Congratulations USA — You Elected These Clowns

A three-ringed circus - The executive branch, the legislative branch, and, not to be forgotten, the judicial branch. Enjoy America.

The Spectacle Before Our Eyes

I am enthralled with the comedy that is unfolding in Washington. Nothing I could have imagined could have better underscored my thesis about the lack of wisdom in human beings than what we see unfolding before us.

It is a game. The brinksmanship game played with the full faith of the American credit structure. I could care less. The reality of biophysical economics will ultimately determine the outcome of this game. And there will be no winners. The posturing that is taking place in Washington is simply entertainment. They have no clue as to what is happening to us.

No. More than anything else, what you are watching is the ultimate failure of Homo sapiens, self-named and inappropriately so, to fit the environment. Our leaders are just a microcosmic focus of our failures to learn from mistakes and adapt.

Let's consider what the ‘leaders’ (and oh boy do I use that term loosely) are arguing about. Some time back, someone thought it would be a good idea to put a limit on the amount of debt that the country should carry so they suggested a debt ceiling. Sounds good enough. One should not carry more debt than one can afford to pay off some day. Just like revolving credit it is too easy to keep building the debt level and then get caught unable to meet the payments for both principal and interest. After a while, you are lucky to pay any interest and that keeps building because you aren't paying down the principal either. It is a vicious cycle. Far too many people have personal experience with this phenomenon with their credit cards.

Well why shouldn't the same principle apply to the country as a whole. It is conceivable that if national income doesn't rise over time, that the country could find itself with more debt load than it could service. So to protect against borrowing too much, establish a ceiling. Sounds OK.

But, of course, just like needful consumers who just have to have the latest iPod^TM the government has always found things it just needs to buy (votes or warships). And just like consumers it is easy to just borrow the funds needed to buy. OK, it is a little more complicated in terms of how this is accomplished but the principle is exactly the same. And note that it doesn't matter which party is in charge, the effect is always the same (with the singular exception of Clinton who at least brought down the rate of spending relative to the rate of income for a little while).

Now we get to the interesting part. You establish a debt ceiling, but over and over again you find you really need that latest widget. In order to give yourself permission to borrow more money to buy that widget, you simply raise the debt ceiling. Simple. And stupid.

Your ability to pay back on a debt depends entirely on your future ability to have more income than expenditures so as to have an excess to apply to the principal and interest. Now, of course, this doesn't preclude rolling debts over into yet future time periods, but the fact remains that in those time periods you have to make even more income. You can't go on increasing your debt unless you are also increasing your income by enough of a margin to do a little more than break even. And therein lies the fallacy. Unless income growth matches or exceeds debt growth, there is no way in hell or mathematics that you can come out ahead. Nor, of course, can your creditors.

For the country the accepted surrogate measure of national income is the gross domestic product (GDP). Lucky for the government, it gets to define how to compute the GDP and it has found a method, over the years, for redefining it so that it always seems to go up (except, of course, during recessions). Wow! The government is telling itself (and the public) that it will have more income in the future so it will be able to pay off its debt. Very convenient, don't you think?

Well, to be a little fair about it, the government had some help from the private sector in making the numbers look good. GDP has been grossly inflated by the financial sector creating monetized transactions, which then get counted into GDP, out of thin air. They report their income from the inflation in paper assets, including mortgages backed by inflation in housing prices. Well now we know the latter was not real. And we will soon discover that the stock market valuation that seems to be doing OK is not real either. The financial sector has been making the GDP look good for decades now. So do wars. Every time the US buys another warship GDP goes up. What happens to GDP when the warship gets sunk? But very soon now, that Ponzi scheme will come to a halt. And when it does I think we will watch in horror as the national income is revealed to have been either zero or even negative for the past decade.

My model of biophysical economics has already demonstrated that increasing debt becomes impossible when net energy needed for doing real wealth production peaks and goes into decline. And we in the US have passed the peak of net energy production. Even if we get serious about increasing efficiency in the use of what energy we have it will not be sufficient to restore a healthy wealth production economy to the point that it can service our prior debts (and here I mean both private and public). We will default, I have no doubts.

Raising the debt ceiling (as has been done over 100 times!) is one of the stupidest ideas I have ever encountered. It is made even more dangerous given the energy situation we face. And more dangerous still because the politicians, or should I say clowns, running things in Washington DC have absolutely no clue about the future of energy and the economy. They keep holding onto the belief (without any evidence whatever) that the economy will come roaring back. Jobs will be created. Consumers will spend again. Tax revenues will rise just because more people are working and spending. And life will return to normal. They have to belive this and tell the story to their constituents (and how they are helping make it happen) so that they will keep their jobs. Most of these clowns aren't so dumb that they don't realize that if they don't get re-elected that they will likely not have an adequate income themselves! So they continue to tell the public what it wants to hear, as opposed to what it needs to hear. And the expedient fix to everything is to raise the debt ceiling so the government can borrow more money in order to pay off its prior debt obligations (and entitlement programs have taken on all the form of debt for this purpose).

You couldn't make this kind of nonsense up if you tried.

To be honest, I really don't care if the Congress finds a pathway to passing a debt ceiling increase or not. It is a non-issue in the larger picture of a world that is destined for crash. But what I am interested in is the behavior and thinking of the participants. I hope you are watching this as well. Our species has reached its level of incompetence! What the circus in Washington is demonstrating, better than anything I could have come up with, is just how insanely incompetent our leaders are. And since we put them there, how incompetent we are!

OK, they just might come up with some kind of compromise in the 11^th hour and avoid the so-called default situation. It really doesn't matter though. They have already proved their incompetence to govern beyond any reasonable doubt with their incessant posturing and ideological fervor. Neither the left nor right has shown any comprehension of what is really ailing humanity and the economy. They are all blinded by their ideological beliefs.

Here is the greater tragedy. The current spate of congress persons and the president are probably the best we can do! That's right. These are the brightest and best that would ever acquiesce to occupy public service offices^*. They are there because they can't serve any other useful function in society. Politicians are politicians because they don't have any talents other than convincing rhetoric! They don't really need to understand anything because the electorate doesn't exercise critical thinking anyway. The sad fact is that the electorate is pathetically ignorant. Congratulations USA. You have achieved the status of a nation of fools.

Of course, America, you fell for that rhetoric. Look, I am guilty too, as much as I hate to admit it. I actually wanted desperately to believe that Obama got it. He talked about sacrifice. I thought, maybe, he would be able to lead us through what I know will be trying times. Fool me once. I confess. I voted for him.

But I would like to believe that I won't make the same mistake twice. He has proven to me that he really doesn't get it. Or he is just plain disingenuous. Either way I will not vote for him again.

And that leaves me with a real conundrum. And it leaves you readers with a conundrum as well if I am right. If you understand anything I have written you will recognize the problem. Who exactly would you choose as a leader? Who is running that you would entrust with the job?

Well you may have noticed that on the Democratic side there are no challengers to Obama. On the Republican side there is... Oh right, no one worth even considering. So what will you do come 2012? An independent candidate perhaps? Who?

This will sound crazy. I recommend that when you vote in 2012 you might write in your own name for president! Write in anyone you like for vice president! Seriously what choices do you have? OK I realize you are throwing away a vote. But imagine. What will happen if you vote for Obama and whoever (presumably Joe Bidden again)? Will you get reality? You might actually be better off voting for Michelle Bachman! At least you would know that you are getting another clown. And it might be worth it to accelerate the process and get the pain over with.

I haven't looked into this yet, but Americans Elect might be an alternative approach. This group is looking to capitalize on the apparent democracy of the Internet to nominate the best possible people for president without resort to ideological leanings. See what you think.

Meanwhile, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

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^* You know the old saying: Those who can do, those who can't teach, and those who haven't a clue run for office or become administrators! Naturally I take exception with the first part, but maybe some of my former students think I should have stayed in industry because I couldn't teach either!

Comments

[Georgi Marinov]

But what I am interested in is the behavior and thinking of the participants. I hope you are watching this as well. Our species has reached its level of incompetence! What the circus in Washington is demonstrating, better than anything I could have come up with, is just how insanely incompetent our leaders are. And since we put them there, how incompetent we are!

That's the key really. The "leaders" have no clue. The rest of the population has no clue. With respect to everything that really matters, there is no difference between the leaders and the rest of the population, they equally don't get it, even if the former have Harvard and Yale degrees in their CVs and the latter spend their time eating popcorn and watching idiotic TV shows. So it is really pointless and counterproductive to focus on the divide between the people on top and the rest as so many people do. It is a division of wealth and power, but when it comes to understanding it is equally lacking everywhere.

Which is why we are doomed. There is a very small number of people who really get it, and "getting it" consists of things that the rest of the population that does not get it has absolutely no desire to hear. So the large portion of the population that both does not get it and is poor and powerless will continue to elect as their "leaders" members of the small portion of the population that also does not get it but has wealth and power (real or imaginary) and noting will change. Until the proverbial substance really hits the fan...

The thing that continues to mystify me about the Obama administration is what people who, given their biography should be definitely getting it, are doing there such as Holdren and Chu.

[GaryA]

Maybe we didnt think it was possible, but the tragi-comic act both sides of the Atlantic has reached new levels at the moment George.
Your comment about voting prompts me to ask why you bother at all? I have never voted for the simple reason that I do not believe in mass-scale democray. Of course criticising this sacred cow invites charges of elitism, fascism and stalinism but that only from those dullards who have never thought it through. It is utterly irrational. Participation in voting legitimises the zero-choice real system in which only political parties with sufficient funding from corporations/big business and media can win.
At any level of rationality it fails all criteria; Be they electorate, citizens or subjects THEIR majority legitimacy rests on the assumption that a majority of human beings in whatever social group are autonomous rational beings capable of independent thought and decisions.
I have never been able to find any evidence in the scientific psychological or anthropological fields to support such an assumption. Do you know of any George?
Democracy can only work at less that approx 150 group the 'monkey sphere scenario' (backed by considerable anthropological evidence BTW)
If this is true then participation in national voting is legitimisation of institutional paralysis- nothing will ever change save the name of the parties in government.
True, my single vote is neither here or here and totally insignificant(as is everyones in national elections error threshold is several hundered at least) but what would happen in a mass voting abdication and the ruling party only got 5% of votes?
They could not claim to be 'acting for the people'
Not that they ever have.....

[step back]

George,

I'm appreciative that in real life you are an educator.

But consider nonetheless that maybe our biggest problem is the way we "educate" ourselves.

The so-called "clowns" of Wash. D.C. and the "fools" on Main Street who vote for them are all edge-a-kated to think and speak within the square box framework of "economics".

Any suggestion to them that questions their unshakeable faith in the Invisible Hand, The Market and Free Enterprise (the Holy Trinity) is considered sheer blasphemy. (Where in saying "them", I also include "us".)

This is the framework from which they/we all operate. It began when they/we were educated. They/we are only doing as their/our teachers instructed them/us to do.

You will never convince them that 2+3 can be anything other than "5". (Although of course, 2+3=11 , IF you can count in base 4.) Thinking outside the "economics" square box is not an option.

Ergo, we default.

[Florifulgurator]

voting for Michelle Bachman!

I'm not sure you're not kidding...

Sounds soo American. Plus, such an attitude might explain why the clownerie got worse and worse over the decades: The binary voting system enforces a tertium non datur, and if folks vote out of frustration for the worse politician instead of the non-perfect politician, then the system might easier tilt towards the hilarious stupidty it exhibits today.

The U.S. desperately needs a 3rd party (or more). Do folks get this - and is there any chance to get one?

-- Martin Gisser (Germany)

[colinc]

George, this is perhaps the most astute and accurate article you have ever posted. As they say down-under, Good on ya', mate! (Disclaimer: I have, alas, never even visited 'Oz.') I'm tempted to add there might be hope for you yet... except I am certain there is no hope for any of us. A very bleak future is approaching at warp-speed.

Kudos, too, to the above commentators! I'm nearly giddy that I have apparently found a small pocket of sentience in this otherwise moronic, self-deluded and self-destructive civilization. We have, since birth, all been subjected to the abject programming and pigeon-holing the education system was designed to achieve. As a result, the monied-class, otherwise known as the feudal overlords, have been able to play us for the fools and tools they intended us to be. Far too few of the alleged 'human' life-forms on this rock have been able to learn enough, see clearly enough and reason well enough to discover the errors of our ways. I'm delighted to have found a few such enlightened creatures here. My guess is that our numbers, globally, amount to no more than 1 in a million, at best.

For more than a decade I have been trying to inform everyone I know or meet that we are, and have been, "programmed, pigeon-holed and played." (Apologies for the repetition.) Moreover, I also have been asking those same 'individuals,' "What happens in a society governed by the majority when said majority is UN-educated, ill-informed and utterly irrational? Do you think we are finding out now?" Virtually 100% only respond with condemnation and 'looks' much like I imagine witches witnessed just before they were torched.

I, too, am 'guilty' of voting for Barry, but to refer to him as "disingenuous" is, itself, disingenuous. Personally, I call a 'spade' a spade, not a shovel. (If you incorrectly assume that is a racial slur, perhaps I was incorrect in my presumption of finding sentience here.) Obama, like every other politician since time began is no more than a lying, manipulative hypocrite and utterly unworthy of respect, much less reward. I, too, am considering casting a vote in 2012 that will accelerate the collapse and decimation of most of the living things on this rock. The 'speed of dark' is proving to be much, much faster than that of 'light.'

Speaking of light, here is some 'outside' perspective with an excerpt...

Annihilating Democracy with the Tea Party

...Members of the right-wing conservative Tea Party movement, which is well represented in Congress since the last elections, want friction. But at the expense of results.

These lawmakers no longer view themselves as part of the political system. Instead, they identify themselves as its enemy. They see themselves as outsiders, even as they sit in Congress and enjoy the kinds of job benefits they would like to strip from their fellow Americans.

Amusingly of interest, not only is it valid that "2+3=11" in base-4 but the base-4 number '23' equals '11' in decimal! :D

[colinc]

Why did my above comment become italicized in its entirety? I did not construct it that way and was not revealed that way in my own, "off-site" preview in a Firefox tab. Is this a "problem" with TypePad? I apologize if some of my meaning was lost for the inaccurate interpretation of the embedded HTML-tags.

[Paul Yarbles]

Am I italicized?

[Paul Yarbles]

Ah, it was worth a try!

[Martin K]

Hi Gorge,

Thanks for another nice post. I practically lost any hope. Watching what is going in Washington and any other debate on TV or in newspapers on economy and debts etc. is just terrible frustration. They do not have a clue what is going on and why. Those endless stupid empty talks. Just words without any meaning. Same clichés repeated again and again and again. They are so detached form reality.
I always recall your graphs about net energy production. It well visually illustrates situation and well illustrates where it will inevitably end. And it is so unbelievably. There no answer to when and how collapse will happen but there is certainty it will happen and it will happen relatively soon. There is no way any decision and agreement will prevent it. Neither in Washington or Brussels or Peking.
I feel so sorry for people around me at work etc. they naively think some kind agreement and rearrangement will keep economy running. So sorry about young people with false hopes about their future. So difficult to impossible to explain them.
More and more I watch what and how it is going on I am realizing that number of people “who know” is not anymore increasing. I am almost giving up from trying to gibe hints, trying to help people to see reality from other angle stepping out the sand box. It seems majority does not want to know. They will never see the train, which will hit them. They do not want and they cannot.
It is a dare and sad situation but as you correctly wrote - “ .. Homo sapiens, self-named and inappropriately so..”. I read somewhere (was it in another post from you?) that those “who know” are “illuminati”.
My potatoes are growing. Soon I will be harvesting them. Many other plants. It is really fun.

Martin

[Davidhortonsblog]

Hi George. The only advantage of an enormous great age is having seen it all before (also a disadvantage and very depressing). The situation on your side of the Pacific in 2011 seems to me to increasingly resemble 1968. Trouble is I can't see where the 21st century Bobby Kennedy (or for that matter Eugene McCarthy) is. Someone who can se that the Democrats have lost their way and a challenge from the left needs to be mounted.

Trouble is you might end up with a HHH and, as a consequence, a Nixon (way too far left for today's Republicans). Gloomy eh?

[David Horton]

Hmm, the sign-in behaved oddly and created a "microblog" in TypePad. Corrected here.

[xraymike79]

We really are fucked and there's nothing you can do but but be an observer:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/01/1001971/-In-the-Grand-Scheme,-Debt-Ceiling-is-Meaningless?via=blog_798221

[Tom]

Why are my comments deleted? i provided a source for on-going investigation into Americans Elect but now it's gone.

Here: http://www.irregulartimes.com

[mike]

The US can 'borrow' infinitely as show recently by the Federal Reserve's recent purchase of treasuries.

[George Mobus]

Georgi,

Your mystery is my mystery. I just can't imagine what it must be like to be a physicist by education and still think clean coal might work.

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GaryA,

I've certainly come round to seeing democracy the same way. You are right about it being a matter of scale. As a younger person I guess I didn't really understand this. From then on it was more habit. When Obama came around I was already skeptical but looked at him as "maybe this one is different". Now I no longer have any doubts that your analysis is the right one.

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Step,

Hence the subtitle of my blog! This is a reason I hate the word 'training' as a synonym for education. Every day I stand in front of a group of students, the majority of whose faces tell me that they expect to be trained. It is disheartening to say the least. But our society has decided that job training is what it is all about.

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Colinc,

Thanks for the comment. I will see if I can fix the italics.

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Martin,

Great to hear from you. Thanks for the comment. BTW: I've been harvesting Yukon Golds already. Mostly new potatoes but some good sized ones too. Got three gigantic cabbages, two cauliflowers, several heads of lettuce (mix), and lots of sugar peas! The cold weather plants did the best this year as we have been at record cool temperatures all spring and July. Meanwhile you guys got the hots. Hope it wasn't too bad.

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David,

Great to hear from you too. Been a while I guess. Hope all is well in Oz. Are you still herding sheep???

What is there for one to do but chronicle the debacle? And complain, of course. But I am convinced there is no way to shake up the Democratic party because most of them really buy into the growth of the economy model as much as the Republicans (who are way beyond help). Since so many of the people here do relate to either of these models, the viability of a third party that could actually stand on a rational platform is nil. The only independent movement that seems to catch is something like the Tea Party (wing of the Republican party).

No, I think the system has to crash and reboot. The only problem is that there won't be the availability of cheap energy to boot the system on. Permanent crash?

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xraymike79,

Yes but only in the sense that we would like to see the world as we have known it continue, at least to the extent necessary to prevent our pain and suffering (the being f****d part). As long as there is sunshine life will rebound with or without our particular species.

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Tom,

I haven't deleted any comments. I do tag obvious spam comments, but if yours was legitimate I would not have deleted it. My only policy is to withdraw comments of an obvious commercial intent.

Thanks for the link.

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Mike,

Was the sarcanol tag set?

George

[George Mobus]

Flor,

Sorry, I missed your comment first time through. I am kidding about voting for Bachman, or any Republican for that matter. Nor will I vote for Obama again since he is doing more harm than good at this point. And I don't see any independent candidates that either look viable or knowledgeable.

I'll probably just write in my own name as I suggested in the above. I would really like to know what others think about possible candidates, though. Somebody has to take the job of holding the tiller when the storm hits. Who could do that?

George

[David Horton]

Hi George
I wasn't thinking about a third party candidate, I realise that is doomed to just hand the presidency to the tea party on a platter under your system, but about a challenge from the left from within the Democratic Party like the one that unseated LBJ.

Things not great here this year.

[step back]

George,

The cake and circus show gets better and better every day.

Now that "we" have avoided crisis, we need to focus our energies on helping the job cremators do what they do best: create jobs by destroying jobs.

[Gym Equipments Bangalore]

I'm tempted to add there might be hope for you yet... except I am certain there is no hope for any of us. A very bleak future is approaching at warp-speed.

[George Mobus]

David,

Sorry to hear. I'll contact via e-mail.

Challenge from within the Democratic party? Who? I honestly don't see anyone who actually has a sufficiently broad and deep picture of reality who I would support. Virtually every pol has the same basic ideology re: growth of economy is the only way out. And there really is no way out. There is only the need to lead the people through the future struggles in powering down.

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Step,

Honestly I just don't think there is anything anyone can do at this point. We have passed the point of no return vis-a-vis net energy into the economy. There is nothing on the horizon even remotely capable of replacing the high power net energy we have been using to power the economy and, as a result, create and maintain jobs (mostly making trinkets or McMansions). The wealth disparity that has grown certainly hasn't helped, nor have the effects of financialization (which is responsible for the so-called gains in the GDP). No one can really do anything at this point that would have the slightest semblance of boosting BAU and a return to a growth-oriented, consumer-based economy.

If you see someone who actually does have the answers, shout out their name.

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Gym,

Your pseudonym and web site smacked of commercial, so I have edited out the web URL. If you are making legitimate comments, I suggest you use a less commercial-sounding handle.

George