"Anne Francis stars in ... Forbidden Planet" RIP

Doomer James Kunstler is telling us, Gird Your Loins for Lower Living Standards. He says something like that every year right about now, so it must be time to put the Xmas tree back in the box. Still, he is entertaining.

The larger riddle of life-in-our-time surrounds the absence of the rule of law in money matters. To say that people are actually running things out there doesn't mean that [they] are running them effectively or optimally. The US Department of Justice, for example, appears to be led by a zombie, Attorney-General Eric Holder, somebody of this world but no longer quite in it, who is pioneering a new method of Zen law enforcement based on a maximum of doing and saying of nothing.

Kunstler says the econnomy will get worse, but Jim Cramer just said, "the fundamentals of the worldwide recovery remain intact." That puts me in a double bind. I know Cramer is usually wrong, so I wonder if Kunstler may be right. Or early.

Energy Bulletin compiled a list of predictions from less florid energy depletion gurus. Transition maven Lindsay Curren's is quite detailed:

The US will fail to produce a meaningful energy policy even as energy is increasingly understood by the people as a key input, the cost of which threatens to cripple family economies. As federal and political solutions fail further, the economy continues to limp along, with more and more folks out of work, causing severe local and state cutbacks and even state and municipal bankruptcies. And this gets to the crux of the cultural shift that I see. Increasingly unemployed people will hobble social services, exposing a culture in clear decline with no plan to address it. The federal government and centralized business will have less and less relevance. In response, the unemployed and underemployed “underclass” will either take re-localization to the next level, getting very creative and energized as they craft compelling and imaginative yet practical local solutions including bartering, more local currencies, more mass transit and carpooling usage, organic community building, more food production, and simpler local living. But the will has to be there even as we feel exhausted and unsure and resources are limited.

– Lindsay Curren is editor of Transition Voice, the magazine covering peak oil, climate change, economic crisis and the Transition movement response.

Creative and energized re-localization certainly sounds better than ghetto economy, but I wonder if there is a difference. Sharon Astyk calls these 'khaki' - a mixture of green, grey and black markets. Without government, "more mass transit" in such areas are likely to be jitneys. What I don't see in Curren's scenario is that there will still be a lot of people with jobs, and if today is any indicator, most of them will go to work, go to Starbucks and Panera and the Olive Garden, and go home while trying very hard not to notice the unemployed ones. I think the feds and big business will still exploit the unlucky ones, and the interplay between the haves and have-nots will be complicated.

Like Curren, just about all the gurus predicted higher oil prices, more recession and higher unemployment, so I've only quoted other predictions below:

... the miracle of Chinese growth will begin to show some weakness in 2011 as state-directed economics becomes unstable. The PBC has been artificially keeping inflation low by buying dollars and creating bonds to keep the money supply low. The loans for big infrastructure projects will not uniformly perform. This cannot last. True inflation is higher than revealed and, when it is known, will show the vulnerability of the economy because the rural sector is not sharing prosperity with the urban sector. Sovereign debt problems in Europe will continue to create instability in the global economy. The EU concept is flawed because a single currency does not allow weak economies to devalue their currency.

–Arthur Berman, petroleum geologist and board member of ASPO-USA

They do have serious environmental problems, but I'm not betting against China's economy just yet. I've read and heard so many predictions of the demise of the euro. Chris Matthews actually let Andrew Sullivan speak near the end of one show several weeks ago, and Sullivan predicted that Germany and France would drop the euro. Others predict that the euro will drop underperforming countries.

... There will be countries and smaller political subdivisions (state, city) that take steps to restructure their debt with longer maturities. All of this will drive interest rates up, and make credit harder to find. The recession will worsen as credit contraction ensues. Governments will scramble to try to keep each other and banks from failing. In some cases they will be successful; in other cases they will not be.

– Gail Tverberg, actuary and writer, is editor of The Oil Drum

2011: The Year of The Margin Call. We can extend and pretend only so long. ... getting out of the way of the wave should be your main concern.

– Ilargi, The Automatic Earth

Another common theme is either hyperinflation or a deflation spiral - paper money becomes a joke, back to precious metals. I think the wealthy will put that off for as long as possible because they're going to a lot of trouble to collect all the money.

Not only have American social networks become sadly deteriorated, but so have the skills needed to support them: the fundamental ability to build and maintain the healthy long-term relationships that are critical for community success. Just like planting a garden or cooking from scratch, these skills have to be learned and practiced, and they have to work well in order for coalescing community groups to stay together rather than fall apart. In 2011, community facilitators will increase their focus on helping groups of people simply learn how to get along.

– Christine Patton is co-chair of Transition OKC and author of the Peak Oil Hausfrau Blog

I suppose this could tie in with my last few posts. Will we be able to shut out the divisive MSM long enough to help each other? Maybe if the power goes off.

Solar: Solar manufacturer shipments more than doubled from 2009 to 2010. I predict that world production of solar energy systems will double again this coming year. ...

– Ron Swenson, ASPO-USA Board of Directors

And will still be inconsequential.

... If the WikiLeaks phenomenon grows, we will see the release of documents that confirm what we have been saying about energy shortfalls, corporate domination of governments, and foreign policies aimed at control of resources. 2) There will be continued government cutbacks in pensions and social services in industrialized countries, such as the US, UK, Ireland, Spain and Greece. In France this year, millions demonstrated and went on strike. Popular protests such as these could change the political landscape.

– Bart Anderson, teacher, journalist and technical writer, is co-editor of Energy Bulletin and active in Transition Palo Alto

The jury is still out on WikiLeaks, but pension grabs have certainly been discussed on dag. Zero Hedge has an article about it, too.

There is every reason to believe that we will see a food-price run-up similar to the one in 2008 in the coming year, making absolutely clear exactly how tightly food and energy prices are intertwined. Although the number of the world’s malnourished briefly fell below 1 billion this year, the number will rise again above it.

– Sharon Astyk, ASPO-USA Board of Directors, author of Depletion and Abundance and Independence Days

Astyk has a list of predictions, preceded by evaluating how she did last year.

I saved the best for last.

I hate making predictions. The world situation is so complex now with demand and supply factors going all directions short-term, so that even if we know the long-term trend (depletion and decline) it’s really hard to make a meaningful one-year forecast.

– Richard Heinberg, author of The Party’s Over, Blackout and Peak Everything