I grew up in a small town with a really cool old main street. I would love to live in a small town again instead of a suburb. Its funny how our society has become all about self fulfillment rather than serving others. I don't really know most of my neighbors beyond casual conversation, and that's the norm today. It's no wonder we're depressed and unhappy in our lives.
Great interview and all, but what kinda cat is that in the bottom left corner at the 1:40 mark? I've never seen a cat tail like that before. It's like the cat outta Alice in Wonderland.
Living in an inner ring suburb from which I could actually hike all the way downtown 12 miles when a crazy college student I now find it exceedingly grotesque to drive the same number of miles in the opposite direction to a former farm town where I once taught parochial school to this asinine strip mall in the middle of nowhere just to return a garment my sister bought because it was too large or in other words a 24 mile round-trip to return something which weighs perhaps a quarter of a pound.
I love the idea of suburbia as a project that is done. I am only worried that the wilting away of suburbia sounds too good to be true. But he describes an interesting story about how the money and the energy has already been spent, and now we have houses and strip malls abandoned all over the US. And I see that abandonment, and I can’t help but wonder if maybe he’s right, and it’s not too good to be true.
you can pick him apart on various facts, but the overall message is just logical. infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible. entropy always wins and you can't produce without extraction and loss. all we argue about is the speed of that process.
He keeps saying "the capital's not going to be there, institutions will contract." My man, they thought of that. Their solution is to print and borrow more and more money until the entire system destroys itself. It won't be a contraction; it will be a discontinuity.
He's not willing to address the obvious facts about the contradictions of capitalism, because he's an American who hates commies, and so any critique of capitalism is off the table. And so, to compensate, he has to believe any idea that would, in normal times, have put someone in a crazy house
"The system" this and "the system" that. Well, what system, James? What system incentivizes people to build suburbs and skyscrapers and malls and McMansions instead of human-scaled communities?
if you looks at Japanies deflationary housing which have no worth after 30 years of use. none of the 30 year old suburban homes in America have any value if that is now true and we are in a "slow safe fall" you more easily understand the catastrophic collapse of 2008 what we though had value does not in a future economic system. and more importantly it's value is so much less then we imagined so I think we are entering a Japanies system in America a deflationary system a disposable system.
Moonsabie And once you make buildings the disposable element then you outsrip your resource which creates scarcity which makes resource prices rise so no one can afford resources. Which means no economy. Stagflation x infinity. Which is also what the Japanese are facing, and are just delaying through quantitative easing and circular borrowing.
Now the man has a point, the crash of the housing market was caused by the bad policies of the 1990's under Clinton, if you do the research you will find out what is really going on. I don't agree with Kunstler on the oil problem but everything else I can agree on.
Kunstler's major shortcoming is he can't or won't say why people left the cities, especially in the post war era. It is NOT an accident that the cities emptied out as "civil rights" was legislated into existence. The riots of the 60s played a big role. The incredible amounts of crime. The constant theft. The lack of skilled workers. A lot of these things all conspired to empty out the cities. My city had 2.5 million people in the 60s and has gone down to 1.5 million.
I love the contrast between how confident he is and the authoritative way of speaking Vs the reality of what happened. He is manifestly wrong lol. This did not age well.
I grew up in a small town with a really cool old main street. I would love to live in a small town again instead of a suburb.
Its funny how our society has become all about self fulfillment rather than serving others. I don't really know most of my neighbors beyond casual conversation, and that's the norm today. It's no wonder we're depressed and unhappy in our lives.
Great interview and all, but what kinda cat is that in the bottom left corner at the 1:40 mark? I've never seen a cat tail like that before. It's like the cat outta Alice in Wonderland.
Living in an inner ring suburb from which I could actually hike all the way downtown 12 miles when a crazy college student I now find it exceedingly grotesque to drive the same number of miles in the opposite direction to a former farm town where I once taught parochial school to this asinine strip mall in the middle of nowhere just to return a garment my sister bought because it was too large or in other words a 24 mile round-trip to return something which weighs perhaps a quarter of a pound.
I love the idea of suburbia as a project that is done. I am only worried that the wilting away of suburbia sounds too good to be true. But he describes an interesting story about how the money and the energy has already been spent, and now we have houses and strip malls abandoned all over the US. And I see that abandonment, and I can’t help but wonder if maybe he’s right, and it’s not too good to be true.
you can pick him apart on various facts, but the overall message is just logical. infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible. entropy always wins and you can't produce without extraction and loss. all we argue about is the speed of that process.
He keeps saying "the capital's not going to be there, institutions will contract." My man, they thought of that. Their solution is to print and borrow more and more money until the entire system destroys itself. It won't be a contraction; it will be a discontinuity.
He knows
He's not willing to address the obvious facts about the contradictions of capitalism, because he's an American who hates commies, and so any critique of capitalism is off the table. And so, to compensate, he has to believe any idea that would, in normal times, have put someone in a crazy house
"The system" this and "the system" that. Well, what system, James? What system incentivizes people to build suburbs and skyscrapers and malls and McMansions instead of human-scaled communities?
@@txikitofandango are you referring to capitalism? Not really what we have in America any more.
if you looks at Japanies deflationary housing which have no worth after 30 years of use.
none of the 30 year old suburban homes in America have any value if that is now true and we are in a "slow safe fall"
you more easily understand the catastrophic collapse of 2008 what we though had value does not in a future economic system.
and more importantly it's value is so much less then we imagined
so I think we are entering a Japanies system in America a deflationary system a disposable system.
Moonsabie And once you make buildings the disposable element then you outsrip your resource which creates scarcity which makes resource prices rise so no one can afford resources. Which means no economy. Stagflation x infinity. Which is also what the Japanese are facing, and are just delaying through quantitative easing and circular borrowing.
+Darren “Daz” Silk Yet the Japanese seem to have a decent quality of life.
Now the man has a point, the crash of the housing market was caused by the bad policies of the 1990's under Clinton, if you do the research you will find out what is really going on. I don't agree with Kunstler on the oil problem but everything else I can agree on.
Kunstler's major shortcoming is he can't or won't say why people left the cities, especially in the post war era. It is NOT an accident that the cities emptied out as "civil rights" was legislated into existence. The riots of the 60s played a big role. The incredible amounts of crime. The constant theft. The lack of skilled workers. A lot of these things all conspired to empty out the cities. My city had 2.5 million people in the 60s and has gone down to 1.5 million.
I love the contrast between how confident he is and the authoritative way of speaking Vs the reality of what happened. He is manifestly wrong lol. This did not age well.
This dude in on the fringe.