Ohhhh, Move Over Rover. And Let Jimi Take Over.
Well, looks like my creative approaches to Economic discussion turned out to be as bankrupt as the Fed's. I offered up "Crash" for the Film buffs, the free foodstuffs angle (Cakes & Pies), went for legal advice on Banks gone bad & even political analysis on how Obama was gonna have to keep Big Money happy. Hell, back in June, I even went brainstorming - "Obama and the Democrats are gonna be BROKE come next January. And not just a little broke. As will the American economy. And a whole lot of the "principles" we've been fed these past decades. How's that gonna be dealt with? Start by imagining that yes, we have NO money. None of us. Not the government, not you and me. You get to be creative here. We've got trillions tied up in wasted real estate and floorspace, horsepower that we can't feed, fancy packages with nothing to wrap."
At this point, I got two chances left. Either I call the Dow a PUSSY. Or.... I just sit back, and... turn it up. So move over Rover, and let Jimi take over.
Let me stand next to your fire. Money says, we're all Prisoners Of War now. Who knew - when we declared war on the future - that it'd arrive in our lifetime? 'Living in the future' - sounded kinda smokin', eh? Damn near PoMo. We all knew the equation - Time equals Money. Which, granted, sucked. They get 40 hours of your life... you get a bit of green.
Problem being that after burning too many hours of our lives in their world, everything got kinda.... gray. Grey walls closing in. Starched collar gray with sweat. And that smell. Like... something from the 50's. In fact, when we stuck our heads into our armpits, we smelled an awful lot like... 50's Man. And we got changed - in ways we couldn't believe. Let's say this outright, just this once, amongst friends - none of us believed in this shit. We had bigger dreams. Greener. More music. Simpler. More Quality. Smarter. Except, going for those dreams - those "alternative" dreams - well. That meant putting ourselves on the line for what looked like a loser. We'd lost, hadn't we? They kept telling us so. Telling us that Money(TM) won. TKO. So, brainstaggered, we ate the gray goo they kept shoving 'cross our desks - same-o, same-o. Bureaucracies. Paper. Moneymen. Committees. Product we could never really believe in. But a price that couldn't be beat. Were you experienced? I sure was.
So when Motivato-Dude™ showed up on-screen one night, promising a world tanned & muscled, shiny-sleek, our very own cottage by the water, warm jets & holidays in the sun, chrome-clad bigger horses, a room for every kid (& two for each one we never had), well, we didn't just stare into the abyss. We leapt. Bought in. Our piece of the Dream. And all of it, no downpayment, 'cause it was available NOW NOW NOW. (Just sign here.)
We signed. And I coulda sworn I heard him say, I'm a Voodoo Chile. Voodoo Chile.
Chilly all of a sudden, ain't it? When the future arrives. And it turns out that we traded our life's breath - hour by hour - for Money. We bit, we bought, and crossed our fingers, 'cause something was sure to turn up, right? Right??? Real estate values. Promotions. The Lottery. The Old Folks Kicking. Something HAD to turn up. Something. Just so long as that mortgage, the one on us - our LIVES - never arrived. Because that would mean the future, my future, at their beck & call. Bondage. Of sorts.
Whoops. Got someone on the phone for you, darlin'. A "Mr Your Future Is Calling." Wants to talk to you. Now. That's what I'm talkin' 'bout. Now dig this. Let's let the Mighty Roubini bust a few: "The crisis was caused by the largest leveraged asset bubble & credit bubble in the history of humanity.... A housing bubble, a mortgage bubble, an equity bubble, a bond bubble, a credit bubble, a commodity bubble, a private equity bubble, a hedge funds bubble. All now bursting at once." So castles made of sand, melt into the sea. Eventually.
The Mighty Roubini's good, and talks damned straight. Laid out how our future was gonna arrive, back in Feb., he did. But the Mighty only tracks the vapor trails, follows the money. But I'm a material girl. I follow the stuff. Which swolled up, expandicated, magnifispanded into a car & truck & SUV petro-sucking bubble. And a toys & clothes & games-for-the-kids-direct-from-China bubble. And a cell phone & iPod & 42" Big Screen Plasma TV bubble. (And that Thailand & France & Mexico hotel room bubble.)
See, emotionally, it's easier for us to handle the money stuff. It's easier to wash off. You just pivot, point & shout - Moneymen At Fault. But the stuff. Damn tough to wash off. Stuff leaves a trail. Square feet of stuff, for starters. The stuff you & I are sittin' in. Then there's the stuff we consumed, which left a trail all the way to the landfill. Wreckage = Evidence. The stuff we still got parked on the property. And probably can't get rid of. Go ahead, try. Put that Escape-Expedition-Trailblazer-Highlander-Yukon-Yosemite on AutoTrader. See what you get. Better off finding some ravine, and just rolling it in.
Here's where you gotta lay back and groove. Cause it IS a rainy day. Big bond trader say today, "Is this the beginning of the end for the dollar and the Treasury market? That market that represents the ultimate bubble, as it exists at the whim & caprice of foreign investors, who have - as participants in a Faustian bargain - financed our war(s) and our lifestyle so generously over the last decade. Maybe even that bizarre construct is crashing about us as we speak." Lay back & groove, on a rainy day. Even the bondsman's gone poet.
Here's your bedtime story. The story of what's to come. Turn on your imaginator kids. Dial it all the way up to Happy. Imagine the Captains right the good ship Global Finance. That's One Happy. Then, imagine the Good Doctors stabilize the Dow. That's Happy Squared. Third time hardest, but imagine that Recession-Depression-Abyss doesn't get stared into. Now that's 3 Stooge Happy, I think you'll agree. Problem is... there's still one more problem. And we're fresh out of Happy.
It's. All. That. Stuff. You know how a $700 Billion Bail-Out seems like so much money? And how we're all shouting so the bad Moneymans don't get it? Here's the thing. The new Trade Deficit numbers just came out. Ouch. Still at $700 Billion/year. Even with the price of oil falling. The deficit with China - which is NOT for oil - up to $300 Billion a year. Oh say can you see, it's really such a mess.
Imagine 16 wheelers (thanks Jacob F.) Each filled with stuff. Imagine each one laden with $700,000 worth of stuff - toys, clothes, cars, tv's. Most 16 wheelers don't carry that kinda load, but Imaginate™ with me. Now jam 1,000,000 of them big 16 wheelers end to end. That's $700 billion worth of stuff. 10,000 miles of trucks, bumper to bumper. all comin' to America's house. Houses.
That's what Santa's li'l Elfs have been bringin' ya. I know people wanna talk derivatives & sub-prime mortgages & ratings agencies & regulation & all. But them trucks just DO keep coming. And they're dumping their loads at somebody's house. And we're signing the papers, still, every day, still, marking down $ $,$$$.$$ for delivery to them Elfs. Still. Wanna blame the bankers? Wanna blame the guv'mint? Sure you do. I do. Trouble is, them Elfs have to eat. Them Elfs wanna eat. We fed them mortgages for a while. Turns out the mortgages were tainted. Not to put too fine a turn on it, but they was Toxic.
Time to take our last walk, through the noise to the Sea. Not to die, but to be reborn. Away from lands so battered and torn. This has to be fixed. And nobody, but nooooobody, wants to raise the Foreign Elf issue. But let's tell the truth. They been working as hard as we been. Mebbe even harder. (Harder than me, fer sure.) And we only got a few choices now. Stop buying their stuff, and go without for a while - least 'til we set up our own toy-shops. But those things DO take time to set up. Orrrr, we can send stuff back to them. Which means, working more. Burning Of The Midnight Lamp. Hmmm. Looks the same. Orrrrrrrrrrrrrr, we let the Elfs come buy stuff of ours that we been holding back. Land. Real estate. Famous buildings. Men. Women. Children. Us.
Our future. Yours included. Because we don't just have to stop the bleeding - we've still got those 7 fat years to pay back. Which spells... 7 lean years to come. And it's too bad, that the machine we built, would never save us.
Ahhhh, in 1983, I knew better. Really, I did. Back then, I knew. A merman I should be.
Anh. I don't know that I'll really miss all the stuff. I got my books. Anyway, butterflies, zebras, and moonbeams are all I really care about.
You thinking about moving to a commune? Can I come with? I imagine it would be a very cool place. :-)
October 10, 2008 8:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I kinda grew up in a weird Baptist commune thing - 3 families (brothers), 22 kids, etc. I suppose it was more like American midwest circa 1910 or something, but we liked to think of it as a commune. And after that, I did the hermit thing. Commune is better.
Seriously, the real issues in front of people, right now (though the politicians haven't a clue as to how to address them), include major planning for re-arranging households. In the 30's, a huge percent of the population had extended families, access to farmland, woodlots, fish/hunting. But if this recession begins to hit the real economy hard, and the state isn't in much of a position to help out, where do they go? Lots of people I talk to say, "Yeah, we'd be fine." But then if you ask them if all their family members would be fine, it's like a bone gets stuck in their throat. things get tough if you have to face turning away a brother and his kids? And the fact of the Election means people just are NOT paying any attention to this stuff. And what they are getting is so politicized, and/or hidden, that there's almost no real-world information relevant to planning & preparation available. My friends been giving me the "Mr Doom & Gloom" thing these past couple of years. Until these past two weeks.
October 10, 2008 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah. My mom grew up in the 30s. Her dad was a schoolteacher, so he had a job, but they were a poor family of 6. But they had a garden, a coupla cows, chickens, etc. And they lived in the city! (Okay, it was a very small city in Texas, but still...) Anyway, like I said, they were poor, but they were never hungry.
But this ain't the 30s, and folks generally don't grow and can their own vegetables or make their own clothes anymore. And I'm pretty sure the homeowners associations in 'burbs all across America frown on keeping chickens behind the house and cows in the side yard.
There's the potential for a lot more suffering this time around.
I'm generally a very positive person and I haven't been dwelling on worry about the hard times looming before us, but... I have been thinking about how grateful I am that I have no debts and a very modest lifestyle. And I'm making plans to put some raised beds in my backyard to start growing my own vegetables. Thinking about raising some chickens, too! To heck with the neighborhood association. :-)
October 11, 2008 12:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd be thrilled to start helping neighbors tear out their damned lawns & starting planting crops, trees, flowers, anything but grass.
Pigs are nice too. Smart critters. Eat anything. Good way to get some value from all those depressing bank statements.
October 11, 2008 1:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dude. I'm on my way. ;)
October 11, 2008 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know when I knew we were lost, 99? When that Jane Fonda video came out that tried to teach people to walk. To walk. All my life, walking's been my thing. 2 and 1/2 miles to work, 2 and 1/2 home. Every city I visit, I try to walk it. Single best thing I ever decided to focus on. Maybe the most important thing differentiating humans from other species. And we were buying videos to RE-TEACH us how to do it. How to walk.
Some good thoughts on education & our self-sufficiency as humans life expressed here.
Try pages 54-62. Especially the 10 Skills.
October 11, 2008 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I knew it was over when Jane Fonda did the tomahawk chop with Ted Turner at Atlanta Braves games.
October 11, 2008 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ditto on the "just say no" to grass. It made me crazy when I lived on sand-based waterfront in Florida that my neighbors poisoned, hacked and otherwise eviscerated indigneous, vigorous erosion-fighting ground covers in favor of maniacally imposing unnatural, Chem-Lawn golf course grass... the chemicals from which ran off into the water where herons fished and dolphins came to feed. Portulacca -- with its delicate coral and marigold-colored flowers -- and Dollarweed -- a beautiful ground vine with densely clustered leaves that look like miniature water lily pads -- could have been left alone to do their erosion-prevention work while pleasing the eye every day.
October 12, 2008 8:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
How now down Dow?
October 10, 2008 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suspect a brown Cow might come in more handy than the down Dow in the coming months.... ;-)
October 10, 2008 9:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I still can't hear the bang, but the wimpers are becoming deafening.
Good piece Quinn. Maybe the collective we is about to have that serious discussion on "stuff" afterall. Cold comfort to be sure.
I had a dream last year - naw, fuck it, more like a vision actually - where a fierce wind on the rocks in Killarney blew right through me and all I heard was "Get ready. There is work to do." (I don't believe in "God" by the way).
point is, I'm NOT ready. It's scary shit out there and I'm NOT ready.
October 11, 2008 1:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I haven't met, nor read, any economist or financier or politician who feels "ready." Read 'em close, and they ALL admit this is entirely new territory. Even analogies/lessons from the 30's fall on their asses. FDR & the West didn't have to face globalized labor markets, with 1 billion new workers bucking to get in. Or massive state deficits going into the recession. Or populations utterly incapable of subsisting. Or 0% savings rates. Or $530 Trillion in bizarre financial pyramids so high, so complex, so opaque. Or wealth like this, that can instantly flash offshore.
Keep people under roofs. Keep food going. Heat & power. Health care. Build up family, neighborhood, community support networks. Keep people working, doing something, staying hopeful. CRank the music, public gatherings for something positive. IF this thing fully crashes, or vapor-locks, those are the fundamentals for me. Above all, if we do that, we can keep the chaos, violence, despair, the political extremists to a minimum.
Because one thing I CAN assure you, the fundamentals are not strong. The people saying they are - like the ones saying "stay in the market - are either delirious or self-interested. US investors alone just lost $8.4 TRILLION. Does anyone get that? Where are all the Bozo's now who were talking about how big the Bail-Out was? US Trade Deficit not falling, still $700 Billion. 1-month Treasuries not at 4%, or 0.4%, but 0.04%! The Big 3 scrambling to become the Big Two, lest they become the Big Zip. 12 million US homeowners already into Negative Equity. And nobody at the helm. Nobody's ready, LB. But it's about time to get started.
October 11, 2008 1:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Come now, oh rare and valued reader.... Give us your thoughts on how that $700 billion trade deficit is to be managed. On how we'll rearrange our lives. Forget the bankers for the moment. For a Family of 4, can you find $10,000 more each year for American goods, reduce purchases of imports, or maybe retreat to that lovely grotto and live on chestnuts? Ideas please.
October 11, 2008 9:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can live a year off my body fat, and be better off for it.
October 11, 2008 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
To elaborate, we are going to build a new economy. Mr. Esq says, "I haven't met, nor read, any economist or financier or politician who feels 'ready.' Read 'em close, and they ALL admit this is entirely new territory."
People talk about gardens and chickens as a joke, but some self-sufficiency is called for. In the 60s and early 70s we all boned up on that and it was fun. Mother Earth News and Whole Earth Catalog and Foxfire and co-ops and teach-ins.
Now we have the internet which extends self-sufficiency with a potential alternative marketplace for goods and information.
We've lost the financial institution overhead, but that's the aristocracy dying and we can live without it, probably better.
October 11, 2008 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely Root. And the physical tools & information are sooooo much better now. Wind-power's already here. Hybrids. Plug-in's next year. Solar PV soon. Heat pumps already, and good air/air ones next year. We can take America's homes off the Grid now. Take our cars off oil - NOW.
All we lack are a couple of basic institutional/organizational innovations. Like... setting these things up like public utilities. Which is gonna hit the political scene as a real option within about, oh, 6 months. Imagine taking your heating/cooling bills and fixing them, fixed price, for the next 40 years. Same with the price of fuel for a vehicle. What it needs is large chunks of capital into infrastructure, earning long-term, solid returns. Stable bills for families... clean energy... reduced trade deficit... local jobs. And it's all ready to go.
And yes, we can have more walking/cycling, urban/rooftop gardens, these things are already widely-supported, and have tens of 000's of skilled people behind them in every locale.
Same with insurance. With the Internet, and after that industry's utter failure on Katrina & now financially, is there any reason we can't see sensible, locally or publicly-owned insurance? Does anyone really care if there's not 000's of "private" insurance companies "providing" auto insurance?
My point being, we have better tools now, and the Internet to connect & mobilize... but we're not there yet on the promotion of these techs/systems, the institutional forms, the infrastructure capital programs needed to remove a lot of the financial volatility from people's lives. In ways that help stabilize the economy, and without dumping more shit on future generations.
This is what's gonna be needed, or else we get to choose between financial speculation/madness and self-sufficiency of a pretty brutal form.
October 11, 2008 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Two aspects. People suddenly in need will respond as best they can. I met a really poor couple in Home Depot yesterday trying to figure out whether they could afford the $49 electric heater instead of the $37 one to heat their bedroom. THey can't afford to heat the whole house and are just going for the one room. Real people in real situations just making do. That's aspect one. Second aspent. You might think that they aren't smart enough to realize that anything electric isn't green. No, they're just poor. They're not rich enough to install solar panels. I'm not either. And the historic way of heating with firewood --which can still be gathered in forests from downed tress --isn't viable either as a start-up system. A new stove set-up here that meets current regulations runs many thousands of dollars. So at these real junctures of short and long term responses, governments have to intervene with tax cuts or subsidies, relaxing for a time perhaps restrictions so that poor people can get by. This is government stuff. This will take rather sophisticaed thinking--balancing the short run with the long run. It's insane for people who can afford solar panels to preach to the poor right now, whereas it's insane for a government not to start giving economic subsidies and incentives for
a the average person to try it out.
Meantime, everyone with some bucks are buying Priuses. Poor people can't afford them and are still in theor gas guzzlers. So what happens here?
Do they just stop driving to their minimun wage jobs? They know the days of cheap gas are over. They may not buy a Prius but a Ford Flex might be good here.
My start of a solution here. Huge tax break for .POOR people to buy an AMERICAN FLEX CAR.
Drops in the buckets, but aimed to help poor people. If I hear MIDDLE CLASS one more time I'm going to puke.
October 11, 2008 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Try this. We're putting $2,000 heat pumps into working class housing units. 400 households, then 250 households off of one system, average cost/unit of $2,000. And it's a lot smarter & cheaper to draw solar energy from its natural storage space (in the Earth) than to draw it from the skies, ok? And no, the working class & poor can't afford $2,000. But the systems last 20 years. Break that down over 80 quarterly payments, and you're in at under $50/quarter. Gives them all the heat they need & all the Air Conditioning. The units are Made In America, ok? All we need is some sort of public utility to start doing what they were MEANT to do. Make long-term capital investments, borrow at low rates, and bill at a long-term, flat rate.
Same with cars. You can already drop a $10,000 battery system into some existing cars, and get 75% off oil. Now, starting next year we're gonna see $20-$25,000 cars, with batteries that cost $8-$10,000. We can LEASE the batteries, ok? So the upfront cost of the car is equal to (or more usually, less than) the cost of a gas-fuelled one. The battery can then be paid for on your ELECTRIC bill, spread over the years of use... and come out to LESS than what you'd pay for the car plus GAS (which usually runs people $2-$3,000 a year.) Cheaper for the working class who need to drive... cleaner air... trade balance goes down... less carbon. Who's bringing this stuff ahead? Not just Toyota & the Chinese - it's GM, the American electric utilities, green power providers, etc. I drove in one this week. Works great.
October 11, 2008 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm down on this. But I can't figure whether "we" is you as a Canadian and Canada is really doing this, or you is you as Quinn suggesting it, or......
I agree whatever.
October 11, 2008 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nope, this is real. And not just in Canuckland. We're jamming on the heat pumps, but the US Army has done whole bases with them, the Swedes heat 97% of their new housing from them, the Japanese market leader for hot water uses HP's, and a company from Maine (Hallowell) has a stunning air/air system you plunk in your backyard that gives tons of heat even in cold climates.
As for plug-in hybrids, same. We're rolling them out across Canada, there's 00's in the US, esp. on the West Coast but also Austin etc. An MIT spin-off (A123) does the batteries, the original engineering from Dr Andy Frank of UC Davis, the conversion systems for retrofits from a Canuck co.
Check out the Driver review of one we did here $3.83 for 6 days driving.
And read the Wiki on them too.
Like I said, I'm a material girl. I focus on shit that works.
October 11, 2008 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quinn, the situation sound and looks dire right now. I asked one of our field reps yesterday how it was, and his answer was "crickets" where his phones were ringing constantly two months ago. Rootman, you are right on the money. Customers of mine who lived through the depression were entirely different from baby boomers, from the content of their savings accounts (yes, they learned that one) to the content of their cupboards. It's a hard lesson, perhaps it's our turn. In the meantime, hang on.
I wrote a couple posts yesterday that were lost in the din
Perhaps neither was worth a comment, but to summarize both:
For those of you who think the government cannot borrow, think again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt
Check out Depression era spending. Where will the cash come from? Several places - the mutual fund market alone is $26+ trillion. Even when sold at a 30-40% loss, the cash from sales is still cash. Mutuals and Pension funds are moving to "safe" investments. That's our retirment plans and 401(k)s, folks. And like the War bonds of the 40s, we can invest in ourselves.
Right now, our leadership owes us the facts. CEOs need to reach out and honestly state the condition of their companies.
So here are six short term solutions I proposed that will buy us some time:
1. a corporate tax cut to companies that do not layoff employees; a corporate tax cut to companies that sharply reduce executive compensation.
2. an immediate moratorium on foreclosures and order to lenders to do workouts or rent arrangements.
3. a short-term hiring program to trace back all of these "bad" debts. We need to understand what we are facing
4. Launch local, state, and federal rail /mass transit expansion programs
5. Launch green energy programs
6. - What has been done so far - increase deposit insurance; permit companies in good financial condition to borrow commercial paper from the government (A1/P1/F1)
Any other ideas?
October 11, 2008 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wondered what would happen to TPM when the election ends and we have a 100-seat advantage in the House. I think politics is going to be about new vs old economy within two halves of the Dem party, and I like to see this kind of discussion at TPM.
October 11, 2008 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey AS. Taken in stages (since TPM is limiting my links):
1. The immediate crisis demands a stronger/faster response. That's most pressing. Brad Delong has a good economics site on this. A load of economists put together a good little report on what should be done there. It's been downloaded 10,000 times in just 24 hours, and Krugman says it's a "Must Read." Here.
October 11, 2008 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
AS. Cont....
2. Cutting Corporate Taxes doesn't strike me as so critical right now. Many of them are moving into the unprofitable stage of the cycle anyway. More useful is to get at some of the trillions of wealth that has already been stashed away by the uber-rich. This is a better way to right the wrongs of recent years that mucking up the Bail-Out package. Numbers 1,2,5 & 9 in the link show us ways to get at $300-$600 Billion in new annual tax income, in the least economically destructive ways. Check it Here.
October 11, 2008 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
AS. One more.
3. The trade balance is a real - ongoing - worry. i.e. If the US can't stop the $700 billion ANNUAL payouts to other countries, it'll bleed out. It's the source of many of the hot dollars flowing into weird things like Subprime mortgages etc. The link below is from the link you provided. Just look at which country ranks #164 (out of 164.) then look at the Top 5 countries who are getting the extra cash. Try Here.
4. Then there's the more fundamental restructuring of the economy - from consumption through production through ownership - that Rootman, myself and others are starting to outline above I think.
Cheers.
October 11, 2008 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's going down. Even Quinn quite stop it. It's bad. Might as well look at the possible good side. When it's rebuilt it might be reworked for the better. A revolutionary would take that stance as would an organic farmer with a small plot in Oregon. But us older people are going take a big hit. And poor people everywhere.
October 11, 2008 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
And the rich will be taking a big hit.
October 11, 2008 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes and no. Depends upon how rich they are and where they put their money. Many will still have enough to start buying resources at cheap prices--land for example. But even a poor guy like me with a savings account might go for a fire sale little piece of organic forest land in Oregon rather than keep the dwindling valued greenbacks in a back. Looks like the real Green is going to be the REAL GREEN. But I'd have to get to that land mighty fast before really rich folks just buy all of it.
One thing is clear to me. All the people that are making decisions for us are rich in some ways that many of us are not. I'd rather have health insurance without pre-exisint conditions than a million dollars. All those guys in congress--dems and repubs have health insurance. All thos golden parachute people have it. And their houses too.
This think will play out in crazy ways. The average person will suffer the most. I'm waiting for some Wall Steeters to jump out windows. But they all have parachutes, apparently.
October 11, 2008 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
John McCain knows something about parachutes.
October 11, 2008 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope the health insurance w/o pre-ex comes through for you, Blue. I believe it'll happen.
October 11, 2008 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Root. But just in case, when you hike down my way, carve this on my tombstone: "Died in the Great Cause of Universal Health Insurance--TPM Blue Division.
I'm the guy buried near the tree in the Williamette forest under the rock that says "No Round-Up On This Grave, Thanks"
October 11, 2008 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
My Uncle P was a great bear of a man. Without question the strongest, and probably also the gentlest man I've ever known. He was the one designated to mix the pest/herbicides on our farm. He used to stick his bare hand in the tank & mix it. When I commented, he said, "Ohhhhh now, College Boy. A little Round-Up won't kill ya."
Died of Parkinson's.
You dislike the Wall St guys? I want Monsanto & their #1 selling herbicide of all-time. And I want my Uncle back.
October 11, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
And yes, I will say, "Hello. My name IS Íñigo Montoya. You killed my Uncle. Prepare to die."
October 11, 2008 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
What is the heat-pump electrical requirements in kWhr for a typical family house in the nothern US climate?
We looked at wholesale conversion to electricity in previous threads and it looked daunting in terms of additional power generation requirements.
This only gets harder in severe economic downturns.
I think you paint a much too rosy a picture - kind of "if only people weren't so stupid and slow" all of this would have been done by now...
October 11, 2008 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Three things. 1st, These techs are improving at light-speed. The COP's (efficiencies) of heat pumps rise each year; as do the capability of batteries, output of wind turbines, PV efficiencies etc. So, time & tech progress is with us.
2nd, The UTILITIES themselves fight these changes like crazy. Same as the oilco's do on vehicle alternatives. 90%+ of utilities LIKE having home heating/cooling loads. Imagine this. We have an energy source that sits in the backyards of homes. The capital costs of heat pumps are less than hydro dams etc. But how many treat a HP investment under the same terms as they use to paydown a centralized generating station? None.
3rd, your technical point. We can change pretty much every home to heat pumps (using air/air, ground source or drawing from water) WITHOUT a net increase in electrical load. How? It's odd, but completely logical. There are millions of homes which are 100% electrically-heated, and almost all Air Conditioning units are electrically-driven, right? Total residential use for HVAC is around 360 TWh.
Change THOSE systems to heat pumps, and you reduce electrical load in those homes by 66%-80%. You then use the kwh's saved... to power the heat pumps installed at gas & fuel oil-heated homes. i.e. You save kwh's by converting electrical homes, and then use the kwh's for converting gas homes.
If you needed 4-6,000 kwh/house for heating and cooling (it's 6,000 here, in the coldest large city in the world), you could heat & cool 60-90 Million homes, just using existing electricity supplies. There's about 100 million owner-occupied homes in the US I believe. And - as above - rental units are easier/cheaper/faster to convert.
What we need is INSTITUTIONAL/ORGANIZATIONAL change. We can bulk buy & install systems at 1/3 of the cost you can as an individual householder. We can also finance the capital required at much lower rates, and over a full product lifespan (20-40 years.) The techs are there.
October 11, 2008 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Almost nobody here uses electric heat.
What is the electric energy use of these air/air units, like the one you mentioned? Their website doesn't mention actual energy use.
My concern is electrical energy prices will jump as demand increases.
October 11, 2008 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
2001 data on US residential electricity use for heating, A/C, fans, etc. is here.
And lots of tables here.
Lots of electricity used for home heating - See "Main Heating Fuels" table - electricity's share doubled from 1978-97. Also - See "Total US Residential Site Energy Consumption" - declining from '78-'97.
October 11, 2008 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
The air/air data is here.
COP's of ~2.7 and SEER's of ~14 for A/C. Figure out your load if you electrically heated/cooled, then divide. That should pretty much give you your electricity usage. But it should cut the load by 70%-80% or so.
Not bad for an air/air unit you can have installed in an afternoon, with a footprint under 3 feet each way.
October 11, 2008 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I saw this data.
I need to know what this thing uses in kwhr for a typical house in the winter and in the summer.
In the northeast of United States electrical heat is not common. It is oil/forced hot water or gas/forced hot water or forced air.
I found it curious that they don't just state it.
It is a bit of work to calclate a typical heat load duty cycle and try to figure out electrical use through their efficiency figures.
I think they should just put down some typical scenarios with the electrical use specified. Our electricity costs are VERY high and going up, due to lack of real competition and very high demand. Wide-spread use of heat pumps is only going to make it worse. Part of the rising demand is increasing use heat pumps already. A lot of new houses do seem to use it.
October 11, 2008 9:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
They do. Their residential calculations can be found here. Pick the fuel source you're looking at switching from to compare in general.
For more detail, go to the cost Calculator at the top right of the page. you can use your town, home size, etc. there. If you like, hit the Advanced Calculator button (in blue.) Pretty much all the figures/assumptions are there if you want to set them in more detail. Hope this helps.
October 11, 2008 10:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice assertion, no proof. Show me a few graphs... and please make sure you put on the graph where we need to be to make the system practical.
October 11, 2008 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's some Graphs.
Now, let's focus on specifics, ok? Let's pick home heating/cooling and/or passenger vehicles - in the US - and then let's stick to it.
i.e. I really can't be bothered, on my post, with multi-millenia "Nature of civilization & energy use" stuff or the "What will we do with the airplanes" segmenting or a "What will China do" schtick.
Fair? But first, enjoy the Learning/Experience Curve doc I linked.
October 11, 2008 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice! A publication - on technology! - from the year 2000.
Of course, simply throwing an encyclopedic compendium at me and saying "see?" doth not an argument make.
Little wonder why you can't answer simple little questions like: what to do about airplanes, etc.
I know you "can't be bothered" with these types of questions, because you prefer to write in terms of vague, impressionistic thoughts. Fun, I suppose, but you can't build a policy on things like:
October 11, 2008 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dull Boy, to the end. And completely incapable of providing anything specific - as I expected. Nonetheless, just so others can read it, let's dance, CT.
1. You asked for proof on tech progress over time, referencing my comment on improving efficiencies. I gave you one from the world's largest (and most anti-alternative) energy agency, which covers the last 2-3 decades of measured progress. It is full, from start to finish, of dozens of GRAPHS (as you requested) showing precisely the efficiency improvements I mentioned, across at least a dozen technologies. Which - natch - you dismiss as being "from 2000," and claim that (apparently this is a negative) an "encyclopedic compendium." Maybe I should make it easier for you. Try the chart on page 23.
2. When I suggest specifics about practical, in-hand, cost-effective clean ways to deal with the little things like the automobile and home heating/cooling, and suggest you NOT turn to the quantitatively lesser impacts of subsegments like Airplanes (a method you use to divert a discussion) you respond with... "Little wonder why you can't answer simple little questions like: what to do about airplanes, etc." If it wasn't so sad, it'd be funny.
3. Apparently, after providing 10 links across plug-in's, electricity use, heat pumps, educational ideas etc., plus long comments using lots of numbers precisely on the specifics of these technologies, you - oh Mighty Fakir - claim I write in "vague, impressionistic" terms, on which "you can't build a policy." You're either daft or faking CT. And I'm calling you on it. I decided to POST in somewhat more artful - and less jargon-ridden terms - because when I comment specifically on the particular economics of trade deficits or particular energy-using technologies, most people can't grasp it. It's not their field.
But for you, I'll offer a special translation. the US annual trade deficit is $700 Billion a year. That's 10,000 miles worth of trucks, filled to the brim with goods. Which is the equivalent of the American body politic & economic having a slit wrist, bleeding out month by month, while we argue over how high to hang the bankers. And it's STILL GOING ON. And all we're giving them is PAPER, which they sooner or later are gonna want to cash in. Apparently, everybody else got the connection, with some even responding with detail on ways they thought we could deal with this. But you? You demand graphs. Given them, you protest. And retreat to diversions and further attacks.
You are a fake, CT. Full stop.
October 11, 2008 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, maybe so, but what about the airplanes?
October 11, 2008 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I figure we'll reduce business flights by 80% once all your stockbrokers have finished jumping from their windows.
October 11, 2008 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
What do you call a hundred stockbrokers jumping out a window?
October 11, 2008 9:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Given your love for the brokers, Rootman, how about, "A Gentle Autumn Rain?"
October 11, 2008 9:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
More like a shit storm.
October 11, 2008 9:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quinn -
Thanks for the link - will take a look. I am 100% with you when it comes to organic, locally produced foods. It took a long time for me to convert from a fast-food diet to an organic/whole foods approach, but speaking from experience, the health benefits were tremendous. I don't get the flus that go around, and neither does my family. And I like to know the people who've grown my food; bless the farmers market. I want your Uncle back too.
What I'm driving at here is economic incentives to avoid laying off workers. All workers. That is a big deal - hold down unemployment, and even if people cut discretionary spending, we'll all still be able to eat.
A word of caution - we may not want to address the trade deficit now. This is a worldwide crisis. And one of the things the depression led to was WWII. I'd like to skip both in the future, so no protectionism, if you please.
I agree that the wealthiest 1% have had their windfall; frankly, they owe it back. Remember, though, that the majority of their windfall is not cash in hand - it's investments, and they are also losing hand over fist. This is where policy needs to be carefully laid down - if those people layoff to pay their new taxes, it doesn't help - it makes it worse.
My guideline here for selecting public policy would be if it stabilizes the situation, and benefits the many rather than the few, in both the short and long term.
October 11, 2008 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's really great is that we are going to have this kind of politics and policy debate over the best way to sustain (energy, security, health) working folks instead of 24/7 politics of class warfare (taxes and regs) and cultural warfare.
That's worth $500 trillion of market losses.
October 11, 2008 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
The trade deficit need produce no protectionist problems, which is an upside of the present situation. Reducing oil/gas imports, for instance, can cut $400-$700 Billion year (at full potential), most of which would be lost to massive oil-exporting nations who are running huge trade surpluses they have no idea how to invest. Secondly, the imbalance with China not only must be righted, the
Chinese themselves want to right it. That one has to be done more carefully, but both sides can benefit. They want to increase domestic demand, begin to supply their domestic needs. As they do that, and we scale down imports (or punch up our exports), their economy can be kept balanced.
October 11, 2008 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know that things are looking bad when Mexico is starting to worry about how to keep Gringo illegal workers from sneaking across the border to harvest crops.
They are planning to build an electric fence, and are urging a civilian militia of manana senors to patrol the border. That is going to be Mexico's first response, and if necessary, to stem the flow of illegal Gringos, they are going to establish a strict language usage policy of Spanish only.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IooPBuFoJCM
October 11, 2008 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great Pogues, Liam. Sat next to a couple of them in a Camden club that only had about 20 of us in it, late 90's, watching David Gray (when he was down on his luck, but powerful as hell.) They were a blast. Of course, the fact that Elvis C & Sinead were at the two tables on the other side maybe diverted my attention a little.
But great vid. Cheers.
October 11, 2008 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
==The immediate crisis demands a stronger/faster response. That's most pressing. Brad Delong has a good economics site on this. A load of economists put together a good little report on what should be done there. It's been downloaded 10,000 times in just 24 hours, and Krugman says it's a "Must Read."==
Well, it looks like the G7 leaders have done none of the things these eminent economists wanted. They issued a luke-warm communique with no concrete plans.
Now what?
October 11, 2008 10:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Got a root cellar? ;-)
October 11, 2008 10:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, but we have a nice CSA farm near us, in which we are shareholders.
It was both good and sad. Sad, because it is a pretty small set of fields, squeezed in between a business college and house developments. Good, because on that small plot, they can ingeniously rotate crops all spring, summer and fall, producing a mind-boggling array of really good and varied vegetables and fruit, enough to feed both a few hundred families as well as several charitable organizations.
The air/air heat pump indeed looks attractive. Does it marry into the forced water baseboard plumbing, or does it require a "central air" type ducting to be installed?
We have been mulling heating plant change at our church, with the environmentalist faction backing natural gas. I have been resisting, as it seemed like a waste to spend all that money just to change to another fossil fuel. Geothermal seems like a very expensive option, if done after the fact. If this air/air system can be integrated into an existing heating scheme, which around here is most often oil/forced hot water, it would be an easy fit.
October 11, 2008 10:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Testing new TPM.
October 13, 2008 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink