When the Lights Go Out

[Pat K]

When the Lights Go Out

by Matt Patterson on November 10, 2011 · 0 comments

in Economy, Zeitgeist

There was a lot of noise in the news this past week, so you may be forgiven if you let this little nugget slip past you. From Reuters: "Alabama's Jefferson County filed for bankruptcy court protection on Wednesday in the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history."

There are three words in there that should never be in the same sentence — biggest, bankruptcy, and history — but there you go. Jefferson County has now followed Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (a state capital, incidentally), Vallejo, California, and Central Falls, Rhode Island, in going recently — and literally — belly up.

First cities then counties, the collapse is upward. People waiting for an economic apocalypse are anxiously watching banks, financial institutions, and national governments, but they are looking in the wrong place — at the local level, the level in which most people live most of their lives, the apocalypse is now.

The consequences will be horrendous, for local governments are the institutions that provide the most basic elements of Western civilized life — police protection, light, sanitation. These governments are too-small to fail. Think about it: If the federal government disappeared tomorrow, it could be days or weeks before the average citizen noticed. But your local garbage collection misses one pick up and damn, the stink sets in right away, don't it?

These basic services are already wasting away, all across America, right under our noses. The city of Highland Park, Michigan, for example, has gone literally dark. The Associated Press reports: "It wasn't always this way. But when the debt-ridden community could no longer afford its monthly electric bill, elected officials not only turned off 1,000 streetlights. They had them ripped out — bulbs, poles and all. Now nightfall cloaks most neighborhoods in inky darkness."

They didn't just turn off the lights — they ripped them out. Think about that. A society with hope in its heart would leave the infrastructure intact in anticipation of better times to come. A society without hope sees the darkened lamps as an offense, a taunt from better times likely never to return. So they self-vandalize, plucking out the painful reminder.

We are turning out the lights on our own civilization, literally and figuratively ripping up what our ancestors have built. May our children forgive us for letting it come to this.

http://www.openmarket.org/2011/11/10/when-the-lights-go-out/#more-47509

[KBCraig]

When the Lights Go Out

by Matt Patterson on November 10, 2011 · 0 comments

Think about it: If the federal government disappeared tomorrow, it could be days or weeks before the average citizen noticed. But your local garbage collection misses one pick up and damn, the stink sets in right away, don't it?

Think about it: if the local municipal government didn't outlaw competition, there would be some guy with a pickup happily making weekly runs to the landfill for a couple of bucks per address, plus all the scrap aluminum he could pull out of the neighborhood garbage.

We are turning out the lights on our own civilization, literally and figuratively ripping up what our ancestors have built. May our children forgive us for letting it come to this.

http://www.openmarket.org/2011/11/10/when-the-lights-go-out/#more-47509

It's an odd sentiment for the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

[Pat K]

That's nice but we don't and around here and most other large suburbs
and big city's  garbage would be 10 feet high and rising, before the dumb Fuckers could even have a meeting to decide if people could take garbage to the dump.

[littlehawk]

I am the Trash-Taxi! Have truck, will travel.
And thats no trash-talkin' either.

[Lloyd Danforth]

A guy here in Grafton has a service taking folk's trash and recycling to the Transfer Station.

[doobie]

Much of NH must live in the middle-ages...since we don't have street lights in most towns.

[MaineShark]

A guy here in Grafton has a service taking folk's trash and recycling to the Transfer Station.

There are several, from what I've seen (large loads being dropped off).  Either that, or there are quite a number of folks who generate inordinate amounts of trash, all on their own.

[Lloyd Danforth]

OK. I'll tell the story about my meeting the trash guy. I had been in town for a few months when I was asked to go to the TS to get signatures for a warrant article to end the planning board. This guy showed up with a large pickup and started empty bags and barrels into the compactor. He showed up an hour or so later with another load. I figured he had been saving it for a while. (a concept with which I have an intimate understanding after years in the Mancave)
When he showed up with the third load I realized that he was in business.

[KBCraig]

If I didn't live in one of those restricted municipalities, I'd do it myself... except I'd be undercut by the guys who already do it for people living outside the arbitrary line on the ground.

When we were doing renovations, I tried calling around to get competitive pricing on dumpsters. No can do -- Waste Management has an exclusive franchise in this town, not just for regular curbside service, but for all trash hauling. A dumpster cost us more than twice what a different hauler would have charged if we'd been outside the city limits.

Don't get me started about having to pay sewage charges for watering the plants...

[Russell Kanning]

ya they do that in Keene. They assume all water is headed for the sewage plant.

[cathleeninnh]

If I didn't live in one of those restricted municipalities, I'd do it myself... except I'd be undercut by the guys who already do it for people living outside the arbitrary line on the ground.

When we were doing renovations, I tried calling around to get competitive pricing on dumpsters. No can do -- Waste Management has an exclusive franchise in this town, not just for regular curbside service, but for all trash hauling. A dumpster cost us more than twice what a different hauler would have charged if we'd been outside the city limits.

Don't get me started about having to pay sewage charges for watering the plants...

NH is still waiting for you, Kev. Where there are plenty of private trash haulers to choose from. Rooting around in my gradually clearing front yard, I ran across some buried rusty junk. Dug it out, called a guy out of the local paper and within a couple of hours he had come and hauled it all away for nothing.

[Lloyd Danforth]

I recently saw part one of 'Connections' a 1979 series that ran on PBS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_%28TV_series%29

In it James Burke takes us back to the Northeast Blackout of 1964, but in scenario the lights don't come back on. It's worth watching.

[Tom Sawyer]

I recently saw part one of 'Connections' a 1979 series that ran on PBS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_%28TV_series%29

In it James Burke takes us back to the Northeast Blackout of 1964, but in scenario the lights don't come back on. It's worth watching.

That was a really good series, although I didn't see that particular episode.

[Kat Kanning]

I loved that show.

[Russell Kanning]

We watched it in a history class in college