Contingency

There is nothing as strong as faith. There nothing as devastating as losing faith. It can result in unimaginable acts.

I would hope the major industrialized nations of the world have been actively developing contingency plans. Catastrophic events occur. No one seriously anticipated the 2008 financial crisis nor the resulting collateral damages around the world. No one envisioned the French revolution, certainly not the aristocracy. Traditional Russia never thought there would be a revolution. No one in the West thought the Soviet Union would collapse. No one seriously thinks America’s time has come. The unexpected happens.

It is in the interests of the major nations of the world to have plans they can instantly execute if the unthinkable happens. I imagine a spark will be some incident in regards to the economic disparity in America. It will explode into rioting and civil unrest across the nation. Day to day sustaining activities will come to an abrupt halt.  The financial markets will seize. The government would be at a loss because those charged with maintaining civil order would have joined the rebellion. The military would be fragmented choosing sides. America, that was the market to the world, would be closed for business.

Container ships on the high seas would anchor. Super tankers with oil and liquid natural gas would change destination. The influx of raw materials from around the world would be trapped in their flow. America is a “just in time” nation. Things arrive only when they are immediately to be used. A disruption in supplies of a week or more would bring America to its knees. The enabling supplies from around the world would be soon exhausted.

All roads in the world today lead to America. The world has its eggs in one basket, America. It is in the interests of every nation to be prepared for the unimaginable.

Center of Attention

Another dystopia science fiction show made its appearance on television last Sunday night. It is the typical in vogue plot. A family man leading a small group trying to survive against an alien invasion, and along the way, reaping destruction upon the aliens. I get so tired of this. It is narcissism. 

I imagine a real alien appearance will unfold differently. 

An object enters the domain of the outer planets at a sizable percentage of the speed of light. Initially it is a big secret. Its purposefulness is immediately apparent, meaning intelligence. Soon amateur astronomers pick it up and it springs from blogs to images on “YouTube”. More observers join the watch. The object loops inside earth’s orbit on the far side of the sun and executes a tight swing just inside the sun’s Corona. It blisters back out of the solar system. It fades from the news. 

It returns some months later.  It is considerably slowed. It executes the sun maneuver again. Leisurely it drifts out from the sun to take up an orbit around the earth. Indiscriminately it clears out satellites and debris in its path. Ultra secret spy, weather and communication satellites instantly disappear in a puff of vapor. 

The American government considers this a hostile act and fires missiles. The object easily destroys the incoming missiles. But it sends back along the firing path a bolt of pure energy. One wipes out several square miles of a military base, the surrounding civilian habitats and businesses. The second bolt not only destroys a military base, but ignites a large weapons storage area. Rockets and explosions can be seen for miles. The entire surrounding sky is crimson. From high up the  military chain of command  comes orders to stand down.

Nothing seems to happen for a few months. The intelligence community suspects a detailed survey is being accomplished. The government  monitored a broad speculum of radiation emanating from the object playing over the surface of the earth. Unexpectedly the object belches forth a flotilla of smaller ships that take up station at various places on the planet.

The military fires a missile from a nuclear submarine at one of the incoming objects. A beam from the smaller ship destroys the missile. Then a plasma bolt from the heavens vaporizes the submarine. The military stands down. The aliens seen to have embraced the Powell Doctrine of using overwhelming force to create shock and awe.

In the Washington Metropolitan area, part of the beltway transverses  Virginia. It is interstate 395 and a major artery. It is visible from the Pentagon. One of the smaller ships about the size a large dump truck comes down just 10 yards off the road way. Traffic comes to a halt. Sirens and flashing lights appear with vehicles performing kamikaze maneuvers to get to the scene. The standing orders are to secure any area and wait. 

A haze of mosquito size objects spray from the object.  They aggregate around the base. A major group peals off and alights on surrounding things. Some on the ground, on stones, guard rails, branches, and just about everything. They create a continuous loop of comings and goings.

After several months and years of activity the object at the site has morphed into what looks like an inverted Empire State building.  One day all activity stops and there is a localized 10.0 earthquake. The object disappears down the hole it has created. It has gone deeper in the mantle than anything man has been able to accomplish. A high pressure stream of vapor issues from the hole. It is so powerful it shoots all the way into space.  The Larger object in space seems to be extracting something from the stream. 

Years go by of activity. There is never any communication or any real acknowledgment of the presence of man by the objects. Nor is any real understanding obtained of what they are doing. Man has been unable to effect what is happening. All attempts are met with devastating force. Eventually the activities of the objects becomes just the background of our human existence.

The Surge

People in other countries have always marveled at American advancement. Traditionally they have been inspired by American strides in infra-structure and building throughout most of the 20^th century.

The American “surge” is a product of culture. America is a culture of gambling. Most of this construction is designed to merely mitigate the most likely failures. It is seldom engineered for more “worst case’ conditions. Nor does regulation and regulation enforcement encroach. Therefore, America addresses only a bad situation after its occurrence. The American surge is the result of taking short cuts.  The most recent example is Mississippi flooding and levee breeches. Even in the New Orleans area, levees were not augmented until after hurricane Katrina.        

America’s aging infra-structure is in very bad shape. Yet no significant efforts are being made to mitigate the likely disasters that will occur. Bridges, dams, and roadways will fail with massive loss of life. New structures are built with the bare minimum of fail safe engineering.  Profits from the ventures trump these concerns. But in any game, if you take enough risks and play long enough, your winning streak will turn into a wipe out.

American safety in terms of nuclear power is highly suspect. American safety in terms of fresh water is highly suspect. The gas drilling using “Fracking” threatens to join the other contaminants of the major aquifers. The entire American mid section is at risk. It is the bread basket to the world. In the American Congress today politicians are determined to remove even a modicum of regulation safety. Right now they have embarked on removing regulations on food safety.

It is only a matter of time before the American hand of aces turn to deuces. The world will watch with amazement as America overnight joins the Second World from this and other ills.

Sub Prime  Electric

Bubbles are a tailor made condition. They are financial levitation fueled by euphoria.  P.T. Barium observed, “a sucker born every minute”. 

Financial bubbles tend to be wide spread, engulfing a whole industry or segment of society. Participation represents a “Hobson’s Choice”, or in the vernacular, “ you can not get a little bit pregnant”. 

What we have emerging today is sub prime electricity. People will be lured in and experience the same financial devastation as with sub prime real estate.

There are repeated advertisements to switch electric service providers. These companies often offer several cents per kilowatt of difference. But look closer. Some of these companies are really subsidiaries of the holding company of your current electric provider.  The question becomes why do they exist?

These other providers of electricity have been carefully structured legally to avoid key parts of a State regulatory process. They sell a 6 month contract with a guaranteed reduced rate. However, the devil is in the details. Early termination for contract default results in a draconian termination fee or revised rates. What would cause a contract default? One example is a credit score that no longer meets requirements. In case you had not noticed, the credit rating agencies have been surreptitiously lowering credit scores on a massive scale. The reason is simple. Lower scores translates into greater profits for businesses. 

The contracts of these electric service providers also allow them to change contract conditions at any time and in any manner they choose. So a “guarantee” is really not a guarantee.

Unfortunately the people most likely to flock to these offers are those most in need of leveraging their financial position. The ones that can least sustain another adverse financial impact. 

When you see these electric rate offers just remember how they work, “heads the electric company wins and tails you lose.”