Crucial article: The times they are achangin: the end of cheap oil and how it is changing our world
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John Gear
Mar 4, 2013, 11:28:36 AM3/4/13
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http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1002/bbb.1382/asset/bbb1382.pdf;jsessionid=4046D4611ED84FC2F5F7DC241FD35D1F.d03t01
This is a crucial piece, highlighting exactly why Bridgasaurus Boondogglus is such an absurd, destructive proposal for Salem, just as the Columbia River Crossing is even more absurd for Portland.
Locally, SKATS, and (statewide) ODOT continue their hand waving about "growth" and "when the economy recovers," but growth is over.
The only thing more difficult to deal with than a new economic reality of contraction (which is going to be damned difficult, because that is something our economic systems are totally unsuited for) is economic contraction following a binge of ill-conceived megaprojects that were designed as if expansion could continue forever.
As described in "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," Third World countries are dotted with rusting and overgrown modern facilities that were built on credit but never really used, because they were never about meeting local needs in the first place. Instead, they were intended to provide demand for materials and services from first-world engineering firms and to recolonize these countries through debt, rather than occupation. As soon as the builders cashed out, the absurdity of the assumptions that led to, for example, massive overbuilt highways or a giant airport in the middle of nowhere became clear.
That's what Bridgasaurus is -- an effort by those who will profit to impose a massive building project onto the populace, to be funded with debt. And this is debt that drives even further contraction because the project is nonproductive; rather than creating a more complex, resilient local economy, Bridgasaurus is going to act like a fire that clears out the underbrush, wiping out fragile small businesses and families to funnel money up the economic food chain.
Read the linked article carefully, print it out, and ask anyone pushing Bridgasaurus to explain how that makes any sense in the world described.
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay
This is a crucial piece, highlighting exactly why Bridgasaurus Boondogglus is such an absurd, destructive proposal for Salem, just as the Columbia River Crossing is even more absurd for Portland.
Locally, SKATS, and (statewide) ODOT continue their hand waving about "growth" and "when the economy recovers," but growth is over.
The only thing more difficult to deal with than a new economic reality of contraction (which is going to be damned difficult, because that is something our economic systems are totally unsuited for) is economic contraction following a binge of ill-conceived megaprojects that were designed as if expansion could continue forever.
As described in "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," Third World countries are dotted with rusting and overgrown modern facilities that were built on credit but never really used, because they were never about meeting local needs in the first place. Instead, they were intended to provide demand for materials and services from first-world engineering firms and to recolonize these countries through debt, rather than occupation. As soon as the builders cashed out, the absurdity of the assumptions that led to, for example, massive overbuilt highways or a giant airport in the middle of nowhere became clear.
That's what Bridgasaurus is -- an effort by those who will profit to impose a massive building project onto the populace, to be funded with debt. And this is debt that drives even further contraction because the project is nonproductive; rather than creating a more complex, resilient local economy, Bridgasaurus is going to act like a fire that clears out the underbrush, wiping out fragile small businesses and families to funnel money up the economic food chain.
Read the linked article carefully, print it out, and ask anyone pushing Bridgasaurus to explain how that makes any sense in the world described.
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay
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