. He has to brew up his own pain-killers and other medicines. Most awfully, there aren't any antibiotics to be had. (I personally hope Kunstler is wrong about the antibiotics. )

I think your presentation is good, but I wonder if many young people will be able to fully understand its implications. A few more concrete examples might be helpful: little by little we'll have a tough time getting and affording plastic; we won't be able to fix roads, so people will have a harder time to simply VISIT a doctor, etc.

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Gail the Actuary on March 26, 2008 - 2:39pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I'll see if I can add an example or two.

If I give the talk to other audiences later, when I am not constrained to 20 minutes, I can add some more.

I've discovered when you say, "There may not be medications", I get a lot of arguments that this is the highest use, so of course we would have medications, even if we had nothing else. Also, if I say there may not be plastics, someone believes that since they take such a small share of the petroleum, surely they will be spared. And so on.

If this is a part of a group of talks, it is hard to know how much foundation the other speakers will have laid.

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jewishfarmer on March 26, 2008 - 2:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Gail, what a great way of expressing the problems of medications or any usage - somehow they end up broken down and we're still using as much oil as ever! That's very helpful to me when I run into these same questions.

Sharon

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The Dude on March 26, 2008 - 3:11pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hey! Make with the Spoiler Alert! Some of us are still checking the mailbox for our copy of WMBH.

Thought about buying it locally, yes.

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darwinsdog on March 27, 2008 - 11:31am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

(I personally hope Kunstler is wrong about the antibiotics.)

Our grandparents' generation, our parents', our own, and perhaps our childrens', have had the great good fortune to have existed during the extremely narrow window in human history when fossil fuels were cheap and antibiotics actually worked.

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353 comments on The Expected Economic Impact of an Energy Downturn

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