KunstlerCast - Conversations: Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century

Charles Marohn is the Founder and President of Strong Towns ( Strongtowns.org ), a non-profit advocacy organization focused on the financial predicament local governments find themselves in as a result of America's suburban experiment. Chuck has a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota's Institute of Technology and a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the...

A Conversation with Chris Martenson and Adam Taggart, authors of Prosper!: How to Prepare for the Future and Create a World Worth Inheriting. Both Chris and Adam were corporate executives who dropped out to pursue more a resilient way of life in a rapidly and increasingly hazardous changing world. Chris Martenson began that phase of his career with the video and later book titled The Crash Course,...

A conversation with Gail Tverberg of OurFiniteWorld.com. Gail Tverberg is an analyst who has been researching the connection between oil limits and the economy for nearly 10 years.  She writes a widely-followed blog called Our Finite World. Her background is as an actuary, working as a consultant to insurance companies. She also has a foot in the academic world, where she has lectured and written...

David Collum is the Betty R. Miller Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University. His technical expertise is in organic chemistry, but he has gained recognition for assorted podcasts and annual surveys focusing on politics and economics. Some of this latter content can be found at  http://collum.chem.cornell.edu/dbc6/DBC_rogue.html

Also known as Steve From Virginia, this week’s guest has a unique take on the nexus of energy, capital, and the destiny of industrial civilization. Steve writes: “The credit regime is falling apart under the weight of its own costs, not just in Europe. Government issue money ends a monopoly over a vital private good so that it becomes a public good, in this way the power of the banks to run our af...

Catherine Ingram is the author of In the Footsteps of Gandhi, Passionate Presence, and A Crack in Everything.  Since 1993 she has internationally led public events called Dharma Dialogues as well as retreats focusing on secular ways of inducing more wisdom, service, and well-being in one’s life.  She founded and is president of Living Dharma, an educational nonprofit organization and she serves on...

#267  Conversation with Jasun Horsley of the Liminalist podcast  and the Auticulture.com  blog. A self-described high-functioning Asberger personality, Jason explores the margins of culture. A liminal condition is one of transition, sometimes turbulent, and we explore this in relation to politics and culture of the day — everything from corn-pone Nazis to sexual transgression. This is another effo...

#266  Conversation with Clark Strand, author of Waking Up to the Dark - Ancient Wisdom for a Sleepless Age . A former Buddhist monk, Clark Strand poses the question: has electric lighting compromised our humanness, damaged our spirits, and foreclosed our future? Does it represent much of what has gone wrong with modernity. We explore this and other facets of his lyrical and original new book.

#265 — Futurist, Strategic Analyst, podcaster and rock and roll musician Eric Garland, taking with JHK from the troubled heartland city of St. Louis, Mo. Among other things, Eric and I talk about the Big Box shopping model, the contagion of business idiocy in the USA, the causes behind the Ferguson riots of 2014, and the current financial system as a raft of fraud going down a river of no return....

Conversation with an aesthete. Graphic designer, blogger, dandy, and artist Allen Crawford (a.k.a. “Lord Whimsey”) yaks with JHK about the state of male presentation in America, the arc of cultural collapse, art, and Walt Whitman — he is the author of a beautifully illustrated hand-lettered volume of Whitman’s poem “ Song of Myself ,” published by Tin House Press and available at the usual suspect...

#263 — Cultural historian, social critic and author Morris Berman yaks with JHK about his new book, Neurotic Beauty: An Outsider Looks at Japan, and a lot of other topics around the crisis of Modernity. Berman’s books include the trilogy: The Twilight of American Culture, Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire, and Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline.

John Michael Greer is a prolific author of novels and non-fiction books about the collapse of industrial civilization. He has a particularly long view of the human adventure and he is always fun to talk to. In this session, we delve into some questions of how technology behaves and where we are going with it in the years ahead.

Join me and Chris Martenson on a journey through the swamps of financial lingo so we might all develop a clearer notion of all that jargon we hear and read everyday in the chatter-sphere of the Internet. Chris is a PhD biologist who dropped out of the corporate gerbil wheel a few years ago and produced a groundbreaking web seminar called “The Crash Course” which helped a lot of people understand h...

#260 — Independent petroleum geologist Arthur Berman says of the shale oil and shale gas scene: “What we’re reading in the newspapers everyday is completely distorted. It couldn’t be more wrong and delusional.” JHK and Art delve into the finer points of the so-called shale oil miracle. Can anybody actually make any money in it? What are the long-term prospects? How are they raising capital to do i...

JHK Gets a new microphone and chats with J.D. Dickey author of “Empire of Mud — the Secret History of Washington, DC. For decades during the 19th century, the city was a national disgrace. Unfilled swamps, filthy canals, and rutted horse trails littered its landscape. Political bosses hired hooligans and thugs to conduct the nation's affairs. Legendary madams entertained clients from all stations...

JFK in free-ranging conversation with David Collum, who calls himself “the Paris Hilton of financial commentary.” Dave is also the distinguished Betty R Miller Professor of Chemistry and Chair in the Cornell University Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. He is a savvy cat and fun to talk to about the disorders of contemporary banking and economics. The KunstlerCast music is “Adam and Ali...

JFK shoots the breeze with Piero SanGiorgio, author of Survive the Coming Economic Collapse, a practical guide. The book was originally published in France and has now been put out in an English language version by Washington Summit Books. San Giorgio has lived in the USA Africa and other places, but currently makes his home in Switzerland. The KunstlerCast music is “Adam and Ali’s Waltz” from the...

JHK’s conversation with the excellent John Michael Greer, author and blogger about where we are now on the arc of collapse and what the mood of the culture is. Greer’s many books include The Long Descent, Green Wizardry, After Oil, The Wealth of Nature , and Not the Future We Ordered. His newest, Star’s Reach , is a novel set 400 years ahead in America’s neo-medieval future. He blogs weekly at The...

#255 – JHK yaks with Lynn Vannucci of Water Street Press (www. Waterstreetpressbooks.com) about the new model of book publishing in the digital age. Lynn has published four short-form novellas by JHK the past several years. Aspiring writers may be interested to discover that there is more of a market out there for you than the old mainstream New York publishing houses — most of which are now owned...

 JHK chats with Douglas Kelbaugh of the University of Michigan School of Architecture about Dubai, where JHK recently made a brief sojourn. Doug Kelbaugh was dean of the UMich architecture faculty for ten years. After that, he worked for two years for the Dubai-based Limitless Corporation, which did large scale development projects all over the world, including the Emirate of Dubai itself. Doug li...

Alice Friedemann insists she is not an academic, but publishes on a wide variety of contemporary scientific issues bearing on the fate of industrial civilization. She subscribes to a scenario that she calls the "fast crash." She worked for 25 years as a systems architect and engineer in the corporate world, or "Dilbert-Land" as she calls it, before dropping out to write full time. Her science and...

JHK’s conversation with KMO of the C-Realm Podcast. KMO, who goes by that tag for his public persona, is one of the best interviewers in the podcast world. I’ve been listening to him for years, and have been on his podcast more than once, so it’s a treat to have him on mine. KMO is moving beyond the particulars of the collapse of industrial civilization to questions of what’s next under the circum...

JHK yaks with independent energy analyst and author Chris Nelder about the fine points of making an energy transition (or not) from the current economy into whatever the next one is. Chris is more sanguine about the alt energy future than JHK is, but we have a respectful and lively discussion of the issue from two sides. Chris Nelder is the author of "Profit From the Peak" and "Investing in Renewa...

JHK and Charles Hugh Smith, author and blogger at OfTwoMinds.com, yak about the Deep State, our favorite new word for what used be be known as the Establishment. We also touch on Charles's theory that the Deep State will be willing to "throw Wall Street under the bus" to save itself, if it felt threatened. This is JHK's return to the podcast after several months off finishing the third instalklmen...

    #249 -- JHK chats with Steve Ludlum of the Economic-Undertow.com blog about the contemporary economy as a waste engine. We venture into dark and distant corners of the economic story, including population overshoot, the potential for social disorder, and the role of gold and silver as currencies. The KunstlerCast music is “Adam and Ali’s Waltz” from the recording Waiting to Fly by Mike and Ali...