Poignant essay. I grew up in western New York. It's sad to realize the economy there peaked when I was 11 years old. It's all down hill now. hang onto the things that matter and perhaps we'll get through this.

A heart-breaking read, Gerard. I live in a strange little bubble. Construction is booming, work seems plentiful. New box stores are building and opening. Even the mall seems like it's booming. At least on the surface. We aren't plagued with illegal aliens. We have all kinds of manufacturing and tourism, but you are right. The leviathan of that unseen coming just fills us with dread. Our good times aren't going to last, and when it hits here, after having already ravaged the towns to the east and north and west of us, it will hit like a sledgehammer.

When a relative employed by the federal government moaned about the potential government shutdown, calling it an "unpaid vacation", I had to remind him the private sector has been on unpaid vacation for a couple of years now. Then I posed the question to him, "I wonder why the Democrats didn't balance the budget while they had a super-majority?" I don't think he got it. He's just glad his cushy public sector lifestyle wasn't interrupted. Meanwhile, here in the real world...

We need more things like this http://techshop.ws/locations.html and like this: http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Main_Page and more events like this:
http://makerfaire.com/

Like Jewel, I live in a bubble, or -- more accurately -- the belly of the leviathan itself: Washington, DC.

We have no recession here, because we are impoverishing the rest of the nation to enrich ourselves.

Unlike RedCarolina's relative, I wouldn't have had a problem with a "shutdown," since I had worked for years as a contractor with unpaid vacations thrown in the mix. A shutdown would have meant that all us "non-essential" workers would have been sent home for a few days. If we're non-essential, then why are we here?

The leviathan is the oh, so correct, environmental gang who want to go back to eating grass and shitting in holes in the ground. Here are some examples:

I see that the State Dept. has finally (After two years consideration.)approved the XL pipeline to bring oil sands oil from Canada to Houston, Texas. This is a much needed addition to our oil gathering and refining needs. The pipeline would also provide 20,000 good paying jobs.

Guess what? Today the EPA filed to block the construction for further environmental study. Read about it here:
http://www.thirdage.com/news/oil-sands-pipeline-epa-seeks-extended-review_06-07-2011

In the Permian Basin of West Texas, the Fish and Wildlife Service is in the process of declaring the Sand Dunes Lizard endangered. If this happens, it will destroy thousands of good paying oil industry jobs and bar access to millions of barrels of oil in the two richest oil producing counties in the continental U.S.
Read about it here:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/commentary/article/West-Texas-oil-industry-suffers-case-of-reptile-1408757.php

These are just two examples of the way this leviathan is actively destroying jobs and making the energy situation worse. They have done the same to manufacturing. Taken to their desired ened state, it means poverty for all.

Taken to their desired ened state, it means poverty for all.

Not quite, we "Federales" living in the Black Hole by the Potomac will continue to prosper for quite some time after the collapse.

My suggestion? If things get much worse, then people from the Real America that is hardest hit set up squatter camps in the general Washington Metro Area. The Mall is a good place to start. 'Twixt the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, and then on up to Capitol Hill, a sea of recvs, trailers and tents would be a stark reminder of the reality.

My suggestion is secession. The states need to start telling the Feds to go fuck themselves, and soon.

"The states need to start telling the Feds to go fuck themselves, and soon."

They are, rickl. Arizona, and others passing laws to help the Feds enforce illegal immigration against the Feds wishes. 37 some states are suing successfully (so far) over mandatory health insurance. The beat will continue as long as the Obamaites continue to screw this economy and we citizens keep pushing.

The AG in Washington state is part of the health care suit, much to the displeasure of our Governor. I sent him a campaign donation and praised his stand. I've contributed money to Arizona's fund to defend against the Feds suit.

They have to hear from us, the citizens.

I write to my democrap congressman (Rick Larsen) regularly and tell him how he is screwing up. He doesn't like it, because he sends me these long form letters explaining how it's all for the children. Oh, how I'd like to get him out of there in 2012. I'll be working for that for the next 16 months.

When the beastie broaches, the lampposts in DC will be decorated with the worthless. That is just the start; the FREE LUNCH CROWD will take to the streets and not to find work either. What powers will deal with that mess, the Racist Right?

Remember the interregnum between the 2010 elections and the start of the new Congress? What happened then.
Imagine Obama losing on 11/12 and being in office until 1/19/13. How many more fiats will be issued stabbing businesses and the economy.

"the lampposts in DC will be decorated with the worthless"
In your dreams, and in mine. I won't be there to lift the worthless to their deserved fate, if that happens, because I live 3,000 miles away.
Speaking of which, it's high time we move the District of Columbia someplace more centrally located, for instance, Kansas City. I'm sick and tired of being so physically isolated from the political power center of the country while their power over me is just, for them, a phone call away.

I wish Leviathan was lurking underneath waiting to break up our sick concoction of a vessel. But Leviathan is above us. Worse still than the millions who work at the levers behind the curtain, many drones were raised in its vocabulary and are at home in it's shadow.

We will look in vain through history for a democracy which ended in a bang and not an extended whimper. But as my man Alexis saw. "Americans have applied remedies which none but themselves had thought of before to those evils they share with all democratic nations, and although they were first to try them out, they have succeeded. The greatness of America lies in her ability to repair her faults."

Well, ain't this a bright ray of sunshine to start the day!

It's worse than you think: millions of baby boomers are going to be retiring at an accelerating pace between now and 2035 or so, when the number of retired boomers will start to decrease. (In 2025, the media boomer's age will be 70, but longevity will be longer. It will take some time for the mortality rate to start to decrease our numbers.)

Think what that will do to the stock market as we boomers start to cash in our equity investments. There are going to be massive outflows of cash from equities into boomers' pockets to pay for our retirement centers, medical costs and lifestyle maintenance.

Because the generations after the boomers are poorer than the boomers ever were, this outflow is not going to be matched by inflow, not by a long shot. Overall, the value of equity-backed companies will fall, no matter what happens to their productivity.

Anyone younger than 50 today is going to get clobbered if you keep investing for your retirement with the old "buy and hold" method of investing in funds or stocks.

Poetry. Sheer, melancholy poetry.

"This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant; I act under orders."

Moby-Dick

"Think what that will do to the stock market as we boomers start to cash in our equity investments..."

Well Donald, after the Poobah-in-Chief gets finished with the economy, what will be left of those IRA and 101(k) retirements to cash out?

And so the Grand Social Experiment of Wilson, Roosevelt et al comes to its inevitable conclusion.

...the Grand Social Experiment of Wilson, Roosevelt et al comes to its inevitable conclusion.
Not soon enough!

Sadly I live in one of those communities so well described in this post. Vacant houses everywhere, The city hiring bankruptcy specialists.

You've read all about us in Forbes and the Times. We are so desperate for jobs that we have 6 (soon to be 7) state prisons here. The other cities and counties dump their garbage here, then they point their finger and make fun of our crime rate.

The department of corrections dumps it's sex offenders here, classifies them as transient and tells us they don't know where they are. There are 150 halfway houses and coming soon a new prison hospital so convicted felons can get medical care unavaliable to the law abiding citizens who used to work in all the factories here.

At one time we were the second largest industrial city in the state. Global companies started here. Equipment built here is still earning money all over the world. I worked for 40 years in a company that would be 100 this year if it still existed. The state took away our raw material because of environmental concerns.

I just saw a product the company I worked for made on television. Happens all the time. The city is on it's way to a new murder record this year. People get mugged in the best shopping center. And it all happened in 40 years. OK, Fed up, done here.

I just heard on Chicago talk radio: a Republican congressman that retained his seat, saying that now the two parties need to work together and compromise. That Daley character (the one that was O's chief of staff) earlier said that each party needs to do some heavy compromising that maybe puts their re-election in jeopardy.

Hey, Mr Daley, when's the last time you Democrats ever compromised on anything?

Hey, Mr Congressman, that attitude is everything that's wrong with the Republican party today.

You CANNOT compromise with the Statist/Progressive. Start playing hardball, Republicans, just like your enemies (and they ARE enemies) and for keeps, for once.

They disgust me, all of them.

That this country would prefer a low-life, Islamist progressive Chicago thug to a decent man proves that Albert J. Nock's "masses" have taken over the country. Where, oh where, is Nock's "remnant"?

Beautiful essay. You always do good work.

I know I've said this before, but you can paint clear and concise pictures with words. Excellent!

Arthur Silber sums it up.
Here http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/

"And thus we arrive here: the State and the ruling class have told all Americans, repeatedly and with great care, that they systematically, regularly and routinely murder innocent human beings, including American citizens. Except for a vanishingly small number of people, no one cares. No one cares about the unimaginable suffering, about the bodies torn apart, about the growing number of lives to be endured in unbearable pain. No one cares about the horror, the blood, and the agony.

The State and the ruling class were interested to know if anyone cared about these matters. They now have their answer: No. Almost no one cares. The full truth is still worse. To the extent they are aware of these horrors -- or easily could be aware of them, if only they chose to be -- most Americans support them."

"working cheap and off the books"
=================================

There ya go kids, the key to your new success, if you are to have success at all.

Work smarter not harder, but wait, go ahead and work harder too, yeah, that's it.

Cut out the middle man, all of them, tell them to go pound sand, keep ALL that you earn. I mean, YOU earned it, right? How does another man have a right to the efforts of your toil? Correct, he does not. Only a forsaken thief believes what is yours is his and you have the right and the duty to protect what is yours no matter what. YOU are under no obligation to pay the debts of others, ever.

I installed a 16'x7' overhead garage door in a new home this past Saturday that I found out about by watching the ads under "Gigs" in the craigslist website. I charged $150, got paid in cash, and did it in less than 8 hours. How much money did you earn last Saturday? Know how I learned how to install garage doors? I RTFM that came with the 2 that I installed in my own brand new garage/office/workshop 8 years ago. Then I helped 2 neighbors install them in their garages. Piece of cake. Simple hand tool every red blooded american male should already own and use regularly. If you don't, stop reading this stuff and go blob out on the couch and watch a cooking show or something.

You better learn how to live lower on the vine all the way around if you expect to survive. The new normal is learnable for those willing to learn. I suspect most are not.

Oh yeah, I just completed the design and construction drawings for an $800k new home which will be constructed on an island off the SW coast of Florida and my pay was in cash as well.

Thievin' assed employers, bah, who needs em? Not me, for the past 30+ years.

When you build a society on the shaky foundation of criminality (gov't theft on a grand scale) everything above will come tumbling down eventually. There is no such thing as a skyhook.

Onward.

Ch-ch-chow-chess-koo, Cha-che-sque...uh, however you pronounce thet name...

I like your Leviathan analogy, Gerard, but it feels like the Leviathan is lying on top of me.