The era we are entering is going to be a humdinger and it is natural to doubt that we are prepared for it. In this election year, none of the candidates is addressing the awful questions arising out of the global oil peak, including how we are going to feed ourselves when our oil- and gas-based agriculture grinds to a halt, as it surely will. There ought to be no question that we will have to reconstruct local networks of economic interdependency in the very near future -- that is if we want to continue as a civilized society.
Jobs are not prizes handed out by a government. They are roles in a social matrix. A big box store is not a social matrix. It is a parasitical economic swarm organism like a cloud of locusts that descends on a locality and picks it clean.
As the oil markets collapse, Wal-Mart and its kindred swarm organisms will not be able to continue their operations, which depend on both the price and supply of gasoline remaining very cheap and utterly dependable forever. Old Sam's "warehouse on wheels" won't be worth running up and down the subsidized interstate highways. Old Sam's customers will not be able to pretend they have purchasing power anymore. Old Sam's suppliers in China may find their government maneuvering strategically with the US to secure the remaining oil in Arabia. And that kind of international friction generally makes for poor trade relations.
As these things come to pass in succession, the parking lots will empty and the lights will go out in the big boxes. Maybe then the public will begin to notice that something has happened to our country.
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