So I'm back from FPG, and I'm sunburnt, tired, but refreshed in a significant way: I got to see human beings interacting in an intentional community. Granted, it's a 4-day festival, but it's a campout and a chance to use skills. Also, it's people drawn together twice a year for common interest.
This was my third FPG, and I'm planning the fourth as I write this. It's a low pressure, "luxury" camping trip. IOW, I drive the car in, set up and have access to running water, showers and flush toilets.
For me, it's a time to enjoy camping, survivalism lite. To enjoy the connections to other people in an intentional community. To share without feeling exploited. Festival is like that, and it's an important part of what I believe will be post-collapse society.
Most of us live in a sea of strangers. The majority of folks now live in cities or attached suburbs, and the idea of knowing your neighbors is vanishing. This alienation, this distace, is vastly different from the kind of society humans evolved in - small to medium sized tribes. You knew your neighbor, and he was probably your third cousin. Connection was constant. You knew people would watch your back, and you could trust them not to jack your stuff. Why? Because if your neighbor started walking your dog, everybody knew who's dog it was.
Likewise, human beings need tribes, but the nature of the postmodern world fueled by cheap oil and electronic isolation is subverting that need. People "connect" virtually, but that is a poor substitute for the real thing. In a post peak oil world, it'll just plain cost too much to be so far from your neighbors.
So the alternative is neo-tribalism. A permaculture based economy with the tribe at it's core. Mainly for two reasons: it's more efficient and it solves the needs of people. Many hands making light work. Sustainable agriculture, sustainable building practices and sustainable energy.
The payoff is that people are happier in tribes. Needs get met, and one thing the peak-oil and survivalist crowds aren't big into is the social needs. Tribes are intense, social environments that satisfy so much more than shoppertainment could ever hope to. They are anti-consumerist, and the real solution to the root cause of the angst that plagues the city.
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In a previous post I listed the 12 steps to economic collapse. I stated that we had surely seen steps 1, 2, and 4. What was missing was step 3, and well, we've finally found it. The Fed is allowing banks to put up unsecured debt, car loans, credit cards and student loans, as collateral for borrowing from the Fed. This is a very bad thing.
From the NYTimes:
Fed Takes Steps to Add Liquidity
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve announced new steps on Friday to help ease tight global credit markets by increasing the size of its cash auctions to banks and allowing financial institutions to put up credit card debt, student loans and car loans as collateral for Fed loans.
The Fed also acted in coordination with central banks in Europe to make it easier for European banks to obtain dollars in currency swaps.
In a terse statement Friday morning, announced just before the government reported that 20,000 jobs were lost in April, the Fed said that it was acting to counter “persistent liquidity pressures” in credit markets in Europe and the United States.
The Fed’s action came as some analysts are saying that a measure of stability has returned to American financial markets after months of turbulence. Nevertheless, the Fed has made clear that it remains concerned about the risk from credit markets seizing up because of losses from bad loans, particularly in the housing sector.
Two days ago, the Fed signaled its continuing concern about the economy, lowering short-term interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point, to 2 percent from 2.25 percent, while signaling that it would not be lowering rates again for a while.
The actions Friday involved two lending facilities set up recently by the Fed to meet the needs of banks, investment banks and other financial institutions hit by the credit crisis after a series of disclosures about the shakiness of their packages of subprime mortgages.
One of these new entities, the Term Securities Lending Facility, can lend up to $200 billion to 20 different banks and investment banks known as “primary dealers.” Until now, the primary dealers could put up mortgage-backed securities as collateral for these Fed loans.
The Fed’s action Friday will allow them to expand the type of collateral that can be pledged to include student loans, car loans, home equity loans and credit card debt, as long as it is highly rated.
In general, dealers have had difficulty obtaining loans with such collateral because such debt cannot be bought and sold in current market conditions, and lenders fear its value is nearly worthless. However, the Fed maintains that the collateral it is now willing to accept will be sound and assessed at a realistic value....
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