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were produced on a mass basis, they would crash the electric grid -
assuming that the masses could afford to buy them, which assumes a lot.
We simply don't have the electric generating capacity to run even
one-quarter of the current car fleet on volts, and building the
necessary nuclear or coal-fired power plants in five years is also an
absurdity. (Don't expect wind, solar, biomass, or anything else to pick
up the slack.) If electric cars were produced as just a niche product
for the elite (for example, Goldman Sachs employees), they would soon
provoke the resentment of the non-elite left to the mercy of the oil
markets.

Anyway, America's motoring dilemma has gone beyond the issue of how we
power the cars - and even beyond the insanity of blindly maintaining
our extreme car dependency per se. The continuation of Happy Motoring
now hinges on two other big quandaries: (1) the likelihood that there
will be far less capital available for car loans, and (2) the
likelihood that there will be far less government money for road
maintenance. The problem of Peak Oil - and the prospect of
price-jackings and shortages - is just the cherry on top.

By the way, for practical purposes Bob Lutz of GM is an employee of the
US taxpayers now, since the US owns sixty percent of the "new" General
Motors, so he must be considered a spokesman for national policy. Since
a transformation of the US car fleet to electric vehicles is absurd,
what would be an appropriate response to profound economic contraction?
How about walkable communities connected by public transit? Why is that
not a focus of the "new" General Motors? In 1941 the company made the
transformation from cars to armaments in a matter of months; why can't
it produce the rolling stock for a renewed passenger rail system? Or
trams? Is this not enough of a crisis? The answer is that there is no
leadership in this direction. If President Obama declared this to be a
policy objective, and stuck to it for more than one business day, he
could drag the sleepwalking American public in this direction, and the
rest of national leadership in government, business, and media with it.

This kind of thing is what prompts casual observers to wonder if the
president is a cynical shill for business as usual, or a victim of the
worst conventional thinking with no real vision, or just another
clueless sleepwalking bozo with a charming veneer.

In circles that pass for "progressive" these days, the natives are
getting restless. Their agitation seems pretty inchoate for the moment
- still resting on vague, poorly-defined wishes for "change". These
vague promptings need to be focused on specific action that is
realistic within the context of comprehensive contraction and
transformation. A big piece of this would be the recognition that our
suburban sprawl economy is dying, and that we now have to bend our
efforts to reorganizing American life on the most fundamental physical
terms. We have to inhabit the landscape differently, move around it
differently, generate food out of it differently, and make things on it
again. Whatever remaining real capital there is in the system can't be
squandered on cash bonuses for Wall Street employees.

I'm not ready to capitulate to cynicism. There is something in the
political wind this summer. I think events will force Mr Obama to
assert some real leadership and take the national debate on our
predicament in another direction, even if it is an uncomfortable
direction for him and everybody else. Despite the massive
disappointment being expressed by so many Obama voters these days, I
believe the president will redeem himself before long.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced over the weekend that he will
commence an investigation into the Bush regime's misconduct with
terrorism suspects. His department is capable of running more than one
investigation at a time. Why doesn't President Obama direct him to open
an investigation of Goldman Sachs's behavior in the area of securities
fraud, insider trading, and misuse of goverment funds? Without an
official inquiry into financial misconduct of this company, and others,
I believe public anger will overwhelm any attempts to transform our
contracting economy and the president's ability to manage it.

_____

My new novel of the post-oil future, World Made By Hand, is available
at all booksellers.

http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/07/wobble-time.html


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