There's a thought-provoking article in Sunday's Boston Globe (via Matt Yglesias) on how a 21st century US depression would look different from the 1930s depression. The author, Drake Bennett, makes the case that the US is so different now that the depression would look different in fundamental ways. Healthcare costs more than it did in the 1930s, relative to food, for example, so there'd be lines outside of emergency rooms rather than at soup kitchens (though he acknowledges that soup kitchens are already being visited by more people).

Drake is open to the view that people will raise more of their own food, growing gardens on lawns and keeping chickens in the backyard. I don't agree with his argument that farmers in New England will do poorly, though:

At the high end of the market, specialty and organic foods - which drove the success of chains like Whole Foods - would seem pointlessly expensive; the booming organic food movement could suffer as people start to see specially grown produce as more of a luxury than a moral choice. New England's surviving farmers would be particularly hard-hit, as demand for their seasonal, relatively high-cost products dried up.

To the extent that there is a price premium on New England agricultural products, I think it's due to high costs of labor compared to energy, subsidies to industrial-scale agriculture, and niche marketing. A depression, together with peak oil, would change the ratio of labor to energy costs. Subsidies to industrial-scale agriculture can be changed. And niche marketing of premium products--well, that might not become more widespread, at least. Hard to say whether the market for premium New England food will wither or whether the wealthy will switch from caviar to camembert produced in Vermont.

In Vermont we're seeing a stronger and more sophisticated push for policies that support local businesses, including farmers. Michael Shuman's talk yesterday in the Statehouse was a good example.

This video is a remarkable primer on the unjust and unconstitional nature of our U.S. monetary system - and a good argument for nonviolent secession, as well.

Heady stuff - but vital, for an understanding of the current Wall Street wing ding.

Author’s note: I had planned to write a follow-up to Exponential Money in a Finite World (published in Vermont Commons,
Fall 2008), where I would continue to make the case that our financial
system is incompatible with reality and is due either for collapse or a
major overhaul over the next 20 years – max. National events have
obviously overtaken the publication schedule, so I will instead focus
on the recent bailout and what this means to each of us over the next
one-to-two years.

"Money alone sets all the world in motion."
-    Publius Syrus, 42 B. C.

“Yet habit -- strange thing! What cannot habit accomplish?”

So wrote Herman Melville in his epic novel Moby-Dick. More than 150
years later his face would appear on  currency near his home in
Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and his quote would become relevant not only
for describing a captain in search of an elusive whale, but also for a
group of citizens searching for an elusive economic vision.

by Jane Dwinell and Dana Dwinell-Yardley

Once again, our world and our nation is in a financial crisis—while the pundits continue to say that this failure of so many financial institutions and the volatility of the stock markets is a normal response and an expected "correction." Whatever the cause and whatever the cure of the current financial mess, we know that there are some great, guaranteed, good independent Vermont investments you can make if you have some spare money.

Here's Carolyn Baker riffing on James Howard Kunstler at his "Clusterfuck Nation" blog.

Best get busy inventing those new alternative economic and currency models, neighbors.

The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.
-- Dr. Albert Bartlett

If every one of the 250,000 tax-paying households in Vermont
re-invested our federal rebate checks in our Green Mountain economies,
we'd inject $150 million back into the Green Mountains.

Take the Keep It In Vermont pledge, and e-mail it on to your Vermont friends, neighbors, and colleagues.

Read more at the A.P. Newswire. 

As the U.S. Dollar continues to free-fall, local currencies will
become more and more vital moving forward.

Read more here.

In his 2002 talk for the Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires
Michael Shuman stated that this century will "determine who wins the
fundamental struggle between cheap goods and place, between the protection
of private bottom lines and the protection of families, communities, and the
environment." Concerns over global distribution, rising energy costs, and
the legitimacy of subsidies to global firms coupled with a growing
environmental consciousness, a proliferating localist movement, and a
growing interest in workplace quality have pushed people to consider options
beyond the global economy. There are growing signs that local ownership