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I recently watched the documentary "Collapse" by Michael Ruppert which is an excellent source for anybody interested in what is going to happen in this country in the next few decades. One of the points is that in economic growth we have reached a "rocky plateau" period which will last a few years before society eventually collapses into total chaos.
The initial crash, in September 2008, was the first wave. Oil prices at $150 combined with the real estate bubble created the most severe recession since the Great Depression. We have since only begun to recover from that crisis. We would be on the path to another economic expansion if it wasn't for one thing: oil prices. With oil prices fast approaching $150/barrel again it will likely be as soon as late 2011 before we see another 2008-style crash. This in turn will cause oil to plummet like it did in late 2008 and 2009, though with it the Dow will hit new bottoms and unemployment will skyrocket. Recovery will eventually set in going into 2013 and with it, oil prices will skyrocket again, creating another recession, even deeper than the previous two. Each cycle will have a lower peak and deeper bottom than the previous going into the mid-late 2010s when full-on economic depression sets in.
Where we go from there is anybody's guess, but the general consensus is our generation is not prepared to survive like the Greatest Generation was that lived through the Depression, so we are likely to see mass civil unrest, food riots, and a complete breakdown of society. Unlike in the 1930s, we will not have a World War to save us nor will we have technology (technology needs resources i.e. fossil fuels which we will not have). According to this documentary, its possible that 4 billion people could perish as a result of the coming catastrophe.
How do we avert this? There really isn't much hope. Corn ethanol and bio-fuels are a joke. Hydrogen isn't an energy source as much as it is a means to store energy, and the only thing on the landscape right now that would make that possible is nuclear. Same goes for electric cars. With nuclear plants being extremely expensive and taking years to build, plus the recent Japan situation, I don't see this happening. The tar sands yield very low return and though there is a large supply, they will never be produced at a rate that would supply our energy needs. The only green energy that is actually viable is wind and solar, and that presents big problems for areas that don't receive a lot of sunlight/and are not windy. The other option is natural gas, which is another fossil fuel, is not green, but it would buy us time.
A lot of people think "well we could just return to the cities, abandon suburbia, and develop a lifestyle based on public transit." Many people have bought into the myth that the dense Northeastern cities are somehow more sustainable than the Sunbelt suburban cities. If focusing only on transportation this is true, but oil effects absolutely all aspects of our lives. How are you going to feed the 8 million people in NYC if there is no oil to ship the food in? How are you going to grow crops if there's no oil to power farming machines or to create pesticides or chemical nutrients? The suburbs have one advantage: people have yards they can use for growing food.
The next 10-20 years is going to be pivotal to the future of our species. We can either adapt and move into a new era, or we can face extinction. Few people are able to comprehend the magnitude of whats coming.
Thoughts, other than I am an "alarmist doom and gloomer"? Does anybody have any real facts to debunk this scenario?
You are more than likely talking the realities of life in the future.
The only ways we get out of it would be through draconian cuts.
We are for a time going to get the entitled on the streets protesting their hands being taken out of the treasury, but it will happen.
We need to do something drastic like go back to the 2000 budged for 2012. Fire half the government employees. Create a Balanced Budget Amendment and put EVERYTHING on budget including SS, military, Medicare and so forth.
Economy will recover somewhat throughout 2011, and falter out until the mid 2010s. Recovery from the late 2010s to the mid 2020s will be rocky. I think there may be a war sometimes later this decade or in the 2020s. By the mid and late 2020s however, I think we'll see steady economic recovery and growth.
I based my predictions according to Strauss and Howe's generation theory of historical events occurring every 70-90 years.
80 years ago, we had the stock market crash in 1929, 79 years later, another one in 2008, exact month too. 80 years ago, we had the Great Depression, now 80 years later, the Great Recession.
As for wars, the Revolutionary War occurred in the 1770s and 1780s, the Civil War 80 years later in the 1860s, then WWII in the 1940s (80 years later) and another 80 years will be the 2020s.
After everyone of those wars, we saw economic recovery sustaining for about 30-35 years.
Economic growth occurred after the Revolutionary War from the 1770s to the 1790s, the Reconstruction in the 1860s to the 1880s after Civil War, the post World War II boom from the mid 1940s to the mid 1970s.
Economy will recover somewhat throughout 2011, and falter out until the mid 2010s. Recovery from the late 2010s to the mid 2020s will be rocky. I think there may be a war sometimes later this decade or in the 2020s. By the mid and late 2020s however, I think we'll see steady economic recovery and growth.
What will happen with the deficit and the funding of it in your opinion?
The next 10-20 years is going to be pivotal to the future of our species. We can either adapt and move into a new era, or we can face extinction.
So, you're pinning the dynamics of the U.S. economy as the driving force of the species? I would think poor people in third world countries know a great deal more about survival and care less about U.S. energy development and public transportation than we like to imagine while posting on the internet.
So, you're pinning the dynamics of the U.S. economy as the driving force of the species? I would think poor people in third world countries know a great deal more about survival and care less about U.S. energy development and public transportation than we like to imagine while posting on the internet.
This thread is making me think about what a political science prof told me in the early 1950s. He said the time is coming when the Soviet Union and the US will be fighting with Asia and Africa as those people try to force us to share our wealth with them. Is that not about what we are seeing? Oh, yes the USSR isn't there but Russia is being run by the old communists and right now the Middle East is erupting and soon they will be after their share of what we have. China is about to lead all those people who aren't mostly white and our non-white people won't be accepted by those others.
I think it could get pretty bad but the lead post here seems to me to have come from watching Glenn Beck for a long time. Oh yes, he has been saying all those things for a long time now.
Yes it looks bad. Stay out of hot zones like big cities and high population states when it gets real bad and remember governments of nations in decline often times turn on their own people.
Wow. This OP has been predicting doom to happen at the end of every week in another forum for quite awhile (//www.city-data.com/forum/busin...n-america.html). The only difference between the OP and a broken analog clock is sometimes, twice a day, the clock is actually right.
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