by Hopscotch 65 Replies latest social current
If GDP growth is tied to energy usage, then we have the following possible scenarios:
Hate to be so negative, but Dmitry Orlov saw the collapse of the Soviet Union, so he has some past experience:
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2008/02/five-stages-of-collapse.html
We still seem to be at Stage 1.
Stages of CollapseStage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in "business as usual" is lost. The future is no longer assumed resemble the past in any way that allows risk to be assessed and financial assets to be guaranteed. Financial institutions become insolvent; savings are wiped out, and access to capital is lost.
Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that "the market shall provide" is lost. Money is devalued and/or becomes scarce, commodities are hoarded, import and retail chains break down, and widespread shortages of survival necessities become the norm.
Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that "the government will take care of you" is lost. As official attempts to mitigate widespread loss of access to commercial sources of survival necessities fail to make a difference, the political establishment loses legitimacy and relevance.
Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that "your people will take care of you" is lost, as local social institutions, be they charities or other groups that rush in to fill the power vacuum run out of resources or fail through internal conflict.
Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in the goodness of humanity is lost. People lose their capacity for "kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity" (Turnbull, The Mountain People). Families disband and compete as individuals for scarce resources. The new motto becomes "May you die today so that I die tomorrow" (Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago). There may even be some cannibalism.
I mentioned on another thread that a recent report by Morgan Stanley is predicting a fiscal crisis in the UK next year, possibly leading to capital flight and more weakening of the pound. If our savings are in pounds then we may be stuck here. See page 14:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23421903/Morgan-Stanley-Tougher-Times-2010-R1130TD
The basic problem with Britain is that the North Sea oil ran out. The country never realised how reliant we were on the stuff. We only emerged from the near bankruptcy of the 1970s on the back of oil production; it fuelled Thatcher/Blair's boom, and they used it to neuter the heavy industries we had left.
What are we now buy a country with neither resources nor industry, and not a clue where we go from here?
the most worrying thing about this thread is anyone making plans based on Daily Mail 'journalism'
not a newspaper that is particularly bothered by a need for facts and generally viewed as pandering to lower middle, white, anti-everything different Brits.
You know the kind of people that read the Daily Mail - you can see hordes of them buying full English breakfasts every morning all along the Spanish coastline.
EDIT - just realised I'm unlikely to rile many Daily Mail readers given that so few of them are online ;-)))))) which is hardly surprising in itself given the Daily Mail didn't appear to have a coherent website strategy itself until round about 2003....
besty the newspaper snob......unless it unfolds like a hitlerian map of europe he aint reading it...........he he
I'm away to read my beano
will you be able to read it once you scrape your deep fried pizza off it?
Note - Godwins Law invoked quite early here...
mein gott in himmel!
I prefer to invoke oddbins law
