KunstlerCast - Conversations: Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century

Also known as Steve From Virginia, this week’s guest has a unique take on the nexus of energy, capital, and the destiny of industrial civilization. Steve writes: “The credit regime is falling apart under the weight of its own costs, not just in Europe. Government issue money ends a monopoly over a vital private good so that it becomes a public good, in this way the power of the banks to run our affairs is reduced. As a necessary component of this effort, the establishment must hold the financiers accountable for their crimes and negligence. The present conditions and schemes cannot be endured any longer. If the establishment refuses to act the citizens will take matters into their own hands, there will be revolutions.” --From http://www.economic-undertow.com

Catherine Ingram is the author of In the Footsteps of Gandhi, Passionate Presence, and A Crack in Everything.  Since 1993 she has internationally led public events called Dharma Dialogues as well as retreats focusing on secular ways of inducing more wisdom, service, and well-being in one’s life.  She founded and is president of Living Dharma, an educational nonprofit organization and she serves on the boards of The Burma Project (a human rights organization) as well as Global Animal (an animal rights organization).  

#267  Conversation with Jasun Horsley of the Liminalist podcast and the Auticulture.com blog. A self-described high-functioning Asberger personality, Jason explores the margins of culture. A liminal condition is one of transition, sometimes turbulent, and we explore this in relation to politics and culture of the day — everything from corn-pone Nazis to sexual transgression. This is another effort to reach out a bit beyond my usual community of financial observers and energy commentators.

#266  Conversation with Clark Strand, author of Waking Up to the Dark - Ancient Wisdom for a Sleepless Age. A former Buddhist monk, Clark Strand poses the question: has electric lighting compromised our humanness, damaged our spirits, and foreclosed our future? Does it represent much of what has gone wrong with modernity. We explore this and other facets of his lyrical and original new book.

#265 — Futurist, Strategic Analyst, podcaster and rock and roll musician Eric Garland, taking with JHK from the troubled heartland city of St. Louis, Mo. Among other things, Eric and I talk about the Big Box shopping model, the contagion of business idiocy in the USA, the causes behind the Ferguson riots of 2014, and the current financial system as a raft of fraud going down a river of no return. His “Competitive Futures” podcast is available free on iTunes. His website is www.competitivefutures.com

Conversation with an aesthete. Graphic designer, blogger, dandy, and artist Allen Crawford (a.k.a. “Lord Whimsey”) yaks with JHK about the state of male presentation in America, the arc of cultural collapse, art, and Walt Whitman — he is the author of a beautifully illustrated hand-lettered volume of Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself,” published by Tin House Press and available at the usual suspects. The KunstlerCast music is “Adam and Ali’s Waltz” from the recording Waiting to Fly by Mike and Ali Vass.

#263 — Cultural historian, social critic and author Morris Berman yaks with JHK about his new book, Neurotic Beauty: An Outsider Looks at Japan, and a lot of other topics around the crisis of Modernity. Berman’s books include the trilogy: The Twilight of American Culture, Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire, and Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline.

John Michael Greer is a prolific author of novels and non-fiction books about the collapse of industrial civilization. He has a particularly long view of the human adventure and he is always fun to talk to. In this session, we delve into some questions of how technology behaves and where we are going with it in the years ahead.

Join me and Chris Martenson on a journey through the swamps of financial lingo so we might all develop a clearer notion of all that jargon we hear and read everyday in the chatter-sphere of the Internet. Chris is a PhD biologist who dropped out of the corporate gerbil wheel a few years ago and produced a groundbreaking web seminar called “The Crash Course” which helped a lot of people understand how our banking system actually works. Chris himself does two weekly podcasts on his own website, PeakProsperity.com: the informal “Off The Cuff” show and the long-form “Featured Voices” podcast. The KunstlerCast music is “Adam and Ali’s Waltz” from the recording Waiting to Fly by Mike and Ali Vass.  

#260 — Independent petroleum geologist Arthur Berman says of the shale oil and shale gas scene: “What we’re reading in the newspapers everyday is completely distorted. It couldn’t be more wrong and delusional.” JHK and Art delve into the finer points of the so-called shale oil miracle. Can anybody actually make any money in it? What are the long-term prospects? How are they raising capital to do it? We explore some deep, dark corners of this largely misunderstood phenomenon and its relation to the wishful thinking economy of our time. The KunstlerCast music is “Adam and Ali’s Waltz” from the recording Waiting to Fly by Mike and Ali Vass.