It was 2017. Clans were governing America.
The first clans organized around local police forces. The conservatives’ war on crime during the late 20th century and the Bush/Obama war on terror during the first decade of the 21st century had resulted in the police becoming militarized and unaccountable.
As society broke down, the police became warlords. The state police broke apart, and the officers were subsumed into the local forces of their communities. The newly formed tribes expanded to encompass the relatives and friends of the police.
The dollar had collapsed as world reserve currency in 2012 when the worsening economic depression made it clear to Washington’s creditors that the federal budget deficit was too large to be financed except by the printing of money.
With the dollar’s demise, import prices skyrocketed. As Americans were unable to afford foreign-made goods, the transnational corporations that were producing offshore for US markets were bankrupted, further eroding the government’s revenue base.
And then things got really bad. Read the essay to see the rest of our future(?).
Ha, ha. Yes. Disaster set off by a food blight of one of our major food crops ((all grown as monocultures contiguously for square miles)) was outdated. I should have said phytoplankton:
http://tnr.com/blog/the-vine/76682/week-in-doom-phytoplankton-edition
Equal probability:
In 2011 after the full panorama of stimulus efforts took hold, the US was well on its way back to full recovery from what then became known as the Great Republican Recession (GRR). That year’s growth was nearly 9% and subsequent year’s growths were double digits.
The US leveled its debts to China in 2014, and employment coursed toward 99%, allowing the country to increase its immigrant quotients. Housing loans, now regulated by the Money Act of 2012 settled in as home values slowly rose.
In 2018 work began on the Obama Library, and curator Malia Obama, 20, showed extraordinary precociousness paralleling her already outstanding achievements at the Harvard School of Architecture.
In 2020, the nation mourned the passing of David Letterman, Jay Leno, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lindsay Lohan, and Betty White.
By 2027, much of the nation’s sun belt had converted to 80% solar and wind energy, facilitated by the development of metro sodium/iron battery technologies, and producing the conservation of oil around the world as a lubricant and plastic raw material rather than as a fuel.
As global warming showed a world-wide trend toward leveling off, scientists around the planet breathed a sigh of relief.
A minor recession in 2033 put nearly seven percent of Americans on the list of unemployed, a figure that became meaningless four years later as autonomous SimBots took over nearly all manual and service personnel labor.
The advertising slogan “Got a dull job? Buy two SimBots and retire!” heralded the end of nearly all labor from menial through upper management.
Clans will initially form around cops… because everyone knows cops are the only people with guns in this country.
We’ll have finally won the war on drugs… because the drug lords will be bankrupted by the collapse of their prime market.
Mexico will finally annex California, New Mexico, Arizona… because all of the squabbling clans will not be able to unite against the Mexican army.
Canada will build a fence along their border with the US… in a futile effort to stem the tide of illegal immigrants.
I guess I need to go watch Red Dawn again, to see how this all shakes-out. 🙂
Equal?
#28 Cursor_ said “If you want to see what will happen to the US in the next 100 years take a plane to the UK.”
I believe this is spot on and we have a good start.
#38 Buzz
“Equal probability” In other words not a chance in hell.
I’m pretty sure that anything that gets the attention of Alex Jones is not worth paying attention to.
This is why I used all my “change” to buy weapons.
i think we are like a mountain climber falling off of a mountain… you fall and all hell breaks loose… but then you stop and you’re elated… but then you look down and you realize you’re on a ledge impossible to get off of and your legs are broken. zawhoopppadeeedooo!!! you’re not dead… yet. i’m have always been an optimist but i just don’t see this turning around… too much was been sold off, ripped off, and just plain screwed up… look at the great lakes area for crying out loud. the old saying “patriotism is the last bastion of bastards” has killed us… war in the middle east, greed and corruption in washington and wall street and even on main street has done to the republic for which we stand what no enemy could have. long live the republic
I would suggest “Daemon” by Daniel Suarez as a much more plausible, but still unlikely, path. I heard about it from someone on this blog, so might as well pass it on.
There are two long term tensions in America which define us. First is less populated states getting more than their fair share of the total pie. Call it the “Senate” problem. Second is the natural tension between borrowers and lenders.
California suddenly has a budget surplus if it got parity in payments to the USG and returns from same.
The second is is more serious, but not as serious as many people would have you believe. People who buy large amounts of debt are, by definition, rich. If the don’t get paid back they will merely be less rich. It is impossible to pay back all the debt that has been run up. So, some rich people are going to have a haircut on their debt investments. These people tend to fund death squads when they are mad, so it isn’t a picnic.
If they get too uppity then the public revolts and starts chopping off well-coiffed heads. It is ugly, but it has happened countless times in history.
Those are the actual worst case scenarios.
#39 Drug dealers will never go bankrupt. They will do very well in a barter society. A whole new type of “greenback”.
Oh, and this idea has been pushed by one of the FSBs, former KGB, big idea men. His personal experience might influence his judgment.
Actually, by definition, humans adapt all to well to any condition. It does take some time, thats the rub.
the assumption of globalization was that the poorer countries boats would get floated in a global “free market” but what has really happened is the richer countries are taking on water… in the u.s. we are looking more and more like a banana republic where the major wealth and power is in the hands of a major few, no real middle class to speak of outside some shop keepers and the rest of the population left groveling and a major police force to keep the order. ya ppl adapt but to what….
This world has thrown worse at humans before.
Can we say Black Death?
The loss of the US as a superpower is only shocking to US people with too much nationalist zeal.
To the rest of the world it is just our turn.
Austria
United Kingdom
Spain
Russia
The Ottomans
Rome
Greece
Persia
Egypt
China
Japan
Khmer
India
Aztecs
Mayans
Incas
and on and on and on.
And in the case of China and India they are back on the rise.
People need to accept empires rise and fall. And this is the fall. Adapt, change or get out of the way.
Cursor_
Well with so much of the US’s deficit spending, going to fund the military around the world. When the collapse does come, there will be a well equipped military to fight off the starving mobs that would ransack Washington DC. And the big bankers, wherever they are hiding. Why is it that any nation that goes into economic ruin, always has a super-strong military force on hand, to protect parts of its remaining wealth? Ever wonder?
Actually, if a lot less of the US’s budget was spend on the black hole of the military’s excesses. It just might recover, from any financial mismanagement. But of all the talk of cut backs and belt tightening. It never seems to effect the US military budget, at all. Which keeps all those defense contractors well financed. Which is always the excuse for not cutting any defense project. It’ll cost jobs? Hell, they don’t care. It’ll cost Wall Street big profits. That’s when it’s serious.
And until 2008, defense spending was the only way Wall Street got infusions of tax money. But then the bailouts started happening. And now it gets both. Why doesn’t Wall Street just send Vampires to our doors? They suck our life’s blood, in most other respects. I guess they’re afraid the wooden stakes and cross will come after them.
Perhaps in place of a “Tea Party”, there ought to be a Stake and Cross Party. What that implies might shake them up a little. At least they wouldn’t be so bold as brass to expect handouts.
wow, this dallas guy is even more delusional that “bobbo, with his lips planted firmly on obama’s buttocks”
It pisses me off that the Right’s strategy is to force AMmerica to fail in order to make the people afraid and flock to their pandering lies.
#55: So in other words, blame this mess on people OTHER THAN THE ONES IN CHARGE???
Now that’s a typical Liberal outlook.
No accountability! Blame someone else!
scadragon,
That is disingenuous bullshit. The GOP sits on everything, blocking progress (how many appointees have they allowed to go through?) and then blaming the lack of action on Obama.
You are either stupid or disingenous to make that lame statement. Didn’t you watch that SChoolhouse Rock video on how a bill becomes a law?
The recent idiocy with the 911 responders legisation is a perfect example. The GOP didn’t vote for it because the Dems blocked adding any riders (read pork) onto it.
Then again, the GOP is against everything, because blocking everything (if you don’t understand how the GOP doies it you are dumber than I thought) helps the GOP make claims that nothing is being done.
By preventing anything from happening the GOP can say nothing is happening and “things must change”. (I always wonder how the typical GOP voter can jibe that assertion with the fact that most of those GOP senators have been in power for DECADES.)
Typical right-wing evil (yes, I said evil). It works because the Democrats are spineless.