30% unemployment and soup lines? Na.

[jtuck004]

2. Not meaning to pick on you, but it has been "as if" collapsed in much of the world

for a long time, people who live daily a terror we (US) dread. Just not here. A bunch of overfed Americans losing their corn and oil-fed lifestyle is likely not gonna be the end of the world (well, for those individuals it will feel like it - next to what they have been insulated from for a long, long time. Lots of pain and tragedy that people aren't used to, lots of finger-pointing with no real effect, death closer.). Rather, unless some new discovery or learning is adopted, it will just come to more and more resemble how many in the rest of the world have been living for a long time.

We won't get rid of greed, any more than we could hope to eradicate laughter. I bet the world can continue with the wealthy running the show, especially since so many are willing to help them keep their throne for so little in return. I cannot find a place in history where that is not the case, although I can find a few islands that are more self-sufficient.

As we go forward, whether fast or slow, what will most likely be left will support less people than we are used to, very little real opportunity, much less waste, and people will have to live more deliberately. Totally unnecessary, and a terrible waste of human potential, millions will live in poverty for generations.

Who knows, we might even get invaded, or just maybe some major cities blown up if the other major powers decide they want to really shake things up a little. All we really have to fight with are missiles, and others have enough of those to end any hope of breakfast without smoky air for hundreds of years - can you imagine the Teabaggers with their hunting rifles against laser-equipped drones, depeleted uranium? Heck, our own government appears to be suiting up for mass containment of unrest (look at San Francisco, New York - the capability to bring down planes, by a metro police force. Who woulda thunk it?) - our greatest enemy might be here already.

But painting pictures of future woes seems less useful than working a plan. IMHO, those that survive will learn to democratize their work, cooperate with others, find ways to own and trade assets without the usurious fees that must be paid to the financiers. A long process, hard to get away from the way we do things today, will result in a less opulent but more sustainable lifestyle. Worth doing, I think, because the alternative is poverty enforced by the corporations with the assistance of elected officials. And that would be harder to live with.