Vox Day was at the forefront of the blogosphere and most of the mainstream Rockefeller Economists several years ago when he predicted the recession of 2007 would turn into the Great Depression 2.0. He even wrote a book entitled The Return of the Great Depression that came out in 2009, long before most other economists even began to have an inkling that the housing bust would lead to the return of the big D. Here we are, 2 years later, and the premiere Rockefeller Economist cheerleader and partisan hack, Paul Krugman, is finally getting around to admitting what Vox has been forecasting for years now.
I was in agreement with Vox back when he first began predicting this. I've been calling it "Great Depression 2.0" to my family, friends and acquaintances for a couple of years now. Many of them laughed when I first began using the phrase. Many no longer laugh when they hear me use it...and a few have begun using it themselves.
Yet many folks still remain oblivious. They don't understand what the huge fuss is. Things SEEM to be not too bad.
It got me thinking about the differences between Great Depression 1.0 and the current iteration:
- Unlike the 1.0 era, we now have a near majority of Americans who are Government employees. In Hawaii, the State Government is THE largest employer. While Government employees are supposedly paid their salaries and collectively bargained benefits with tax revenues raised from the private sector, we are now in a state for which Governments are simply borrowing astronomical sums of debt-based fiat currency to keep the illusion of running an already broken and unsustainable system going.
- During 1.0, the American society was a far different structure than it is today. The nuclear family was still the foundation of society. Men were by and large family men and dedicated providers. Women were housewives and mothers, and they supported their men as they struggled to find work to provide for their families. The lack of work led to mass migrations of families, with Heads of households looking for work to provide for their households. When there was no work to be found, they depended on charities (most of which were religious-driven) soup kitchens. Now, everyone is living off of extended unemployment benefits and the EBT food stamp system. No one need look for work, just wait for the government check in the mail.
- In our current era, we have an almost infinite supply of technologically driven distractions to keep the masses mollified. Some of the greatest entertainment spectacles available through mass media broadcasting offers mass distraction to every corner of the globe. During the decline of the Roman empire, citizens had to travel to the nearest arena to see the latest spectacle. Now, you just have to turn on a tv or computer or your "smart" phone.
- While Government debt financing has helped to keep the illusion of our unsustainable system going, the same holds true on a personal level. Many folks are living off of their credit cards and equity credit on their houses to keep up the urban and suburban lifestyle appearances of the 21st century.
Despite the many differences between then and now, I still think the end results are still going to be horrific and ghastly.
1.0 purportedly ended with World War 2. Millions of lives were ended, many cities, homes and societies were utterly devastated in the last great war.
We are now in approximately the 5th year of Depression 2.0. If History truly does repeat itself, we are only about halfway through this, and things are going to get much, much worse. The hard times are going to get a lot harder in the near future. When the welfare state ultimately collapses, mass starvation and civil unrest is assured.
I believe that there is no politician or political party that we can elect that is going to make a damn bit of difference. The system is what it is, and this economic disaster is the unavoidable results, regardless of who is in power - CFR Donkeys or CFR Elephants will continue to run the script that got us to this point, and is leading us to a predetermined outcome.
Something more spectacularly disastrous than WW2 is going to be the catalyst the ends the our Great Depression 2.0. Some sort of disaster which leads to permanent changes for society and the way we all live our lives - a New Order of the Ages.
6 comments:
War may not necessarily be the end game - large scale loss of life without war may be enough to shock us out of whatever it is that locks us into economic stagnation. Fortunately, that is coming in the most painless form possible - the dying off of the largest generation ever born.
I think war is coming. The unrest in the Mid East, the impending collapse of the Euro, and Iran and North Korea getting nukes is going to lead to a Third World War. I'm not an expert, just a worried person.
So...bullets and bouillon then?
I'm frightened mostly by my sympathy for the Survivalists. We refuse to live on credit and are shrinking in on ourselves as much as possible, making do on one under 6-fig income and praying we make it. That may be a saving grace in the end - being able to make the ends meet with little money. But so many people are overleveraged on their homes and credit cards, and an economic collapse will not mean all debt gets wiped clean.
I think you're right, Keoni, that the collapse of welfare will be our greatest domestic concern. I live in an agricultural community, but there are cities and towns with lots of Section-8 housing and EBT types who will not doubt raid my garden or the local orchard and cattle farmer. When I envision the end times, I don't see war in far-off lands, tragic as that is. I see the war in my own yard as people literally poach my chickens and break into my root cellar.
I have no tolerance for grasshoppers. Hopefully castle doctrine will be on my side when/if I have to rid myself of intrusive pests.
War? We're already at war...all over the world.
No, I think the coming cataclysm is gonna be martial law and the end of the Constitutional Republic.
That's actually been over for quite awhile now...but the coming changes are gonna make it official. Police State USSA Inc. will become officially recognized and the Government will no longer put up pretenses that we are a "democracy."
How can you have a world war when everyone's on the same side? The only real war possible is a 2ed american civil war. And remember progressives were the original authors of total war and they will wage it on american soil.
I'm almost certain a WW2 size war is coming. Look at China. For 100 years they've been aborting babies, mostly female babies, at an obscene rate. The end result of that is a couple generations of men who can't find a mate because there aren't enough women to go around.
Over the last 20 years, the farmers have moved into the cities to work in the factories. The factories were built on the old farm lands. Now, the global slow down is closing those factories but the men who are losing their jobs have no where to go.
Between the factories and planned cities and the land submerged by the Three Gorges Dam, a goodly chunk of their farmland is under water. One good drought or too much rain or locusts and famine comes to China.
They want Taiwan back something awful. They have an ever growing military.
So, there could be a few hundred million out of work, hungry and horny China men. Their government would have two choices...wait for them to direct all that pent up rage at them or aim it at somebody else.
India isn't in a much different position.
And, yes, the official end of our Republic is near. Both sides of the aisle want that.
DD
Red nailed it. Our global web of intertwined interests, economic and cultural, has muted demarcated insulated national zones.
I'm using these figures as purely an illustrative example, but if we could say that in 1930 global citizens were separated by 15 degrees of separation from each other, I would say that the number is now 2 or 3 today.
A world war necessitates Titans with opposing interests and principles. However, now global economic relationships meld us together into a mass of interdependence which greedily overlooks principles.
There will be no more Great Wars. Weaponry and technology have slowly made hand-to-hand combat passe. Bloody Antietam-like battlefields are an anachronism. There will be sporadic pockets of fighting, all relatively insignificant and not deserving of the "World War" label and definitely with different motives than the historic precursors to war in the past. There will be battles, invasions, wars, but quite unlike what we know.
China, North Korea, Iran...they can all just sit idly by making lots of noise but not biting because it's possible their Western enemies will slowly dwindle into an economic and cultural stupor. At which point, they can just walk in without a fight.
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