Entries Tagged 'economic collapse' ↓
February 27th, 2010 — energy, climate change, taxes, economic collapse, Obama, geology, Latin America, secession, media, U.S. Constitution, disaster preparedness, PSA, history, 1389, government spending, 1389 Message Blog, American South, politics
Is central US prepared for a major earthquake?
While earthquakes sometimes kill people directly through mudslides and flooding, most earthquake deaths are actually caused by collapsing infrastructure; hence the oft-repeated statement, “Earthquakes don’t kill people, bad buildings do.” The earthquake body count, and the depth and breadth of hardship and economic disruption, depend on the level of earthquake preparedness. Up-to-date and well-enforced building codes, appropriate infrastructure, and well-equipped disaster response teams minimize the impact of earthquakes.
Windybon recently commented on the Grouchy Conservative Pundits forum, comparing the January 12, 2010 magnitude 7 earthquake in Haiti to the February 27, 2010 magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile:
Yes, that’s huge, but you’re going to see the difference between a country that is prepared for earthquakes (Chile) and one that isn’t (Haiti).
I replied:
The central U.S. isn’t.
I’m wondering what will happen when stresses that have accumulated around the New Madrid fault zone erupt again, either directly on the fault itself or elsewhere in the central US.
The central US terrain transmits seismic forces a considerable distance, so that any major earthquake could cause widespread destruction. There are natural gas pipelines, densely populated areas, and busy transportation corridors, including the Mississippi River itself, close to the fault zone. Much of the infrastructure has not been earthquake-hardened.
The 1811-1812 earthquakes were fearsome, but caused comparatively little damage, owing to the sparse population and almost nonexistent infrastructure in the region at that time.
New Madrid Seismic Zone
1812 New Madrid Earthquake
Uncovering Hidden Hazards in the Mississippi Valley
St. Louis University Earthquake Center
Southern Illinois University New Madrid Earthquake Information Pages
Fastac 6’s reply was telling:
Say goodbye to Chicago, St. Louis, and Indianapolis. None built for quakes, whatever that really means.
New Madrid fault is the basis for the 2011 national disaster drill. As a planner, let me be the first to say: we’d all be f—-d. A “Katrina level” event, and then some.
The lessons of history
Indeed, Chile has made the effort to prepare itself for seismic activity following the catastrophic magnitude 9.5 Valdivia earthquake in 1960, which is the strongest earthquake yet recorded. The epicenter of the Valdivia quake was not far from that of the 2010 quake, which was just offshore of the Maule Region.
When it comes to earthquakes, history does tend to repeat itself, though not always on a predictable time frame. There is evidence of a previous severe earthquake and flood in Valdivia in 1575, and of several subsequent, somewhat lesser earthquakes.
“What, me worry?”
It’s human nature to look for excuses to ignore situations that are difficult to deal with. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article, New Madrid fault no problem, geophysicists Seth Stein and Eric Calais say, reports that these two scientists claim that the New Madrid fault is shutting down, so that it isn’t worth the expense to strengthen the infrastructure in the fault zone. But other scientists warn that Stein and Calais base their conclusion on too little evidence:
“Politicians don’t get re-elected spending lots of money on an event that may not happen in the next 50 years — until Katrina,” said geologist Gary Patterson of the University of Memphis’ Center for Earthquake Research and Information, known as CERI. “That absolutely changed the paradigm.”
The New Madrid situation is further complicated by the lack of scientific agreement on what the new findings mean.
“I’d hate to stick my own neck out and say there’s not going to be [another] earthquake” in the fault zone, said seismologist and CERI director Charles Langston. “That’s really a radical statement, based on a piece of data that has other interpretations.”
…
Other scientists aren’t convinced Stein and Calais are right about the New Madrid. Several note that GPS readings in China showed similarly slight intraplate movements before the devastating Sichuan quake last August, which killed 69,000.
Yes, worry!
A careful reading of that same article reveals that Stein and Calais never actually claimed that there is no earthquake risk, but rather, that the seismic action could occur in the nearby Wabash fault zone instead of on the New Madrid fault itself:
Assuming Stein and Calais are right, where might the New Madrid strain migrate? What fault system would be the next to switch on, and when? The researchers don’t know.
“One would think that the most likely place is to move up north into either southern Illinois or southern Indiana,” Stein said. He and Calais are working with other researchers on a computer model that may help show what’s going on.
As the above map suggests, that’s certainly close enough for discomfort to major populated areas and transportation corridors. I am not a seismologist, but I would suggest that the seismic risk warrants further investigation in both the New Madrid and Wabash fault regions.
So any way you slice it, there’s a significant seismic risk in the central US, and residents and business owners in those states need to think about how to cope with it.
Federal boondoggles bleed money and attention away from real priorities
Not long ago, the New Madrid fault enjoyed a brief flurry of attention in the media and the trade press. I remember seeing a very informative show, part of the Mega-Disasters series on The History Channel, about present-day seismic dangers in the New Madrid fault zone. But as of this writing, only a cursory mention of the 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquake - and no mention of the Mega-Disasters episode - is on their website.
The July 2007 issue of TVPPA News, which describes itself as the magazine for electric system management in the Tennessee Valley, featured an article entitled “New Madrid: Is the Valley Quake-Ready?”
When Don Drumm and several of his TVA colleagues dealt with a New Madrid fault earthquake late last year, it was only a drill. The consequence of the real thing, he said, could be described with one word. “I wouldn’t call it catastrophic,” he said. “I’d call it cataclysmic.”
As far as I have been able to determine, earthquake preparedness in the New Madrid zone has departed from the public’s radar screen. Little or nothing is being said about it at present. One obvious reason is that the pre-Climategate campaign against “global warming,” the current economic depression, and the misnamed “economic stimulus” tax-and-spend program, have bled away both attention and available funds.
With all the deceptive fanfare about the “economic stimulus money” that was supposed to be spent on “shovel-ready infrastructure projects” throughout the US, I have heard absolutely no mention whatsoever of any plans to strengthen the buildings, highways, rail corridors, fuel pipelines, and other infrastructure in the vicinity of New Madrid. Taxpayers’ money is being squandered on all manner of ridiculous, irrelevant, and counterproductive causes and beneficiaries - everything from bailing out Wall Street arch-criminals to nonexistent “green jobs” to crippling what’s left of domestic industry by enacting draconian regulations against “global warming.” There was never any intention of allowing states and cities, much less private companies and organizations, to set their own priorities regarding how best to prepare for the future.
Crying wolf
As readers of my other blog already know, the recent “Climategate” scandal has eroded the credibility of the scientific community in general. The long and the short of it is that the “powers that be” in the scientific community have been caught “crying wolf” for several decades. So when scientists tell us to account for seismic risks in our plans to build or upgrade infrastructure in the central US, it’s no surprise that financially beleaguered cities, states, contractors, utility companies, and other corporations and organizations ignore their warnings and go on with “business as usual.”
The answer? State sovereignty and local privatization
We need to oust the federal government from control over our finances, our commerce (including, but not limited to, health care), and our disaster preparedness. At the VERY least, we need a Constitutional amendment to repeal the flagrantly abused “commerce clause.” I do not believe that this is enough. I see the need for dismantling the federal government once and for all, in much the same way as the former Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. The federal government has failed in all of the duties for which it was originally formed. Even the smallest of the individual States are big enough to take care of themselves. It’s time for a new “velvet divorce” - stateside version. The way to get there without bloodshed is by educating people, and that is what this blog aims to do.
Watch this space for more on this topic!
Dixie flag flies as a symbol of liberty as the Berlin Wall comes down
February 21st, 2010 — taxes, media, George Soros, economic collapse, secession, evil, IT profession, American South, military, politics, U.S. Congress, the human condition, 1389, blogging
Desperate Unemployed Software Engineer Attacks IRS Office Building
By now, many readers will have heard the news story about pilot Joseph Stack having crashed a small plane into the IRS office building in Austin Texas (for details, see Fox News, Pilot Crashes Into Texas Building in Apparent Anti-IRS Suicide.)
The Inevitable Media Reaction
Whenever anything like this happens, the same kinds of articles tend to appear in the media and on blogs. There are the articles that, often with a self-righteous tone, wax eloquent about the horrific nature of the act, the despicable character of the attacker, and (often) the pristine innocence of the victims. Given that the victims in this event were IRS employees, little has been said about them in the media.
Then there are those other articles that sympathize with the attacker’s motives, ideology, or political stance, but condemn the attacker’s use of violence. Here again, I haven’t seen much of that this time around. Joseph Stack’s manifesto encompassed such a mixed bag of grievances, accusations, and quotations that it is impossible to tell where in the political spectrum he was coming from. I suspect that he himself had no clear idea.
Finally, there are articles calling out for more and more government legislation, regulation, or law enforcement to prevent any similar incidents from occuring in the future. In this instance, there were acknowledgements that it is all but impossible to prevent this type of suicide attack, but no amount of reasoning or common sense ever seems to stop the flood of demands for draconian repressive measures.
The “Powers That Be” Knew Something Like This Was Bound To Happen
No matter where you live in the world, you know that the worldwide economy has been bad for over two years, and there is no improvement in sight. The rot started in the US, largely due to actions on the part of the US government and various corrupt oligarchs, such as George Soros. The collapse and supposed “bailout” were engineered by various corrupt politicians and financiers to take money out of our pockets and put it into their own. Everything done by the US Congress and the Obama administration has served only to deepen the depression. From here, the economic rot has spread worldwide; two notable examples are Iceland and Greece.
Then there’s the issue of the U.S. economy having been hollowed out by outsourcing, offshoring, and the H-1b visa program. This has had a particularly devastating effect on the American middle class in general, and the American IT worker in particular.
Even with the real unemployment rate in many areas of the US matching or exceeding that of the 1930s Great Depression, it is truly scandalous that the H-1b program remains in effect. This insures that any effort on the part of American IT workers to get jobs, or to retrain themselves for future jobs in the industry, are doomed to come to naught.
The H-1b program never had anything to do with aiding the competitiveness of US firms in global markets; that ship sailed away years ago. Instead, the H-1b program is simply a testimony to the power of multinational technology megabusinesses to deceive, corrupt, and intimidate US elected officials. (Please see IT Business Edge: AFL-CIO Report Takes Critical Look at H-1B Visa Program for more on this issue.)
How is this relevant to the story? The attacker, Joseph Stack, was an unemployed IT worker who was also bedeviled by a long battle with the IRS and, apparently, ensuing difficulties with his home life. I would like to point out that the overwhelming majority of people faced with such situations never “go postal” or resort to any form of violence. But the US government has enough statistics and historical data at its disposal to know that, whenever a large group of people is pushed too far into desperation, a tiny percentage of them will go over the edge.
Let me make it clear that I am NOT claiming that anybody connected with the US government knew ahead of time that this particular individual, Joseph Stack, would do what he did. I said no such thing, nor did I mean to imply it. But I do intend to say that the US government knew that it was only a matter of time before someone whose life had been destroyed by government policies would commit a high-profile violent act.
The “Powers That Be” Could Have Prevented It Without Repressive Measures
The US Congress and the Obama administration could cut unemployment significantly just by eliminating the H-1b program, but they do not. Part of the reason why H-1b remains in effect is simply because the Obama administration not only is thoroughly corrupt, but also is engaged in a covert war to disempower, plunder, and eventually eliminate most of the US middle class. In other words, the Obama administration is not going to do anything to help out a segment of the population that does not provide the Democrat party with significant political or financial support.
But that’s not the only reason. Whenever anyone who is not part of the administration’s political support base reacts to oppression by becoming violent, this violent act provides those in power with a convenient excuse both to discredit their political opponents and to increase government control by cracking down on everybody by any means available.
If Violence Is Not The Answer, What Is?
Supposed “democratic election” or no, recent polls in the US have made it clear that neither the Obama administration nor the US Congress enjoy the consent of the governed, in any sense of the word. The US economy remains in free fall with no recovery in sight, and with the levels of debt and irresponsible spending being what they are, little possibility of recovery in the lifetime of anybody old enough to read this blog. Glenn Beck proclaimed that we don’t need a revolution; we’ve already had one. He is correct that we don’t need a “revolution” in that sense, but incorrect that we have already had one. The American Revolution in 1776 was not really a revolution in the usual sense, but a war of secession. What we need now is not revolution, but secession, and not just one secession, but perhaps fifty of them. And if enough people understand what they want, secession need not involve bloodshed.
Keep watching this blog for more about secession.
Here we go again, this time with the “Pentagon Shooter”
Michelle Malkin has the story here: About the Pentagon shooter - Update: Stop playing games, MSM. John Patrick Bedell was a registered Democrat
January 9th, 2009 — economic collapse, corruption, graphic arts, FAIL, India, crime, IT profession, U.S. law, fraud, tech industry, Sarbanes-Oxley, humor
Click thumbnail to view original, then click again to view full size. The text is worth a closer look.
What a tragic irony!
In case you haven’t heard, Satyam was the fourth-largest IT outsourcing company in India, with 55,000 employees (or so they claimed). The CEO, Ramalinga Raju, recently resigned after admitting massive financial fraud. As of this writing, the company is almost out of cash.
Here we go again…
Satyam has done business with companies and governments in over 60 countries, including the U.S. This scandal appears to be even larger in scope than the Enron/Arthur Andersen scandal of late 2001. Price Waterhouse, the Indian subsidiary of PricewaterhouseCoopers, is facing close scrutiny over having signed off on Satyam’s audits.
Obviously, the much-touted Sarbanes-Oxley law enacted after the Enron/Arthur Andersen debacle did nothing to prevent the recent collapse of the U.S. real estate, stock market, and financial sector. The take-home lesson is that once any corporation becomes multinational in scope, and politically well-connected, no laws, no regulations, no bureaucratic restructuring can possibly keep it honest if its management chooses to do otherwise.
Another reason why outsourcing is wrong
Outsourcing and offshoring are always and everywhere the enemies of accountability. The further away one’s trading partners are located, the harder it is to comprehend what they are up to, and that will never change.
Why corporate cheating is contagious
Whenever one major company in an industry has been “cooking the books” to promote or exaggerate its own success, what effect do you suppose that has? Think about it! Every other executive, every other company in that industry will be pressured to match or exceed the cheater’s inflated results, by fair means or foul, or face the wrath of board members and stockholders.
Some news links and other sources:
Perhaps some of this would be funny if it were not so sad.
Note: The screen capture was taken by 1389AD from www.satyam.com, shortly after the announcement. The pixelated area was blurred in the original.
December 9th, 2008 — 2008 US Elections, economic collapse, graphic arts, FAIL, Photoshop, MSM corruption, humor, politics, Europe, photos
…the sun is about to set.
As you already know, I had little to say about the 2008 US presidential election because, then as now, I regarded both of the candidates, and all their pomps and all their works, as beneath comment.
Even before the election, it was obvious to me that the winning candidate would someday deeply regret having run for that office. Let me go on record that I stand by that prediction.
It has often been claimed that no one can win a thermonuclear war. Be that as it may, there is no question that it is easy enough to lose one! In similar fashion, becoming president of the US at this time is just as clearly a no-win scenario for the perpetrator and all his retinue.
Despite all the empty promises from both sides, there is simply nothing that any US president could do at this point to effect a recovery. A recovery would have to happen on its own, and every day that goes by, it seems that we have less and less to build on, in terms of civil and industrial infrastructure, a functioning civil society, and an informed citizenry.
The mass media and what we call our educational system seem to be doing everything they can to keep the citizenry from figuring out what their supposed betters are about. Oh, and by the way, everything I have just said about the plight of the US goes double for the EU.
The scope of the problem
See for yourself what already happened to a part of the US that lost its productive capacity:
With trees growing up through abandoned buildings, large parts of Detroit have already come to resemble scenes from the grim speculative documentary Life After People.
By now, the US economic decline has spread far beyond Detroit and the Rust Belt.
Think about it: When was the last time you saw the label “Made in USA” on any product, good or bad?
And no, it is not possible to sustain a “service economy” without a viable manufacturing infrastructure. Not that there is a service economy to sustain - the real estate bubble has already burst, the remains of our financial sector are being artificially propped up with money that we do not have and cannot earn, and much of our service sector employment has already been outsourced! It should surprise no one that the unemployment picture is considerably worse than the official figures would lead us to believe (see The really, really bad news about the unemployment rate). Newspapers throughout the US report that state and local tax revenues are shrinking due to declining income and property values.
What is left?
I recently heard yet another self-styled pundit of the US employment scene recommending three areas where there still seem to be some jobs for Americans. The only available jobs are in health care, education, and government work - because they cannot be outsourced.
Wow.
Will someone please explain to me who is going to pay for this health care, education, and government work? Does anyone care to predict what will happen after we go into debt to educate the next generation, knowing that there will be no jobs for them after they finish school?
Where do we go from here?
Good question.
And yes, I do have an answer! My point in posting this is that we need to understand exactly what our problems are, and the true extent of our difficulties, before we can even begin to address them.
What’s the next step? We need to stop wasting tax dollars on bailing out Wall Street. Instead, we need to bring our industrial base back to the US. We need to repeal the tax laws and ever-proliferating regulations that have been strangling US businesses or driving them overseas. We need to make it much simpler and more cost-effective for businesses, especially smaller businesses, to provide jobs for US citizens. That’s the only government “stimulus package” that will work.
No, it is not all under our control. But we can keep the faith and do our best to help each other. As Bishop Antoun of the Antiochian Orthodox Church recently told us, “The Lord will provide.”
Click on any of the above thumbnail images to view the original.
When the image gallery page appears, click again on the thumbnail to see the full-size image.
A large collection of art by 1389, including photography, digital art, and some new fractal images, is available at my online gallery.
Look for free desktop wallpaper, and free tools and textures for Photoshop and GIMP!
