There is one place where Obama would clearly need the assistance of the Republicans; scaling back social security and medicare. Bush tried to impose some serious reform to the structure of social security. In fact, he wanted to privatize it. The Democrats rallied against that effort and defeated his aspirations. If Obama has a desire to "reform" social security he will need every Republican vote he can get his hands on. But, I'm guessing he would have those whether he reached out to Republicans on the stimulus package, or not.

Is there any indication that Obama wants to scale back SS and Medicare? If so, then the R's might support him since they typically don't like those programs. If not, then they won't support him. And who cares anyway? Just get the Dem majority on board, and you're all set.

I don't see any reason to bend over backwards (or maybe just bend over?) for the R's in any way. By all means, be nice and respectful, but don't water anything down for the sake of bipartisanship, at least not if you don't need it (as was the case with the stimulus bill).

...That just before the crash, the economy was 72% consumer spending based, and 90% of retail sales occurred during the holiday season. Maybe you think it's healthy for the worlds largest economic superpower to have 64.8% of its economy based on Christmas presents, but I don't.

I'm sympathetic to the sentiment expressed here, but this just can't be right. There is no way that Xmas presents account for ~2/3 of GDP. I think you might want to recheck those facts.

I, for one, would like a true discussion of sustainability, and a discussion of whether or not this economy is worth restarting.

Sounds good to me! OK, I'll bite.

I'm with you on your list, but this in particular needs highlighting:

This economy is causing climate change that by 2050 will endanger the water supply and agriculture of roughly half the population of the world, while in the last 50 years has tripled that population, and shudders in fear at how to support itself if the population even levels off, not to mention decreases.

And that's the optimistic view! The human species is in classical overshoot. Just like yeast introduced into a vat of sugar water that initially reproduce like crazy, then crash as the sugar is consumed and the alcohol levels (their waste products) rise.

We've done the same thing, only substitute fossil fuels for sugar and CO2 for the alcohol. Fossil fuel extraction rates are just now starting to decline, and the widespread and massive effects of climate change are just starting to bite.

Under the circumstances, talking about sustainability for this economy is a crock. This economy is about as successful as the one that turned Easter Island into a bunch of cannibals, followed by extinction of most of its species, including homo sapiens.

Yep.

Unfortunately, we are living so unsustainably, and we're so far into overshoot, we can't avoid a transition to a seriously lower quality of life. All we can do is attempt to manage that transition.

If that transition is to avoid massive die-off due to violence, we need to make immediate changes that most will resist bitterly (like immediate moves to de-carbonized the world's economies, meaning substantially reduced standards of living). Nobody (well, almost nobody) ever voted themselves a pay cut, or moves to a house 1/2 the size of their current home.

I've said this several times before, but it bears repeating. We need some kind of authority with the power to make immediate changes to energy policy and use. Something like the Fed, only perhaps more insulated from the whims of the people, who in their current uneducated (on these matters) state will simply not vote for survival, but will continue to vote for mass death. At least until it's too late.

Not that I expect to ever see that, of course. I think we're toast.

This is a little meta for me, but my short answer is that I don't see at all what good will it do for us to get ourselves into a deflationary spiral, with attendant destitution.

The problem is, destitution, on a massive scale, is coming. We can't stop it. The sooner we reailize this, the better, because then we can try to manage the decline instead of having the planet's limits enforce themselves with an iron fist.

The life of relative affluence that they knew would haunt them. And all of that will cause huge resentment.

Now expand the circle. All of this latent anger in the population is going to provide volatile fuel for any opportunist that can use it to mobilize people for his or her benefit. Needless to say, that can be dangerous.

Yes - which is why I'm horribly pessimistic about the future.

Certainly our very prosperity over time has been the cause of many of our problems.

Our prosperity is the very core of the problem. The earth is huge, but finite nonetheless. You just can't grow the economy 2% per year, or whatever, ad infinitum. Our economies have reached the size where they are literally reducing the earth's human carrying capacity. If we insist on maintaining our prosperity, then we will all die (or our children, anyway).

Well, fuck it then.

I think I'll have a beer.

LOL. I'll be joining you in spirit later on tonight. Ignorance is bliss, baby.