Author, social critic, and raconteur James Howard Kunstler joins me again for the first time in a while. I wanted to go ‘off grid’ after a bunch of technical, finance-focused episodes and pull back to the bigger picture. No one better than Jim for this as we both note just how silly the whole “EV Revolution” looks from a perspective that isn’t high on the fumes coming from globalist backsides.
Show Notes:
Kunstler’s Site
Kunstler’s Blog – Clusterfuck Nation
Kunslter on Twitter
Previous Episodes:
Podcast Episode #156 – Caitlin Long and the Lingering Questions Over Fed Crypto Policy
Podcast Episode #155 — Chris Sullivan and the Road Map Through the Monetary Crisis
Podcast Episode #154 — Vince Lanci and Why Gold is the New Black
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Personally the capacity to entertain civil conversations with people who I think are fundamentally wrong.
Sorry… Personally, I lack the capacity to have a civil discussion with someone when I disagree with them so fundamentally. The future is inherently uncertain and nobody should have rigid, fixed ideas of what it will be. It’s fluid and you make a future by talking about what you value. I value moving about not being limited like a dof on a chain to a walkable circumference.
I dont think people in America will ever give up their relationship with personal transportation. There’s a car gene and an anti-city gene in all Americans that don’t already live in big cities.
The premise behind the “cars will go away” trope is that transportation fuel will become uneconomic to produce. At this stage, that idea is just bunk. There’s no such evidence, and the cost of fuel today is as heavily influenced by the same type of regs driving up the cost of cars. Compare gasoline to natural gas. I’m paying $.56/therm for the nat gas. For the majority of the year, I pay more for admin and pipeline fees than for the fuel.
Reserves are defined to be economically recoverable resources. There are no projections for the end of economically recoverable resources. When we do figure out the limits, well, then we have a responsibility to plan a transition so we dont starve the future of energy. Until then, we’re not going back to trains, busses, stage coaches, horses, and Benjamin Franklin marathon walking.
If you want to see the mid term future, and you expect a bleak economy, you might go to Viet Nam where cars and fuel are far less affordable for the average person. There, you see vast motorbike swarms. If you’re adventurous and brave enough, like me, you can get on one of those things and ride from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. On a small motorcycle, 125 or 250 cc, you can go much further.
I can’t imagine a life in America, of all places, being limited to one place. This isn’t Europe and losing the ability to travel other than by hanging off trains like Indians is dystopian as hell. I hope America has more pride than that.
Jim Kunstler comes across as a car-hating Malthusian. Had this podcast lasted any longer, I would have expected him to get an opportunity to harp on about the importance of combating “climate change”…
I don’t want to just rant w/o providing an alternative. Interview Randall O’Toole instead. https://ti.org/antiplanner/
Listening to Jim Kunstler made my blood boil! I couldn’t even listen to the whole podcast. Tom, what possessed you to speak with this Communist? Kunstler completely ignores the concept of private property. Like all Communists, he thinks all land and property is public and therefore under the jurisdiction of urban planners. I feel bushwhacked by attempting to listen to this guy.