The Crash Course - Chris Martenson [7]
Deciding to change on your own terms, while frightening at times, can be incredibly rewarding. Even though by traditional measures our family’s standard of living has been cut in half, our quality of life has doubled. We now measure our wealth in things like the depth of our community relationships, our free time, our children’s joy and curiosity, and the ways in which we are more self-reliant than before. We are living proof that it is indeed possible to step off the American Dream bandwagon and not only survive, but thrive. I will be honest: There are enormous changes, possibly disruptive ones, ahead for all of us. But I want to assure you that there is much in this story that is still within your control.
So that is my story: from research scientist, to corporate executive, to satisfied and never-been-happier husband, father, and economic futurist. Becca and I took a short detour through some fearful thoughts and big decisions, but we discovered something pleasant and unexpected along the way—a better life. Given the opportunity to go back in time, we would do it all over again. Everything that led to those changes, and what I have learned along the way, is now contained within the pages that follow.
PART I
How to Approach the Next Twenty Years
CHAPTER 1
The Coming Storm
In 2008 and 2009, economic activity in the United States and most other developed nations tumbled off a cliff. At several points there was real panic in the air. Stock markets around the world fell to levels that wiped out more than a decade of gains. Trillions evaporated in the housing market, and global trade plummeted.
Questions remain: What happened? Where did all our money go? How did 10 years of wealth accumulation evaporate so quickly? More important, when can we expect a recovery?
In truth, our predicament goes far deeper than even these recent, disquieting economic events might suggest. It’s time to face the facts: A dangerous convergence of unsustainable trends in the economy, energy, and the environment will make the “twenty-teens” one of the most challenging decades ever. The Crash Course explains this predicament and provides sufficient context to support the idea that it is well past time to begin preparing for a very different future.
The entire developed world is entering this next period of time in a severely weakened financial state. The United States, in particular, is carrying excessive levels of debt and unfunded liabilities and is further burdened by a national failure to save and invest in infrastructure. But the issue is not limited to the United States; every nation will eventually have to face the same realities posed by limited and limiting resources.
As a society, our imagined responses to the future make the implicit assumption that we will always remain within a complex economy that is capable of operating in an effective and orderly manner. The Crash Course asks the question, What if this assumption is untrue? and provides both data and ideas to support the conclusion that the economic status quo cannot be taken for granted, at least not in the form to which we’ve become accustomed.
Even if the only task ahead of us were attend to the numerous economic mistakes of the past several decades, we would still find this next incarnation of our economy to be extremely difficult. But there are other factors at work.
The big story is this: The world has physical limits that we are already encountering, but our economy operates as if no physical limits exist. Our economy requires growth. I don’t mean that growth is “required” as if it’s written in a legal document somewhere, but it is “required” in the sense that our economy only functions well when it’s growing. With growth, jobs are created and debts can be serviced. Without growth,