I get some of my best ideas and worthwhile news feed from Live Journal. The trick, of course, is being connected to people who are infinitely smarter and more plugged-in than yourself, even if by two or three degrees of separation. Most of the rest of it is egocentric though often amusing crapola.

There’s Nick Currie, a friend of the boyfriend of an old girlfriend of mine (he’s also the artist known as Momus). I’ve never met the guy, and I only have a passing familiarity with his music, but he’s clearly got his finger on the pulse of something bigger than ’80s sex comedy and bad metal acts, (unlike me).

This Monday, Momus posted an astute, accessible post which laces together his thoughts upon the state of the stock market in both the United States and China, with links back to a disturbing article that appeared recently in The Guardian—it sounds like the bottom is about to fall out of the US stock market. Momus argues that the end effect for those who don’t own propery is practically nil; the thrust of his post is a call for post-bubble living, and how that model makes much more sense than the hyper capitalism that American consumers support at the expense of the rest of the world.

He ties together his argument with a reference to Berlin in the early 20th century, discusses Kafka and Brecht’s experience in this city’s economic depression of the age, without smacking of pretense.

Then he moves directly into a proposal for mass permaculture, and the immediate thought is, “right, I live in the city, how the hell is this possible?” Apparently there are minds already working on that answer; one such is Namaiki, a western duo from Tokyo. Currie provides a link to and an excerpt from an article in Theme Magazine.

After reading through Currie’s post, the subsequent links, and tangentals from them as well, I’m still not entirely convinced that the world economic state is ending. I’m not convinced that the great wheels will run out of money and power, nor that life as we know it will come to a squeaking halt. I am, however, a bit more reassured that, in the event that it does crash, whose of us who are already living modestly will make the transition with less distress and greater efficiency than those who own everything. Perhaps the meek shall inherit the earth after all. Nice thought on a cold Thursday morning.