Paul Farrell predicts apocalypse, anarchy

[sunskyfan]

Re: Paul Farrell predicts apocalypse, anarchy

http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.optimum.html
Somewhere near 4% of the world population died in WWII. Not a trivial numbers (60-70 million people).

For the real pessimist. Choose your link and your estimate of a sustainable world population but does anybody doubt this is not going to be the mother of all corrections? Numbers reduction of somewhere between 30-50% are required. A lot of people are going to die the next 50 years. Even if we "just" have an event like WWII it will mean the death of somewhere around 300 million or the population of the US.

[raja]

Re: Paul Farrell predicts apocalypse, anarchy

Yes, financial collapse would bring a period of economic hardship. That's a long leap from 'anarchy', however.

Anarchy may or may not happen . . . but it seems like a decline in our standard of living is a certainty. (Of course, the Financial Elite will suffer, also . . . they may have to sell one of their five mansions . . . or give up their smaller yacht. Oh, the suffering!)

If you want to know what it's like to live with a lower standard of living, here's an example . . . .

Ukraine had an economic collapse after the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 90s.
My wife lived through it.
She said that before the Soviet breakup all the apartments had the same wallpaper, and everyone wore the same brands of shoes and clothing (due to central planning), but they had what they needed, and medical care and education were free. After the breakup, things got bad . . . .

One day, soon after the dissolution, her parents went to the bank where they were keeping their life savings, and they told her, "Sorry, we can't give you your money." Some years later, they said, "Hey, we've got your money for you now . . . and by the way, it's lost 95% of its value."

There were days when many people did not have enough food. My wife, who was living with her daughter at the time, often received food from friends who had parents in a nearby farming village. From what I gather, this was common. Even people who lived in the big cities had relatives "down on the farm" from whom they got food, and many people had dachas (cottages) on a small piece of land at the outskirts of town where they would garden. So, the people got by most of the time. (We don't have that kind of food safety net in America.)

Today Ukraine is still poor and life is hard.

Even though my wife's parents are poor by our standards, they cannot leave their house unguarded for fear that robbers will come and take what little they have. They have several nasty watchdogs chained strategically around the property, but my wife tells me the thieves will just shoot or poison them. The police are corrupt, and are to be feared. The mafia is omnipresent. When I met my wife, and went to stay with her in her town of 50,000, the first thing she did was give me tear-gas spray for my walks around town. At her job as clerk at a pharmacy, there were two sets of accounting books -- one for the business, and one for the inspectors. This is apparently a routine business practice. I made her quit after she told me that she feared her boss would frame her if the books were discovered, which is what he did to the previous manager who went to jail. My wife earned about $60 a month, working most days from 7am to 6pm. She owned one overcoat, a few good dresses and a few pairs of shoes. When I arrived, I bought her clothes, a vacuum cleaner, an iron, some good pots and pans -- things that most Americans take for granted.

At the "good" apartment building were my wife lived, the reinforced concrete structure was disintegrating. Her balcony had a huge hole at one end, and I feared to go out on it. In one of the rooms of the two-room apartment, the electricity had failed. My wife didn't get it fixed because she couldn't afford it. (I had it fixed when I arrived, costing $9 for two guys for an hour of work.) The minuscule apartment elevator hadn't been inspected for years, and it got stuck frequently. I sometimes climbed the 9 stairs to her flat so I wouldn't risk getting trapped. The heat in the building wasn't turned on until sometime in November. The water frequently went off, so she kept water stored at all times.

My wife's daughter had appendicitis while I was there.
The "ambulance" was an old truck with wooden benches and contained one of those WWII type stretchers. When we got to the hospital, the first thing that caught my attention were the ubiquitous linoleum floors -- they had a million nails driven in everywhere to patch it where it was coming up. My wife had to bribe the head doctor to use a replacement for the anesthetist on duty, since he was a known drunkard. People's teeth are commonly bad in Ukraine, because they don't want to spend what little they have at the dentist.

The enforcement of laws was irregular. For example, when you go through customs at the airports, you never know what will happen, because the staff either don't know what the law is, or they do what they feel like depending on their mood. There are many illegal businesses operating in open view, such as the small bus services that travel between towns.

This was Ukraine four years ago when I was there. My wife is tells me that her friends and family in Ukraine report that things are worse now.

Is this America's future?

Even if we manage to save ourselves personally from poverty through clever investments, is this the kind of world in which we want to live -- rampant crime and suffering? This is why I'm trying to stop the Financial Elite parasites from making things even worse than what already may be in store for us.

[ricket]

Re: Paul Farrell predicts apocalypse, anarchy

Ukraine had an economic collapse after the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 90s. My wife lived through it.

When I met my wife, and went to stay with her in her town of 50,000, the first thing she did was give me tear-gas spray for my walks around town.

I made her quit [her job] after she told me that she feared her boss would frame her if the books were discovered, which is what he did to the previous manager who went to jail. My wife earned about $60 a month, working most days from 7am to 6pm. She owned one overcoat, a few good dresses and a few pairs of shoes. When I arrived, I bought her clothes, a vacuum cleaner, an iron, some good pots and pans -- things that most Americans take for granted.

At the "good" apartment building were my wife lived, the reinforced concrete structure was disintegrating. Her balcony had a huge hole at one end, and I feared to go out on it. In one of the rooms of the two-room apartment, the electricity had failed. My wife didn't get it fixed because she couldn't afford it. (I had it fixed when I arrived, costing $9 for two guys for an hour of work.) The minuscule apartment elevator hadn't been inspected for years, and it got stuck frequently. I sometimes climbed the 9 stairs to her flat so I wouldn't risk getting trapped. The heat in the building wasn't turned on until sometime in November. The water frequently went off, so she kept water stored at all times.

My wife's daughter had appendicitis while I was there.
The "ambulance" was an old truck with wooden benches and contained one of those WWII type stretchers. When we got to the hospital, the first thing that caught my attention were the ubiquitous linoleum floors -- they had a million nails driven in everywhere to patch it where it was coming up. My wife had to bribe the head doctor to use a replacement for the anesthetist on duty, since he was a known drunkard. People's teeth are commonly bad in Ukraine, because they don't want to spend what little they have at the dentist.

This was Ukraine four years ago when I was there. My wife is tells me that her friends and family in Ukraine report that things are worse now.

Do you have a 'mail order' bride??

[raja]

Re: Paul Farrell predicts apocalypse, anarchy

Let's ask a different question. Can someone please cite an example of a society that has attained such a high level of hypercomplexity such as ours?

Here's what I mean by hypercomplexity:

-most money is virtual, whether it's accessed thru debit or credit cards. It relies on electricity, the internet, and the banks' health.

-most food is grown hundreds, if not well over a thousand miles from where you live

-many of the employed rely on high asset values. They are employees of the FIRE economy. I work in a major city, and as I walk to work in the morning, I see thousands of people doing the same thing, all going to offices and cubes to tap on keyboards all day. It blows my mind to think what the hell are we really doing and how do we all get paid doing it.

- in the Great Depression, 25-30% of the population grew food. They lived where they found food. Now it's 2-3% of the popualtion.

-Everybody drives. Eveything is ultimately trucked. Petroleum and money move together. One impacts the other.

-With state and local budgets under duress, how many cops can we really afford?

Those are just a few of the things that make our society hypercomplex. Whereas our society has evolved to produce efficiency and profits, I think it comes at a cost - robustness. A village in the third world is more robust than our society. If there was a financial collapse, the village moves on. I don't know what that would mean for us though.

Look at New Orleans just after Hurricane Katrina. That town went mad max in just a couple days.

We have built an amazing financial and technological world. The trouble is, no one can understand much less control it should things go wrong in a big way.

It's like your computer . . . .
What an incredible tool and time saver. But when you lose your hard disk with years of data stored on it, or accidentally erase your 300-page Great American Novel, it's an equally big disaster. Sure, you were planning on backing up all that stuff, but other things always seemed more important (the allure of short-term gain).

If you use a hand saw . . . sure, you can cut yourself in a minor way. But if you use a chain saw, you can go several inches into your leg in a second. The more powerful the technology, the more damage it can do when things go awry.

I expect that if things take a big tumble with the global economy, the food industry/delivery system as well as energy will be nationalized. Be prepared for a lot less choice, as you "spend" your food coupons on your daily bread and beans.

Yet another reason to slap down the Financial Elite before they do any more damage. :eek:

[touchring]

Re: Paul Farrell predicts apocalypse, anarchy

I got an offshore Ukrainian programmer with about 7 years experience doing work for me that I am paying an effective rate of about $400 a month for project works, so I'm actually curious about the wages in ukraine, especially small cities and towns outside of Kiev.

Ukraine had an economic collapse after the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 90s.
My wife lived through it.

[BigBagel]

Re: Paul Farrell predicts apocalypse, anarchy

A lot of people are going to die the next 50 years.

Unfortunately for me I will be one of them.

[shunter]

Re: Paul Farrell predicts apocalypse, anarchy

Weimar Republic - anarchy no - foothold for Nazis yes
Great Depression - anarchy no - foothold for social security yes

Difference between then and now was social fabric -

Kids raised today raised on 'Grand Theft Auto' + 'Pulp Fiction'

I am confident some areas like South LA would encounter anarchy and other smaller rural communities wouldn't.

[sunskyfan]

Re: Paul Farrell predicts apocalypse, anarchy

Me too ;) ... I might make it to hundred in 2063. I do worry for my kids and grand kids though.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Paul Farrell predicts apocalypse, anarchy

No WAY do I see an across the board fast implosion of a single western society as a likely or even just unlikely scenario.

I'd probably put it in the category of highly unlikely, about the same chance of it happening as our beachside house being hit by a tsunami.

But it's always worth having different kinds of insurance.

We have insurance to replace our home in the event of a tsunami and a reasonably well tested plan(2 false alarms) to insure we quickly get out with what we need.

In the highly unlikely event of a collapse we move to our working farm in a small and reasonably remote community of farms and ride it out.

What I suspect will be the likely to less likely range of scenarios is something along the lines of Argentina or as Raja has described Ukraine.

In a nutshell, I see most folks falling 1-2 rungs down the standard of living ladder.....which sucks for those it occurs to and can't compute the new reality, but it's not necessarily going to result in widespread chaos...especially if it takes a decade or more to play out.

I think a lot of people view events unfolding with too much time compression...much like the movie The Day After Tomorrow.....as if everything is going to happen within the span of a 2 hour movie or mini-series.

For those who haven't spent much time in the 3rd world you'd be surprised at how much deprivation people will put up with over a long period of time and still not go all Mad Max.

Slowly boil the frog and he will not jump out.

Having said that.....if we see events to the downside unfold far too quickly occuring over a few months to a year instead of a decade...it would certainly have some more "exciting" results.

[Quincy K]

Re: Paul Farrell predicts apocalypse, anarchy

Weimar Republic - anarchy no - foothold for Nazis yes
Great Depression - anarchy no - foothold for social security yes

Difference between then and now was social fabric -

Kids raised today raised on 'Grand Theft Auto' + 'Pulp Fiction'

I am confident some areas like South LA would encounter anarchy and other smaller rural communities wouldn't.

Go hang out in front of a liquor store in South Central or Compton at one or two in the morning wearing a Rolex watch.

I believe that the over/under on you encountering anarchy would be about five minutes.

Probably less if you're driving a Benz.

[gbsjls]

Re: Paul Farrell predicts apocalypse, anarchy

I was working in Kharkof Ukraine at the beginning and during the transition in the economy. People with out friends in the country traded their furnature for food, etc. The mafia had complete power over all things.
Watching the transition was interesting/exciting and terrifying, as you could easily image the same thing happen here. Before this really started it was a very civilized society. It took a couple of years, but became a classic survival game.

[jtabeb]

Re: Paul Farrell predicts apocalypse, anarchy

I was working in Kharkof Ukraine at the beginning and during the transition in the economy. People with out friends in the country traded their furnature for food, etc. The mafia had complete power over all things.
Watching the transition was interesting/exciting and terrifying, as you could easily image the same thing happen here. Before this really started it was a very civilized society. It took a couple of years, but became a classic survival game.

Any advice for us Newbies at economic collapse?

[gbsjls]

Re: Paul Farrell predicts apocalypse, anarchy

It was interesting to to watch the sequence of loss of control and beginning of hardship evolve. It was not until some months into this I remember thinking WOW, this is possible it could happen here some day. Our society is so reliant on JIT, low cost energy and an efficient transportation system it is even more fragile that their system was. This system can adapt very well to even a high level of of stress, but then, where is that point that it can not adapt ?????

[lsa420]

Re: Paul Farrell predicts apocalypse, anarchy

Do you have a 'mail order' bride??

http://www.loveme.com/

[newnewthing]

Re: Paul Farrell predicts apocalypse, anarchy

Go hang out in front of a liquor store in South Central or Compton at one or two in the morning wearing a Rolex watch.

I believe that the over/under on you encountering anarchy would be about five minutes.

Probably less if you're driving a Benz.

Probably not.

Just like in NY, violent crime is way down in LA and it is close to historic lows in the US overall. It's one of the more interesting anomalies. Isn't economic stress supposed to increase crime? Sort of like rampant deficit spending is supposed to drive inflation. 20+ years of economic stagnation in Japan, huge debt load, and inflation? zip.

However, I don't believe both of these conditions in the US are going to last much longer but I've been surprised before.