We likely missed an orderly collapse

SUBHEAD: If we knew better we'd have climbed down from our precarious perch when the housing bubble burst.

By Juan Wilson on 20 April 2017 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2017/04/we-likey-missed-orderly-collapse.html)


Image above: Tankers and freighters are brought to the shores of Bangladesh to be taken apart for scrap metal and other valuables. If we only could do this with suburbia. From (https://www.pinterest.com/yolimk/shipbreakers/).

Back in September 2008 George W. Bush spoke the truth when he said of the US economy;
"If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down.”
This was in reference to the unraveling of a $700 million bailout package. Had we accepted the ramifications of the collapse of the "fake" economy we had become dependent on at that time our losses would have been minimal to what we are facing now.

But that is not the way it went. In a matter of weeks Obama won the presidency and was "on board" with saving the USS Titanic. With Obama at the helm US debt went from $10 trillion to $20 trillion. All that debt was in order to keep the wheels on the bus after it went over the cliff.

Since most Americans are overweight children with an appetite for colorful noisy screens neither Bush nor Obama was ready to let Americans know that the party was already over and that they had to go home in the dark and awake the next morning as peasants.  

We had our chance to accept failure and deal with it before it meant losing the farm. The way it is going now, most Americans will be lucky to find a working farm and get a part time gig as a field hand.

ENTER TRUMP
Since 2011 the United States has reached its limit in borrowing money from the future several times. The U.S. Treasury Department's power to borrow money expired on 15 March 2017 and Congress will have to authorize moving on past $20 trillion in IOUs, or not be able to cover financial obligations like monthly Social Security checks. As Michael Snyder wrote in (http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-debt-ceiling-deadline-has-passed-and-now-the-biggest-test-of-donald-trumps-presidency-begins)
So now the federal government is not going to be able to go into any more debt until the debt ceiling is raised.  For the moment, the Trump administration can implement “emergency measures” to stay under the debt limit, but it won’t be too long before we get to a major crisis point because the federal government is quickly running out of cash.  Already, the U.S. Treasury has less cash on hand than Apple or Google, and that cash balance is going to keep on dropping until the debt ceiling is finally lifted.
Yes there is a little wiggle room in that there is some cash on hand once US borrowing stops, but that will be gone in weeks.

President Trump plans to bleed $15 trillion in new red ink over the next decade with military and infrastructure expenditures. That is unlikely to happen as planned, and there are real risks of an American—and a global—economic catastrophe.

WAKE UP CALL
Most Americans are in complete denial as to the dire straights we are in. Today Tyler Durden wrote at Zero Hedge: A Quarter Of Millennials Living At Home Neither Work Nor Study
At one point in time in America, living at home with mom and dad after crossing out of your teenage years and into your 20s was embarrassing and something that was generally avoided at all costs.  And while hard times come and go, 20-somethings who were forced back into their parents' care worked their tails off until they could save up enough money to once again regain their freedom.

But, these days millennials seem to be embracing the free room and board provided by their parents. According to Bloomberg, there are 2.2 million millennials.  A new study from the Census Bureau found roughly one-third of all millennials live at home with their parents and one-fourth of them can't be bothered with enrolling in school or finding a job.  Of those, 40% of them are already in their 30's -  predominantly white, male and no college experience.
It's time for these millennials to smell the smoke, get up from the PlayStation4 in the basement and go outside and help put out the fire. It is not for a lack of work that needs to be done that they are idle. That goes for the "better off" comfy life of many of the Baby Boomers and luckiest of the X-Geners too.
  • Get out of your car.  
  • Shutdown the entertainment system.
  • Turn off your iPhone.
  • Think and feel.
That may be all you will have time for if you don't start the process soon. If you reach "Think and Feel" move on to the advanced work of:
  • Find a place where there is water and one can grow food.
  • Join or make a community.
  • Master a useful trade.
  • Brace yourself. 
Understand that the "economic growth" con-job with all its utopian regalia of financial centers filled with avant garde art amidst prosperous city-living surrounded by suburbia and more distant McMansions is about to come apart like a plush carpet left in the rain. The "growth" fantasy is over but its dreamers and planners are not quite awake yet. But you are - and so, seek self-reliance, self-sufficiency and resilience.

SO WHAT'S THE PLAN?
Here on Kauai, Hawaii our dim witted county government has the gas peddle to the floor trying to awaken the "Growth Beast".

On a island that is about as sustainable as any county in the American Empire, they are proposing an update to our General Plan that will double the population in a generation, spreading suburban sprawl over what have been agriculture fields.

Do the words "self inflicted wound" mean anything to the greedy? They are not thinking past Amazon, Costco and Walmart as the source of life.

Some "forward" thinkers are looking to advanced Artificial intelligence and autonomous robotics to save the day. Humans could then have Universal Basic Incomes and Medicare for All and continue living in the basement... but why would an autonomous artificial intelligence put up with that waste of protoplasm and energy.

Considering the alternatives, forget that plan - go organic!

FACE SAVING WAR
A disorderly collapse is one thing - a nuclear war is another. Unfortunately for jingoistic leaders like Donald Trump, the only thing they find in their tool drawer is "WAR". If your only tool is a "hammer" everything is a "nail". If your only tool is "WAR" everybody is an "ENEMY".

It is vitally important to all life on Earth that World War Three is not the way The Donald saves face. Let's let him believe he invented the "New New Deal" and move on.
   
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