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Beware The Social Tipping Point
Submitted by Jeff Thomas via Doug Casey's International Man blog,
We have often suggested that, if we wish to know what is coming politically, socially, and economically in jurisdictions such as the EU and US, we might have a look at countries like Argentina and Venezuela, as they are in a similar state of near-collapse (for the very same reasons as the EU and US) but are a bit further along in the historical pattern.
Such a bellwether was seen in Argentina recently. Although the event in question is a very minor one, it is an illustration of the social tipping point—the manner in which a government loses control over its people.
Briefly, the events were as follows: Two men on a motorbike cruised a posh neighbourhood in Buenos Aires, seeking opportunities for purse-snatching. The pillion rider dismounted and snatched a purse from a woman. Bystanders saw the act, ran down the thief before he could re-mount the motorbike, and knocked him to the ground. Other onlookers (very possibly fed up with street crime caused by economic hardships) joined in. In a fury, they beat the thief senseless.
A policewoman managed to calm the group and handcuff the thief. Twenty minutes later, police assistance and an ambulance arrived.
Furious neighbours complained bitterly that the police had protected the thief but are generally doing little to protect law-abiding citizens.
Similar occurrences are on the increase in Argentina, and they have reached the point that the public have begun lynching thieves, as they increasingly believe that the police no longer serve to protect the people.
The pattern that is playing out can be described as a six-part process, and in Argentina, part five has been reached. Essentially, the process is this:
1. People Seek Ever-Increasing Government Largesse
This occurs over a period of decades. It begins with politicians seeking to either gain or retain office, advising the public that they should have a "right" to receive largesse from their government. Over time, the public, liking the idea of receiving something that they have not earned, warm to it and come to believe in its validity. Increasingly, the government takes money from the pockets of one group of citizens and "redistributes" it to others to whom it has made the promises.
2. Government Runs Out of Money
As elections occur every four or five years in most countries, the frequency of elections means a regular ramping-up in the level of promises to the electorate. Over time, the source group (those whose earnings are being appropriated) becomes tapped–out. (As British PM Maggie Thatcher said, "The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."
At this point, the government can no longer deliver on its promises of largesse. But, the recipients have come to believe that they truly are entitled to the largesse, that it is their money and either the government or the greedy rich are withholding their money.
3. Citizens Become Increasingly Desperate
The citizens, who have become less productive and more dependant as a result of the largesse, now find themselves unable to afford even basic needs. Some begin to do desperate things in order to survive. Crime increases. Whilst police may address such crimes after the fact, they cannot anticipate them.
4. Vigilantism Arises
As crime increases unabated, citizens, in their frustration, come to blame not only the criminals, but also the police. At some point, acts of violence against criminals begin to occur, as citizens begin to take matters into their own hands. This trend expands, sometimes to the point that vigilante groups form.
5. Government Attempts to Maintain Order at All Costs
Governments at this point tend not to remain cool and crack down more on criminals. Instead, they tend to make the mistake of lashing out at those who defend themselves against the criminals. (In the example above, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner made a statement to the public that, "Some people want us to return to barbarism; some people want us to react violently." She urged officials and the public to be "rational and civilized," and affirmed "education and social inclusion are the ultimate ways of solving these problems.")
6. Government Becomes the Enemy
Once such a pronouncement is made by a political leader, the social tipping point has been reached. The public, having first been angered by the criminals, turn their anger toward the police and, finally, toward their political leader. When the public realise that the formerly seemingly benevolent leader holds their welfare in no more regard than she holds the criminals who prey on them, she becomes a pariah.
So, why on earth, do political leaders, throughout history, make the same mistake over and over? Why do they reveal the truth—that they actually have no concern for their minions?
At first, when the crimes begin, the leader is personally unaffected and has little concern. As crime increases, it is not the crime that the leader finds objectionable, but the grumblings of the people. It does not occur to the leader that to say, essentially, "Too bad for ya—suck it up," is the absolute worst approach to take.
What then, drives leaders to almost invariably take the wrong public stance in such instances? To answer this, we need only to look at leadership myopically, as does the leader. Leaders tend to care little, if at all, for the welfare of the electorate, who only exist to ensure reinstatement every few years. Otherwise, they are of no consequence. They are tolerated and pandered to, but they must never dare to supplant the authority of the leader. When the public develop the moral spine that is required to make themselves judge and jury, they are assuming an authority that belongs to the leader alone, and they are, therefore, a greater threat to the government than the criminals.
The leader's sole true concern is that the government hold the exclusive right of control. Above all, she dictates the maintenance of order.
And the leader has good cause for this concern in such an instance. Once such vigilantism becomes "necessary" in the eyes of the public, they have unconsciously taken back the authority of who is in charge. When this happens, this jig is up, as the population twigs onto the concept that they not only need to take charge of their lives, but they can. Of such realizations are revolutions made.
The beating of a thief is, in itself, a minor event, but these events often become social tipping points. (Witness the self-immolation of a street vendor in Tunisia in 2011.)
If there is a lesson to be learned from events such as this one in Argentina, it is that the EU and US are not far behind in their socio-economic/political deterioration. Perhaps the reason that the dominant powers in the world today are ramping up their internal defence systems so dramatically is that they see the writing on the wall.
The reader is then left with two questions: 1) Will his country soon be facing dramatic inner turmoil that may be a threat to his well-being? And, 2) Would he be better served if he were to prepare an alternate location in which to be, if the fur begins to fly?
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pusshh it over the Peak point - http://hedge.ly/1nWYGZo
Where is the alternate location? Most of them won't even let me have guns...and other countries are not immune from a dollar collapse either...
Head down.
Grow food.
Be useful.
Be somewhere else.
Nothing more sobering than an example of recent reality.
Once you go beyond the tipping point you may have a topless woman with blue hair pull a molotov cocktail out of her ass an throw it. Or something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy8dG64tbzY
Fuck gettting permission. Just get what you need.
Easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission!
Not when you're in the Gulag. Everyone in prison says they're innocent, but everyone in prison is guilty.
"is" not same as "has been found"
http://rt.com/usa/155472-death-row-inmate-innocent-study/
Nouriel Roubini? Member of CFR, that Nouriel Roubini?
The US is on step 3 and heading rapidly to step 6.
No, it goes from Step 3 to Step 5 directly and stays there until a lot of people are dead.
"This dial goes to 11." ...Unfortunately.
The cost of printing money from thin air.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/are-you-ready-for-the-price-...
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101589514
The cost of selling your chickens before they hatch (OJ futures)
http://news.yahoo.com/us-orange-production-hit-disease-juice-prices-soar...
The cost of counting snouts before market. They are dying of the worst swine plague ever by the millions, it's a news article that's been heavily supressed because they DON'T know what to do anymore. 10% of the entire swine stock dead in under a month. That's fast and bad ass.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101596443
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/22/newser-chikungunya-...
Or the failure to admit that all systemic control in the middle east has been lost because MERS is tearing ass around the middle east faster than thought. They've been lying about how deadly it is and it's evolving faster than thought, vaccine is useless now incidentally. You can check with your own R&D groups on that nice fact.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/04/21/305680650/sharp-rise-in-mers-...
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/virus-expert-says-mers-infection-preventi...
Virus + radiation = mutation. When dealing with an animal that can out breed all the spieces on earth in the time span of a month, sprinkle in radiation you develop really scary shit randomly that can't be contained. Pandora's box...anyone getting the feeling this conversation has been had at least once in history already? Anycase some 'interesting' papers on the subject while doing research on Fukushima stuff. (yeah I'm still looking for something. Shit's as dry as melba toast).
For those interested in reading about the unpublished doom, it's called homologous recombination. Doesn't matter who you are, radiation acts like the swiss army knife to make sure that virus gets in you. And if that one doesn't get you, the next trillion recombinations might be sped up and warped by a higher than average background radiation due to fukushima running headless for three years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homologous_recombination
My favorite worthless piece of tech. The nanobots that hide in people's bodies as viruses...you know when a contract lens goes bad. This you'll never be able to get out of your body. As a builder of fun tech, it always breaks. That's why their are techs and techs run their asses off. Things break. When it's in you though and the size of a molecule. Yeah...it's not going to be pretty.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/dna-nanobots-can-fool-the-immune-system...
Any case. Just need to wait.
Damn CPL, you're just full of good news tonight. Thanks for the update.
After your flameout on Monico and Eastern Europe, why should I believe you? I hAve always liked your posts, but why are you relevant?
<ERROR> Step 1. People Seek Ever-Increasing Government Largesse
There is no 'government' largesse. It all comes from the people's productive efforts. Banksters use their from-out-of-Nothing fiat long term inflation to steal 97% of the value of Americans earnings & savings over the last century. Then the population is taxed on the paltry sum left and a little bit of their own money is 'given' back to them. (Just think if this hadn't been stolen. How much would people have for own education, their health care, and their retirement) ?
Then the puppet masters use these programs to create division & conflict between those who should unite to get rid of their common tormentor.
Yes, HardAssets! Those were my thoughts too, when I read this article, that appears to deliberately ignore the roles of the international banksters, which are usually the most important factors behind the scenes.
This list leaves off step 7, which is:
"Government points over there and labels some other guy the real enemy. Everyone goes to war with the other guy instead. Government laughs its ass off at the people's stupidity."
War is when the government tells the people who the enemy is. Revolution is when they figure it out themselves.
Damn skippy.
+100. Now, these days we KNOW.
Wow that's profound, did you come up with it yourself? (not sarc)
War is when the government tells you who the enemy is.
Revolution is when you figure it out for yourself.
Top quality meme that. A ZH coinage?
I'm not sure that's a certainty... I think there's a very real possibility that enough torches and pitchforks begin to march and they just get in jets and leave... a relatively peaceful initial changing of the guard. The struggle in the power vacuum will be a different story.
Oh, that's a nice, warm and fuzzy projection. Question is, where do you suppose they are going to jet off to?
Interesting dollar comments by Koos Jansen/RT site... 2.5 min audio
http://financialsurvivalnetwork.com/2014/04/us-dollars-to-be-swept-out-o...
US Federal Debt – Problem Solved
The American government has been spending trillions of dollars on programs it had no Constitutional authority to create, and such unconstitutional expenditures exceed the amount of the federal debt. Therefore,
Not only are most government programs themselves unconstitutional, but the debt used to pay for these unconstitutional programs, which were created by previous taxpayers, is paid for by future taxpayers. Therefore,
Taxation without representation is also unconstitutional. In fact, it is the reason America seceded from the British empire.
Given that the US Constitution is pretty simple, then anyone who loaned money to the US government should have known that they were loaning money to a fraudulent and illegitimate enterprise and thus should not expect repayment.
Of course, there would be a huge consequence – no one would be willing to loan money to the US government again until it started obeying the Constitution, which would be ...
Good!
"The US is on step 3 and heading rapidly to step 6."
I think the people are still on step one, except for the trickle that is jumping directly to step 6; whereas, the government is on step 5 trying to secretly provoke the people to armed conflict to justify even more of a police state.
Given all the clues readily visible to those willing to just see them, I've come to the conclusion that the govt it trying to foment armed conflict with the people to overturn the Constitution.
You have a great head on your shoulders BTW.
THief: HAHAHAHAHA
Police: You suck
Gummint: ctrl-alt-delete
Nobody cares the state of the empire over which they rule, so long as they rule over it absolutely.
Tyrants needn't worry if the serfs care for him or not, as long as they hate each other.
Hence the continual erosion of coherent populations , through such obviously floored policies such as " open borders" and . multiculturalism".
The "melting pot" is the tyrants best friend.
Just turn the heat up on the melting pot a few degrees and watch the serfs attack each other.
Nero had the Christians ...
Oderint Dum Metuant
Certainly the stuff in Nevada the past few weeks was eye opening. Not the BLM stuff--that was not the surprise. It was the gathering of the militia folks making the Feds blink.
That stuff will get out of hand soon.
(Kabar 32, drone clear to fire)
(One away..... Target destroyed)
Bundy Ranch Destroyed in Propane Tank Explosion
'Everyone killed'
Careful, it looks as if that scenario is being bandied about at the Bundy Ranch.
It appears as if some fair weather patriots bailed...
http://freedomoutpost.com/2014/04/bundy-ranch-dod-approved-drone-strike-oathkeepers-evacuating/
DaddyO
so what # is bankers/pols swinging from lampposts?
cue the music: http://youtu.be/_9bB7r0M9kg
here we go again with the alternate location....
With a few million clownbux, a dedicated team of servants to publish things on the web, a proclivity for international living, and just a tiny pinch of State approval, you too can be the next Simon Black or equivalent.
Just imagine, fonz. If everyone in the world had an alternate location, all of us here can go to China, and the Chinese can go to the Congo, and the Congolese can settle down in Canada for a second.
And if you want to be the next Simon, you should make ties and be accepted with the local community where ever it is. That takes time when things are good. When they're bad? Never mind that figuring out where to go based on where people aren't going to flip the fuck out is a tough one. Chile? I saw video of recent riots in Chile the other day, Molotov cocktails and all. A year ago, I wouldn't have guessed that Chile would be that far along in its societal degradation. Really, where the fuck are we supposed to go?
All of this points out the real problem, which is that it is too late today to plan for the collapse verging upon us. First of all, we do not really know what it will look like; we do not know when it will happen.
The best places I can think of are close by - survivalist communities. They will have some firepower to keep out the holligans, and maybe enough to stop the new drug lords, etc., from taking over. They will be self sustaining with local sources for food and necessaries. They will be a true community.
Also, they will likely have their own currency. Maybe minted in soft metals, so your gold or silver could be worth something there. Also maybe in paper. Maybe stones with holes in them? Who knows, and that is why preparation is impossible beyond relocating to where you think you and yours can be comfortable and make a contribution.
Good luck, and best hopes for survival.
Craig
I'm going to stay right where I am. I know my neighbors, I understand the people and I have access to water even without electricity.
Find myself in a very similar situation.
Fortunately I live on the edge of habitation and know the surrounding countryside really well.
Can't beat having options.
I think that my entire state has what it needs to survive a "readjustment" period. Of course, that would entail getting the government out of all sorts of shit. We are the 5th largest state by area, have around 2,000,000 people total and enough coal and oil to last us for a lot longer than the equipment that it would run will last. We have a good deal of agriculture, so there is already a bunch of food here.
Montana?
New Mexico. Montana is the next state up on the ladder in terms of land area.
I'm in Canada.
Love B.C.! Lived there!
Sorry!! Milestones
Without drug laws, there won't be drug lords.
Warlords on the other hand...
Foodlords.
Landlords
Preparation is possible, 100% certainty about the future is not.
Ya place yer bets and take yer chances.
IMO Its never too late to plan & act, unless youre pushing up daisies.
For the vast majority of existence, human beings didn't live in the cushy conditions many in the western industrialist nations live in today. We can actually get along without two car garages, cell phones, and various forms of instant gratification.
You can get along quite happilly without a car, cell phone, TV or credit card.
Well, I know I can.
The less I have to do with the 'system' the happier I am.
Who the fuck would downvote the above?!?
The cons of alternate retirement location:
1) Far from grandkids
2) Usually more crime, though the locals figure out where the money comes from and put a stop to it
3) Sometimes a language problem
4) Sometimes power brownouts and internet loss
5) You're still dependent on pension flow
6) You will be scared by the AMA into believing any medical treatment outside the US is witchdoctoring
The pros :
1) It's going to be much cheaper because you will choose the locale to be -- and this means you can stretch any nest egg and indeed, build it, for the day the pension dies with the US
2) Large expat community will have dealt with language and they will show you how (dual language menus etc)
3) You'll choose for climate. No more snow. Maybe no more utility bills at all
4) Hyper cheap maid service, maybe. If you get your own, it will be a thief. If you consult the local expats, it can work fine.
5) You can find docs in the expat areas trained at UCLA or Zurich
6) From Lake Chapala, Mexico, south of the drug war regions and near Guadelejara Med School (whose grads are allowed to take US board certification exams), you are about 2 hrs from Texas hospitals.
so to sum up, an "alternate location" does not actually exist in the way some of these people describe it?
I don't know what description is in question.
I talk to a lot of youngsters who think they should do this. They are all filled up with visions of becoming a youtube tycoon or a website or blog tycoon and $20K/year from that will live a very comfortable life in a lot of places.
But they'll never become managers. There will be no career progression. And their resume will be empty.
OTOH, for those who already achieved success and don't have an imperative to progress a career . . . well, the only VA hospital outside the US is in Manila. A TON of military people stretch their pensions by retiring there.
Consider this . . . Medicare will not send any money for treatment outside the US. Yet a ton of non military age 65+ do not move back to the US. They just self insure. Medical costs are that low that they can put money away for this purpose enroute to age 65 and live a full lifespan with adequate treatment.
Interesting aside . . . the docs are pretty good. There are stories of guys wandering in at age 70 with some rare leukemia condition. The docs look at them and send them home to the US. "Go get the best treatment you can. For weird, rare stuff, that isn't here. If you have heart disease I can help you as well as your docs in the US. For this, go home."
When there is effectively no recourse against the doctor, it might as well be witchcraft.
Having domestic servants as such is a bad thing, not a good thing.
I forgot. At which number do we get to euthaize the aristocrats? I need to know how much Pentobarbital to order. Order the special - banker's cocktail.
Why phenobarbital when you can just go get some nice hemp rope and reuse it over and over?
Don't think we'll get the chance. They'll be off in their Gulfstreams to parts unknown. You can move into their mansions though and abuse the gardner.
I got first dibs on the Lambo in the garage.
So, if this article is a good description of how this shit unfolds, Brazil is next:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=dfa_1395796701
There are quite a few similar Brazilian videos.
Heaven forbid...don't blame the police!
Knox County cop fired immediately after photos show brutal choking of student
Serve and protect...lol.
Yeah, can't imagine why people call them "pigs"...
That guy even looks like a pig.
As always no offense intended; to normal decent pigs.
Choking a kid in handcuffs...real nice.
"Oink!Oink! Lookit mah triple chin!"
The only way to break the cycle of government is to end government once and for all.
It is our duty.
Why the fuck would someone juck me on that?
wait for it.....
wait for it.....
wait for it.....
wait for it.....
wait for it.....
wait for it.....
wait for it.....
wait for it.....
wait for it.....
wait for it.....
Aaaaand it's gone!
Funny, I jsut watched the documentary "Senna", Racing fans will know what I'm talking about, anyway, there is a huge part about the civil unrest in Brazil in the late 80's and 90's. Most people think it can't happen here, they will be wrong.....
Great film. What he did within the racing realm while he was alive was truly epic.
"Hopper: You let one ant stand up to us, then they all might stand up! Those puny little ants outnumber us a hundred to one and if they ever figure that out there goes our way of life! It's not about food, it's about keeping those ants in line."
- A Bugs Life
Some of those ant hills took a thousand years to build...let alone be maintained.
It's hard to figure "social media" in the mix...as it is anything but social...and appears to target and magnify the differences between all of us (as being simply human) in a truly horrific way.
Since no human wants to "outed" (as truth is that painful) the "consequences" part looks truly Manichean here.
Markets are the honey hole...until they aren't.
Every generation has to learn the hard way that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
The politician that promises you one is a demagogue. The politician promises to give you a lunch taken from someone else's efforts in return for your servitude.
The producers stops producing, so the politician "requires" more and more authority to strip-mine assets that are harder and harder to extract-all in order to satisfy a mob growing in size, demands and insatiability.
The 20th century has many examples: Communism, Fascism, Peronism, etc.
They always end with an enriched tyrant, dead innocents and an impovershed land.
All could be avoided by following this 3000 year old rule: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods"
3 generations of incremental increases in the welfare state leads one to ask, "Which generation has learned that there is no such thing as a free lunch?"
The one that got in at the ground floor?
I mean give me a break... Social Security is EARNED not granted.
A "jobless prosperity" means the default cannot be "managed" ala 2008 "but so long as we keep bailing out the Banks all is well"?
"In Victory we have achieved bankruptcy"?
Doesn't sound like winning to me.
The typical collector of SS receives more than they put in. That is the very definition of a free lunch!
SS is a tax bundled with a promise. The tax is now, the promise is later-maybe.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/feb/01/medicare-and...
The producers. Yes, the FSA is growing, and the average welfare state prisioner does not see past their EBT.
"Bath Housism."
Good God, Elohim/Yahweh should've known better: The problem is not in the coveting (it's in the very DNA!), it's in taking what's not yours.
Only animals and barbarians (operating their genetic code, like a computer operates per its code) take what they want. 'Civilized' beings have agreed to resist that natural temptation and to live a a different code: build/make it or earn it.
Gerald: "When people have nothing to lose, they lose it."
Masked .gov drone: "That's why we have a zillion hollow points, Celente! Hands behind your back" *Click*.
Nice and simple.
Although, FEDS become enemies of the US citizens a bit early ithan in the author's sequence.
Vigilante Man singsong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4KmbUCwkyE
Zbigniew Brzezinski: It Is Infinitely Easier to Kill a Million People than it is to Control Them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkCEOSgLRt4
Isn't the social tipping point is usually preceded by the social tipsy point?
So many are sloshed on liquidity, that the DUI (Debt until Illiquid) is coming. The consequences will be... staggering and sobering.
Is anyone here still buying the Martial Law-FEMA Camp scenario?
That would last a few days before they were all besieged and shot up.
I agree with Kunstler that "They will have a hard time just answering the phone"
"they have reached the point that the public have begun lynching thieves,"
Well, actually vigilante mob justice isn't new in South America. "Flip-flop" mobs have done some pretty horrible things to suspected criminals over the years.
The customers at the big box store where I work in the north bay area of S.F. are so out of touch with reality, it's scary. This area was not hit hard during the ongoing economic crisis, not compared to most of this nation. These upwardly mobile consumers are still consuming and buying crap that they surely don't need, on credit cards, I might add, and they seem to be complacent and "happy" when they are purchasing something...anything. I don't get it, because I live in the real world where credit=debt, Obamascare is going to kill us all and so on. From my own vantage point, the revolution will not be televised. Of course, I'll still be working for just above minimum wage, with a college degree, and nothing here will change. Too bad. There is no tipping point in Northern CA.
The customers at the big box store where I work in the north bay area of S.F. are so out of touch with reality, it's scary. This area was not hit hard during the ongoing economic crisis, not compared to most of this nation. These upwardly mobile consumers are still consuming and buying crap that they surely don't need, on credit cards, I might add, and they seem to be complacent and "happy" when they are purchasing something...anything. I don't get it, because I live in the real world where credit=debt, Obamascare is going to kill us all and so on. From my own vantage point, the revolution will not be televised. Of course, I'll still be working for just above minimum wage, with a college degree, and nothing here will change. Too bad. There is no tipping point in Northern CA.
AmRev2.0 "The Fedcoats are coming". Same ending as last time.
Or that's what it leads to.
What phase is Mexico in?
Martin Armstrong:
Mexico Vigilantes disarm Police – The Backlash Against Corruption
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/04/28/mexico-vigilantes-disarm-police...
I don't disagree with the progression laid out here, but Argentina is a poor example. Argentina has always oscillated between rigid, rightist, military governments on the one hand, and chaos on the other. There's a complicated cycle of dysfunction, decay, inflation, and crime, followed by a landed aristocracy bringing back "order" by way of "any means necessary" -- including throwing hippies out of helicopters over the Atlantic -- which then degenerates into another cycle of corruption, decay, inflation, etc...
In any event, there is nothing too unusual about a thief being mobbed in Buenos Aires, or about the police doing nothing to stop crime there. When I lived there (2004-6) it was possible to hire an on-duty policeman for about $20 an hour to either protect you or look the other way. It was also around that time that locals set fire to the main train station, after being fed up with the trains being late. Even then there was a TV channel in Argentina which was devoted 24 hours a day to showing people in cities all over the country throwing bottles at the police, and the police standing more or less passively. Breaking the windows of banks, marching to the Pink House with pots and pans, and throwing shit at the police is practically the national pastime.
But again, that makes it a bad parallel to social breakdown in the US.The Argentines have a long history of handling governmental and economic breakdown, and they have nowhere near the population or the number of guns, or the militarization of the police or the security state that the US has. The US has no historical understanding of this cycle and no social breakers in place to lessen it. I enjoyed living in Argentina because it was ...a little anarchic. You could do whatever you wanted, within the bounds of civility, and the government was just far too weak to be in your face all the time like it is in America. In a way, it's exactly what anarcho-libertarians can hope for -- a weak state, and a social fabric that's strong enough to mob thieves in the street. You do need high walls and a lot of cameras around your house, though. But if shit ever hits fan in the US in any way even remotely resembling the hyperinflation that's happened in Argentina twice in the last 30 years, I doubt there will be stone left upon stone in America. Americans just aren't equipped to deal with losing 50% of their savings, mostly because they have very few friends and survive only on convenience stores and cheap gasoline.
Jeff
I visited the home of Sir William Johnson in Johnson New York. The Historian who led me on a tour of the old pre revolution mansion said something that may hev been a tipping point for the Colonists in the Mohawk Valley
He said that on the grounds surrounding the mansion during the winter Mohawk Indians would camp, hundreds of them for the entire winter. Because they would receive food clothing and shelter from Sir Johnson the English governor.
Sir johnson's sister came from England to live in America. Because she was an un landed noble woman and needed land to live off of, Sir Johson arranged to purchace from the Mohawk 25,000 acres of land so she could be titled.
The historian reported this a gentile life style that was distroyed by the revolution
But in the eyes of the settlers, here was their tax money being used to feed the Indians, and land that could be owned and cultivated being gifted to nobility. Sir Johnson probably thought he was treating his subject fairly, He was noble they were subjects both Indian & sttlers.
I believe that a chaotic collapse is possible, but it would be a mistake to think that it has to be so easy to spot. A lot of people WANT something big to herald collapse, civil unrest, riots in the streets, whatever. They want to see it happen hard and fast, and big, as if something big would be a purgative of some kind.
But what if there IS no one event, no violent finale that gives closure to the old? What if we just kind of, fade away with no discernible milestone to alert us to a particular 'moment' that might be the Fall?
What if the stand-offs with govt. thugs trying to take our guns never materialize, and the streets remain stubbornly restful and unbloodied? What if there is no 'food panic'...if instead we just see more and more shortages of things we need? Never all at once, but enough at one time to make life a little less pleasant.
The market could collapse, but what if the people who were really hurt this time were the wealthy who HAD their money there? They didn't have it ALL there, and no matter how bad they got hit they STILL have to spend some of it. The rest of us will still be here, making our little wages and buying our little items, so as long as there were adequate dollars changing hands there'd still be enough economic activity to prevent a total economic collapse from happening all at once, dragging things on a while longer. Of course, those pissed-off wealthy would make our lives hell, no doubt, but would that be enough to tip things? I don't know. Since they lost so much, they wouldn't be in the position to DO as much as they were before. I guess it would depend on how hard it was get through the day for the masses. If people can meet their basic needs for the most part, it's hard to get them to opt for drastic changes. A market collapse that decimates the wealthy might create a crisis, but as long as the masses feel that they can still meet their own needs, or get them met, they aren't going to take to the streets because Wall Street tanks. They may not rally to the cause until they start actually dying of starvation, and it might not get quite THAT far...just close enough to be very fucking miserable for a long time, with no relief in sight.
We could be like the poor guy who is queasy and bloated, but is not quite sick enough to vomit even though he wants to. He can't fart no matter how he tries. The gas is there, but just won't move down far enough to expel. If he could, he'd feel a thousand times better, but it just won't happen...He's gonna lay there ALL NIGHT LONG, miserable, in pain, unable to do anything else but hang on and wait for something, anything to happen. And it's gonna be a looooong night for that guy...
It is entirely possible that WE could be in for a long night like that. A slow-fade could take several generations to work through our society, a prolonged agony that never gets bad enough to get us the relief we need.
What if the government never 'goes after' us, like so many think they will? Go after us for what? Our money? They already own it, they can 'call it in' anytime simply by changing the currency. Now your 'stash' of cash is worthless. Our gold? We don't own enough gold to make that worth the trouble. A lot of "gold owners" don't HAVE physical possession anyway, so who would they raid?
Your canned milk and dried beans are safe too. From the government, anyway. Your loony neighbors are a different story...:-)
Your guns? Why would they do that? They have MORE guns than you, their guns are BETTER than yours, and your possession of them only poses a threat if things GET to the armed rebellion stage. But if things are shitty but not shitty enough to piss off enough people at the same time, you folks are NOT going to be taking up arms, you have lives, you have families. You aren't a bunch of 20 year-olds running around like Red Dawn, and the 20 year olds that ARE out there are your sons and daughters. They know this. They have no REASON to rile you up by stirring up the 2nd amendment hornet's nest when it's so much easier to leave you alone, make sure you have just enough to keep the anger from boiling over. And they figure that if you have guns it gives you a little sense of control that will help keep you from becoming troublesome. A gun-seizure would create such backlash that armed rebellion would be all but certain...I don't see ANY rational mind, military or otherwise, that would deliberately run through THAT minefield. We don't have anything they need to seize anyway, we and the land we're on aren't going anywhere-if they want something YOU have they can take it any time they wish. But it would just be YOU, a targeted thing, they aren't going to piss off everybody else at the same time and give you potential allies.
So, if no seminal event occurs, and things get steadily worse all over, but never bad enough in enough areas at the same time to generate wider discontent, if the military does not crack down because there simply is no reason to, how long could things drag on before you could say it's over?
This, to me, is the worst possible scenario as it is nothing but torture for those of us living it, but one I think could happen. I also think it could go the civil unrest route too, and perhaps even the Road Warrior dystopia so popular among many...hell, I guess it's even possible that we'll wake up tomorrow morning and find out that TPTB have had a Come to Jesus moment and have agreed to undo all the damage they've done, regardless of what they have to give up or give back, and that they, and they alone, will bear the cost. Then we will stretch and smile as songbirds help us dress and fix our hair as we prepare for the BEST DAY EVER!...
But I wouldn't be so quick to assume it will be something you will see. I think it is an American tendency to want to see everything as clearly drawn, and occurring within a particular time-frame. Like a one hour TV drama, predictable, controlled, and everything is wrapped up in the end, "Let's get this shit over with so we can drive on already!". People who prep always talk about what they have stored for the "collapse", as if it was a an event that will happen, instead of something actually occurring now. You may never even know you are LIVING through the worst of times. As long as you and your family aren't starving, and aren't under immediate threat, and you aren't seeing tanks in the street, it's just going to look like a protracted depression while you're living through it. It's only seen as a distinct period of its own in retrospect, when people look back and go "Holy Shit!".
I have to laugh reading the article and the comments. The American people are a bunch of meth-addicted losers who are so lazy and worthless they wouldn't get up off the couch if goose-stepping fascist government thugs were coming to kill them. Like dumb animals in the slaughterhouse they would stare in disbelief right up until the big bolt in the forehead put them out of their misery. They are scum of the first order and really don't deserve a continued existence. Maybe the oligarchy will eventually put them in camps for their extermination when they have outlived their usefulness. In the meantime let's all chant USA #1! USA #1!
In case you anyone missed it, see this: "Furious Chinese Rioters Beat Corrupt Policemen To Death": http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-21/furious-chinese-rioters-beat-co... (complete with pics of bloody and unconscious government officials).
Detroit Homeowners Gun Down Burglars as Police Wait for Cars http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2014-04-29/detroit-homeowners-gun-down-burglars-as-police-await-cars.html
Do you have any real estate in Argentina you would like to sell?