Habu @ 93:
“It is better to rule in Hell than serve in heaven!”
Yes, our long-term financial outlook and gargantuan debt are severe problems, but it’s the conflict with socialism that is the killer. I expect that to correct itself, peacefully or otherwise, as things continue to deteriorate.
I see some very rough times ahead for the U.S. and the entire planet, but not necessarily with the U.S. becoming a 2nd tier power compared to other nations. This scenario is certainly not new, but with the way the U.S. is moving and the fragility revealed in international banking and commerce I believe it has changed from a fantasy of survivalists into a serious possibility.
I’ve been told this is called the “Better to rule in Hell…” scenario! It works like this:
The U.S. repudiates its debt, all of it! A world wide economic and trade crash immediately follows. A monster depression grips the entire world for at least one or two decades. Everyone pulls themselves up by their bootstraps and rebuilds as best they can with what they have or can get. What will this mean?
For Russia, at a minimum it means seizing Ukraine if that’s still necessary and they aren’t already close allies when the crash comes. This will enable Russia to feed their population.
For China it means curtains for the economy they’ve built up over the past 30+ years, and 150 million+ folks who once had middle class pretensions going back to being subsistence farmers. China will probably go to an immediate war footing and invade and loot as many neighbors as is necessary to prop up their economy at least somewhat in the short term, and to keep the masses occupied. This would also provide brides to those millions of young Chinese men whose potential mates were aborted do to cultural preferences and China’s “One Child” policy. I would expect China to seize petroleum assets in Brunei and elsewhere in that region for the same strategic reasons that motivated imperial Japan 70 years ago.
North Korea will either surrender, or there will be a short and nasty war on the Korean peninsula. The DPRK will not be able to continue without the goods passed to it from China, which will have better things to do with its food, resources, and production.
Mexico and most of Central America will crash economically. Riots will be widespread. The U.S. will really seal it’s border with Mexico for the first time in history, and without that outlet to serve as a pressure relief valve, and without funds regularly wired from Estadas Unidos to Mexico, there will quickly be a civil war. The depression will effect the U.S. as well, and people will forgo fast food, new construction, and gardeners. Many Mexican immigrants in the U.S. will find themselves out of work and unable to wire money back home. As an aside, this is already happening now, and is putting considerable strain on many rural areas of Mexico.
Many third world countries will dissolve in civil war when food and other resources become scarce. Tribal and ethnic tensions that have been papered over will flare up again.
In Europe, governments will seize even more of their economies. Martial law will sweep the continent. Nations such as France & Switzerland, who have built a robust infrastructure of Nuclear and hydroelectric power stations, and have lavishly funded indigenous farmers will suddenly be seen as wise instead of profligate protectionists.
Large parts of Europe are likely to have widespread rioting and small-scale insurgent warfare when government checks stop arriving in mailboxes of Muslim immigrants. Others have written at length about the likely bloodbath that will ensue.
To sum up, the whole world dissolves into shit. Those countries best able to deal with the near total collapse in international trade will be the ones with indigenous resources, varied economies, and governments capable of coping somewhat effectively with such a crisis. The list is relatively short: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, France, the U.S., the U.K. and China. Of these, China would be the rockiest, perhaps losing 10%-30% of its population before things stabilized, while Australia might have grave difficulties with water, and New Zealand has very limited energy resources. I expect almost everywhere else to be a disaster for over twenty years.
The U.S. has abundant natural resources, if government would just get the Hell out of the way and let them be developed. We have a diverse climate, fertile land in abundance, and a young enough population to work those fields, build factories, and rejuvenate our economy. In short, we have options not open to most nations on earth who have shrinking and aging populations, completely inadequately educated populations, limited land mass, a dearth of resources, or who have economies based on one dimension only, such as cheap export of manufactured goods in uneven trade to permissive markets, or pumping oil and natural gas as the sole means of obtaining foreign goods. Many nations on earth are large net importers of basic foodstuff.
In any serious international crisis, with the exception of the Ukraine, France, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. there will be widespread hunger. In many parts of the third world tens or hundreds of millions will likely die from famine or complications related to malnutrition in just the first and second year of a worldwide crisis.
Russia, and nearly every OPEC country are entirely dependent upon petroleum production and export to maintain their economies. In a worldwide depression, they will have very few customers, and those customers won’t be paying much for oil. Many OPEC nations are large net importers of food. People in the Middle East will starve if worldwide trade collapses.
Eco-fascists have been saying we need to cut the world human population dramatically. Here’s a way to cut at least 1-2 billion from the total in less than 20 years.
After the ashes cool, America picks itself up, washes itself off, and resumes its place as leader of a world nearly as devastated as Europe following the Second World War.
