Life is pretty much by definition a competition for resources. Every living thing is constantly bumping up against all the other living things in a never-ending struggle to pass genes on to the next generation. At the cellular level there is, of course, no conscious understanding of life and death, but it's obvious that through evolution, the concept of win or die has somehow become hard-wired into the genome. It's present in all forms of life and I believe it carries over into human consciousness resulting in what has been called Social Darwinism. It's survival of the fittest on a societal level, with fittest being defined as strongest or most aggressive. That pretty much defines the United States right now. The fittest, top dog...

The American industrial revolution brought us to the comfortable, technology-rich, globally dominant lifestyle we've grown accustomed to, but it took a truly massive amount of energy to reach our current level and it still requires a tremendous amount of energy to maintain. That energy came from, and still largely comes from fossil fuels. Consider this. Americans now account for around 5% of the worlds population, but we use 25% of it's energy resources. China and India are only just beginning their own industrial revolutions. Both those countries have huge populations, many times the size of ours, which would indicate that their energy demands will rise at a much faster rate than ours did and their long term energy needs will dwarf ours. Basic math shows there is just no way things can continue as they are.

I am not an economist, and I don't profess to know a lot about how the stock markets work, but I do pay attention to what happens in the world and over the years I've come to have a gut-level understanding of how "the economy" works. The cost of all goods, from apples to zucchini, is tied to how much energy is used to produce and deliver those goods and recession is always just an oil price hike away. The development of alternative energy sources is beginning to ramp up, and the rest of the world is way ahead of us there, but the simple fact is that nothing yet available provides anywhere near the bang for the buck of fossil fuels. Barring the discovery (and rapid development) of some miraculous new energy source like nuclear fusion, the developed world's energy needs are going to continue to be met by a dwindling supply of fossil fuels. As China and India become more and more industrialized, oil prices are going to rise dramatically. There is just no way for us to stop that from happening. Indeed, if you factor in the military cost of our "peacekeeping" efforts in the major oil producing areas, it's easy to see that prices have actually already risen sharply.

I believe our current escapades in Iraq and the Middle East are a reflection of these realities. I believe we are building permanent bases in Iraq from which to exert our influence and ensure our access to the world's largest supplies of fossil fuels just like the boys at PNAC mapped it out. For me the idea that we have the right to keep our economy rolling through military force is ludicrous, but I know people who feel that it's not only perfectly normal for our government to do so, it's their responsibility. The real irony is that these people consider themselves (of course) to be conservatives, but to them, the very idea of conserving, of a national belt-tightening is tantamount to communism. These are the same people who are fond of saying war is good for the economy. I sometimes feel we are approaching a situation where war is our economy.

I look around and I see the US reputation in tatters (thanks dubya) and the rest of the world increasingly less likely to tolerate the escalation of US militaristic imperialism. I can't shake a strong feeling that America is headed for some very tough times. A recession may be the least of them.