hypewaders said:
Thanks for the depression reference. 1942-1929= 13 years to recover from a minor disruption (compared to physically transforming the entire energy base of the US to coal) in the financial markets. I could not have made my point better.
To transform the US economy from the "suburban infrastructure" it now has, built on cheap oil during the last 70 years, (with the average transport distance of your food being greater than 500 miles) into one that can be sustained on coal will take at least 35 years.
All the trains have been converted to oil or electric. The number of functional coal powered locomotives that could be returned to service from museums plus those that could be built in 5 years could not haul enough coal from the mines to power 10% of the nations coal fired generation plants and starving bands would not let them pass, if they thought there might be food on the train.
Some oil-fired power plants could be converter to natural gas in less than a year, but to keep the electric grid from total collapse, no power would be distributed to ordinary homes.
With all the guns privately held in the US, once there is too little food in the local grocery because the government is using most the available oil /gas for the army in a failing effort to keep order, and food trucks lucky enough to get "gas coupons" are being hi-jacked, etc., the decent into total chaos can take less than a month.
Surely there would be some successful efforts by US military to cease oil tankers bound for China or force loading of US bound one, etc. but the hatred of the USA in the Middle East* is becoming so intense (mainly because of the one sided "Israel is only defending itself" position of the Bush administration) that the pipe lines to the ports will be destroyed.
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*Even here in Brazil, violence is begin to target Jewish Organization and being American here, I feel less safe now. Last night the wooden doors of the Jewish community center in Campinas were set on fire and "Lebanon is the true holocaust" were spray painted on the building. Although 95% of the 20 Brazilians who Israel has recently killed in Lebanon were completely innocent victims of the US F-16 bombs** One was a 17 year old "resistance fighter" who died trying to drive the Jewish army back into Israel. There will no doubt be several more ("foreign terrorists" as Bush would call them) from Brazil to replace him as a direct result of Israel's re-occupation of Southern Lebanon. In the end, when US economy is hurt by lack of oil, Israel will learn the Biblical truth: "He, who lives by the sword, will die by the sword."
**An earlier thread, (“Israel murdered 55 people to day”), reported the names and ages of a Brazilian husband, wife and their two kids as caused by the Israeli navy shell, but that has been revised. They died while sleeping in their beds as a bomb exploded in or near the bedroom. The little girl’s blood trail indicates she was not instantly killed. As far as I know, all 19 of the innocent Brazilian victims of Israel were killed by bombs. The Brazilian terrorist (or resistance fighter, depending on your POV) was killed in action if his proud mother’s view is correct.
