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A Second Great Depression Would Be Catastrophic - MILLIONS WILL PERISH
First - understand the context:
The America of the first depression was a completely different world from 2008. Back then, you had a Christian, homogenis population 90% white, who was self-sufficient and law abiding. Most American's lived off the land back then and were pro-active critical thinkers.
Contrast that with America 2008 ...
The moral fabric of America is weak. America is racially, religiously and politically divided now more than ever. America is the most criminally infested country in the developed world. Just today six people were killed in a Memphis school shooting. Thursday and Friday saw school riots in at least 3 different cities. You have school shootings all the time. Over a million gang-bangers in the United States - and growing. You have crips, bloods, latinkings, ms13, f13, etc.
Most Americans are crammed into cities and suburbs. And most Americans do NOT critically think, nor are they self-sufficient and much of the US population is sitting around waiting on the government to bail them out for whatever ails them.
What will go down ...
There will be raids on all the Walmarts and grocery stores everywhere. People will ransack the places, shooting and assualting whoever gets in the way. There won't be enough police to maintain order. And just as in Katrina, many of those police will be looting themselves. Many may not even serve or just quit while chaos breaks out because they want to take care of their families. See Katrina.
You'll have white haired old grandmas living in poor income neighborhoods, and the thugs and gang bangers will break into her home, murder her and steal her food, money and whatever else vauable she has. See Katrina for evidence..
You'll have packs of lower income people raiding nicer neighborhoods that are in just as bad trouble for lack of food and resources. See Katrina for evidence.
You'll routinely have people raiding each other for food, water and resources. To survive, it will require that you over power someone and steal their supplies. This will be true especially if you live in the big city.
People living in rural areas will probably suffer just as bad because most don't have a garden, or if they do it won't provide enough food to live on. Odds are, some trucks will probably make into certain sectors of certain cities to provide what food is available. But it'll be just like Somalia, gangs will surround those trucks, take out any cops there and those gangs will own the food and probably sell it at a high price. See Africa - Somalia in particular.
Many people will eventually run out of bullets and resort to machetes, knifes and baseball bats and operate in gangs to get what they want.
In a few sectors of the country there will be law and order. Keep in mind this will probably be due in part a secret bill passed by Congress weeks ago that gives Canadian military the right to police the United States in the event of civil unrest. Look it up.
Emergency rooms will be flooded with people and won't be able to treat many people due to lack of supplies and yes maybe even electricity. Plus, many emergency workers will be walk off the job because they have to help their families.
Gangstas will overrun hospitals, airports and power plants. Joe Working Stiff and His Soccer Wife with their 2.1 kids and dog living in the suburbs won't be prepared for the carnage and savagery of the gangstas.
Things will get so bad people will be drinking out of toilets.
Also, chances are that the Mexican military and other South American military forces may push into the border states as part of the Azatlan Reconquista Movement. Look up Azatlan, Mecha, Mexico Movement. These guys will have plenty of ammunition and will machine gun American citizens down and probably provide food for their nationals south of the border.
The US military will be stuck overseas. And even if some do make it back, there's nowhere near enough military to patrol even a few states to bring law and order. Many of those soldiers may desert because they have to take care of their families.
Katrina showed us clearly what'll happen in much of the US.
Last edited by Senator Palpatein; 03-04-2008 at 08:00 AM..
A Second Great Depression Would Be Catastrophic - MILLIONS WILL PERISH
First - understand the context:
The America of the first depression was a completely different world from 2008. Back then, you had a Christian, homogenis population 90% white, who was self-sufficient and law abiding. Most American's lived off the land back then and were pro-active critical thinkers.
Contrast that with America 2008 ...
The moral fabric of America is weak. America is racially, religiously and politically divided now more than ever. America is the most criminally infested country in the developed world. Just today six people were killed in a Memphis school shooting. Thursday and Friday saw school riots in at least 3 different cities. You have school shootings all the time. Over a million gang-bangers in the United States - and growing. You have crips, bloods, latinkings, ms13, f13, etc.
Most Americans are crammed into cities and suburbs. And most Americans do NOT critically think, nor are they self-sufficient and much of the US population is sitting around waiting on the government to bail them out for whatever ails them.
What will go down ...
There will be raids on all the Walmarts and grocery stores everywhere. People will ransack the places, shooting and assualting whoever gets in the way. There won't be enough police to maintain order. And just as in Katrina, many of those police will be looting themselves. Many may not even serve or just quit while chaos breaks out because they want to take care of their families. See Katrina.
You'll have white haired old grandmas living in poor income neighborhoods, and the thugs and gang bangers will break into her home, murder her and steal her food, money and whatever else vauable she has. See Katrina for evidence..
You'll have packs of lower income people raiding nicer neighborhoods that are in just as bad trouble for lack of food and resources. See Katrina for evidence.
You'll routinely have people raiding each other for food, water and resources. To survive, it will require that you over power someone and steal their supplies. This will be true especially if you live in the big city.
People living in rural areas will probably suffer just as bad because most don't have a garden, or if they do it won't provide enough food to live on. Odds are, some trucks will probably make into certain sectors of certain cities to provide what food is available. But it'll be just like Somalia, gangs will surround those trucks, take out any cops there and those gangs will own the food and probably sell it at a high price. See Africa - Somalia in particular.
Many people will eventually run out of bullets and resort to machetes, knifes and baseball bats and operate in gangs to get what they want.
In a few sectors of the country there will be law and order. Keep in mind this will probably be due in part a secret bill passed by Congress weeks ago that gives Canadian military the right to police the United States in the event of civil unrest. Look it up.
Emergency rooms will be flooded with people and won't be able to treat many people due to lack of supplies and yes maybe even electricity. Plus, many emergency workers will be walk off the job because they have to help their families.
Gangstas will overrun hospitals, airports and power plants. Joe Working Stiff and His Soccer Wife with their 2.1 kids and dog living in the suburbs won't be prepared for the carnage and savagery of the gangstas.
Things will get so bad people will be drinking out of toilets.
Also, chances are that the Mexican military and other South American military forces may push into the border states as part of the Azatlan Reconquista Movement. Look up Azatlan, Mecha, Mexico Movement. These guys will have plenty of ammunition and will machine gun American citizens down and probably provide food for their nationals south of the border.
The US military will be stuck overseas. And even if some do make it back, there's nowhere near enough military to patrol even a few states to bring law and order. Many of those soldiers may desert because they have to take care of their families.
Katrina showed us clearly what'll happen in much of the US.
While what you say here may be a bit exaggerated (It also may not be, though!) I think this is generally what kind of scenario I could see developing if an economic disaster hit. This is some ridiculously frightening stuff... and it is not... out of the realm of possibility. Most people in this country are completely unaware of the potentially nightmarish freight train that is heading down the tracks towards them.
And yes, many Americans are also unaware... of the pact signed last week between Canada and the U.S. that allows each others military on their soil in times of emergency. I found this, along with the tons of other power grabs Bush has taken over the past years, eerily foreboding - considering the economic powder keg that is facing us. Hmm... do they know something is going to happen?
As I said in my original post, I do not mean to be an alarmist -but I think in a situation like this, even if there is a remote possibility of something like this happening... you have to hope for the best... and prepare for the worst.
Nothing would surprise me anymore. This country's gov't is as crooked as they come. And the population of this nation, for the most part, would in no way shape or form.... be able to handle a massive crisis like this.
Okay. Let's just start with an economic history lesson.
The Great Depression was pretty much a perfect storm. At the same time, it's really important to understand that the Great Depression was not caused by the Stock Market Crash. Yes, it served as a convenient benchmark, but government policy was the true culprit, something popular histories never tell you. So let's just review.
1) Farm protection measures in the early 1920s. In 1921, an American farmer could sell a bushel of wheat at market for about $1. Then came Congress with the bright idea of protecting American farms from a flood of imported agricultural products. Of course, nobody realized that other countries would invoke retaliatory measures. The result of the agricultural trade war? That same bushel of wheat that was sold for a $1 in the early 20s only sold for two bits by 1928.
Of course, this evisceration of farming weakened the rural banking system, thereby laying the foundation for catastrophe.
2) The Stock Market Crash. Yep, it was a problem. No denying it. But the stock market has collapsed similarly at other times in our history, most notably in 1987. So why was the Great Depression different?
3) The Tightening of Credit by the Federal Reserve, that's why. Rather than lower interest rates so that businesses could remain in operation, the Federal Reserve decided to increase interest rates in one of the all-time stupid economic moves in history. It was the equivalent of fighting a modest brush fire with 100 gallons of gasoline.
4) So, with a full blown recession underway, what did Congress do? Rather than learn their lessons from their intervention in foreign agricultural imports, they blundered on and passed the Hawley Smoot Tariff Act, which provoked a global trade war. Retaliatory tariffs on American goods were enacted across the board, thereby destroying American export trade. Good going, Congress.
5) FDR and his New Deal. At a time when Americans needed to hold on to every dime, FDR came along on a wave of desperation and jacked income tax rates through the roof for middle class and upper class households. This effectively froze capital that might have gone towards investments or discretionary spending, instead sucking that money into a gigantic black hold of alphabet soup makework programs.
The sad thing is how lionized FDR has been over the years, when his programs were actually demonstrable failures. The American unemployment rate was almost the same in 1940 as it was in 1933, when Roosevelt took the oath of office. In fact, the only time in the 1930s when unemployment actually dipped was after an entire slew of Roosevelt's programs were deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. So the savior of the American economy wasn't Roosevelt. It was Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini.
I think in a situation like this, even if there is a remote possibility of something like this happening... you have to hope for the best... and prepare for the worst.
Some of us already are.
My stale joke/analogy from past posts.
Two men are walking through the woods and come across a bear. One man bends over and reaches into his bag and grabs a pair of running shoes which he starts to put on. His buddy says, hey, you can't out run a bear. To which the other man replies... I don't have to, I only have to out run YOU.
Moral of the story, you don't have to be Paul Bunyon or Grizzly Adams, you only have to be a little better than the next guy.
"May we all live in interesting times" - Old Chinese curse.
The biggest difference between then and now is that we were a major exporter of food,
oil and manufactured goods with a large trade surplus. Now we import all three on borrowed money. At least the decrease in travel will allows us to turn all that corn ethanol into whiskey because we are all going to need a stiff drink to get through this “recession”.
Have you ever noticed that there are people Senator Palpatein who crave disaster and chaos? Read between the lines and you can read the Apocolyptic desire from a man who probably watches weather porn such as The Day After Tomorrow in an endless loop. Heck his very screen name implies that he lives nothing better than the tearing down of the old order into anarchy.
Of course, he doesn't take into account how quickly martial law would be established. He uses Louisiana after Katrina, forgetting that Louisiana is the most dysfunctional state in the Union. Mississippi and Alabama dealt with Katrina as well, and did so in an orderly, civil fashion.
Oh, and I particularly love the scenario that somehow, in the face of a catastrophic depression, Mexico would survive unscratched and would actually have the economic wherewithal to field any kind of army, let alone one that could take on the United States. Let's dispense with that. One brigade of the Texas national guard would put the Mexican army to flight.
And the American military is nowhere near as big as it could be. In fact the American military is a tiny fraction of its potential size. Planners have suggested that, in the case of all-war, around 35 to 40 million Americans could be in uniform, more than ample to deal with any threat, foreign or domestic.
A Second Great Depression Would Be Catastrophic - MILLIONS WILL PERISH
First - understand the context:
The America of the first depression was a completely different world from 2008. Back then, you had a Christian, homogenis population 90% white, who was self-sufficient and law abiding. Most American's lived off the land back then and were pro-active critical thinkers.
Contrast that with America 2008 ...
The moral fabric of America is weak. America is racially, religiously and politically divided now more than ever. America is the most criminally infested country in the developed world. Just today six people were killed in a Memphis school shooting. Thursday and Friday saw school riots in at least 3 different cities. You have school shootings all the time. Over a million gang-bangers in the United States - and growing. You have crips, bloods, latinkings, ms13, f13, etc.
Most Americans are crammed into cities and suburbs. And most Americans do NOT critically think, nor are they self-sufficient and much of the US population is sitting around waiting on the government to bail them out for whatever ails them.
What will go down ...
There will be raids on all the Walmarts and grocery stores everywhere. People will ransack the places, shooting and assualting whoever gets in the way. There won't be enough police to maintain order. And just as in Katrina, many of those police will be looting themselves. Many may not even serve or just quit while chaos breaks out because they want to take care of their families. See Katrina.
You'll have white haired old grandmas living in poor income neighborhoods, and the thugs and gang bangers will break into her home, murder her and steal her food, money and whatever else vauable she has. See Katrina for evidence..
You'll have packs of lower income people raiding nicer neighborhoods that are in just as bad trouble for lack of food and resources. See Katrina for evidence.
You'll routinely have people raiding each other for food, water and resources. To survive, it will require that you over power someone and steal their supplies. This will be true especially if you live in the big city.
People living in rural areas will probably suffer just as bad because most don't have a garden, or if they do it won't provide enough food to live on. Odds are, some trucks will probably make into certain sectors of certain cities to provide what food is available. But it'll be just like Somalia, gangs will surround those trucks, take out any cops there and those gangs will own the food and probably sell it at a high price. See Africa - Somalia in particular.
Many people will eventually run out of bullets and resort to machetes, knifes and baseball bats and operate in gangs to get what they want.
In a few sectors of the country there will be law and order. Keep in mind this will probably be due in part a secret bill passed by Congress weeks ago that gives Canadian military the right to police the United States in the event of civil unrest. Look it up.
Emergency rooms will be flooded with people and won't be able to treat many people due to lack of supplies and yes maybe even electricity. Plus, many emergency workers will be walk off the job because they have to help their families.
Gangstas will overrun hospitals, airports and power plants. Joe Working Stiff and His Soccer Wife with their 2.1 kids and dog living in the suburbs won't be prepared for the carnage and savagery of the gangstas.
Things will get so bad people will be drinking out of toilets.
Also, chances are that the Mexican military and other South American military forces may push into the border states as part of the Azatlan Reconquista Movement. Look up Azatlan, Mecha, Mexico Movement. These guys will have plenty of ammunition and will machine gun American citizens down and probably provide food for their nationals south of the border.
The US military will be stuck overseas. And even if some do make it back, there's nowhere near enough military to patrol even a few states to bring law and order. Many of those soldiers may desert because they have to take care of their families.
Katrina showed us clearly what'll happen in much of the US.
Yeah, I agree.
I try to ignore the Senator.
His posts are consistantly over-the-top silly, with everything always being at an extreme. His vision is his personal fantasy, no more than that (though admittedly a few other folks share his wild views).
An economic downturn is definitely here and it's probably likely to be worse than any of the more recent ones - but in spite of some similarities there are also a LOT of differences between this downturn and the Great Depression. For on thing, there was NO safety net back then - no unemployment, no wellfare, no nothin'. When you lost your job you had NO source of income at all - of course on the other hand more people were rural back then and could more easily subsist on what their gardens produced so there is a bit of a trade off (but not much).
Secondly, the massive bank failures that characterized the Great Depression are NOT about to occur - and people who have money in those few banks that do fold (and there will be a few) have the protection of FDIC so their money is safe.
The huge national debt the US has run up has largely be the work of an incompetent Commander in Chief and a Republican Congress that has strayed from it's traditional position of fiscal responsibility. Under the last President, we had a budget surplus and had begun to pay down the debt. The last seven years have been a major setback in this regard, but we WILL recover and at some point a balanced budget will probably again be achieved.
The US military is currently overextended and equipment is becoming worn from extended use, but it is still far and away the most powerful military on earth - and as mentioned, could easily be made a LOT larger (though that is not likely to happen). Neither Mexico nor Canada are military threats in the slightest and have neither the intention nor the capability to harm the US.
Even the foreclosure mess - as bad as it is - is not horrible as most folks think. From the news reports one would think that half of America is in foreclosure - when the fact is, just a bit more than 1% of homes are in that state. The vast majority of homes are fine. The surplus of available homes is large (admittedly) but the population of America continues to grow - and as long as the population is increasing there WILL be increasing demand for homes (DUH!). Within two or three years the excess inventory will be purchased and prices will begin climbing again.
Economic trouble is admittedly on the horizon (here actually) but in 18 months or so things will likely be looking much better. We may have an economic hangover for a while (worst in quite some time probably) , but it's NOT the "end of the world" as some here have suggested.
Well Palp, if stuff gets as bad as you envision I guess we could all cross into Mexico and start to take their land. Heck, maybe we could all invade Mexico in the winter and Canada in the summer. With the jungle warfare you envision we should have no trouble throwing folks out of their residences.
I can just see it now, packs of US citizens roaming the wilds...
A Second Great Depression Would Be Catastrophic - MILLIONS WILL PERISH
First - understand the context:
The America of the first depression was a completely different world from 2008. Back then, you had a Christian, homogenis population 90% white, who was self-sufficient and law abiding. Most American's lived off the land back then and were pro-active critical thinkers.
Contrast that with America 2008 ...
The moral fabric of America is weak. America is racially, religiously and politically divided now more than ever. America is the most criminally infested country in the developed world. Just today six people were killed in a Memphis school shooting. Thursday and Friday saw school riots in at least 3 different cities. You have school shootings all the time. Over a million gang-bangers in the United States - and growing. You have crips, bloods, latinkings, ms13, f13, etc.
Most Americans are crammed into cities and suburbs. And most Americans do NOT critically think, nor are they self-sufficient and much of the US population is sitting around waiting on the government to bail them out for whatever ails them.
What will go down ...
There will be raids on all the Walmarts and grocery stores everywhere. People will ransack the places, shooting and assualting whoever gets in the way. There won't be enough police to maintain order. And just as in Katrina, many of those police will be looting themselves. Many may not even serve or just quit while chaos breaks out because they want to take care of their families. See Katrina.
You'll have white haired old grandmas living in poor income neighborhoods, and the thugs and gang bangers will break into her home, murder her and steal her food, money and whatever else vauable she has. See Katrina for evidence..
You'll have packs of lower income people raiding nicer neighborhoods that are in just as bad trouble for lack of food and resources. See Katrina for evidence.
You'll routinely have people raiding each other for food, water and resources. To survive, it will require that you over power someone and steal their supplies. This will be true especially if you live in the big city.
People living in rural areas will probably suffer just as bad because most don't have a garden, or if they do it won't provide enough food to live on. Odds are, some trucks will probably make into certain sectors of certain cities to provide what food is available. But it'll be just like Somalia, gangs will surround those trucks, take out any cops there and those gangs will own the food and probably sell it at a high price. See Africa - Somalia in particular.
Many people will eventually run out of bullets and resort to machetes, knifes and baseball bats and operate in gangs to get what they want.
In a few sectors of the country there will be law and order. Keep in mind this will probably be due in part a secret bill passed by Congress weeks ago that gives Canadian military the right to police the United States in the event of civil unrest. Look it up.
Emergency rooms will be flooded with people and won't be able to treat many people due to lack of supplies and yes maybe even electricity. Plus, many emergency workers will be walk off the job because they have to help their families.
Gangstas will overrun hospitals, airports and power plants. Joe Working Stiff and His Soccer Wife with their 2.1 kids and dog living in the suburbs won't be prepared for the carnage and savagery of the gangstas.
Things will get so bad people will be drinking out of toilets.
Also, chances are that the Mexican military and other South American military forces may push into the border states as part of the Azatlan Reconquista Movement. Look up Azatlan, Mecha, Mexico Movement. These guys will have plenty of ammunition and will machine gun American citizens down and probably provide food for their nationals south of the border.
The US military will be stuck overseas. And even if some do make it back, there's nowhere near enough military to patrol even a few states to bring law and order. Many of those soldiers may desert because they have to take care of their families.
Katrina showed us clearly what'll happen in much of the US.
1) 90% white? I doubt that. You still had plenty of Hispanics in Texas and California and there were still plenty of blacks as well in the South. You also forget to mention the high percentage of European immigrants, but poor and often illiterate Europeans who came over to do sweatshop work and in a few generations moved up. They were the Mexicans of their day.
I also think that you keep on mentioning "white" and "Christian" is a little creepy. Not saying you have an agenda, but it often starts with those words.
2) First of all, the US only leads the Western world in murder, but it is still very much the global average. You are still more likely to be robbed, raped, have something stolen, have your house broken into, etc. in Canada, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, etc.
Second of all, what they don't mention about those 1,000,000 gangbangers is that only about 10% of them are what police call "Hardcore Members". Most gang members just commit petty crimes like joyriding, petty theft, and fist fighting other gang members and once they get into their late teens to mid twenties they move on with their life. It's the guys who look at joining the Hells Angels, Costa Nostra, the Mexican Mafia, Aryan Brotherhood, and so on like the way a lawyer looks at making partner that you've got to watch out for, but they are the minority of gang members.
Not saying that gang members aren't a problem, most gang members commit crimes, but most of them aren't the "kill you as soon as look at you" type and most of the crime is small time and non-violent.
3) I do have to agree. Most people do not think critically and prefer to have the government take care of them or use the government to enforce their own preferences. However, I do not think it is worse now than then. Back in the 1930s you had people on the Left looking at Comrade Stalin and praising the Soviet Union for completely bypassing the Great Depression, they were actually mad at Roosevelt for not being more socialist. You also had people on the Right who were looking at Nazi Germany and praising how Hitler was getting things done and Mussolini was making the trains run on time as well. Never mind that both economies weren't sustainable in any sense of the word and that both were fueled by extensive use of slave labor and coercing workers whenever it suited their needs.
4) You left out the Thunderdome where "Two man enter, one man leave".
We are talking about a large scale decline in economic activity and high unemployment, not Mad Max. Would their be an increase in crime, in ever recession and depression there is almost always an increase in crime, but there is a difference between New York City circa 1980 and using your M2HB to fight off the roving bandits that regularly attack your compound.
Just consider yourself lucky you do not live in Australia, they'd have to deal with Lord Humongous speaking in his wheezy voice through his steel hockey mask asking them to "Just walk away. You can put an end to all of this. Just walk away and we will spare your lives. Just walk away."
5) It's not so much a secret bill if you can look up in the news. Plus from my understanding, it requires some consent from the other nation. Canadian soldiers and American soldiers can't just waltz through each other's countries without an okay.
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