-------------------------
Eric Fry, reporting from
St. Malo, France…
For those readers who may be
tuning in late, your Rude editors have convened a weeklong meeting/road
trip in France. The cast of characters includes both of your Rude
editors, as well as your California editor's three children.
Yesterday's itinerary found this
Rude collection traveling southwest from Saint Lo toward the northern
coast of Brittany. After only a couple hours on the road, Team Rude's
ridiculously expensive rental car rolled through the ancient narrow
gates of St. Malo. Massive ramparts encircles the "old town" of St. Malo.
Once upon a time, these ramparts – and the cannons atop them – prevented
would-be plunderers from entering the town. But today, the ramparts only
serve to prevent wandering tourists from exiting. Despite the swarms of
tourists that crowd the little town's cobblestone streets, the place is
quite beautiful to see, especially from atop the ramparts.
But your editors did not venture
to St. Malo merely to gawk at ancient fortifications, they came to gulp
down fresh oysters. The nearby Bay of Cancale produces a bounty of tasty
mollusks. Therefore, last night's dinners featured several platters of
Cancale oysters, as well as a variety of fish, fowl and four-footed
fare. During the meal, one of your editor's children wondered aloud
about what sort of human might have eaten the first-ever raw oyster.
"Who knows?" someone at the
table replied. "But it was probably a hungry peasant from somewhere."
"In fact," your editor chimed
in, "many of the foods we now consider delicacies began their
gastronomic histories as mere 'peasant food.' Just run through the list
of delicacies. Peasants ate them all."
"Like what?" one of the kids
wanted to know.
"Right here in France," your
editor answered, "They've got foie gras and truffles. These things are
just glorified goose liver and tree fungus. Farmers used 'truffle pigs'
to wander around in forests and forage for truffles at the roots of
trees. Why did they bother? Because truffles were free."
"What about caviar?" asked
another.
"I'm not sure," your editor
continued. "But I would imagine that some hungry Russian peasant caught
a sturgeon and decided to scoop out the eggs and give them a try."
"And oysters?"
"I don't know that story
either," your editor admitted, "but I'd bet that the first human on the
planet to eat a raw oyster was not a head of state."
"What about the food of the rich
from centuries ago?" your editor's son, Noah, inquired. "Is that now the
food of the poor?"
"Well, come to think of it,
yes," your editor replied. "The meals that nourished kings and queens
would closely resemble today's road kill. The monarchs of yore often ate
some kind of game, like pheasant, quail, venison etc. And game meat
tastes awful. I know. My Dad was a hunter."
"That's kind of funny," Noah
remarked. "The rich and the poor swapped diets. Are there any other
tastes or fashions that you can think of that the rich and the poor have
exchanged with each other?"
"How about plump, pasty white,
Raphaelian women?" the less politically correct of your Rude editors
offered.
"Yeah," your editor chuckled.
"That's almost true. Women of the aristocracy used to be very pale and
comfortably plump. It was a fashion statement, as the paintings of the
day attest. Peasant women could not afford to consume enough food to put
on extra pounds. But today, women of the Western aristocracies seem to
seek tanned, anorexic physiques."
So you see, dear investor, no
facet of life can escape cyclical pulses from one extreme to another.
The peasant food of one era becomes the appetizer of millionaire rap
stars in another era. And the plump aristocrats of one era become the
sinewy gym rats of a later era.
Cycles also pulse through the
norms and fashions of human habitation – from cities to countrysides,
and back to cities again. In the column below, James Howard Kunstler
examines the current habitational norms of North America and offers some
shocking predictions about how these norms might soon change…
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The Fiasco of Suburbia,
Its Implications, and Its Destiny, Part II
By James Howard Kunstler
The American suburb was the greatest misallocation of resources in the
history of the world….Why? Because it has no future, because we're not
going to be able to run it….We don't have the resource base to run it.
A lot of the delusions that are
now rampant in the country all focus on the alternative energy scene. I
want to be very clear about this, I am in favor of alternative energy. I
think we're going to do everything we possibly can. But the key to
understanding alternative energy is this: First of all, we are going to
be disappointed by what it can do for us, and second, it is not going to
change the fact that we have to make other arrangements for all the
important activities of daily life…..
We're having an incoherent
conversation about that about in our society right now because of the
psychology of previous investment. We've invested so much of our wealth
and even our identity in the [existing American] way of life that we
can't imagine letting go of it…But the "project of suburbia" is over as
a period in our history and the home builders are going down and they
will not be coming back. We're in the process now of losing somewhere
between $1.5 and $3 trillion worth of capital. That capital is going to
be lost. It went into a black hole and things don't come out of black
holes. We're not going to have money to lend to people, least of all for
mortgages. In fact, the whole idea of mortgage in America may be similar
to what happened back in France after the Mississippi bubble. They
didn't even use the word "bank" for 150 years, it was such a toxic word.
And apropos of what Kevin Kerr
said earlier in the day, we are facing a huge problem with food. All of
the systems of our daily life are going to have to be reformed, whether
we like it or not….really. We're gonna have to grow more of our food
closer to home. The age of the 3000-mile Cesar salad is over! We don't
know how much food close to home we are going to have to grow, but at
least more than we do now…. probably a lot more…This is going to change
completely our idea of how we value our rural, so-called undeveloped,
land. Right now, we're still in the frame of mind where undeveloped
means undeveloped for suburban crap. But that's going to be over. From
now on it's going to be land that has needs to be used for agriculture…
But let me step back for a
moment, just to give you an idea of the differences between suburban
development and urbanism. In suburbia, everything is rigorously and
relentlessly segregated from everything else. You're not allowed to
live near the shopping; the school cannot be anywhere near the business.
Everything is separated and everybody has to get in the car and go out
to the "collector boulevard" then go into the pod, whether it's the
education pod, the business pod, the housing pod and we can't do that
anymore. We can't afford it, especially from 38 miles outside of Dallas
and Minneapolis. By contrast, traditional urbanism networks of
interconnected streets mix use with people living close to the schools,
the shopping and the business and it will become self-evident that very
soon that that is superior way to live…
We don't know what the city of
the future is going to be like, but I believe our large cities are going
to contract substantially, even while they "densify" at their
centers…And one of the things we're going to learn again, as the
automobile begins to diminish its presence in our life is how wonderful
the composition of the urban block can be, because the center of it is
not gonna be for parking…We are going to re-learn the design and
assembly of human habitat and that too will be a self-organizing
process, as we're compelled to respond to the circumstances of the
global energy emergency…
We need a self-image that informs
us, that we're confident, and that we are competent and that we are
capable people. And that's why one of the first things we have to do is
rebuild the railroad systems in America, 'cause its the one thing we can
do right away that will have the greatest impact on our oil use. It will
put thousands and thousands of people to work in all layers and skills.
The infrastructure for running it is lying out there rusting in the rain
and it's the one project that we can do right away that will allow us to
demonstrate the we can actually do something. We can do a collective
project as a nation, as a society, as a people that can actually
accomplish something important at this time.
You know… the kids in the college
lectures are always asking me if I can give them hope. And the one thing
that the college students don't understand is that they have to become
the generators of the hope. They have to generate it themselves within
themselves by demonstrating that they are capable people who understand
the signals reality is sending to them about the kind of world they are
going to be living in the next 20 – 30 years…
We gotta build a different world
here in North America now and we don't have any time to waste. We don't
have time to be crybabies about it. We don't have time to point fingers.
We have too many things to do right away. We gotta reform the way we
produce our food; we gotta change the way we do commerce and trade; we
gotta change the way we get from point "A" to point "B," and we have to
inhabit the landscape differently and, as far as this group is
concerned, we gotta find a way to do finance that's not based on getting
something for nothing, 'cause that is what has gotten us into this
situation we're in now.
Thank you very much. It was a
pleasure to talk to you this morning.
[Joel's Note:
James Howard Kunstler was just one of the presenters at this year's
Agora Financial Investment Symposium. Keep an eye out for more of the
best speeches and insights from the sellout event over the coming days.
IN the meantime, if you wish to secure yourself an audio copy of the
entire event, you can do so here.
The entire conference is
actually available on both CD and MP3 format. So whether you want to
listen to them at home, on the road, while doing housework or while
you're at work, there's a medium to suit you.
The first round of these audio
sets were snapped up pretty quickly so if you want to avoid a possible
delivery delay, we suggest reserving your copy now.
Grab Your Vancouver Audio Set Here
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[Rude Endnote:
"The early buzz on the movie is exciting," wrote Addison in a note to
readers yesterday. "But it would be even more exciting if you joined us
to take part in this one-night-only exclusive event."
What's The 5 chief on about, you
ask? The movie everyone in the know is talking about...I.O.U.S.A., of
course. Actually, after seeing the flick in Vancouver just a couple of
weeks back, I'm not at all surprised to hear of the excitement brewing
ahead of the film's August 21 release...especially given that the
political race is heating up and the economy is creeping up the agenda.
I'll let Addison fill you in on
the latest I.O.U.S.A news, and your chance to snag a free subscription
to our Strategic Investment research service for your support...
"The excitement is palpable. Our
HQ in Baltimore has been inundated with e-mails and calls… people are
telling us they're willing to travel long distances to come see the
film.
"Even the media are on board.
Radio stations are offering to promote the Aug. 21 event with I.O.U.S.A.
ticket giveaways. We've had inquiries from CNN, The Washington Post and
The New York Times.
"The live event on Aug. 21 is
our one chance to fill up theatres and have the message of the film
heard. If we're successful on that night, the film has a much greater
chance of later reaching a wider audience through a general release in
theatres around the country. That's why we need you to come out and see
the film, along with your friends and colleagues.
"If you do come out, we're
offering a special thank you gift in return -- and not just a token of
our appreciation: something of real value, something that you can use to
make better personal investment decisions.
"If you come out and see
I.O.U.S.A. during the Aug. 21 event, we'll give you a complimentary
subscription to our flagship publication, Strategic Investment. We'd
normally charge $99 for an annual subscription, but if you come out and
support the film, you can have it free of charge for one year.
"Here's how it works. After
you've purchased your tickets, forward a copy of the confirmation e-mail
you receive to
customerservice@agorafinancial.com
and we'll give you a
complimentary one-year subscription. If you're already a subscriber to
Strategic Investment, we'll extend your subscription for another a year.
If you're a Reserve Member, we have an additional gift reserved for you.
Forward your confirmation e-mail to find out what it is."
And voila! There it is – a
chance to see Addison's groundbreaking movie AND to nab a complimentary
subscription to Strategic Investment in the process. For more
information on getting involved, visit our I.O.U.S.A. site and click on
"Find a Theater Near You" in the upper right:
http://www.agorafinancial.com/iousa.html
Until tomorrow...
Cheers,
