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Obama: It Became Necessary to Destroy the Economy to Save it
On February 7, 1968, US forces demolished Ben Tre, a provincial capitol in South Vietnam. An Army Major declared, 'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.” On August 2, 2011, President Obama signed the draconian law to raise the US debt limit and unravel our social safety net. He should have quipped, “It became necessary to destroy the economy to save it.”
Sifting through the ashes of this catastrophe, Liberals can glean five grim lessons. First, Washington politicians do not understand how the US economy works. It’s not that complicated: a robust economy depends upon steady consumption by average Americans, not millionaires and billionaires. Working folks aren’t consuming because they either don’t have the money or are saving it because they are fearful. These Americans aren’t going to spend more because the debt crisis got resolved. They are worried about their jobs and the jobs of family members and friends. They understand the debt-limit crisis had nothing to do with jobs and that Washington pols don’t get it. That’s why average Americans are pissed off at both Parties.
Second, the Obama Administration has no jobs message because it doesn’t know what to do to create jobs. Since Obama became President most of us have assumed that Barack, a smart person, would eventually figure out the US needs a massive stimulus program – a public works program similar to FDR’s WPA – to create jobs. Initially Obama supporters believed he didn’t do this because he was getting bad advice from people like Larry Summers and Robert Rubin. We waited. Summers and Rubin left and we expected Obama to pick up the jobs banner and run with it. Instead he repeated the Republican mantra: “Washington has to get its house in order and then there will be jobs.”
The Republicans have a wrong-headed but consistent message: reduce taxes and government and the economy will magically blossom. The Reagan and Bush years demonstrate this ideology is BS, but there is no countervailing message because the Obama Administration is lost. If the President really believed the number one problem facing America was jobs he would have refused to negotiate with Republicans when they manufactured the debt limit crisis; Obama should have said, “This has nothing to do with creating jobs and will make the economy worse. Congress, get to work on America’s real problems!”
Complaining the President “lost control of the narrative” assumes that he had a message but didn’t know how to distribute it to the American people. This suggests that if Fox News and Rush Limbaugh disappeared then Obama would command the airwaves and we would all understand his “solution.” But Obama doesn’t have a message because he doesn’t understand what’s going on.
The third lesson Liberals have learned is that even if the President understood what is happening and had a compelling narrative it wouldn’t have made any difference because Obama is not willing to fight for his position. To paraphrase the old Blues refrain, “He’s a lover not a fighter.”
We’ve now seen at least five examples where Obama had an opportunity to make a real difference and lost it by being overly accommodating: the amount of the original stimulus, whether or not to break up “too-big-to-fail” banks, health care, the federal budget crisis, and the debt crisis. (It’s probably true that the President caved to the military on Afghanistan, but we don’t know as much about that negotiation.) In the debt crisis negotiation, Republicans got what they wanted because the President was soft.
The fourth lesson is that, emboldened by success, Republicans are going to continue to follow their “hostage taking” strategy. We’ve already seen this with their attack on the FAA. It’s street wisdom that submitting to a bully’s demands only encourages him. Republicans will use the upcoming Federal budget negotiation as their next big opportunity to advance their slash and burn agenda.
The fifth and final lesson is that the economy continues to be in bad shape and – despite the Pollyannaish assurances of the Obama Administration – we’re likely to find ourselves in the dreaded “double dip” recession. The United States of America is adrift, heading for a sea of icebergs, without effective leadership.
It didn’t have to be like this. President Obama had two opportunities to call the Republicans’ bluff and chose not to. In December he could have refused to sign any budget deal that did not include ending the egregious tax cuts for millionaires and raising the debt ceiling. On August 2nd, he could have refused to sign a debt-limit agreement that did not include new revenues. In both cases he could have dared the Republicans to shut down the economy.
The bottom line for Liberals: we’re on our own. It’s naïve to expect help from President Obama. The economy will continue to spiral downward and Liberals will have to figure out how to save it.
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47 Comments so far
Show AllMr. Burnett,
Your last graph says it all. And it's good to see that as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur your heart is in the right place.
Heart maybe, but not so sure about the brains. Fact is, most liberal democrats supported Obama's debt debacle and still support him. So, don't look for help or salvation from liberals. In fact, liberals have always been the worst enemy of progressives, making sure that the president always tacked to the center or right, and they never called him out over the many betrayals of the last three years. O'Donnell, Maddow, Schultz, etc., all seem to have a bottomless pit of reserve for swallowing Obama's crap and the collusion of the democratic party conservatives. No, liberals are too wedded to the party first--and that means to its leader--to ever be a serious challenge to the status quo.
Bob Burnett missed the mark. Obama is smart and knows what is going on. But like many before him, he is addicted to power. He has abandoned his base for the centrist leaning independent voters which is the closest fit with the will of his masters, the Wall St financiers. Wall St doesn't care about social issues, so he can cater to the socially liberal, fiscally conservative "moderates" who used to be Republicans before the wingnuts took over the Party label. Add to that the hordes of wimpy Democratic liberals who will relentlessly vote for the lesser of two evils, no matter how evil it gets and he has a plurality.
Of course there is that unpleasant issue of disappearing jobs, but the corporate media is doing it's helpful best in avoiding mentioning that the few jobs available are in the low paying service sector replacing once well paying middle class jobs. McDonalds April job fair posted 50,000 openings and drew 1,000,000 applicants. That's an average of 100 people for each minimum wage position. We're becoming a minimum wage economy with a huge pool of unemployed workers. A corporate dream come true, and more to come with the unlimited campaign money they can spend to fool ignorant gullible voters. Goebbels would be impressed.
Good comment. As I see it, today's corporocrats want to turn the clock back, not to the unregulated 1920's but to before the American Revolution. They want to bring back a tiny aristocratic class and millions of low paid serfs and slaves.
Obama has become such a corporatist disappointment that many of us out here are beginning to wonder if he was any better a choice than Grandpa & Grizzly Mama. There used to be differences between the parties, big ones, but those differences seem to have been permanently relegated to the past. Third party? Not likely. So I guess we will just continue the drift into third-world irrelevancy from whence nothing of any value or importance will ever likely emerge ...
Yeah but what are we going to do with all those bombs?
What's the free market solution to nuclear disarmament?
Burnett has it exactly right. Obama is a failure, and we are headed for continuing recession (perhaps even depression). The man just seems to have no willingness to fight. Or, maybe, he isn't really a liberal. I'm beginning to believe that. Either way, we're screwed.
Jim Shea
"The bottom line for Liberals: we’re on our own. It’s naïve to expect help from President Obama. The economy will continue to spiral downward and Liberals will have to figure out how to save it."
Liberals arm yourselves
[duplicate deleted]
ezeflyer, I can't understand why "liberals" or progressives can't organize themselves. The electoral process, while fraught with perils and difficulties, is available; the Internet, something new in the equation, is available; rich guys like Soros are available; and lots of smart progressives are available. Yet we sit around wondering what we can do. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves." Hell, somebody give me a million bucks, and I'LL run for president! (Or something.)
It has to do with not owning the media.
That seems like too easy of a cop-out. African Americans didn't have any meaningful ownership of the media in th 50s and 60s, but that didn't stop them from organizing, protesting, and ultimately winning broad civil and social rights. Same for union organizers in the 20s, women in the 60s and 70s, and gays in the 80s and 90s. Excuses are cheap and abundant, change takes work and persistence and time. And if there's one thing most Americans don't much like in the 2010s, it's working hard and having patience to recognize that real change requires time and persistence.
I think you hit the nail on the head. It takes money to run for office, conservative plutocrats have all the money, they want to conserve it and get richer off working people's backs. As long as workers vote for conservatives, they will be working against themselves.
We should be talking about the core of this problem – Capitalism. If this was a Socialist country where the workers controlled the means of production and benefited in the profits of their products and engaged in democratic decision making 42,000 manufacturing plants would not have left this country. Instead we allow a privileged few investors to make major decisions which affect the livelihood of millions of people without any accountability. Until progressives and liberals realize that capitalism is a form of wage and debt slavery the core problems of this nation will never be solved. [Think my comment about slavery is extreme? Current labor law today still refers to “the Master-Servant Relationship”, which courts rely on in cases involving employee issues.] My history is a bit fuzzy but I believe it was Winston Churchill who commented (paraphrasing) that you could always count on the Americans to try every conceivable solution except the right one. American society has been forced into capitalism for the last one-hundred years (since at least the creation of the Federal Reserve) and it has proven NOT to benefit the society at large. Liberals and progressives have allowed the right-wingnuts to disparage socialism without raising any defense. Failure to speak up implies that there is agreement. You also need to convince the Christians that the only time in the Bible that Jesus became physically violent was when he threw the money-lenders out of the temple. He said that if someone strikes you, turn the other cheek. So someone assaulting him didn’t even piss him off. But engage in capitalism and usury…there was nothing more offensive. Obviously the Christians don’t share Christ’s values. A lot of CD posters get it. However, most of the writers contributing to CD haven’t quite made that leap of logic yet.
All systems of representative government, capitalism, communism, etc. can have their dictators like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Pol Pot. One way to keep rich and powerful conservatives from taking over the government is by direct democracy. Turning the people's enormous power over to a few representatives is asking for trouble.
Obama and the Washington politicians don't understand how the economy works? I think they do.
They know who they're representing, too, and it's not the vast majority of the population.
During the Vietnam War a popular rejoinder hit the counter culture: VOTE PIG! I am sure you can appreciate the satire. Even more ironic is that those who have assimulated into the status quo are the same people in the sixties who recognized the absurdity of their choices. The circle is complete.
Hey Bob,
Agree, but correction if I may on #3: "Obama is not willing to fight for his position"
The position we have now IS Obama's position. He crafted his way to it, as best he could. Don't be fooled, look at his past and current promises, lies, and actions.
Bob,
Lucky has a point. Why excuse the Pres for lack of smarts, or lack of smart advisers (whom he chose), or being out maneuvered. Many liberals said similarly of Bush, he was dumb to do what he did, or that the Dem's just caved to his craven swaggering imperialness out of fear. The two party system has evolved (and was perhaps designed) to be a mystery machine useful for oligarchs to manage pain, despair, and unctuous anticipation of change. The system is working perfectly for those who own it. Seeking to re-arrange the deck chairs on this catastrophe would seem the fools errand. We need something more fundamental than new liberals for the democrats.
One of my favorite election bumper stickers was "Don't Change Dicks in the Middle of a Screw - Vote for Nixon in ' 72". I see a revival.
THIS IS WHAT A BAD MOOD LOOKS LIKE... I had hoped to scan in the picture of a scowling, bedraggled cat which accompanied this remark and graphically annotated the point, but my tech talents are not great. I had wanted to send it to the Prez for his birthday yesterday... I watched Jon Stewart for most of the morning. The hypocrisy of the Republicans continues to befuddle -- and enrage -- so it's immensely satisfying to watch someone latch on to their asininities and pitch them right back.
Yes, we are on our own. Between O-bummer and Boner, there's no relief except what we provide for ourselves. We need to take to the streets. These are bullies (plus one wimp). We need to remember the tendency of bullies to evaporate when the heat is turned on.
As for the other... whom someone rightly called a "moral midget", there's no hope for it. The Republicans have pretty much shown us these past few weeks what we're likely to get should we dare throw O-bummer over. So we're both on our own and between a rock and a hard place.
Re Obama, his "smarts" and his credentials, I seem to recall that one A. Greenspan pulled the wool over a lot of people's eyes for much too long a time... But at least Alan was, during that long period of time, practicing his "principles" - no matter how mistaken they turned out to be. Now we have a President who seems to be both spineless and without principles. Does he have any principles? I would like very much to believe that there is more to Obama than star-struck admiration of the uber-wealthy, but I deeply fear there is not. This much we do know: He is definitely a quick "change" artist.
Hmmmmm.....
"He is definitely a quick "change" artist."
Obama a quick "Change" artist? No way! A bait and switch artist is more like it.
"The politicians who racked up the government debt should auction themselves off (particularly Barack Obama and Silvio Berlusconi.) Power is very sexy, we’re told, so prices would be high."
Your proposal sounds good in theory, but it is flawed. I can't speak for Mr. Berlusconi, but two and a half years of Mr. Obama convinces me that he won't be up to the task.
Certainly, he has shown breathtaking skill when it comes to screwing the working people in this country and around the world. Especially American working people and the folks in the middle east (at least the ones who are still alive).
But the problem is that there is a real difference between being a screwer versus a screwee. He has no experience in the latter situation because he is so excellent in the former situation. I don't see how his buyers would be satisfied with their purchase because no one would agree on who would do what to whom.
Very nice article, Mr Burnett, however, as one of the founding executives at Cisco Systems you represent a necessarily myopic viewpoint.
The quote you use, from the '60's, demonstrates that you are/have been politically aware for some time, yet you chose a path that required you to blindly continue forward...or lose your career.
The intervening 40 plus years to the quote has been filled with examples of imperialism, oppression, hubris and political foolishness. Where have you been?
I stepped out of the system in Ohio in 1970 while watching 4 compatriots fall, to breath no more. I realized then that democracies elect representatives, not leaders, and there have yet to be 536 worthies to be selected for office.
The Sixth Lesson, which came to progressives with a mind long ago...Obama is not a progressive, or even a blue dog democrat, he is a republican and has done everything he intended to do in the first place as a trojan whorse for the repukes.
The Democrats are not Democrats and the Republicans are not Republicans.
They are all Fascists.
It's not only that virtually or literally everything Obama says and claims is a lie. Other lies are generated by implication from his actions.
By definition, by running for re-election Obama is claiming he can win. But this is all but certain to be another lie because (and there are more reasons than just these three but these are the first big ones that come to mind).
--The strategy Obama and his cronies claim will defeat Mitt Romney (who is by far the Republican front runner) assumes that Obama will get about as many black and liberal/progressive votes in 2012 as he did in 2008. This is absurd; the devastation of African Americans, the devastation of the middle class, the nightmare, failed economy in general, and Obama’s trashy treatment of liberal/progressive voters guarantees that a very substantial percentage of those people who voted for him in 2008 will not be voting in 2012 or will be voting for someone else in 2012. We already have proof of this from the large number of blacks and liberals/progressives who refused to vote, who voted for third parties, or who even flipped completely over to the Republicans in 2010.
--The strategy Obama and his cronies claim will defeat Romney assumes there are a large number of independent voters who will be afraid to vote Republican. But Romney is not among the Republicans that the independents will be afraid of. If Romney could win in Massachusetts than obviously he will not be a "lunatic, far right winger" who independents will run away from. So as long as Romney is the nominee (and he is by far the front runner) Obama will not get anywhere near the number of independent voters he and his cronies claim they will get.
--People will be so desperate for the labor market to improve by November of 2012 that there will be a substantial number of people who normally don’t vote who will register and vote against Obama, who obviously has grossly failed to do enough to improve the labor market and who obviously has not even done what he could have. Although given the general failure of the capitalist system it was not even theoretically possible for Obama to completely or largely solve the labor market collapse it is also clearly and definitely true that Obama could have done far more than he did. So people will be extra motivated to vote against him in November 2012.
Obama will lose at least the following states he won in 2008 which will give the election to Romney: Florida, Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia and Nevada.
See 270towin.com for the mathematics of Romney over Obama.
The bottom line is that when Obama claims he can beat Romney it’s just yet another lie; in other words another flim flam. Money and time spent trying to get him re-elected is all wasted money and wasted time. Were he anything more than a very well paid slave to the oligarchs and the big corporations, the only reasonable thing for Obama to do in this situation would be to decline to run for re-election. Another bottom line is that Obama will be a failed President not only to liberals and progressives but in the fundamental and historical sense that he will run for re-election and lose.
Obama is nothing more than a Flim Flam Man. There was a 1967 movie featuring a flim flam man and it’s on YouTube (in multiple parts):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue0vqeQSG5w
In the movie, George C. Scott plays a con man named Mordecai C. Jones (self-styled "M.B.S., C.S., D.D. — Master of Back-Stabbing, Cork-Screwing and Dirty-Dealing!"), a drifting confidence trickster making his living defrauding people in the southern United States.
Most American politicians, definitely including Obama, hold the prestigious M.B.S., C.S., and D.D degree. I might add that they also hold the M.E.I., the Master of Economics Idiocy.
I am really tired of the Wall Street, game theory originated, stupid expression of destroying something to save it.
Have you noticed they never say things like this?:
It became necessary to destroy the financial services industry in order to save it.
It became necessary to destroy Wall Street in order to save it.
It became necessary to destroy the Military Industrial Complex in order to save it.
It became necessary to destroy the Lobbying industry in order to save it.
It became necessary to destroy corporate profits in order to save them.
It became necessary to destroy capitalism in order to save it.
No, somehow, it's always "necessary" to destroy something good in order to "save" it.
BULLSHIT!
Only the Wall Street Psychopaths could think of tying the words "destroy" and
"save" in one sentence. The only decent way that can be done is if you claim that Wall Street has always been about saving themselves and destroying everyone else.
Stop corrupting the language! When you destroy something, it GETS DESTROYED!
helluva rant ag, and good eye.
drone,
Danke schoen.
Let's face it....howmany on here know and have read about peak oil and are fairly well read on climate change... These are the real issues.....these are what is causing the economic and financial meltdown.... the top knows, they are putting themselves in position....... another poster on an article talked about the methane bubbles that will eventually be released from the artic....I also have read about this....... I can't believe we are divorcing these two main issues from the economic debate..... jobs jobs jobs.....yes, but what about all that co2 that will be created ? What we need is a whole new paradigm... the same old same old......is just going to ......kill us...
"The Republicans have a wrong-headed but consistent message: reduce taxes and government and the economy will magically blossom. The Reagan and Bush years demonstrate this ideology is BS, but there is no countervailing message because the Obama Administration is lost."
-- No, Obama is not lost. There is no countervailing message from Obama because he embraces the same neo-liberal economic ideology as the rest of the Republicans - and the majority of the Dems embrace it too! It is the neo-liberal economic system that is CRUSHING the people in this country - and the world. He loves it. He published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal talking about how great it was.
All the rest makes sense (and there is no need for any other lessons) if you just realize the fact that Obama embraces and loves the same neo-liberal economic ideology that his hero Reagan embraced.
End of story.
"In our society, real power does not happen to lie in the political system, it lies in the private economy; that's where the decisions are made about what's produced, how much is produced, what's consumed, where investment takes place, who has jobs, who controls the resources, and so on and so forth. And as long as that remains the case, changes inside the political system can make some difference - I don't want to say it's zero - but the differences are going to be very slight.
In fact, if you think through the logic of this, you'll see that so long as power remains privately concentrated, everybody, EVERYBODY, has to be committed to one overriding goal: and that's to make sure that the rich folk are happy - because unless they are, nobody else is going to get anything. (because of capital flight)."
This is the best lesson I ever learned!!!!!!!!! Thanks, Noam Chomsky! I will never forget who taught me this lesson. Now if more people would just begin to understand this logic, then maybe so many well meaning people wouldn't keep wondering why Obama keeps 'caving in', or 'folding', or 'not willing to fight for his position', or 'losing control of his narrative', or 'incompetent', or 'missing opportunities'.
You're right, Eric. We're living in a full-blown plutocracy, and it's too late to change it!!!!!
"The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy. Despite this year's wide-ranging debate, in our view, the differences between political parties have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and, as we see it, the resulting agreement fell well short of the comprehensive fiscal consolidation program that some proponents had envisaged until quite recently. Republicans and Democrats have only been able to agree to relatively modest savings on discretionary spending while delegating to the Select Committee decisions on more comprehensive measures. It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options. In addition, the plan envisions only minor policy changes on Medicare and little change in other entitlements, the containment of which we and most other independent observers regard as key to long-term fiscal sustainability."
What I read there is that they feel empowered to call the shots. Funny thing though....I don't remember anyone on Standard and Poors board being elected by the citizens of the US. These are the people that gave us Enron, and WorldCom, the people that facilitated the crash that lead to the bailouts. We're supposed to trust them that destroying Medicare and Social Security is the answer.
You know what really fell short? Reform and regulation of Wall St. after the crash. What needs to be contained is the unreasonable expectations of speculators and the uncontrollable greed of Wall St..
The collapse of our nation started the morning of 9/11 when we were severely backhanded (three times without anyone from the MIC lifting a hand) and our bluffs/bravados called. Sure, Wall Street and all the Kings Men in D.C. tried to stroke it, shore it up, re-stack the deck, bomb it, drone it, pillage and steal their way back to restore some iota of creditability, but it didn't work. And its not just a financial house of cards that's collapsing, but an entire society. Thinking liberals can save it when they had a 50/50 share in killing it is plain ignorant.
Honestly, if you can get out, you'd better start making plans. Its gonna be ugly. And again, I hope I'm wrong
I think on one level or another, provided Obama actually considers himself an actual liberal, he represents the supreme failure of American Liberals: They want a nice cozy civil wont hurt you too much dialouge about your feelings. Frankly if anything is going to get done they need to toughen the fuck up.
Now that the S and P have down graded Obama's presidency to junk status; seems it is time to prosecute all those criminal acts wall street and the rating agencies committed during the housing bubble. Obama thought they were his friends. So he was protecting them from prosecution from the justice dept.
He is such a sucker! I can see him coming out Monday and saying: "let us all hold hands. We are all to blame. Even I."
While the Repugs attack him like mad dogs and turn him into Jimmy Carter Two! No worse! The president who destroyed America! French Fries(AAA bonds) are better than Freedom Fries(AA+ bonds)! OMG!
The only appropriate word to describe Obama is "WIMP", that's spelled W-I-M-P. His desire to be "liked" overrides the things he KNOWS he has to do to in order to put our country back together. Let's get with it, OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can be sure you will be only a one-term president. Is this how you want to be remembered??????
The smoke and mirrors of "money games" is NOT real, and when we stop taking this ":economy" too seriously and concentrate on good life, rather then measuring everything by money we will be free of this virtual reality of the markets.
We need to reward PRODUCERS (of food and other good stuff we need for life) rather then unproductive professions that just shift pile of money from one pile to another by manipulations of virtual reality of money. Most of the classical economic indicators are outdated and do not indicate real wealth of people which contributes to good life!
Exactly. They don't have our interests as a priority. We're simply a market to be exploited.
"Most of the classical economic indicators are outdated and do not indicate real wealth of people which contributes to good life!"
There is no such beast as a "jobless recovery" .
"Sifting through the ashes of this catastrophe, Liberals can glean five grim lessons."
Nope.
Reading this uninformed tripe should cause liberals worthy of the label to draw one conclusion:
America is a land to be exploited now.
The corporatists who run this place care no more for the "American People" than they do for child laborers in Bangledesh, or a seam of coal under a mountaintop.
THE US ECONOMY DOES NOT NEED TO RECOVER FOR THE ELITE TO PROSPER.
Please pull your head out of that paradigm. Wash your face thoroughly.
Use soap.
Try again--
I believe that we will have to suffer a collapse (destroy the economy) before there is an opportunity to build a sustainable economy. But I don't credit Obama and certainly not the GOP for understanding this. I don't think most liberals understand it either. They seem to think that the recent good old days can be recreated. I doubt that they can be, at least for very long.
The essential problems are 7 billion people on the planet, peak oil, an industrial agriculture dependent on oil and expectation for continual economic growth. Think about it. The real purchasing power of American families has been stuck for at least a couple of decades. The economy has been mostly in a downward trajectory since the dot-com bust. We now seem to have run out of tricks for spurring a few more years of good times. Now, the GOP and the administration have embarked on a policy that seems certain to plunge the nation (world?) into not just a double dip recession, but something more like The Great Depression. Despite the pain, I welcome it. Better to let it happen and move onto the job of building a new economy. Anyone who tells you what come next is either a liar or crazy. But I think it will be more local, consuming less and look a lot more like a century or two ago than the past 60 years.
I'm severely weary of journalists who persist in throwing softballs. When will they start calling a traitor a traitor?
Mr. Burnett lost me right after the first grim lesson. "...a robust economy depends upon steady consumption by average Americans..."
This kind of philosphy leads to total distruction of the earth. A NEW ECONOMY not based on consumption needs to be born, and NOW. We are depleting our natural economy, upon which our financial economy depends, so when our natural resouces are gone, so are we all.