Coming To Your Town

Americans like to think we have it good and that homelessness is not something that happens to good and decent people. That might have been somewhat true at one point but it isn't today. CNN has a story today about women who have lost their homes in the current economic downturn and are forced to live in their cars with what few belongings they could muster and often times their pets along for the ride. No more is the homeless situation relegated to the drunks and drug addicts, no, today it has a distinctively middle class feel to it and it's only going to get worse.



We are entering a new age, one in which constant economic growth is no longer possible. There simply isn't enough cheap energy to fuel the growth that we have become used to. So what does this mean? Well, the current housing and credit crisis is only just the beginning, a glimpse into what lies ahead as the global economy, including our very own, goes into a permanent depression, one that never ends and simply gets worse and worse with each passing year. We long ago passed the point of preventing this, it's possible it wouldn't have mattered, but the point is, now is too late to start worrying about how we prosper in a low energy world. Now is the time to start worrying if we will even survive this new world.

Few things in life scare me but this does. The world as we know it is on the verge of monumental change and things are going to get very ugly before they get better. As oil surgers ever higher and becomes ever scarcer, as natural gas depletion continues and population continues to climb, all the ingredients for disaster are coming together nicely and when they all mix just right, we aren't quite there yet, God help us all. Anyways, this woman that they feature in the article lives in Santa Barbara, California, one of the nations most expensive cities. She's currently working for $8 an hour, not enough to rent an apartment there, but more than enough to get by in the flyover part of the country. It's hitting places like California first but make no mistake, it's coming to a city near you.