Economic collapse

[Intercooler]

        Do you think it's even remotely possible to avoid it? Wonder what things will be like when and if it does come?

I have been trying to read up on it and most everything says we just can't avoid it.

[REDLINE]

It's possible to avoid it but I don't see it happening.  I think we're in the middle of a long slow death (fiscally) that's been on the move since shortly after the country was originated.  Every once in a while a bandaid is put on the wound, but regardless, however long it takes, the wound ALWAYS gets reinfected.

I'm betting it takes a Zombie Apocalypse or anything else as devastating, assuming enough of us survive whatever it is, to turn things around for the good, which over time will only ever go full circle back to bad, where we then have to start over again with another Zombie Apocalypse or something similarly destructive to human life.

I hope I'm wrong.  Best of Luck to All.

[The_Shadow]

The path that our country is on due to the miss use of funds over the years and more recently by the current POTUS has set the dollar on a spirialing path to be worthless and the country into unrecoverable debt.  The Government Gone Wild seeks to place us on the EURO system as part of the unification and socialized disorder.   

[EdMc]

Where I live things have been stagnant for several years. Many homes sit vacant, very, very few new home start ups. Little business development........a few new apartment complexes that just seem to send 'yesterdays newest' into Section 8, or whatever the term today for government assisted housing. More and more on Food Stamps etc. In other words, no signs of anything getting better. Probably different in other areas but I don't live there. I figure things won't get worse until the eventual inflation due to our monetary policies. If followed by hyper inflation then the government checks won't buy much and things will quickly get ugly. In talking with people I see no optimism.......

I've sold a few firearms lately that brought decent prices........quite a few other things I'd like to sell but I know they'd have to be priced extremely low to get any interest. 'Forward'....bleh...

[Intercooler]

Do you think we will see looting and vigilante activity? Lots of lawlessness and fear?

[sqlbullet]

We have a long way to go before we start seeing wide spread looting and vigilante-ism. 

Our current economic collapse started with FDR.  He wanted to hugely expand federal powers by creating massive federal jobs programs.  The supreme court kept striking down the laws he would get pushed through congress.  This is the main purpose of the supreme court...to watchdog what the legistlative and executive branches are trying to do and prevent them from usurping powers not granted by the constitution.

FDR threatened to stack the court with extra justices, which also failed.  But the threat did persuade a few members of the court to change their vote, giving the current interpretations we have of things like the interstate commerce clause.  With this new found expansion of federal power things like social security, medicaid, medicare, and other federal entitlements.  This also allowed for  things like the 34 NFA, 68 GCA, the FDA and a host of new federal departments.

Our federal budget has rarely been balanced since then, since politicians have the ability to buy support from the public coffers.

Two items of food for thought  The biggest budget deficits in the last 30 years occured as a result of bills that were passed under Bush II, even though the actual expenses were incurred under Obama.  And, the only balanced budgets during the last 30 years occurred under Bill Clinton and a Republican congress.

The slide towards our doom probably won't occur in my lifetime.  It may in my children's.  But my life will like see an overall decline in prosperity of 10-15% versus that of my parents.

We can reverse this trend, but not without a major change in either who can vote (eg. no representation without taxation), or in electoral college rules (eg. win a state my taking a majority of counties rather than popular vote state-wide would do it) or in voter attitude (eg. learn what our founders meant for us to have, a republican democracy with a limited federal, and vet candidates based on adherence to those rules).

It is interesting to read the federalist papers against the backdrop of todays federal government.  The are a clear call for us to scale back, trim, repeal and muzzle out federal government. They read like far right wing propaganda.  And yet they were written by the federal expansionists, the far left, of their day.  If ever there was a case illustrating that the slippery slope is not always a logical fallacy, the trajectory of the USA is it.

But I am a crazy old man.

[EdMc]

Crazy? Hardly......the only thing I'd question is the 10 to 15% reduction in wealth between the generations. Just the drop in the value of our currency between the 60's till now is frightening. Only the cheapness of Chinese goods has given us the illusion of no loss.  A lot of the goods being of less quality and lasting less time is seldom mentioned. Most, at least by now, see the loss in quality jobs in the no longer existing manufacturing base we once had. Toss in the loses in value of property the last few years.......'Forward'.....bleh

[Intercooler]

I'm not a prepper but I do want to be prepared best I can. Everything I have read says their is no way to fix this and it's unavoidable!

[pacapcop]

It's mathematically impossible to pay off the debt.This country was bought and sold for over many many years.We are going the way of the State,taxes,police state,drones etc etc.Desperation at every corner.2013 onward is gonna be a dandy indeed.

[sqlbullet]

I don't know about mathematically impossible.  Just hard. 

16.3 trillion in debt and 312 million people.  It works out to $52,250.00 per man/woman/child in the US.  There are eight mouths to feed in my house, so my share is about $420,000.00.  That is a good bit less than my mortgage for a house big enough for my family in my market.

That debt works out to $250 a month for 30 years on a 4% note. 

But that is if we are willing to balance the budget right now, nuke entitlement growth and get rid of the Bush tax cuts.  Which, we as a country are not willing to do.

The whole question regarding the effect on the real purchasing power of chinese goods gets into deep economic theory.  Suffice it to say that usually, for me, the products I buy today, while falling far short of the absolute quality of previous times, are more than adequate for my needs.  Kinda like the arguments about forged versus cast frames.  Forged are better, but at my use levels the difference is a forged frame would last four of my lifetimes of shooting, where a cast frame may only last 2.  For my needs, the forged frame is wasted money as I am buying value I won't use.

And, the chinese market does benefit us in some ways.  For instance, I recently was in the market for a good pair of lace up boots.  I generally buy Red Wing.  When I shopped I found that one Red Wing boot is now made in China.  I complained a bit to the Red Wing store about that.  Turns out they had to have that boot made in China, becuase the USA EPA outlawed the use of the adhesive that worked properly for the sole.  You can sell a product that was made with the adhesive, but you can't have the adhesive in it's un-cured state in the USA.  So, the job went overseas.  They make the whole boot and sole here, then send them to China to be glued together, then bring them back to sell.  Nice.

This illustrates, in my mind, how we need to change.  We need to fire the Federal government from most of it's jobs.  Get out of healthcare completely.  Drop the war on (failed) drugs.  Get out of education.  Get out of retirement planning.

[Intercooler]

The killer to all of this is derivatives. That's 1.6 Quadrillion dollars of hurt which they call Economic Weapons Of Mass Destruction. 

[Intercooler]

Numbers are numbers. In there is some good information from a year ago and it's panning out pretty well. By 1st quarter of next year (after handling of the fiscal cliff) we will know exactly how bad it's going to be.

[EdMc]

The war on drugs.....now, that is a black hole. Or a money vacuum. I've brought that up to friends thru the years that the economic waste is enormous....did we not learn anything from Prohibition? The reactions were all pretty much the same ...........

[REDLINE]

The war on drugs.....now, that is a black hole. Or a money vacuum. I've brought that up to friends thru the years that the economic waste is enormous....did we not learn anything from Prohibition? The reactions were all pretty much the same ...........

I'm with ya 110%!

[pacapcop]

It's a ponzi scam proped up by central bankers creating everlasting funny money.Are dollar is the worlds reserve currency,but how long is the question.When the dollar get's dumped,look out.Want an idea what one will deal with as a result of economic turmoil,look no further than "Black Friday Zombie Shoppers"wanting what you got.