“Out these windows, we will view the collapse of financial history.” – Fight Club
My friend struggled with steroid addiction, but it only made him stronger.
If you’re a bodybuilder, the word “anabolic” is your friend. While often used in conjunction with the word steroids, anabolic really means “taking the proteins and stuff you eat and turning it into more complex stuff for your body”. Like I said, that’s a good thing if you’re in shape as a body builder. The Mrs. says that that spherical is technically a shape, so I guess I’m technically in shape. At least in “a” shape.
But just like there is day balanced by night (see, I can be poetic!) anabolic is balanced by the less commonly used word “catabolic”. And, just like an anode has a cathode, catabolic means the opposite. If I’m dieting, the word catabolic is my friend – it rips apart complex molecules like fat that represent stored energy, releasing the energy, and making my shape appear less spherical as the fat is turned into energy releasing sweet, sweet CO2.and plutonium.
Ahh, back when a screwdriver was the height of nuclear safety protocol. (meme as found, if obscure, look up “demon core”).
Economic growth is anabolic. Building a house takes a complex logistics chain of materials and manpower and creates a yet more complex outcome, assembled only with effort and time. A house fire is therefore catabolic – it torches and burns the whole thing down, much faster than it took to build. But allowing a house’s roof to fail and the house to rot is also catabolic – it just takes a lot longer.
Just as it applies to houses and body shape, catabolic can also apply to economies. Essentially every day after the paving of a road is complete, the road is rotting. At first this happens slowly. However, then, as water gets a chance to penetrate it and freeze and thaw, the decay happens much more quickly.
What happens when we can’t afford to fix stuff? It slowly rots. Buildings slowly decay. Street signs fade. Water pipes burst. Kardashians move in.
How are Kardashians like deer? They get new racks every year.
Just like keeping a body from starving requires continual food, keeping a complex system operating and running requires continual wealth and effort. Every bridge, unless maintained, will collapse. A comment last week talked about a pullback of restaurants in their area, more in keeping with what was in place decades ago.
Decades ago, even in Modern Mayberry, there weren’t a lot of external chain restaurants, not even a McDonald’s™. McDonald’s© business model requires a Regional owner who owns multiple McDonald’s™ to build a restaurant on land the McDonald’s Corporation© owns and lease the restaurant from the Corporation®. It also requires that the restaurant go through suppliers that the Corporation® selects to purchase stuff like food and cups and napkins. On top of that, the Corporation™ takes a percent off the top for profit.
The Regional owner pays the Corporation©, but also takes the profits. The remainder goes to costs, including labor.
I once had a sirloin sandwich at McDonald’s®. I’ll never do it again, that was a Big McSteak™.
Back in, say, 1960, all the profits, including the money the local bank lent for the mortgage on Ma and Pa’s Diner, stayed in the community. Many of the costs would as well, especially if the beef and vegetables were locally sourced through the butcher. While the City wasn’t a closed economy, it still retained a lot of the money currently being extracted and kept it local. But when the economy is prosperous, there’s enough wealth being generated, and the extraction of a bit of it doesn’t matter all that much.
Now? The excess cash is hoovered out of the local economy with maximum velocity. That turns the people that would have run Ma and Pa’s Diner or the butcher shop or the local grocery store into wage employees rather than entrepreneurs. Amazon© and eBay™ have removed the reason for small shops selling specific items like games or cooking utensils, and that leaves room for Walmart™ to sell bulk commodities. At least our local Walmart® isn’t like a Target® store in the big cities, which I hear now come complete with their own police precincts.
In a small town like Modern Mayberry, that’s one thing, but last week I wrote about the beginning of the collapse of the casual dining (as opposed to the philosophic problem created by causal dining) restaurant chains. There are none of these in Modern Mayberry, because we’re far too small for an RedAppleChiliLobsterBees™. No, the extraction is starting to fail in the suburbs as well.
I always stop my microwave when the clock hits 0:01, which makes me feel like a bomb disposal expert.
It was mentioned that area was going back the earlier “norm” of restaurants, but the reason is because the middle class has been squeezed. This squeezing of the middle class is catabolic and will destroy demand. This is why, right now, the economy shrinking while stocks continue upwards. A recession is occurring in the middle class even as profits are up. This is the collapse, but as discussed last week, it’s not sudden, until it is.
I’ve described Modern Mayberry, but I’ve also described the core areas of many larger cities, where as our economy moved from making things into reality to making profits on paper, the core died. I’ve walked through the bones of industries long sent overseas and seen the majestic steel columns holding up the roof over an empty space, long since dead and forgotten. That’s also catabolic.
The good news is that it starts slow, but picks up speed. As I’ve said before, we’re standing on the edge of a new land ready to be born, that will be far different from what we’ve seen in the past. The things we’ve taken for granted will no longer be there in many cases. I’m looking at you, Social Security.
When The Mrs. was giving birth she seemed in discomfort, so I asked, “What’s wrong, honey?” She responded, “These contractions are killing me!” So, I asked, “What is wrong, honey?”
What matters is the rebuilding. There will be choices to be made – some that will lead to freedom, some to serfdom. As we’ve seen that paths leading away from the True, Beautiful, and Good always end in failure, most often spectacular failure, I’m optimistic.
I must be. That’s why I keep dieting.
I’m sure you’ve read Matt Bracken’s essay, “When the Music Stops,” which takes the failure of EBT from a blinking ERROR message to a dark future. Matt has been pretty darn’ accurate in a lot of predictions. The article can be found at: https://theprepperjournal.com/2013/09/05/music-stops-americas-cities-may-explode-violence/
Even better, get out of the cities 😉
Good article though, and I thought it was prophetic when I first read it. Still do, especially post-Kenosha Kid.
A classic.
John, this is totally on target all jokes aside.
Snip It was mentioned that area was going back the earlier “norm” of restaurants, but the reason is because the middle class has been squeezed. This squeezing of the middle class is catabolic and will destroy demand. This is why, right now, the economy shrinking while stocks continue upwards. A recession is occurring in the middle class even as profits are up. This is the collapse, but as discussed last week, it’s not sudden, until it is.
Hemmingway put it this way:
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”
“What brought it on?”
“Friends,” said Mike. “I had a lot of friends. False friends. Then I had creditors, too. Probably had more creditors than anybody in England.”
Creditors, lots of creditors the USA has. They are the ones that bought our debt called T-bills.
Empires have a life cycle. At the rob the treasury part it’s pretty close to dead.
Inflation is the tax on everybody, that CONgress (spelling intentional) and their donators seem to avoid. OFTEN Used by the Government to make THEIR Debts repayable in Cheaper “Dollars”.
Problem is the rest of the world calls that “Rubber Checks”.
Inflation is too many dollars chasing the same can of spaghetti-O’s. When the rest of the world decides that the US Dollar isn’t “Safe” they will return to America at the speed of the internet as sold for whatever value they van get from them.
Can you say Wiemer Germany level inflation?
All survival plans have to start with getting through Today Alive, repeat as needed.
Got trusted friends and trusted family? Not all friends and family are going to be trustable as economic and political propaganda stressors happen. “See something, SAY something, call 1-888 get rewarded” some will.
The “original” Michael as Aesop said recently.
Actually, profits stopped growing after 2023. Which makes the current run up in the market really stupid. But it was even Keynes that said “The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.” We are witnessing that. Same thing happened after Brandon was elected. The result was less than a year later, we had a cascading correction of more than 25%. The values stayed crushed for nearly a year. Of course most of the 2021 exuberance was a rotation from smaller stocks to the big corps (SP500 and Dow) since Demoncrats support Corporatocracy (e.g. corruptocracy ).
Of course profits stopped because credit is tight and expensive. So expansion has stopped (meaning growth). Credit is tight because Brandon flooded the world with green paper.
And oil is now no longer required to be sold in dollars.
We are fortunate to have a local drive through chain that emphasizes quick service and quality food. The owners built the stores on a philosophy of tight, efficient management and so the kids working there are all very capable and stay focused. They also don’t tolerate any BS from the employees (I don’t know if it is actual company policy but you never see one of the kids working the window with tats or body piercings). Business for them is booming and they are putting most of the traditional fast food chains around here out of business. Why? Because no one wants to buy food prepared by the meth-addict du jour when you can get better food at a lower price and not have to worry about someone spitting in it. So the money stays local and the owner has even pumped a lot of the cash back into various trade schools to help the local community. A win-win for everyone and a blueprint for how it can be done.
We’ve got a few local places to get a sandwich, but the hours are limited. I’ve been on a soup kick at home.
As always, you have summed up the current state of dissolution perfectly, with a thoughtful touch of humor.
Thank you! More to come!
Oswald Spengler pegged this 100(?) years go in his “Decline Of The West”. TPTB view history in a linear fashion, not in waves of construction & destruction. So, TPTB are doomed to failure, as are their instutions.
As for Ma & Pa’s Diner, maybe a few veggies, honey & biscuits/cornbread are local. Sysco®, McLane™, et al pull in from Big City daily, dispensing meat from a Kanses feedlot, ‘taters from Idaho & cabbage from Modesto. That will largely die soon. It’ll take years to replace that system. And, how much of it depends on EBT, which dies when the banks die?
That’s when Schumpeter’s “Creative Destruction” sets in. And it ain’t gonna be pretty, but less so in Modern Mayberry.
Tainter’s “Collapse of Complex Societies” is a great read too. It is a lot more specific than Spengler, but the 2 theories/ observations are mutually compatible. Which was one of the big reasons I think CoCS is accurate; it agrees w/ Spengler, Evola, et al. when the author likely has never heard of them.
That system requires cheap energy and cheap transportation. We will likely lose both.
Funny you should mention this.
COVIDiocy killed one soup and salad chain that was a weekly stop.
Another food chain, Rubio’s Baja Grill, just got killed by the idiotic economic policies of Gabbin’ Nuisance and his Democommunist fellow travelers in the capitol of Califrutopia, Excremento.
They survived COVID, but $20/hr for tortilla flippers and salsa makers turned their restaurants into non-profits, and the chain pulled the plug on nearly 60 of them, including the two closest to where I am. An extra $1000/week in labor cost was the difference between worth keeping open, and might-as-well-shut-it-down, because it added another $3M/yr to operating costs. So that’s probably another 10-20 per location people freshly unemployed, space rentals that won’t be collected, and not only unemployment checks to the freshly laid off, but less taxes going in from the rentals and the employees to cover it. Besides the food that won’t be purchased to cook and serve, which will lay off workers and delivery drivers for those companies. And it will trickle up.
The fast food drive-throughs that used to be quite a queue at breakfast and dinner are now single digits of cars, from open to close. Cashiers are being replaced by touch kiosks, complete with free fecal material on the screens.
Next, the bums, dopers, and winos move in, camping in the backs of vacant stores and the bushes on the periphery of all those unoccupied locations, and suddenly a thriving shopping center smells like hobo piss, an amalgamation of pot, beer, and urine. Which drives out the other businesses, and by and by, the whole center goes under.
One nearby shopping center already has. It too used to be full of businesses, and when it started to struggle, it first went ethnic, serving primarily one local minority. And when even that wasn’t enough, they just bulldozed 95% of it down to the dirt, and they ripped out the plumbing and wiring. Currently, it looks like they’re testing missiles there. Because the property owner’s property taxes on unimproved land are lower than on paved land with utilities. Mind you, this isn’t some gritty ‘hood by the railroad tracks, this is in a neighborhood with $1M homes in all directions. The only thing still there now are another fast food place, and a pizza joint, and they’ve both now cut their hours back. Everybody else got told to pull out a couple of months ago.
The drug store and supermarket that used to anchor the whole thing got WalMarted out of business a few years back, and the little shops catering to specialty items got Amazoned out of business too over the last few years.
Genius, right there, from the Usual Leftard Jackholes.
and you still live there lol
Yes, and the joke’s on you.
I make 4-5X what I’d get anywhere in flyover country, we’re short every shift forever for the next decade-plus, and if I wanted to work 7 days a week forever and clear – not make, but clear – $300-500K/year until I retire, I could do it.
I’ve seen Bumfuck, and Hooterville, and you can keep them.
And when I retire, it’ll be to arable land the size of a city block in Mayberry in this state, far from even middling cities, where the bums don’t go, because there’s no welfare office, paid for in cash by this exact location, I’ll never turn a shovel of snow from then until the day I die, and it’s a lot easier to deal with the illegals and Lefty locusts who came here than to overcome snow, humidity, and pestilential insects. I can keep stupidity out with a good boundary wall, a shotgun, and clear fields of fire.
Oh, and most of those bums and winos? About 99% from 47 other states. I’ve seen the SSNs. You can have your toothless, banjo-playing kinfolk back any time you want them. In fact, when things go tits up here, and the Califrutopia welfare teats dry up for good, as they inevitably must, they’ll flock right back home in haste. You’d best prepare for that homecoming. They’ll be bringing their illegal nannies and waiters with them when they come.
Won’t that be nice?
You love Bumfuck or Hooterville? Good for you. Really, I’m happy for you, and anybody like you. Sincerely.
I’ve seen, visited, and/or lived in 24 states and three territories out of 59, and they all have their finer points, but you can keep all of them. They aren’t my home, and never will be.
For those to whom they’re home, and who love where they live as much as I do, more power to them.
But politics changes, while climate and topography is forever.
You think the recession, inflation, and destructive change aren’t hitting there too?
Best wishes with that fairytale.
WTF do you think was the point of JW’s essay?
It’s coming everywhere. Buckle up.
You’ll only get California from my cold, dead hands, and God willing, I’ll live long enough to see communism collapse here too, and the statues to Lenin and Marx melted down for park benches. Just like every other place it’s been tried and failed. Which, to date, is only everywhere. So I’ve already got gravity and economics on my side.
I wouldn’t give you a soft turd for the people who cut and run the minute times got a little unpleasant, because those people will leave you hanging when it gets tough in your neck of the woods too. Most of them – about 95% – aren’t and weren’t “Calilfornians” in the first place. They weren’t born nor raised here, they were gypsies from Somewhere Else when they moved here, and they’ll do the exact same thing to the next patch as they did here: crap all over what made it nice, then move on to the next nest once it’s as ugly and befouled as what they left. Cutting and running becomes a habit, and habit becomes character.
Which is why Texas and Florida are purpling up nicely, btw, and will soon be as blue as NYFS and Massholia. Virginia, Georgia, and North Carolina have already fallen. Next will be the Rust Belt, as Chicongo, Wisconsin, and Minnesota screw up Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, and Missouri. You could look it up.
Over half of this state is still redder than a sunburnt pig, with more politically conservative voters here still than the next ten Western states combined, and the folks still here on that side are harder than diamonds, and worth twice as much as the yellow-backed squishes who’ve already bailed out.
Keep us filled in on how it works when they do the same to your patch as they did here.
You’ve got all that and more to look forward to. Here? No big deal. BTDTGTTS.
And it’s shorts and t-shirt weather 10 months a year. 🙂
Since you brought it up.
I did “Califrutopia” for a couple of decades. It continued to decline the whole time. Moved out before the obvious real estate crash occurred. Increased salary, decreased costs, cash for new custom house, and taxes 1/3 the total amount. Aesop: you are blinded by the crap you continue to deal with. Califrutopia is a dump and speeding downhill.
The people here are friendly. Cashiers can count change (they couldn’t in Calie 20yr ago). Everyone is literate, in English. Most go to church. You can park in Home Depot with an open pickup bed; everything will be there when you return. Aesop: you are living a level of hell where they gradually increased the temperature.
Aesop – Agreed on many points. But, nobody seems to know that NC has a Republican veto-proof majority in both houses. Guv Less Than Zero Cooper was elected by immense voter fraud in Durham & Guilford (Greensboro/High Point) Counties. Both elections. The 1st was by <2,500 votes.
And will elect its current Lt. Gov, a black conserative Republican, as its next Guv this fall.
So, Cali will revert to the Pete Wilson days? I'll stick w/ the SC Coastal Lowcountry. We're headed to Robert Earl Keen tonight at the Charleston Music Hall. Last time we did, our most famous resident was 2 rows below us.
Bill Murray.
I saw a headline tonight that the CA minimum wage had already led to 10,000 layoffs.
In our town we had a great office supply company with a huge variety of supplies then Staple moved in next door and the office company is gone, next came Costco, they sell the top 10 things Staples sells so now the staples store is a poorly stock ghost town. So I can get most of what I need at Costco but not everything. Good business plan to sell the top ten things of all the stores but you get fewer choices.
That’s exactly what Walmart does for smaller towns.
Fast food, and pharmacies. My metric is seeing which pharmacy chain closes first. Past experience tells me it will be Walgreen’s, but CVS may be first in the local semi-large communities. It’s hard to steal from a fast food chain, when they start locking up the the ketchup and napkins, but national pharmacies are a shoplifter’s paradise. They even have doors that open automatically for a quick escape.
That shoplifting epidemic isn’t here. Yet.
there is problem two, if and when we have to start making our own stuff again we have a severe shortage of machinists, welders, farmers, etc. and a WHOLE lot of useless eaters that won’t get their hands dirty
“if and when we have to start making our own stuff again we have a severe shortage of machinists, welders, farmers, etc.”
Your “if and when” should be shortened to simply “when” – and, if by “severe shortage” you mean “we no longer effing have any” – then we agree.
Original Grandpa
Ultimately, this problem is self-correcting.
Those that can think, learn, and work – will.
The rest will ultimately starve to death.
Note that there will likely be some unpleasantness between the groups as the process occurs.
Not a lot of caloric value in making PowerPoints, right?
“These contractions are killing me!”
That’s world-class!
Sorry, I meant “That is world-class!”
Hehehehehe
John Michael Greer has blogged on the topic of Catabolic Collapse for years. You can find his current musings at ecosophia.net. Promise me that you won’t post a comment until you’ve read all of the others, and think that you have something to contribute. (They’re all moderated.)
By the way, I have to point out that the McDonald’s in Russia meme has two errers: “it’s” shouldn’t have an apostrophe (think of “its” as like “his” and “hers”, which also lack apostrophication), and “make is” should be “makes it” (unless your intent is Russian-style broken English). (Someone will probably point out that every complaint about spelling and grammar must include a new mistake. It’s a law of the Internet.)
Lathechuck
Lathechuck, thanks for the correction-it’s now updated. Yup, got drilled on it’s=it is a long time ago, but fingers sometimes do their own thing…
Again, thanks!
“errors”
JMG’s “Twilight’s Last gleaming” is highly recommended. Parallels what is happening in the Mideast.
https://social.infogalactic.com/images/posts/85c1d496-d41d-4639-a5f1-177c90cf9c8e/original-89442c562790c8e444093f6a86524e3a.jpg?v=63883651728
Your orb meme made me think of this one.
Ha! Rob liked one of my tweets, once. Love the meme!
” the collapse of the casual dining”
Over the last few years I’ve gone out to decent restaurants with the boomer dad several times. The waitstaff is generally 20+ years younger than me, yet I’m the youngest customer…
As the boomers and their fixed incomes (e.g., SS) disappear, casual dining will disappear even faster than it already is.
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WWW: ” we’re standing on the edge of a new land ready to be born”
Gramsci: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”
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addendum:
As has been mentioned here before, Tainter’s “Collapse of Complex Societies” is very apropos of this topic.
A great example of catabolic collapse was how in the 1950s Eisenhower declared a US autobahn was a matter of National Security, waved his hand, and it happened. When the bridges, JUST the bridges, hit their 50 year lifespan a while ago, there was no talk of rebuilding them. It simply wasn’t affordable. Then someone figured out you could reverse some of the rusting of the rebar by running electric current through, which kicked the can down the road a ways.
1950: build the whole freakin’ interstate system without a ripple in the greater economy.
2010: can’t even rebuild the bridges, only african-american rig them to last another decade or 2.
Exactly. We can’t maintain what we built.
I think so. Home cooking is back, and soon enough gardens.
Up here in your old stomping grounds we lost the Chili’s a few years ago and the Denny’s didn’t make it through Covid. Those were the only chain casual dining that were here over the last decade. The non-chain ones are doing fine, especially ones with a bar like the Oasis, but even C&J Drive-in is still doing good business.
Not seeing near the issues up here as I read about down there but, like always we are fairly disconnected and since our economy is 90% oil and government projects we tend to be out of phase with the rest of the country, high oil prices are good for us.
Still, I am seeing a lot more bums and junkies then in the past. They are all pretty much the crazies and druggies type (well and the same natives that have always been here) as there isn’t anyone who “can’t get a job”, everyone is hiring and can’t get enough workers, driving by Wendy’s the other day I saw they were advertising $17.50/hr. starting.
Nooooo! I remember eating at the “Farthest North Denny’s In The World!” Food Factory still in business?
Yep, switched owners a few years back, I haven’t been there in a while, I still remember when it sold pizza.
Wow. This did lead to some good memories…
John, the next wave (I suspect) will be those restaurants and stores that appeal to a demographic that can afford their wares. Chain restaurants and stores tend to hit the less economically well off; when the medium to higher end ones starting falling – $100-$150 for dinner for two or stores where getting out under $75 is unusual – then we will be much, much closer.
THB – In my case it’s the Ultra High End. When traffic in Charleston & Beaufort SC (my residences) declines, it’s the end. Still strong as of today.
A drop off in Charlotte (do 90% of my biz there) is another harbinger, as it’s banker heaven. BOA, Truist, Ally, & lots of Wells, who might be deserting Cali for CLT. No decline as of Tuesday.
ATL always dies early, too many dumb Yankees. It’s headed south there now.
Oh – lots of sorties tonight from Parris Island & the Beaufort MCAS. The dawgs dark at then. Lost F-35, who knows.
Went to a Slightly Larger City and the steak house had early bird specials. They’re hurting.