And modern corporations are not efficient, sparing, or conservative. Or rather they are not economically efficient, they are politically efficient, that is, efficient at gaining vast subsidies and privileges from governments. They are able to externalize their costs (and these externalities account for a high percentage of the “profits”) onto the environment and the general public. This meets no possible definition of “efficiency.”

When you bring up shale oil you prove my point. The Oil Companies went to Colorado in the early 80′s to extract the shale oil but the technology at the time made the actual extraction and production cost prohibitive and the Colorado oil boom busted. 25 years later the price of oil rose and technology had improved to an extent such that it became profitable again to extract the shale oil in Colorado. Technology and economics combined to make shale oil extraction an efficient operation.

So it seems to me that the Porchers are playing right into the Neo-Pagan Marxists hands. What would our current situation be if we could fully exploit the nuclear option and fully drill off our shores or allow the free markets to develop natural gas technologies instead of engaging in a government sponsored fantasy ventures in wind power to appease the Neo-Pagans?

You guys like to talk alot about human nature but what about taking from man the ability to do his work to produce an orderly, functional arrangement of parts in an organized system?

Would you prefer “economies”?

The whole global structure is built on cheap energy; when that goes, globalism (and many other things) go with it. For example, when oil spiked to $140, the cost of shipping a container from China to the US went from $2,000 to $6,000, wiping out the advantage the Chinese had from cheap labor and an artificially low currency. The Chinese got a brief glimpse into their own future, though I doubt they saw it that way.

As for the “efficiency” argument, it simply isn’t true. Indeed, no one should ever use “efficiency” as a noun, but only “efficient” as an adjective; that is, you have to ask, “efficient at what?”

Ya, those are my real initials.

And energy is not interchageable with technology.

And neither are they mutually exclusive. Mind your efficiencies.

Fifty years is pretty soon. So is a hundred. The shortest route between plenitude and depletion is efficiency. And energy is not interchageable with technology. When one runs out, the other can’t step in to take you waterskiing. Mind your categories. That’s a rule on the Porch.

When will corporations run out of cheap oil? 50 years? 100 years? They keep finding new sources every day. And technology keeps advancing in free markets such that the oil question will probably become mute anyways.

What’s despised around here is efficiency. Efficiency can be despotic and if the current Marxists running our country are efficient in their plans then the free markets will crumble and technology will not advance which is exactly what the Marxists would like to see.

So the Porchers believe the only remedy to the corrision of efficiency, be it corporate or politic, is radical decentralization of economy and politic. It strikes me as just another manifestation of the Post-modern spirit.

The irony is if the Marxists are successful the Porchers will get what they want since the inefficiencies of a state run economy will lead to a reliance upon local economies as the only means to survival.

Until the corporations run out of cheap oil.

Things will not always remain as they are, and eventually, you might be buying your bread from the local bakery each morning.

So to the train wreck occurring in a motion so slow to even notice at times I say…..good show! Speed it up!

Three…hunn..dred….six…ty….five…de…grees….burning down the house!

-Junker

(Everybody was thinking that, but somebody had to say it)

Not saying it is good or bad, just keeping the porchers up to date.

Rather than saying “unbridled entrepreneurialism,” I would say “unbridled capitalism,” since large scale capitalism displaces the entrepreneur; it does indeed bridle him, and yoke him as well.

I suspect that a “populist party” in a commercial oligarchy is a practical impossibility. $50 million is merely a down payment for a presidential race, and such large sums of money have few sources. Obama was able to raise of good deal of that downpayment from small contributions, and hence could have been a populist. However, he ended up with more corporate money than all of his opponents.

I think you are right that regional populism is the answer, but the question could not be asked up until this moment, because regional economies where impossible–or impossibly dependent–on money market centers in a common currency economy. But now we have come to Schumpeter’s end point of capitalism, and hence localism and regionalism become necessities. Those who wait for Washington, or for Brussels or Beijing, will wait in vain, or will receive aid that only makes things worse.

Gas, you are correct: corporate statism does work, up to a point. Belloc was correct in predicting that the corporation and the state would merge because it was the only way to stabilize capitalism, and for 70 years in has been stable. Not a bad record. But it is not a “market” economy by any means, and it is (I believe) coming to an end.

I don’t have anything against Populists and I like to think of myself as a populist in a sense but I’m not convinced that the Corporate Statists are entirely evil. While the Neo-Pagans are trying to sacrifice the Economy on an alter to Mother Earth the corporate model still feeds billions of people through efficient allocation of resources.

Full disclosure: I work for an large Corporate entity but comfortably ensconced between the managerial class and the labor class so I have a pretty good detached view of the inner workings. Large corporations have the same problem as large cultures, religions, and so on. Trying to create a unity out of a large diversity will always create problems of trying to mold many things into one thing. Some people and things don’t fit the mold and the Behemoth tends to squash them under.

OTOH, I also see the labor class has become efficient at finding chinks in the armor of the Behemoth and know that a little slip and fall will net them several thousand dollars. The Behemoth then is constantly trying to patch the chinks which lead to more stringent molding and soon the Behemoth is barely able to walk. So in a sense the labor class is creating an ever larger Behemoth that tends to squash them. At some point the Behemoth has so much armor that it falls under the weight and dies. (Think U.S. Auto industry)

I believe we need to introduce a form of populism in the legal arena. As it is, the League of Extra-Ordinary Gentlemen play chess with the system and the pawns are easily sacrificed to gain victory. Some attorneys specialize in the low hanging fruit knowing that the Behemoth is unwilling to pay the price to protect it. In other cases the Behemoth is able to flex it’s muscles knowing the pawns have no defense.

I haven’t seen anything written here about reforms to the closed legal system which I believe is the root cause of many of our problems.

As to “regression”, one could dissect that summary charge for days. On the other hand, perhaps it is a charge embraced by the Remnant.