Do you think there could be a second Great Depression?

[LizzieMaine]

And sadly, we'd rather fight over politics rather than ask ourselves hard questions like "do we need an economy based upon growth to be successful?" "How do we challenge consumerism?" To me, addressing those questions is far more important than who we elect.

Well said. I've been saying for years that nothing will ever change along those lines unless first we get *mad.* I don't just mean yelling-at-cable-TV/quacking-on-talk-radio mad, I mean angry enough to actually get up and *do* something, the way the farmers did in 1933.

I don't know what that something will be. But it won't involve bumper stickers.

 

[jamespowers]

Well, the sanctions against Iran appear to have taken hold with a vengance. The country is undergoing a currency collapse, the Rial having lost 40% of its value in the last two days. Iranians have taken to the streets, and revolution is once again in the air. Whilst this scenario is not as frightening as the one involving an Israeli attack on Iran, and the possible closure of the Straits of Hormuz, the unrest in Persia reminds all of us just how tenuous is the West's oil supply. One might suspect that the traders are perhaps over-reacting, but we won't really know for some time.

Interesting how the Chinese are still buying oil from them though.....

 

[jamespowers]

Well said. I've been saying for years that nothing will ever change along those lines unless first we get *mad.* I don't just mean yelling-at-cable-TV/quacking-on-talk-radio mad, I mean angry enough to actually get up and *do* something, the way the farmers did in 1933.

I don't know what that something will be. But it won't involve bumper stickers.

Well if we don't have an economy based on making things then we would have to replace it with either an economy based on fixing things or a service based economy. I am sure which one of those pays its workers more money though.

 

[vitanola]

Interesting how the Chinese are still buying oil from them though.....

What does that have to do with the unrest in Teheran? The Chinese are obviously not buying enough to allow Iran to properly support their currency.

 

[jamespowers]

What does that have to do with the unrest in Teheran? The Chinese are obviously not buying enough to allow Iran to properly support their currency.

It is interesting in the sense that they are buying oil in Yuan instead of dollars. It is also interesting because it is not making it into their economy to support the Rial. Dictatorships seem to hoarde the hard currency and let their own denominations fall because if it gets bad for them they just flee the country with scads of hard currency and leave the people behind worse off than before. That doesn't bode well for future oil prices if we have to make up the difference.

 

[Paul Roerich]

Well said. I've been saying for years that nothing will ever change along those lines unless first we get *mad.* I don't just mean yelling-at-cable-TV/quacking-on-talk-radio mad, I mean angry enough to actually get up and *do* something, the way the farmers did in 1933.

*Howard Beale* mad. Except that his wrath couldn't get people to do more than yell out of their windows and boost his newscasts' rating. And don't anyone tell me that that movie is fiction. It's more true than reality.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well if we don't have an economy based on making things then we would have to replace it with either an economy based on fixing things or a service based economy. I am sure which one of those pays its workers more money though.

I got tools, and I know how to use 'em. I'll be sitting pretty.

 

[jamespowers]

I got tools, and I know how to use 'em. I'll be sitting pretty.

I think we are int he same boat then.

 

[ButteMT61]

We are now raising chickens, veggies, fruit and stocking up on "goods" like Mr Powers. I've voted my non-party line. I've cut up most of my credit cards. I have no car pay,net. I got a house I can afford. Until the uprising in the streets, I'm not sure what else to do, sans move to Normandy, FR.
What are others here doing? This might be fun.

 

[Paul Roerich]

We are now raising chickens, veggies, fruit and stocking up on "goods" like Mr Powers. I've voted my non-party line. I've cut up most of my credit cards. I have no car pay,net. I got a house I can afford. Until the uprising in the streets, I'm not sure what else to do, sans move to Normandy, FR.
What are others here doing? This might be fun.

Raising chickens? Not a bad idea at all!


Still, who can beat golden age Hollywood actor Eugene Pallette? In 1946, convinced that there was going to be a "world blow-up" by atom bombs, Pallette received considerable publicity when he set up a "mountain fortress" on a 3,500-acre ranch near Imnaha, Oregon, as a hideaway from universal catastrophe. The fortress reportedly was stocked with a sizable herd of prize cattle, enormous supplies of food, and had its own canning plant and lumber mill.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've been scrounging and foraging my whole life, so if we get into an Earth Abides kind of situation, it'll be business as usual.

 

[Paul Roerich]

I have a friend like you. He already knows how to do everything that survival requires. I call him my post-apocalyptic pal: if and when the 21st century goes to hell, I'll head out to his mountain retreat (or the desert one) and we'll form a colony.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Plus I have the keys to a movie theatre projection booth, which as everybody who saw "Night Of The Comet" knows, is the safest place in the world to be when the zombies attack.

 

[Paul Roerich]

Plus I have the keys to a movie theatre projection booth, which as everybody who saw "Night Of The Comet" knows, is the safest place in the world to be when the zombies attack.

...which might be better than spending the rest of one's life in a fortress with Eugene Pallette. Or maybe not.

 

[vitanola]

It is interesting in the sense that they are buying oil in Yuan instead of dollars. It is also interesting because it is not making it into their economy to support the Rial. Dictatorships seem to hoarde the hard currency and let their own denominations fall because if it gets bad for them they just flee the country with scads of hard currency and leave the people behind worse off than before. That doesn't bode well for future oil prices if we have to make up the difference.

Actually the Chinese appear to be buying Iranian oil with precious metals, which are, as you note, not making it into the country's reserves.

 

[AmateisGal]

If anything dire did happen, I'd probably leave the city and head for my brother's farm. lol

 

[Paul Roerich]

If anything dire did happen, I'd probably leave the city and head for my brother's farm. lol

A la Season 2 of "The Walking Dead"?

 

[ButteMT61]

Zombie apocalypse. Be prepared.

 

[sheeplady]

I think it's interesting to think about. There was a book I read called The Place Called Attar which was written by the long-time editor of Countryside magazine. (It's an interesting fictional read about the collapse of modern society and how one family makes it through the farming crisis of the 80s. Definitely written for survivalists.) One of the points that book brought up is that during the great depression, 30% of the population lived on farms. That means that almost everyone had a farm to escape to someplace in their family.

Today, 2% of the U.S. population lives on a farm. Far less people have a place they can escape to if things get bad.

ETA: I loved The Place Called Attar (my mom and I read it together when I was a teen.) But it's also a book written from the perspective of a very environmentalist christian homesteader who embraces a lot of earth-based spiritual practices. You're warned if you pick it up.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I always recommend reading "Earth Abides," by George R. Stewart, which is the story of what happens when the support structure of modern civilization -- the people to run it -- aren't there anymore. A plague wipes out most of the population of the United States -- and probably the rest of the world, the book doesn't specify -- and only scattered survivors remain, scrounging a living off the remains of 1949-vintage civilization. But there aren't enough people left who know how that civilization works to keep it going, and within sixty years after the disaster, the survivors and their descendents devolve into illiterate stone-age savages.

This is the most thought-provoking novel I've ever read, because it's a realistic look at what probably *would* happen if civilization should collapse. The essential laziness of most people coupled with the highly-specialized nature of modern society would leave too thin a stock of people with practical real-world knowledge to keep even a vestige of civilization going for more than few decades. It's an absolutely chilling picture, and it's probably even more likely an outcome now than it was then. In this age of whey-faced futures traders, mortgage brokers, marketing analysts, Gender Studies majors, and singer-songwriters, how many people are out there who could actually butcher a steer if they had to? How many could even kindle a fire if they couldn't find a match?