IF/THEN:
IF... yes IF... guys and gals like me, Jimmy Kuntsler, Dmitri Orlov, Jeffrey Brown, Sharon Astyk, John Michael Greer, Robert Rapier, Gail Tverberg, Jay Hanson, Saif Lalani, Mike Shedlock and Web sites like LATOC, TheOilDrum, and EnergyBulletin, et al, are correct and we are in the beginning throws of energy decent... and that the painful contraction in the economy is at least partly due to this, as well as the end of credit expansion, and that this will continue over the next decade or 2 until we are essentially out of "common use" oil...
THEN...
It makes no sense to extend unemployment benefits or the housing credit, or to enact another stimulus plan... people living in the West, particularly America and Europe need to accept what jobs there are - be they picking strawberries or shoveling snow; need to accept that they may need to live with roommates or family rather than by themselves in spacious and private homes or apartments; need to accept public transportation, walking, and car pooling, gardening, no health insurance etc... especially "health insurance". What would make you think that we can have free healthcare and free unlimited end of life care while going through the End of the Age of Oil? Does that make any sense whatsoever?
Many of the folks I mentioned have been publishing for years that this was in the cards. Yet when I read many their posts (not all are guilty... Orlov and the MS have no problem telling you you are going to be making some adjustments) and articles many continue to blame the (fill-in-the-blank) rather than tell their readers that, speaking in the Macro, we are all just better off getting used to the new environment. That would mean ending government programs that do nothing but delay the inevitable at GREAT expense. (Of course, if you are an unrepentant capitalist... just keep hustling your a$$ off.)
Because IT is HAPPENING!! The level of denial from the folks that predicted this IN THE FIRST PLACE is really quite astounding. Continuing to rail against the "rich" or the Republicans or Wall Street or greedy CEO's as we see the Liberal Media and the Left doing... is silly. They are going to get wiped out, too! Here's why: All that money that folks "owe"? They ain't paying it back! And guess who they "owe" that money to? The "rich". Well, the "rich" are no longer "rich" if everybody defaults on the bonds the "rich" own. The new "rich" will be folks that own different assets than today's "rich" own, though we might argue what they might be or how much would be necessary to be classified as rich.
The decline in Oil imports that the U.S. has experienced over the last 3 years, about 2.5 million bpd, AIN'T coming back. We have a serious problem in Nat Gas coming, and Oil imports are going to continue their inexorable decline. As a result, the economy is going to contract in "real terms". Period. There are going to be more people living in a home than has been the case in 40 or 50 years. Fewer people are going to have access to a car. More people are going to have to accept jobs that are not terribly rewarding, however you define that, and get over their resentments, and plenty of folks will have no job at all until they accept the new reality - which for many folks means taking whatever you can get.
Did I mention that sometime in the next year California is going to default and need a massive Federal bailout? And that Illinois and New York are right behind them?
These dots are right there for you to connect. It is my opinion that many big insiders, like Senators Bayh and Judd, are quitting and distancing themselves from the coming political conflagration. Actually, that's not correct... that is not an opinion, that is a fact - as was stated by both Senators when the announced their retirement.
No, you won't be able to tell which day "IT" happened. "IT" has already happened to millions of folks and many of them don't even know it. "IT" is here, and "IT" is going to grind its way through to each and every one of us. Fighting "IT" won't help any more than swimming away from a shipwreck a thousand miles from land... where you going, anyway?
If you have the resources this is the time to trade them for the things that will have value. If you don't have the resources, get used to the environment I mentioned above.