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Don’t Scapegoat President Obama for the
Failure of Our Sick, Addictive, Economy
Let’s face it, no matter what the latest ups
and downs we read in the news, the economy is still
sick. And predictably President Obama’s
approval ratings are dropping. When he was elected
most of the world felt hopeful that Mr. Obama could
make a difference and turn things around within the
country and with our relationships around the
world. Democrats were looking forward to major
changes in health reform and an end to the
dysfunctional economic policies of the Bush years.
Republicans were worried that Obama would change
America in a way not to their liking. All felt he
was destined to have a major impact on our
lives.
I think he has and he will. It’s great to
have a man who is charismatic, intelligent,
thoughtful, willing to work with disparate groups,
and a man who seeks reconciliation rather than
conflict. But I’m afraid the nature of the
problems we face are not going to be solved by even
the most intelligent, hard-working, and dedicated
President. If we recognize that we can hope for the
best, but be prepared for the worst, and resist the
temptation to make the President the scapegoat for
our unfilled expectations, we will be able to take
responsibility for creating the kind of country and
world we truly want and need.
For those a bit rusty on their biblical history,
in Leviticus, the scapegoat is loaded own with the
sins to which the ancient Israelites have confessed
and then banished into the wilderness. The word
"scapegoat" has come to mean a person, often
innocent, who is blamed and punished for the sins,
crimes, or sufferings of others, generally as a way
of distracting attention from the real causes.
Most of us have been “scapegoated” in
our lives and it’s not very comfortable. It
order to prevent this from happening to President
Obama (or anyone else) we have to get a clearer
picture of the nature of our economic ills and what
the true causes of failure might be.
So why are both the U.S. economy and the larger
global economy ailing? Those in positions of power,
i.e. the mainstream media, world leaders, and
America’s chief economists, Treasury Secretary
Geithner and Feberal Reserve Chairman Bernanke)
offer near unanimity in their opinion: Those recent
troubles are temporary and are primarily due to a
combination of bad real estate loans and poor
regulation of financial derivatives.
As a health-care practitioner, I know how
important it is to have the correct diagnosis of an
illness if treatment is to be most effective. If
this conventional diagnosis is correct, then the
treatment of our economic malady might logically
include heavy doses of bailout money for
beleaguered financial institutions, mortgage
lenders, and car companies. Plus better regulation
of derivatives and futures markets. And finally,
stimulus programs to jumpstart consumer
spending.
But Richard Heinberg, a fellow at the Post
Carbon Institute, and a man I have learned to
respect greatly over the years (not the least
because he usually turns out to be right), has a
different take on what ails us. “I am
suggesting an Alternative Diagnosis,” says
Heinberg. “This explanation for the economic
crisis is not for the faint of heart because, if
correct, it implies that the patient is far sicker
than even the most pessimistic economists are
telling us. But if it is correct, then by ignoring
it we risk even greater peril.”
When James Howard Kunstler wrote The Long
Emergency in 2005, he said that the greatest danger
this society faced would be its inclination to gear
up a campaign to sustain the unsustainable at all
costs -- rather than face the need to make new
arrangements for daily life. This seems to be what
is happening at the top levels of power.
Peak Oil and the Limits of Growth
For several years, a swelling subculture of
commentators (which includes Heinberg, Matt
Savinar, Carolyn Baker, James Howard Kunstler, and
others) have been forecasting a financial crash,
basing this prognosis on the assessment that global
oil production was about to peak. As summarized by
Heinberg in his August, 2009 Museletter
(www.RichardHeinberg.com), their reasoning went
like this:
Continual increases in population and
consumption cannot continue forever on a finite
planet. This is an axiomatic observation with which
everyone familiar with the mathematics of
compounded arithmetic growth must agree, even if
they hedge their agreement with vague references to
"substitutability" and "demographic
transitions."
Energy is the ultimate enabler of growth (again,
this is axiomatic: physics and biology both tell us
that without energy nothing happens). Industrial
expansion throughout the past two centuries has in
every instance been based on increased energy
consumption. More specifically, industrialism has
been inextricably tied to the availability and
consumption of cheap energy from coal and oil (and
more recently, natural gas). However, fossil fuels
are by their very nature depleting, non-renewable
resources. Therefore (according to the Peak Oil
thesis), the eventual inability to continue
increasing supplies of cheap fossil energy will
likely lead to a cessation of economic growth in
general, unless alternative energy sources and
efficiency of energy use can be deployed rapidly
and to a sufficient degree.
Of the three conventional fossil fuels, oil is
arguably the most economically vital, since it
supplies 95 percent of all transport energy.
Further, petroleum is the fuel with which we are
likely to encounter supply problems soonest,
because global petroleum discoveries have been
declining for decades, and most oil producing
countries are already seeing production declines.
So, by this logic, the end of economic growth (as
conventionally defined) is inevitable, and Peak Oil
is the likely trigger.
Increased Growth Leads to Increased Debt
Which Can No Longer Be Serviced
Why would Peak Oil lead not just to problems for
the transport industry, but a more general economic
and financial crisis? During the past century
growth has become institutionalized in the very
sinews of our economic system. Every city and
business wants to grow. This is understandable
merely in terms of human nature: nearly everyone
wants a competitive advantage over someone else,
and growth provides the opportunity to achieve
it.
But there is also a financial survival motive at
work: without growth, businesses and governments
are unable to service their debt. And debt has
become endemic to the industrial system. During the
past couple of decades, the financial services
industry has grown faster than any other sector of
the American economy, even outpacing the rise in
health care expenditures, accounting for a third of
all growth in the U.S. economy. From 1990 to the
present, the ratio of debt-to-GDP expanded from 165
percent to over 350 percent. In essence, the
present welfare of the economy rests on debt, and
the collateral for that debt consists of a wager
that next year's levels of production and
consumption will be higher than this year's.
The Whole Growth/Debt Process is a Giant
Ponzi Scheme About to Collapse
Given that growth cannot continue on a finite
planet, this wager, and its embodiment in the
institutions of finance, can be said to constitute
history's greatest Ponzi scheme. We have justified
present borrowing with the irrational belief that
perpetual growth is possible, necessary, and
inevitable. In effect we have borrowed from future
generations so that we could gamble away their
capital today.
Until recently, the Peak Oil argument has been
framed as a forecast: the inevitable decline in
world petroleum production, whenever it occurs,
will kill growth. But here is where forecast
becomes diagnosis: during the period from 2005 to
2008, energy stopped growing and oil prices rose to
record levels. By July of 2008, the price of a
barrel of oil was nudging close to $150—half
again higher than any previous petroleum price in
inflation-adjusted terms—and the global
economy was beginning to topple. The auto and
airline industries shuddered; ordinary consumers
had trouble buying gasoline for their commute to
work while still paying their mortgages. Consumer
spending began to decline. By September the
economic crisis was also a financial crisis, as
banks trembled and imploded.
We Are Reaching Peak Everything and We
Continue Our Addictive Compulsion for More
Although some would hope we can make the
transition to non-fossil fuel options and keep our
economy expanding, Heinberg believes this is not
possible. “My conclusion from a careful survey
of energy alternatives,” says Heinberg,
“is that there is little likelihood that
either conventional fossil fuels or alternative
energy sources can be counted on to provide the
amount and quality of energy that will be needed to
sustain economic growth—or even current levels
of economic activity—during the remainder of
this century.”
He goes on to recognize that we are reaching our
limits of more and more of the planets resources:
The world's fresh water resources are strained to
the point that billions of people may soon find
themselves with only precarious access to water for
drinking and irrigation. Biodiversity is declining
rapidly. We are losing 24 billion tons of topsoil
each year to erosion. And many economically
significant minerals—from antimony to
zinc—are depleting quickly, requiring the
mining of ever lower-grade ores in ever more remote
locations. Thus the Peak Oil crisis is really just
the leading edge of a broader Peak Everything
dilemma.
We Are Addicts on a Binge That Is Coming to
An End
Mind-active drugs are used by people in every
culture throughout the world as long as humans have
been on the planet. The pleasure centers in our
brains make us susceptible to wanting more of
whatever substances or experiences trigger those
critical brain centers. In their book, Craving for
Ecstasy: The Consciousness & Chemistry of
Escape, psychologists Harvey Milkman and Stanley
Sunderwirth describe the universal tendency we all
have to become addicted. “We spend much of our
lives in relentless pursuit of fleeting moments of
exalted delight. But the consequences of compulsive
pleasure seeking—whether through activities or
use of substances—are often
devastating.”
Although most of us don’t immediately think
of “oil” as an addictive substance, even
though former President Bush declared that the
nation was “addicted to oil.” However,
when you recognize all the things we have become
dependent upon during our fossil-fuel driven frenzy
over the last 200 years, our dilemma becomes
clearer.
Think of the human race on the planet for
millions of years, subsisting on renewable energy
from the sun and living in balance with nature. All
of a sudden we discover a source of energy (oil)
that gives us hundreds and thousand times the
amount of pleasure that we could generate up to
that point. It’s not surprising that we have
gone on a 200 year binge that it inevitably coming
to an end.
In his book, The Party’s Over: Oil, War,
and the Fate of Industrial Societies, Heinberg,
says, “It is as if part of the human race has
been given a sudden windfall of wealth and decided
to spend that wealth by throwing an extravagant
party. The party has not been without its
discontents or costs. From time to time, a lone
voice issuing from here or there has called for the
party to quiet down or cease altogether. The
partiers have paid no attention. But soon the part
itself will be a fading memory—not because
anyone decided to heed the voice of moderation, but
because the wine and food are gone and the harsh
light of morning has come.
Every Addicts Dilemma: Get Clean or
Die
In the 40 years I have treated addicts of every
kind I know that no matter how destructive their
addiction has been, they have within them a
tremendous resiliency and desire to recover. Most
addicts have to reach their own bottom. As long as
there still drugs available, as long as they have
some money to buy some form of escape, they keep
trying. I say that addicts want to go home, but
like confused homing pigeons, they continue to fly
180 degrees in the wrong direction.
But addicts do recover. Most of them do it by
acknowledging that they have become addicted, and
reaching out to other addicts for help and support,
meeting in local groups in communities throughout
the world. It would be nice if those in power paid
more than lip service to our addiction to oil, but
we don’t have to wait until they do to begin
our own recovery program.
As Heinberg says, “Even if policy makers
continue to ignore warnings, individuals and
communities can take heed and begin the process of
building resilience, and of detaching themselves
from reliance on fossil fuels and institutions that
are inextricably tied to the perpetual growth
machine. We cannot sit passively by as world
leaders squander opportunities to awaken and adapt
to growth limits. We can make changes in our own
lives, and we can join with our neighbors. And we
can let policy makers know we disapprove of their
allegiance to the status quo, but that there are
other options.”
“Is it too late to begin a managed
transition to a post-fossil fuel society?”
Heinberg asks. “Perhaps, but we will not know
unless we try. And if we are to make that effort,
we must begin by acknowledging one simple, stark
reality: growth as we have known it can no longer
be our goal.”
As we begin our own recovery, we just reject the
notion that someone else is to blame for our
situation. It isn’t President Obama. It
isn’t the Republicans. It isn’t foreign
“terrorists.” As the great philosopher
Pogo remarked, “We have met the enemy and he
is us.” We might remind ourselves, too, that
we have met the hope for the future and that is us
as well.
©2010 Jed
Diamond
See Books,
Issues
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Wealth can't buy health, but health can buy
wealth. - Henry David Thoreau
Jed Diamond
is the internationally best-selling author of nine
books including Male
Menopause,
The
Irritable Male Syndrome: Managing. The 4 Key Causes
of Depression and
Aggression. and
Mr.
Mean: Saving Your Relationship from the Irritable
Male Syndrome. His
upcoming book, Tapping Power: A Man’s Guide to
Eliminating Pain, Stress, Anger, Depression and
Other Ills Using the Revolutionary Tools of Energy
Psychology will be available next year. For over 38
years he has been a leader in the field of men's
health. He is a member of the International
Scientific Board of the World Congress on
Men’s Health and has been on the Board of
Advisors of the Men’s Health Network since its
founding in 1992. His work has been featured in
major newspapers throughout the United States
including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Wall
Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and USA
Today. He has been featured on more than 1,000
radio and T.V. programs including The View with
Barbara Walters, Good Morning America, Inside
Edition, CBS, NBC, and Fox News, To Tell the Truth,
Extra, Leeza, Geraldo, and Joan Rivers. He also did
a nationally televised special on Male Menopause
for PBS. He looks forward to your feedback.
E-Mail.
You can visit his website at www.menalive.com
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