by JeffT 343 Replies latest members politics
If gas hits over $ 4 per gallon and stays there, it will be intolerable very quickly. I worked in retail when it went up last time. I watched the prices of everything climb quickly. Everything has to be shipped. With runaway inflation, more businesses will close. More job losses. There are dark clouds very visible on the horizon.
Social structure, could explain more?
I think five years sounds about right.
Sammie, who are you talking to?
I've made it clear that I support unions when they contribute to productivity.
I'm still waiting for answers to my questions:
1) Explain how your "living wage" proposal, whatever it is, will deal with the problem of positive feedback.
2) How does the end user, in the case of public unions the taxpayer, benefit from public unions?
3) If unions exist to redistribute "the pie" what pie are public unions redistributing?
Unions exist to protect the workers from the companies. And in most cases they have.
FlyingHighNow: "Social structure, could explain more?"
I won't be using the word "intolerable" that I previously used because my definition is more stringent than that of the public. So let me try to elaborate instead.
When gas prices rose to $5 (here), there were reports of a police sheriff in a certain cities saying that he was not going to enforce eviction notices. If things would have gotten much worse, those notices would have been unenforceable. It would probably start a chain reaction of defaults, even among people who can still pay.
That means that most people will be living rent or mortgage free giving them the ability (for some) to get a measure economic relief and be able to purchase food and even some gas at inflated prices.
That could be called severe.
Catastrophic, however, is when relief for an extended crisis will not be forthcoming due to social infrastructure collapse. I'm speaking about the US, which is substantially buffered by its relative wealth and may be among the last nations to be effected. There will be far worse situations in the more impoverished nations first, progressing to the richer nations later.
This is the gist of my current predictions. Peak Oil and or severe Middle East unrest will be the first punch. It will probably be causing severe problems within 5 or so years.
The second punch will be Global Warming, which has already started to get progressively worse. To the extent that it is responsible for the crop failures throughout the world-->the escalating food prices-->the unrest in the Middle East where up to 40% of an Egyptian's salary goes to food. This will, as far as the US and other rich nations are concerned, synergize with the Peak Oil issue.
A one, two punch, in my unscientific wild ass guess, may knock us down within 10-20 years. I'm counting on 20 years for this situation. However, since I have a tendency to underestimate the gravity of problems in general, I picked 10 years just in case.
"Knock us down", to be a little more concrete, would be the severe weakening, perhaps collapse, of the Federal and most State governments.
I also predict mass depopulation of desert cities in New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada for sure, and Southern California. I could go on and on but I'm already a bit off topic.
Villabolo
JeffT: "How does the end user, in the case of public unions the taxpayer, benefit from public unions?"
My understanding is, that throughout most of Europe, entire nations are unionized.
As far as "positive feedbacks" are concerned it is the natural ones that will finish our devastation. Believe it or not.
Villabolo
I wonder if there will be a Thunder Dome.
FlyingHighNow: "I wonder if there will be a Thunder Dome."
OK silly girl. Let's take this up on some doomsday thread.
Villabolo
But Thunder Dome wasn't doomsday. There were people still around.
FlyingHighNow: "But Thunder Dome wasn't doomsday. There were people still around."
OK, let's not get technical. There are supposed to be people still around at Armageddon.
Villabolo
