Surviving the Economic Collapse

[raja]

Re: Surviving the Economic Collapse

All I can say in response is that the Mexicans who painted my house showed 10x more American work ethic (show up early, work late, no wasting time shooting the s**t with each other) than the white 'skilled tradesman' who did the finish carpentry but showed up at 9:30, left at 3, and apparently billed an eight hour day while listening to WRIF and bullshitting all day. Work, sacrifice, and risk is the foundation of the United States, and I see more of that from the immigrants than the natives, and I'm sure that's been the case throughout the history of this country.

I had the opposite experience.
I had a contractor do some work around my home of a few years ago. When he left to supervise another job, the work quality of the Mexican crew rapidly declined, both in what they did and how they did it.

[Wild Style]

Re: Surviving the Economic Collapse

I suspect local/state law enforcement is going to be seriously stressed going forward due to their dramatic drops in local/state revenue, their inability to print their way out of trouble, and their toxic pension liabilities.

I doubt we will see any apocalyptic mad max type of stuff other than the odd and embarrassing localized incidents like what happened in Philadelphia in the 80's when the Philly PD "Air Force" dropped a bomb on MOVE and incinerated a city block while expending a couple thousands rounds in the process.

I'm thinking more along the lines of the seedier 70's in some major metro areas like NYC where corruption was very widespread.

We have a lot of high level and sophisticated corruption in the US.....and have been fortunate, due to the recent decades of a fake vaneer of temporary affluence.....but it's ending quickly...and I think the way we think of ourselves as somehow better than other countries with endemic low level and overt corruption is going to change.

Those public servants who didn't make it on the lucrative pension crazy train will be under increasing pressure as we go forward to supplement their inflation battered wages.

Argentina or South Africa like crime is not necessarily going to happen, or happen everywhere.......I think we will see slowly increasing crime rates matched with increasing levels of low level corruption across law enforcement and many other public sector segments out of necessity.

I'm thinking less Mad Max, more Serpico.

A recent trip to South Africa visiting a bunch of ex-military friends from SA and Zim leads me to believe that the US could see some entrepreneurial opportunities for monitored QRF armed response, security consulting/services, and private crime investigation moving forward.

In October, while in SA, I stayed with a friend whose home is like a bunker....including heavy lockable gates between INTERNAL rooms to match the gated external doors/windows, razor wire, high walls, electric fence, security system, dogs, firearms & experience using them.

Unfortunately, the night before I arrived the next door neighbour's somewhat less secure home was penetrated leaving one dead, one wounded.

With some real world experience in high threat environments I'd look at this thread and how to prepare for likely outcomes like I would with insurance.

Having good life insurance, auto insurance, health insurance usuallyu makes sense and has real tangible value.........meteor or godzilla insurance much less so beyond it's "sleep beter at night" intangible value.

I'd prefer expending energy on the likely or somewhat likely scenarios rather than wasting time on unlikely or highly unlikely scenarios.

you get nor argument from me on any of the points you brought up! You should google fort lauderdale AND miami corruption stings. We have had a lot of high level arrest lately and ongoing investigations.