Best post of the year.
Man I'd like him to be right, and I'd much, much, much rather see Mexico raised up economically than China. Our cultures are far more similar, they are our neighbors, it might help with their drug war, border issues, etc.
theconservativetreehouse.com
If a broken record is played enough it will be heard. All to many people think this is all conspiracy but it's in black and white in plain sight.
Would make for some latino support in the election, too
charleshughsmith.blogspot.com
I think a slow boil is far more likely than one day we realize we need to travel in armed packs outside of our area to procure supplies. The slow boil is what has happened in other societies.Surviving 2020 #3: Plans A, B and C
As the bogus prosperity economy built on exponential growth of debt implodes, we all seek ways to protect ourselves, our families and our worldly assets. There are any number of websites, subscription services and books which offer two basic "practical recommendations:"
1. Buy gold (and/or silver) and don't worry about timing the market as everything else will become worthless.
2. Establish a heavily armed and well-supplied hideaway before everything implodes.
My problem with these suggestions is that they are predicated on a decisive "end of the world as we know it" collapse of civilization.
While I am alive to the possibility of this cataclysm, an analysis of the many feedback loops which will slow or counteract such a decisive collapse suggests other alternatives are even more likely: my term for the slow, uneven decline of the credit/speculative-bubble era is devolution.
I cover feedback loops, historical cycles and why a lengthy devolution is as least as likely a scenario as abrupt collapse in my book Survival+ (free downloadable version is linked below).
In other words, I do not see planning for eventualities as "either/or." I look at it in terms of three levels:
1. Plan A: dealing with devolution: government services are cut back, prices for essentials rise over time, fulltime paid jobs become scarce, the State (all levels of government) becomes increasingly repressive as it pursues "theft by other means," i.e. the stripmining of private assets to feed its own fiefdoms and Elites; most assets fall in purchasing power (value) as the system's financial props erode.
2. Plan B: When things become rationed/unavailable, services become sporadic, pensions stop being paid in full, spontaneous homeless encampments arise in heretofore "nice" areas, cities go bankrupt, small businesses go underground to survive the ever-higher taxes being levied on the few remaining productive enterprises, etc.
Plan C: if things fall apart: either move to communities where you or your family have roots (tough luck for all the millions of rootless Americans shifted around by corporate "relocations" the past 50 years) or turn to your neighborhood, town, friends, family, church and other social networks for cooperative strength.
Surviving 2020 #3: Plans A, B and C
Readers ask for specific recommendations for successfully navigating the post-credit/speculative-bubble era and I try to do so while explai...