I buy small things like battteries from a mountainous red head of a man on Rotshschild Str. The small shop is full of a disordered mix of electronic trash, like a Persian bazaar. The gingerhead giant looks like a Scottsman from the Highlands, but je is a pious long-bearded Persian Jew. There is a chair outside of the shop, on the street, where his elderly Father uses to spend the sunny afternoons. Although I am the most busy man in Kever Benjamin City, having reached the status of a senile great-grandfather, I enjoy the privilege of starting uninvited conversations with total strangers. Thus I got to knew that the real color of the beard of this devote Persian is white (I asked), and he uses henna to achieve that carrot red hue. This is common among Middle East old men, but I know of no other with such a fantastic beard.
The man has many worries, apart from the taxman (he sells only for cash). His daughter has finished the religious girl school and has to get married. They connected with a suitable yeshive-bocher but the boy demanded the down payment of an apartment for the couple. Barbarrosa has not the required amount so they went to the Rabbi. The Rabbi mediated and contacted several gmach Charity Funds dedicated to marrying off kosher meydele, and the sum was reduced to 30,000 shekel (about 8,000 dollars). Which Barbarossa says he hasnt, so the daughter is still a spinster.
Meditating on this issue, I envy Barbarossa. In his world, the marrying off his daughters is construed as a monetary arrangement, the discussion is about money and never about... that Western invention of love. All the family is involved in getting the money demanded by the future husband, and not only them, the Rabbi and the community. They debate the amount, the timing and so on, the bocher dominating the discussion with his material demands and the family trying to negotiate a reasonable arrangement. I think this bargaining is beautiful and effective, the bachur gets closely aquainted with the family from a powerful position, that of the buyer, and mutual obligations are being formalized in a nuptial contract, the ketubah. The beauty of the thing is that while bargaining about money, they are getting to know each other - the boy, the girl, the parents, the community - that leads to the mutual accomodation that any succesful marriage is, and to the blood contract that makes each one member of the family responsible for the others.
I compare this process with the gehennon (inferno) of a lonely girl, without the support of her parents and family and community, setting out in a bar to get to know boys and trying to establish mutual arrangements and obligations. My heart fills with pity when I see these good Jewish girls facing the Chateau-type bastards in the "meat market" and fighting valiantly for the right of a family. We have left them alone and unprotected. Western society has destroyed the traditional protective frameworks and has abandoned its young to their weak devices and inexperience. May be the West is in transition towards better social arrangements in the future, but as for now, my lifetime, it is a sink of death. I hope some Js will be among the fortunates that cross these murderous mid-times and emerge safely on the other side, two hundred years in the future.
34 comments:
>In his world, the marrying off his daughters is construed as a monetary arrangement, the discussion is about money and never about... that Western invention of love
The whole discussion is about love; it forms the foundation and does not need explicit discussion.
Traditional matchmaking, pickup bars, etc. are being supplanted by the Internet. A high and growing # of couples meet on dating sites. I'm sure that as time goes on these will become more comprehensive and include links to gift registries, pre-nuptual agreement forms, opportunities for friends and family to provide input as to whether the match is suitable, etc.
Western teenagers (and our 20 somethings are just overgrown teenagers) tend to be rebellious and the last thing they want is advice from their parents - they would rather make their own (poor) decisions than have good decisions made for them by others. However, the age of marriage keeps increasing to the point where the bride and groom are past their rebellious phase so perhaps eventually a place will be made again for the parents in this process.
Modernity is very isolating. I just read that 1/2 of the people in NYC live by themselves. This is not natural for humans - we have lived in families and packs forever. And we wonder why people are depressed when they are placed in such solitary conditions that defy human nature?
K
Dating sites suck because they run contrary to human nature in both its primal (meat market) and civilized (traditional matchmaking) states. When you lower the barrier to male approach via anonymity and removal of rejection shame, the amount of approaches skyrockets, blowing female egos through the roof. It's like a bar full of dudes approaching a woman-she gets the emotional gratification of being highly desired, they get to go home and beat it. I don't see much of a long-term future for this concept.
B, it sounds like you speak from (bitter) personal experience. I have no experience with these sites, though I know of quite a few of my younger relatives who have found matches on these sites and even married happily. The promoters of these sites love to tout the many matches that have been made. I'm sure that, like anything else, there's no panacea and these sites are good for some people (not necessarily just women) and not good for others. And maybe you fall in the latter category.
K
Half of the people living alone.
These are terrible times.
A lot of those people living alone in NYC fall into the categories of divorced, widows/widowers and students (young) as well as the never-married. There have always been people who never married. Spinsters show up in literature from centuries ago.
They never lived alone.
In the West, some of them did. Even if the spinster never left her parental home, her parents were likely to predecease her. Then she might end up alone.
J, you frequently say that you have no one in whom to confide now that your mother is gone. That doesn't sound like your extant family makes you very happy.
That's just normal Jewish kvetching (ritual complaining) - don't read too much into it. If a Jews admits that he is happy, he will bring the evil eye to bear on himself and his family. And of course no one can replace your mother.
In any case, that crosses the line - J can reveal as much as he pleases of his personal life but it's rude to press him on it, I think.
In any case, J is right - in the past, all the categories mentioned - widows, spinsters, students, etc. existed, but almost none would have lived alone. A person who lived alone was called a hermit and was seen as strange or an object of pity.
K
In fact, solo women were often persecuted as witches.
Anon.
We are built to follow certain pattern of life: we are equipped to eat meat and drink mild and fruits and grains. We are not equipped to eat grass or wood. Our bodies follow a well ordered hormonal cycle: at adolescence girls start to menstruate and boy start to grow beards, then comes a fertile period and then gradually we age and stop having interest in sex. Our brain is fully equipped to live in family band of maybe 40 individuals and never alone, because always (except now) a person alone would not last long. Our nature is social, we sleep best when we are near each other.
Modern life goes against our basic nature. We eat things that we are not equipped to eat, we reproduce past out peak fertility, when our bodies are decaying. And we live alone, with no company, and sleep alone with nobody around half-aware of the rythm of our breathing. That is unnatural, we are not built for that kind of existence, we are not in harmony with our nature and with the universe.
People is aware of the malaise and try to "connect" with their inner self, but they cannot find the way. The way, I believe, is religion, especially the Jewish religion, which prescribes a lifestyle more in accordance with what we are while allowing us to work in a profession and do business. Jewish religion is a family eligion, all the celebrations are family celebrations. I feel most acutely the dissonance between my "real" nature and my actual life in seder Pessach when the haggadah (the ritual script) formulates four questions to be voiced by four sons. Which family group has today four boys to enact that scene? We are living lives that are unnatural, and it is ending badly. Wholes peoples are disappearing from the face of the earth because living modern lives we are not made for.
Being in harmony with nature doesn't really capture the human condition. From the first hunter-gatherers, humans have tried to control and exploit nature to the limited degree they are able. I agree that the movement over time has been eve farther from "harmony with nature." Are you proposing that we give up our inddoor jobs and electricity to live in stone-age agricultural communes?
You're biased in favor of the Jewish religion, J. It happens to incorporate a pile of unfalsifiable claims (e.g. existence of God) and unscientific falsehoods like all the others. When its zealots gain too much power, they are as apt to work against science as the Church of the 16th century, and they intentionally limit the secular education of their flocks in a cynical manner to keep them compliant and to deny them options in life. And seriously, anemic-looking bochers sitting in yeshiva poring over the Talmud are in harmony with nature?
While it's true that in the "old days" you would have had more children, sons vs. daughters was always luck of the draw - there were families that had 7 or 8 or more children and they were mostly or all daughters. Not everyone had 4 sons.
K
K
Sure. I imagine that the Haggadah was written to be enacted in a family group, say the elder male presiding and six or more couples with children and several unmarried youngsters and attached relatives and dependants (like servants) and friendly visitors. Maybe twenty or thirty persons. Among them they were always four boys who could play the roles prescribed.
Before holding our own seder I ha been invited to many ones where for lack of boys, silver haired men played the "boy who dont know how to ask". In a family event long ago, I was invited to a rich Sepharadi seder, where a distinguished French accoustics engineer played that role. In fact, I was the youngest person around the table.
"We are living lives that are unnatural, and it is ending badly. Wholes peoples are disappearing from the face of the earth because living modern lives we are not made for."
Above is the description of an evolutionary bottle neck. Enviroment changed and the specie has to evolve. Not all are adapted. Not all will pass through to the other side.
We commented about this on a previous post of yours. What amazed me was the fact that what I considered succesfull and adapted people - Society somehow put those false data into my head - were in fact not at all adapted.
My ancestors were very secular and carrier oriented - and other useless activities like learning languages for fun, writing poetry, painting puah it makes me sick. Most fertile of the extended family had one child per couple. And after some 3 generations I had the possibility to analize why hmmmm was I like the last of the mohicans if we were so very adapted? And I somehow managed to understand by myself that we were not at all adapted, and my family got it completly wrong.
So now seeing a lot of the females in my generation - very succesfull ones - I usually don't see strength but weakness. Not adaptation but the lack of it. I Saw how it ends and it ain't pretty.
"And seriously, anemic-looking bochers sitting in yeshiva poring over the Talmud are in harmony with nature?"
Well they are in a sort of social incubator - I didn't find a better comparison. Genome is intact and they can always change and colonize other area. Just push the younglings into normal schooling and you get soldiers and workers. You can not do the same with aborted fetuses. Navy jargon uses the term - ship in being. As long as it exists you are still in the game for good or bad. Sinking it takes you out in a very clear and complete manner.
Whatever will happen in the future the children of todays nerdy yeshiva students will be there to face the challenge. Their dispised parents of today will give them a fighting chance. Smart apparently succesful seculars will not give theirs a chance and they call this being intelligent and adapted to the challenges of modernity. It's so very stupid that only secular intelectuals have so twisted minds to even talk about this - used strong word not in an insulting manner, just to underline my strong personal opinion about the subject.
Found a comment some time ago by a very interesting person. Somehow connected to the topic.
"There is nothing complicated about finance. It is based on old people lending to young people. Young people invest in homes and businesses; aging people save to acquire assets on which to retire. The new generation supports the old one, and retirement systems simply apportion rights to income between the generations. Never before in human history, though, has a new generation simply failed to appear."
Most interesting development I believe.
The guy I quoted - David Goldman - is fountain of wisdom. Many times I disagree with his assumptions but his synthesis are superbly constructed.
"The trouble is in that part of the world - " M East " , first prize is, you get to compete for first prize once again; second prize is, you’re dead."
I'd say it's the same everywhere and everytime. It's the long march of life fighting a collapse into oblivion. It is going on for the last 3 billion years. We descend from an innumerable number of beings which clawed themselves a first prize with terrific sacrifices and efforts. Our ancestors won the right to live for us. If we and our children will deserve to carry the torch of life into eternity well this remains to be seen.
J said he's afraid of what will happen with his children. Will they be able to pass through to the future through the current evolutionary bottle neck?
I am at least as worried as he is. Nothing would make me happier then to know that my grand grand children will have philosophical discutions with his about the meaning of life.
But there is no way for us to know, as we go blindly into the future.
Having 1 (male) child is a high risk genetic strategy. If that child fails to reproduce for any reason, that's the end of your genetic line. Finito, kaput.
And yet if everyone had 3 or 4 or more children, then at some point the world would be overcrowded (I say at some point because China, same size as US, supports 4x the population - the US is still basically empty away from the coasts and a few large interior cities.
The flip side is that people today don't even want to have enough children to maintain a constant population and a falling population wreaks havoc on pension systems and other aspects of the society.
So what makes sense individually is suicidal for the society and vice versa.
K
"falling population wreaks havoc on pension systems and other aspects of the society."
That's only true if the maintained population has plenty of workers, which requires jobs for them to do. There was a series of articles in the Atlantic magazine several months ago that predicted significant gains in automation technology that would cut into many middle-class and professional jobs as well as manufacturing. If there are no jobs, the young and middle-aged as well as the old will have to be supported by the government. They won't be propping up the pension systems in that case.
It is the women who prefer this arrangement. The women don't want families, they want to fuck many hot men in their 20's and then they want to marry an alpha man when they reach 30-33. But no man who has dignity will marry other men's used goods as his wife and mother of his children. Teach the girls to not be slutty. Teach them to marry a nice, good husband, instead of spending their 20's hooking up with bikers, frat boys, etc. The "Chateau-type bastards" are only responding to what women want. "Free" women are the destruction of Western societies.
Yes of course they're miserable and alone when they reach 30-33. They shouldn't have been sluts before. And the man who marries one of these modern sluts at 31 is damned, since she will never really respect him, and she will leave him after she gets bored.
Men should refuse marriage, period.
Santorum has criticized contraception, because it made the above arrangement possible. He is criticized on the left as if he were a total nutcase but he is not crazy at all. Calling someone an "extremist" means that you don't have to give any serious consideration to his ideas.
K
"So what makes sense individually is suicidal for the society and vice versa."
And so it has always been. In the end it's a zero sum game. Of course in growing systems like ours in the oil age for a time there is room for everybody. Beyond peak oil - happening now - the system reverts to normal.
"falling population wreaks havoc on pension systems and other aspects of the society."
It was not the normal working of society. In it's actual form for ex the pension system was created and evolved in the 50s -60s. The number of pensioners was very low. It was an exceptional moment in social evolution. Urbanization - majority of the old ones remained in the countryside and did not qualify for pension - , low medium age - meaning lots of workers few old people -, enormous quantity of energy at low prices allowing high ecom=nomic growth and productivity etc all happening at the same time.
What we now see is the end of an exception. Of course it's unpleasant and we dislike it but there is nothing we can do.
There is nothing the pension funds could have done. But the immoral part is that they took people's money wasted or stolen a large part of it and lied about all this. I call theft their profits and huge bonuses because there was no real profit in the long term. How else can you call someone who takes your money and does not deliver the promised goods? And he knows from the begining and yet he does it and profits himself a lot. Normally you call him a crook and what he does theft.
""Free" women are the destruction of Western societies."
A little bit more complicated. This is one of the symptoms of a stage in social evolution. It happened before in human history. It's a part of cycle. Enjoy this age. Too bad hedonistic cycles are not sustainable. Corrections are extremly unpleasant for all envolved.
Society swings from one extreme to another punctuated by collapses - equivalent of system reset. Why we can't be more moderate well it's another discussion. Too bad we can't.
teo says society swings and resets every cycle. Is this an unMarxist way of thinking because Marxism believes in progress, or is it Marxist because Marxism posits that society progresses by thesis and antithesis tht leads to some kind of higher level?
Anyway, the current stage Western society is traversing makes it doubtful that there will be any sizeable society in the future. According reliable projection, for example, Italy will shrink to half of its population in 20 years (I may be alive if senile then) and so on. At some point, quantity turns into quality, does it?
I do remember having this conversation with a German expert in Guatemala in the 1980s. He was amazed by the projection that in his lifetime the population of Guatemala will be larger than Germany's. Yet we are almost there. You dont know how insignificant nothings were those central american banana republics in those times.
"I do remember having this conversation with a German expert in Guatemala in the 1980s. He was amazed by the projection that in his lifetime the population of Guatemala will be larger than Germany's. Yet we are almost there. You dont know how insignificant nothings were those central american banana republics in those times."
Latin America has resources. Now pop is stabilising - fertility is below or at replacement level and falling. Still a demographic momentum but it will stop increasing very soon.
What we saw with the power shift in Americas - latin decrease and an exponential anglo increase of relative power was a cycle I believe.
When the continent became independent the 13th colonies were a poor backwater of 3 million.
Spanish area had 16 million, large cities by the continental standards and large wealth.
US was simmilar in size ans wealth with Brazil. And now if we look at demographic data they are moving towards convergence - Brazil and US.
And their economies I think also move into the same direction.
What we now see is a return to normal, after a huge spike of growth af the anglo sphere on the continent.
As a valid comparison I think US and Brazil stands.
Thei started 200 years ago as similar agricultural societies of 3 million each, with a continental size area to colonise.
One - coal, easy communications, iron ore, protectionism etc - moved into the industrial age and grew rapidly. The other one lacking the above advantages grew slowly.
In 1956 US had 170 million inhabitants in an industrial urban society, Brazil had 40 million and started thinking that well having a policy of industrial development and protecting and nurturing local manufacturers might be hmmm a good idea.
And now in 2012 - Automobile Production is a good proxy of medium added-value industrial production, used a quote from someone better at words then me -
USA 7,761,440 units versus
Brazil 3,648,358 units.
Babies are 4 million in US versus 3 million in Brazil. And this due to a high increase of hispanics which add 1 million to the US numbers. The same is happening in Brazil with a large migration from poor hispanic areas of South America towards Brazil.
A return to normal after some systemic disbalances I believe. The fact that all areas in Americas grew a lot compared to Europe is a natural phenomenon due to the availability of resources but now it is getting close to equilibrium and a new paradigm.
Future is OK for many areas of the Americas with some exceptions of course. But that is normal we are talking about 42 mil square km with an extremly diverse population.
About the comparison between DE and Guatemala is a little bit off mark. Liniar extrapolations does this usually. But Guatemala is close to Bavaria and that is pretty normal. Now it still increases but with emmigration it will stabilize at simmilar numbers. Germans also emmigrated a lot when they had demographic increases so nothing diferent there either.
And now well to the cases where we don't have equilibrium.
Guatemala and Bavaria are OK.
But now a similar number of babies are born in DE and Syria. And this a massive catastrophic overshoot. Explosion and drama were inevitable in your neighbourhood J. And it is just the begining of the drama. First act. There is absolutely no room for the enormous number of younglings in ME to grow up as adults and have normal lives envolving jobs, apartments, families etc. It won't happen because it can not due to physical limitations.
It's not a lack of democracy or whatever in Syria there is simply no room for everyone so people start fighting. It's horror story we are going to see repeated again and again in all areas in such massive population overshoot.
Europeans would have started killing each other much much sooner. More agresive and violence prone we are I suppose.
You talked about Italy and in demographic discussions it is sometimes mentioned in the same company with Japan. There is another nice case like with Brazil and US but it is superficially treated I think.
Japan is in massive overshoot which explains its extreme vulnerability with all their competent efforts.
They have simmilar surface and resources - almost twins. And before embarking on the industrialisation boat had simmilar populations of about 30 million. And then they diverged.
Italians were able to emmigrate in large numbers. Japanese couldn't and their attempt to colonise and export population failed.
So now Italy has 60 million and Japan 127 miliion wth simmilar demographic profiles. But the number of italians is amazingly almost identical with the japanese at around 130 million.
They are going to normal , just that Italy is close to it and it will happen with less pain and efforts then in the japanese case. Plus of course the amount of hatred generated by japanese in asia, which simply lacks in italian case. There was no need for agressiveness - Brazil , Argentina, France, US etc were eay to reach for italians. Doors were closed for their poor japanese counterparts.
So when Il Duce called italians to enlarge the living space it sounded stupid. Why the frack die heroically for Tripolitania? When cousin Angelo calls you to Rio where nice brunnets like ones like you? Italians were pretty busy colonising continents so a japanese desperation was absolutely lacking. Japanese were like cornered rats, while italians were not. Just that Mussolini closed the door and traped them for empire building. Results were of course ridiculous , Antonio and Giovanni prefered Sao Paolo instead of the fly infested Tripolitania. Just that the brave leader stopped them from reuniting the family there.
Cl.: Italian case is very interesting, but for a more complete picture to emerge you need to look at the interesting saga of the italian ethnical group, not just the area we call Italy - I called them ethnical group, know it's more complicated but sometimes you just have to use labels.
For the ones coming later at the table like Egypt, Paki, Syria, India, Nigeria etc well there are no good solutions.
Migrating to decrease pressure is not an option - we are talking about billions of people so no significant migration possible. Ekeing a miserable helot life working and serving the Anglo Empire in exchange for acces to food and energy like the japanese is no option either. They don't have the capital resources - industry, infrastructure etc now -to do that and hmmm there is no longer enough oil and food for everyone. There isn't enough for the japanese so egyptians have no chance. If Japan is getting squeezed now and far worse in the future for Pakis and egyptians horrors beyond imagination are in store.
Of course nothing is set. I do believe that Paki will fight for their lives. Energy is close by. Capital is close in friendly hands.
They have 2 variants. Die in pains - rwandan scenario, but much worse.
Or try to throw the anglos out from the Gulf in order to sip a droplet of energy and capital from the sheiks in exchange for slave labour, acting as enforcers, in general by slave lives for a piece of bread - in the form of gas, used to produce some electricity in order to work for that piece of bread.
Of course sheiks like diversity for their underlings so on the same position are also India and Bangladesh. Paki is just more advance as an enforcer, a sort of future Luka Brassi - it's from Godfather.
Of course Europe and China would be the main clients, but of course for real values not treasury bonds and other types of funny papers.
So the future is not set but a very big showdown between Paki/KSA and the Anglos is very probable. Usually people fight a little before they die, I can't see why Pakis would make an exception and die silently.
What we now see is not just a gigantic increase of the nuclear arsenal in Paki, but also a huge diversification of the launching means. Tactical rocket, cruise missile air or ground launched, ballistic missiles and now they even have a space program with satelites etc. It's pretty logical why they try to become equivalents of the anglos in power at regional level by using nukes rather then by classical means. China and KSA are creating a Golem. That is precisely what Paki is - a GOLEM.
Future will be extremly interesting. You have a front seat J. Only problem you don't look very heroic by what I read and it looks like you'd rather skip the show. You have the oportunity to see close by some of the most interseting events ever in known history and you don't appreciate the opportunity tsk tsk.
A lot of talks and efforts are now taking place. To make North America and Europe/Eurasia sustainable in energy. It's clear the possibility of strategic defeat in the ME is seriously considered. But unfortunately untill now results in North America are disapointing, shale gas and oil don't look too good.
Eurasia under a future russian leadership looks much better from this point of view - don't know if it can work, but we will find out.
What I presented are possible outcomes, just that. How events will unfold in real life remains to be seen. Probably - by simmilitude - in a much messier and dirty manner then what I presented above. That's how it has always been.
"teo says society swings and resets every cycle. Is this an unMarxist way of thinking because Marxism believes in progress, or is it Marxist because Marxism posits that society progresses by thesis and antithesis tht leads to some kind of higher level?"
Well here I reminded a joke. It's the best answer I can give.
Old and wise comrade Rabinovich was taking part at a party meeting - soviet joke.
And comrades petrov and ivanov were having an argument. Rabonovich was keeping a very low profile , taking sides in a soviet political dispute was not a very smart move.
The party secretary notices this and asks:
"Hey comrade Rabinovich you are quiet. Whom do you say is right com. ivanov or com. petrov?"
"Hmmmm, starts com. Rabinovich , com. Petrov is right. But also hmmm com. ivanov is right."
" But you don't have a personal opinion, com. Rabinovich?"
" I do com. secretary, but I don't agree with it myself. replies Com. Rabonovich.
The issue is so very complex The above joke is the same with my approach.
Theo
I dont understand the argument that Germany has no resources for further population increase, while Latin America does. Which resource is limiting German growth? Food? They are better fed than ever. Water? Living Space? Boar Hunting Forests? There is no physical limit at all. The Lebensraum argument is nonsense and it is from an era when agricultural land was the only resource.
"There is no physical limit at all. The Lebensraum argument is nonsense and it is from an era when agricultural land was the only resource."
Precisely the idea. What happened from 50s up to now was possible due to an increase in the use of fossile fuels on over 500%!!!!
What happened in the second half of the 20th century was a very exceptional era. Those with industrial and technological capital could tap into the resources at will. The fact that the system was also under military control by the US also helped.
Now we are back to normal and poor areas like DE or Japan have to compete for scarce resources with other players - which also have industrial capital.
The surplus resulted from import of raw materials and export of finite products is much smaller then before. It is no longer enough to feed, cloth, house etc large number of people. Japan is already beyond the breaking point. DE due to a more favorable position is getting closer at tremendous speed.
I have been thinking about using an example.
It's like opening a taxi company in town. Nobody else has cars so you can ask for high tariffs.
In the same time gas is extremly cheap. You live happily have a large family and you think this is the normal way thing are and will always been
But....
Others buy cars and go in business. So tariffs have to decrease - due to inflation is not very visible, but real values decrease continuously.
In the same time hmmmm gas prices increase a lot - more consumers now.
And you suddenly discover that you are much poorer now and you can't support a large family any more. A small one with a much lower consumption level is possible.
The main problem now is not only technological, that further increase in energy production are no longer possible. What scares everyone is that we are past peak oil apparently and gas/coal peaks look very very close.
All else is so very dependent on energy as they derive from it. Of course other resources are in depletion mode already without throwing energy into the mix.
Like fish and water.
It looks like massive overshoot.
Germans now this perfectly, their analysis are in public domain. The Bundeswehr's analysis in quoted a lot. Usually germans are very good at analysis. But getting something usefull out of it is beyond their leaderships mental abilities.
It has always been like this and I for one am certain they will continue their wonderfull tradition af making choiced from bad to worse.
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100 years ago german analysis perfectly predicted that China will industrialise. And it will completly shake and change the world. They were right and we are only in the first half of this process.
They also predicted that if Russia industrialises and builds a large rail network Germany has no chance in the most favorable conditions to stand to them.
In the 40s the analysis was tested.
Germany united Europe. The Reich had 90 million people. With allies and ocupied teritories in had 300 million. They took in the first round the main industrial and agricultural areas of Russia.
So it was now between the German Union of 400 million people with all the industrial and human resources of Europe - the EU plus Ukraine, Belarus, a part of Russian Federation against a part of the Russian federation of today + the Stans.
And they got crushed. Analysis was perfect.
Etc etc. I can continue about their ability to analyse. If they say they are fried , well we can believe them.
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The analysis of what is happening now I found in a german book of political economy from the 30s. It perfectly describes what is happening today with Germany.
The fact that a lot of oil fields went on line and that potential asian/south american/ eastern european competitors were stopped in their tracks due to various reasons just postponed for a few decades the reconing.
Germany can export only what the producers of raw materials can't or don't want to produce. And it is not enough to support a large population in DE. Just like in the japanese case. They are in massive overshoot.
Exceptional unpredictable events happened but now after just a few decades they are back at square one.
The military solution was tested and under the most favorable conditions DE failed. So now the alternative is going to be tested.
In order to survive as a functional society they have to get connected to eurasia. Instead of masters they will try to become vassals of the empire. Luxury ones. The leadership role in all economic fields is theirs for the taking as it always was.
By the way Gazprom already anounced they are willing to sacrifice and take over Greece's oil and gas company. What DE did was extremly irrational from any angle, except one.
With DE as a russian ice breaker all their behaviour becomes rational. It seems they will have to work hard to earn their future piece of bread. Russians will feed them but the socialist experience when you got fed for nothing made them wiser. Now if you want Russia to feed you it's a little bit harder, you have to prove your loyalty and to deserve to be fed.
CL.: Yeap I believe their exist physical limits and we already struck them.
This is the reason why many of our analysis are so very divergent. We start from diametrically opposite assumptions.
About the japanese case nice comments here :
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-03-01/future-food-japan
They are the canary in the mine.
Very high tech level products. Very low consumption, almost NK level. Neither increasing added value nor decreasing consumtion are possible, they are bare bone. Any fluctuations of the 2 variables takes them past NK in a hurry. They are just an inch above in favorable conditions.
And now they already went into cronic deficits. And we are just at the beginning of resource crunch.
It's the first round of the new game, with the new set or rules, and Japan is already out of air.
Compared to Germany or Italy it's pretty obvious why. The amount of resources per capita is much lower, the overshoot is much higher. And friendly rich nations close by to help like the eurasian colossus is for Germany are missing.
Starvation and hypermortality - they are not explicitly saying this, too horrible to formulate probaly, but the idea is clearly there - loom at the horizon. Already.
Of course germans are scared. Any rational being would. Japan is already beyond redemption. Germany has chances so they are doing anything humanly possible, as they should.
All our disagreements come back to this:
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-03-01/5-gas-long-hot-crazy-summer
The way you approch the issue defines any further conclusions which one might draw.
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