This Kitchen is Only for Those who can Stand the Heat

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Oh sinful generation ...

It appears that there is no place for caution in today's world.  In a world that is ruled by economics (and not very rational economics, at that), the moment that growth stops, or even slows, everyone begins to panic.

It is reasonable and proper that those who are without work should panic.  But the approach furiously advocated by Big Business and its friends: unloose the fetters on Big Business!!! --and reduce government spending-- simply makes every little locality desperate to grab at any economic opportunity it sees.

In our little town, for instance, since we're close to the center of all this --highly destructive-- shale gas exploration, there is a great deal of bustling around, meetings everywhere, promotions, interviews, big shots from Texas coming in to gloat, big shots from Washington and Harrisburg hovering anxiously.  There is a scarcity of hotel space; not a single room is available some weeks.  Four new hotels have been put up recently, now competing with the grand old hotels of yesteryear.  The new hotels, of course, are essentially all plasterboard and steel girders; that's why they can be put up so fast.  Everyone in the hospitality industry is crazy about build, build build.

But all this frantic busy activity will peter out within a couple of years.  Once the gas companies bludgeon the local authorities into coming to terms with the pollution that simply cannot be alleviated, and once the local authorities begin to come under pressure from locals who benefit (alas, only temporarily) by the boom, the necessity for bigwigs from anywhere coming to our little town will cease, and the hotels will lie empty once again.

It would seem that all the gas will be extracted within five years.  At that point, even the low-level gas-rig jockeys will leave town, and only the blighted gas fields will be left.  But, on the bright side, there will be a lot of really cheap rooms for Little League families.  I suspect that the hotels will be very poorly maintained, since there will be no money in it.

Nobody wants to listen to any voice that suggests that furious building will be wasteful.  The voices of the nay-sayers are ignored, or worse, the pessimists are shunned.  Nobody can stand anyone who "isn't part of the solution," because, of course, they're part of the problem.