Economic Devastation

[Morbid]

instead of arguing i believe we should first aknowledge that the world's financial system is going through radical changes at the moment. there are many different bright people with all sort of theories as to when and how it will change and how it will affect us. what is clear is that status quo will not last any longer - can we all agree on that?

[STT]

“Change is the only constant in life.”
― Heraclitus 500 bc.   

  A return to the mean would have us make great changes from here.    Next time Krugman writes article, I wonder how many times he can deny factors which have been true for centuries.   So it could be looked at from two directions, I think we're at an extreme with so much debt supported by so little actual trade or export to create valid demand for that currency and debt.   
A return to normal would not continue that because this is not normal and I dont think even the FED argues this, arguably we just repeat from history of what other economies have seen.  On grander scale possibly and also due to technology much faster, which is where bitcoin comes in ?   I do hope we skip great depression decade long haul and its a more brief default event

I am scrambling the password of the 'contagion' account, so I will no longer be able to login nor post from that account name.

Whys that, guess we'll never know now

[Possum577]

There's an easy way to avoid political and government discontent - EVERYONE should vote...that's the only way for the decisions made by a government to truly reflect the will of the majority of the people. It's unfortunate that people forget this and think they have no control over their government.

[NotLambchop]

...

I am scrambling the password of the 'contagion' account, so I will no longer be able to login nor post from that account name.

Whys that, guess we'll never know now

Bitcoin.  We know drama.

[CoinCube]

instead of arguing i believe we should first aknowledge that the world's financial system is going through radical changes at the moment. there are many different bright people with all sort of theories as to when and how it will change and how it will affect us. what is clear is that status quo will not last any longer - can we all agree on that?

Contagion and I are not really arguing. I am merely analyzing some of his ideas by subjecting them to a little stress testing. Overall as I have mentioned I am in complete agreement with his overall thesis. Indeed there are many different bright people with all sorts of theories as to how and why the economy will change. Of these, I believe that the theory presented by Anonymint and highlighted in the OP is the correct one.

What we have debated recently is exactly how quickly such a transition will happen and how it will impact individual countries and areas. Personally I agree with OROBTC that the decline of the physical economy and a transition to a true knowledge economy may take a while. I also believe that the USA has some advantages that will allow it to recover faster than the rest of the West when the global debt bubble bursts.    

Both of these debates are somewhat tangential and assume that the underlying theory of a declining industrial age and a rising knowledge age is correct. They matter if you happen to live in the USA (which I do) or if you have a significant investment in the physical economy (which OROBTC does) but even if both OROBTC and I are correct  it does not weaken the underlying thesis that we are in the midst of a transition to a very different economy.  

I am scrambling the password of the 'contagion' account, so I will no longer be able to login nor post from that account name.

Whys that, guess we'll never know now

Anonymint scrambles his password from time to time when he finds he is spending too much time on the forum.

[Morbid]

instead of arguing i believe we should first aknowledge that the world's financial system is going through radical changes at the moment. there are many different bright people with all sort of theories as to when and how it will change and how it will affect us. what is clear is that status quo will not last any longer - can we all agree on that?

Contagion and I are not really arguing. I am merely analyzing some of his ideas by subjecting them to a little stress testing. Overall as I have mentioned I am in complete agreement with his overall thesis. Indeed there are many different bright people with all sorts of theories as to how and why the economy will change. Of these, I believe that the theory presented by Anonymint and highlighted in the OP is the correct one.

What we have debated recently is exactly how quickly such a transition will happen and how it will impact individual countries and areas. Personally I agree with OROBTC that the decline of the physical economy and a transition to a true knowledge economy may take a while. I also believe that the USA has some advantages that will allow it to recover faster than the rest of the West when the global debt bubble bursts.    

Both of these debates are somewhat tangential and assume that the underlying theory of a declining industrial age and a rising knowledge age is correct. They matter if you happen to live in the USA (which I do) or if you have a significant investment in the physical economy (which OROBTC does) but even if both OROBTC and I are correct  it does not weaken the underlying thesis that we are in the midst of a transition to a very different economy.  

you also have a valid point. though do you realise that once this bubble pops a global civil war will be imminent? i strongly believe that the most affected country would be america. while most brics supporting countries would unite, western countries will fight their citizens with all the differences that been built up over the years. what makes you think that after the civil war in america it will stay within same borders? mexicans can easily claim territories down south under pretext of protecting american-mexicans, white republicans can claim texas and neighbouring territories, there can be a black state on its own etc. my point is that it will take america really long time to recover while rest of the world have already shaped their financial system so they can switch quickly and soften its fall.

[STT]

Global or civil, one would weaken the case for the other I imagine as a common enemy unites.   I do agree the most affected country would be USA as it imports the most, so we dont have to go full doom but missing capacity in its production does need to be made up if the dollar is no longer supported by external government wealth funds.
And the simple contrary to contagion or similar arguments is default becomes increasingly likely the better option, it doesnt mean war it might be trade failure and poorer people but USA is not a naturally impoverished countryside, in fact its a natural exporter not importer I think

Personally I agree with OROBTC that the decline of the physical economy and a transition to a true knowledge economy may take a while.

I think it'd take more then a while, Asia is lacking in agricultural capacity and technology is still lacking.   In theory we have bio diesel and the means to replace crude oil with natural oil but its such a slim thing now that most dont know of it beyond still inefficient bio processing such as sugar cane which is pathetic imitation of the bio technology capable in a brighter future.
An economy is naturally based on what people need which for many centuries was largely food, we have progressed but skipping right to knowledge is not happening in this decade.  We still need to establish a very solid supply route for a growing world population and the greatest growth is in countries not as gifted as USA in food production so this is the first development I expect

[pungopete468]

instead of arguing i believe we should first aknowledge that the world's financial system is going through radical changes at the moment. there are many different bright people with all sort of theories as to when and how it will change and how it will affect us. what is clear is that status quo will not last any longer - can we all agree on that?

Contagion and I are not really arguing. I am merely analyzing some of his ideas by subjecting them to a little stress testing. Overall as I have mentioned I am in complete agreement with his overall thesis. Indeed there are many different bright people with all sorts of theories as to how and why the economy will change. Of these, I believe that the theory presented by Anonymint and highlighted in the OP is the correct one.

What we have debated recently is exactly how quickly such a transition will happen and how it will impact individual countries and areas. Personally I agree with OROBTC that the decline of the physical economy and a transition to a true knowledge economy may take a while. I also believe that the USA has some advantages that will allow it to recover faster than the rest of the West when the global debt bubble bursts.    

Both of these debates are somewhat tangential and assume that the underlying theory of a declining industrial age and a rising knowledge age is correct. They matter if you happen to live in the USA (which I do) or if you have a significant investment in the physical economy (which OROBTC does) but even if both OROBTC and I are correct  it does not weaken the underlying thesis that we are in the midst of a transition to a very different economy.  

you also have a valid point. though do you realise that once this bubble pops a global civil war will be imminent? i strongly believe that the most affected country would be america. while most brics supporting countries would unite, western countries will fight their citizens with all the differences that been built up over the years. what makes you think that after the civil war in america it will stay within same borders? mexicans can easily claim territories down south under pretext of protecting american-mexicans, white republicans can claim texas and neighbouring territories, there can be a black state on its own etc. my point is that it will take america really long time to recover while rest of the world have already shaped their financial system so they can switch quickly and soften its fall.

I disagree, you place too much power in the hands of our "leaders." There will be no civil war in America, when two social groups of citizens fight over a major issue, you have a civil war; when a social group of people fights with the government, you have a revolutionary war. The people of the Unites States are not and will not face off against each other. The US military will not fire on US citizens on US soil, there was a survey taken which overwhelmingly supports this statement. One of the things that you should consider is the network effect created by the close ties of families and friends. These ties extend to the members of those three letter agencies which will fire on US citizens under our current circumstances, however that is subject to change when the scope of their interactions reaches further into the population and they lose the "good guy" vs "bad guy" mentality.

If our leaders attempt to use force to restrain liberty on a grand scale during a time of crisis, even below that discussed above, they will find themselves isolated, powerless, and vulnerable. The mechanisms they've put in place to grab additional powers are nothing but words on paper which rely on the people's willingness to cede those powers.

There is no chance that a foreign country will claim US territory, that will not happen. The people of the US would not allow that.

The rest of the world started out with top-down control. Unlike America, the conditions will not stop deteriorating until they have massacred themselves. The people depend on government control and have never known an alternative. The US will suffer but still has a foundation of self reliance to call upon when needed.  The US would have favorable conditions for recovery considering the wealth of natural resources, educated population, and preexisting infrastructure.

[iamback]

Some of my (JustSaying's) past writings for perspective (when I was apparently much more mentally sharp than I am now, or maybe I've grown weary of repeating myself):

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4867&cpage=1#comment-397476

The US will suffer but still has a foundation of self reliance to call upon when needed.

Katrina.

The US would have favorable conditions for recovery considering the wealth of natural resources, educated population, and preexisting infrastructure.

You've ignored all the factual points I ( as contagion) made on the last 2 pages of this thread. Sorry you couldn't be more wrong.

Sorry guys, the USA will  fracture. You really don't want it to be so, because you are emotionally and physically invested in the USA. Denying it is only going to make your planning suffer.

What is not clear is to what totalitarian extent the Feds will go to prevent the breakup of the USA. I assume they will push very far into martial law. And if there aren't enough crazies returning from Iraq and militarized police to do the dirty deeds, Kissinger promised UN blue hats on USA soil.

You say the people won't allow it, but only a few million have guns. The rest can't resist. TPTB are ready to do this war I think against the NRA. Katrina was the warmup test.

pungo, you know what happened to you the last time you didn't plan and had your head in denial about your business. You lost everything. Don't repeat the same damn ignorance again! Cripes man, I thought you were astute and studious. Now I see you foaming nonsense from your mouth and ignoring a person who is much more knowledge and proven to be correct every damn time.

Anonymint scrambles his password from time to time when he finds he is spending too much time on the forum.

And I could have ignored others spouting nonsense and not registered again, but it is my concern for the 20-something pungo after having gained a modicum of respect for him, which he seems now determined to destroy.

[iamback]

The likely genesis insight that lead to the essays in the OP:

http://goldwetrust.up-with.com/t124-theory-of-everthing#3583
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2556&cpage=1#comment-278634
http://www.coolpage.com/commentary/economic/shelby/Housing Recovery Illusion.html

[pungopete468]

Some of my (JustSaying's) past writings for perspective (when I was apparently much more mentally sharp than I am now, or maybe I've grown weary of repeating myself):

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4867&cpage=1#comment-397476

The US will suffer but still has a foundation of self reliance to call upon when needed.

Katrina.

The US would have favorable conditions for recovery considering the wealth of natural resources, educated population, and preexisting infrastructure.

You've ignored all the factual points I ( as contagion) made on the last 2 pages of this thread. Sorry you couldn't be more wrong.

Sorry guys, the USA will  fracture. You really don't want it to be so, because you are emotionally and physically invested in the USA. Denying it is only going to make your planning suffer.

What is not clear is to what totalitarian extent the Feds will go to prevent the breakup of the USA. I assume they will push very far into martial law. And if there aren't enough crazies returning from Iraq and militarized police to do the dirty deeds, Kissinger promised UN blue hats on USA soil.

You say the people won't allow it, but only a few million have guns. The rest can't resist. TPTB are ready to do this war I think against the NRA. Katrina was the warmup test.

pungo, you know what happened to you the last time you didn't plan and had your head in denial about your business. You lost everything. Don't repeat the same damn ignorance again! Cripes man, I thought you were astute and studious. Now I see you foaming nonsense from your mouth and ignoring a person who is much more knowledge and proven to be correct every damn time.

Anonymint scrambles his password from time to time when he finds he is spending too much time on the forum.

And I could have ignored others spouting nonsense and not registered again, but it is my concern for the 20-something pungo after having gained a modicum of respect for him, which he seems now determined to destroy.

I think you've misconstrued my perspective into meaning something that it's not intended to.

I agree, the USA will fracture. It's primed and ready to happen; however, what it fractures into is where I hold my hopes. This country was born from fractures, and I believe that it can be reformed from fractures. When I said "the US would have favorable conditions for recovery" that was taking a huge leap and making an assumption that the people can successfully take back this country for themselves...

The damage caused by Katrina is not directly comparable to the damage that will be caused by economic devastation; neither in lost infrastructure, nor in the manner of public perception. While the government was successful with gun confiscation in New Orleans during Katrina, the majority of the people whose guns were confiscated were of an older generation who believed that they would have those guns returned by court order (which has already happened.) Since most of the residents had fled prior to the storm hitting, there was only a fraction of the population remaining making the job of confiscation much easier. Maybe my opinion is skewed because of my age, or my upbringing, or the people I associate with, but my personal experiences with many of the people I've spoken with in my own community has lead me to believe that a gross majority still hold on to those core values which are contrary to this "new direction."

I think the degree of totalitarian extent that the Fed is willing to go to is fairly obvious from the preparations they've made, however I'm not sure they can pull it off without a public reaction. Even under martial law the police officers want to return home to their families safely. One of my customers is an officer with my local PD; I've spoken with him at great length about how the local PD might react under different scenarios such as martial law, economic collapse, and of a situation involving a revolution. What I learned was that the general opinion coming from the majority of the officers (the way they talk about it among themselves) was to follow the Constitution and side with the community before anything else, even if that meant supporting a revolution. I just don't know how the Fed can accomplish what it wants from a logistics standpoint when the personnel losses (those who simply won't be compelled to follow certain orders) will compound with every community...

If UN soldiers did come into the US and act as a militarized police force, the heads of government who support this may as well just hang themselves. The idea was tossed around, and it was a complete political disaster. They've ruined that card, they can just tear it from the NWO play book now. The outcry was so fierce in opposition that we had political "higher ups" like the governor of Texas, talking about supporting and encouraging people to shoot them on sight. He was joined by several others who would oppose any foreign military occupation within the US. I remember seeing bumper stickers printed with a blue UN helmet in the center of a bulls eye floating around for a while.

I think you grossly underestimated the actual number of gun owners in America.  "The long-running General Social Survey, maintained at the University of Chicago, has been asking about gun ownership since its inception in the 1970s. It has found that the number of people who say they have a gun in their home is at an all time low – hovering around 30 percent, from a high of 50 percent in the 1970s." This statistic isn't at all surprising and is certainly very low because gun owners are wising up to the reality that they need to keep their gun ownership to themselves. I will never answer yes to that question on a government form and neither would people who are living in areas where gun restrictions are getting tighter. Gun culture is generally well educated (gun culture is descriptive of the group who passes on proper respect for guns as part of upbringing.) One of the pieces of knowledge that has been passed to me was "never, ever register a gun." This is common knowledge. It's estimated that the actual rate of gun ownership in America ranges from between 39% and 59% of the population...

Mexico claiming US territory is a joke, people associate Mexican military with Mexican drug cartels; and for good reason. To think that an armed Mexican force would be able to fend off that much resistance is just too much...

I'm planning for the worst, but until the cards are laid on the table I don't feel right about abandoning my hope, especially when the scale of this event will be so grand that it will tend naturally to go completely wild. Something like this can't be carried out "all according to plan", there are simply too many pieces that will be falling randomly. You're correct that I have an emotional investment in America; but it's not this country that I'm emotionally invested in, rather this ideology. I still believe that people can find it within themselves not to give up on a dream that they have held onto for so many generations; one that we've gone astray from.

I did lose my business and it hurt me very much for my own mistakes. I can admit this, and I can also admit that you know a great deal more about the workings of geopolitics, economics, and no doubt countless other subject matters than I. Further, I've agreed with your assertions from the first time I happened across one, but there's a part of me that feels like waiting for the knowledge age to save us from tyranny will surely result in megadeath just as with every other failing tyrannical regime for any other reason. For this, I'm not ready to lose hope and concede when the chips are falling. When the knowledge age finally ends this tyranny it'll more likely be my children who witness that final atrocity than I, and that's not a comfortable feeling for me...

[OROBTC]

...

Some random, but perhaps pertinent, thoughts:

One) Some 80,000,000 Americans own guns, total est. gun population: approx. 300,000,000.  I myself bought 300 rounds more of 9 mm ammo yesterday.  Molon Labe.  I agree with above comment about the military NOT firing on the people (yes, many of the "Three Letters" might, but there are more of us than there are of them).

Two) I have not been to India nor Pakistan, but everything credible I read is that their young geniuses (the "Knowledge Age" vanguard to vanquish America I presume) in the ghettos are "not ready for prime time" in the sense of being able to make any more than marginal changes to the world.  I have been to China, Brazil and South Africa, their young geniuses will not make much difference either.

Three) People want to move to the USA.  Yes, sure, some Indians and Chinese go back.  Why not?  Seek their fortune "back home" once they have earned their grubstake here.  That's called freedom!  A big reason many stay here.

Four) Peru is not the only place with physical and cultural constraints to an imminent "Knowledge Age".  Peru has the ANDES making transport much more difficult.  Poverty-stricken Africa (no capital...) has jungles (for those of you who have never spent "quality time" in the jungle, trust me, it's a nasty place) & rivers & deserts...  Places like India & Pakistan treat their women like second-class citizens.  China *may* be lifting its One Child policy.  South Africa (number five of the BRICS), ah, who invests there?  RUSSIA is always on the verge of banning Bitcoin, sound like a winner to any of you?  China has recently banned GOOGLE services, ah, is that what #Winners do?

Five) Brazil (Petrobras), Russia (every business and .gov activity), India (same), China (same), South Africa (same) ALL have corruption much greater than our own.  The Knowledge Age will be held back in countries run by corrupt crony mafias...  BAD as things are in the USA (hence "Economic Devastation" IS a real threat), I would contend that things are worse THERE.  

Six) I do respect Dr. Jim Willie, he has great insights and apparently great contacts (I claim neither).  But, I believe that JW is WRONG about the "BRICS Bank" (a piddly-little clone of the Bretton Woods Agreement (IMF and World Bank).  Since the end of their BRICS Summit in Fortaleza, have ANY of you heard anything about the BRICS Bank?  Unlikely.  China itself would be over 50% of it anyway, LOL...  Has that $100 billion gone into it yet?  $100 bn is chump-change anyway...  Here is my take from July 2014, I was not satisfied with what I was reading, so I went and dug up the info (with some help) myself: http://goo.gl/y9WpM4

Seven) Dr. Willie mentions "Gold Trade Notes" a lot (in support of his thesis that the USA is KAPUT).  Last time I "googled" Gold Trade Notes (supposedly to take over international commerce from Letters of Credit), ALL references came back to him, I saw NO references of that term from anyone but him or quoting him.

Eight) Inspired by contagion, I went and looked at the latest several articles of Martin Armstrong, whom I had run into before he was sprung from prison.  I am withholding judgement on his general thesis (theses) as they are not easy to digest in a couple of sittings (like FOFOA is not easy).  I noticed nothing obvious from Armstrong about the "Knowledge Age", but perhaps contagion is arguing Knowledge Age from other bloggers (I just do not recall).

Nine) America is splintered, we no longer have the "Melting Pot" style of thinking.  We are very diverse.  Yet China, Russia and India are very splintered as well, into MANY languages and ethnic groups.  Brazil is by no means one race either...  Pakistan, ahh...  Indonesia, ahh...  I believe that all of our significant rivals are as splintered, perhaps more so (with more hatred, hard to say) than we are.

*  *  *

Bottom Line:

Yes, if we can keep everything from blowing up, a "Knowledge Age" is likely (perhaps a Kurtzweil-ian "Singularity"?).  But, it ain't happening soon.  There are not only the physical & cultural factors retarding such an Age I mentioned above, but there is tremendous .gov and other Elite resistance...

Keep diversified, and keep your gold (and BTC).

Does that mean I am saying, "Don't learn programming or the nuts & bolts of Bitcoin or other technology"?  Not at all.  Those are skills of the future (probably), and will likely lead to a good living.

But, will the Age of Knowledge fix those potholes in Cleveland and Calcutta in the foreseeable future?  

Nope.

[General_A]

Jim Willie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHsESOY6kNA#t=334

Why are people still listening to these idiot gold promoters? I was debating Jim Willie in email back in 2007, when he admitted to me he is an alcoholic. He made no sense then and still doesn't now. Do I need to publish some of these old emails?

If you have them please do....

[Morbid]

to be honest we are still thinking in 20th century mentality where there should be number one state to jandarme the rest.. why?
we entered 20th century with pretty much three powers. great britain, russian empire and usa. ww1 resulted in great britain becoming absolute hegemon. ww2 turned tables thank to stalin and returned russia onto the geopolitical chess table, great britain lost hegemon status and usa took over the battle. collapse of soviet union gave usa absolute dominance over theworld through banking opression. now they are loosing this battle and imploding while we all scramble in panic to decide who is taking over now.. why? why cant we exist in 21st century within some sort of global feudalism? well, until any of the entities recover fast enough to claim that status. obviously ability to recover quickly will dictate who can clim the crown.
personally i believe russia is the country that have ability to recover fast - it always does. if you let russia develop for long enough without sending armies towards it then with endless resources it has a chance. in that case priority number one for anglo-american establishment would be to make china confront with russia. thats the only way they can fight. sneaky geopolitical tactics is what made british so powerful.
by the way russian ban of bitcoins is very clever. it claims to not allow transaction in 'surrogate' currencies - though there is no definition on what 'surrogate' means. also there is no ban on possesion - only transaction is not allowed. if caught there is only about upto $1k fine but no confiscation. though i totally understand the reason why they did it. russia is fighting the system that been placed there by usa financial advisors after collapse of soviet union. every business set up in such way that profit dont stay in russia, so vast network of offshores set up for sucking wealth away. bitcoin is perfect offshore - so thats your reason for that law.
there is saying in russia:
strictness of russian law is compensated by lack of its enforcement.

[Silverspoon]

...russia is fighting the system that been placed there by usa financial advisors after collapse of soviet union. every business set up in such way that profit dont stay in russia, so vast network of offshores set up for sucking wealth away. ...

So who set up this system in US?

[iamback]

I will slamdunk against all the recently posted retorts in my next post after this one. I need to put this issue to rest, I have other more important work to do.

I see even now Peking Prof. (and China "expert") Michael Pettis is censoring my replies, even though I had been commenting on his blog for several years. So that means he is going to allow this overconfident (Dunning-Kruger effect) 20-something "Suvy" to spout his myopia without being refuted.

Plagues caused by economic collapse—not vice versa

Here follows what I replied and was censored.

http://blog.mpettis.com/2014/12/how-might-a-china-slowdown-affect-the-world/#comment-108694

BTW, in the period for Rome you’re talking about, there was disease epidemics where almost 50% of the Roman population died. Of course the currency will collapse as production certainly did.

In 235, it started off with the assasination of an emperor. At around the same time period, smallpox broke out causing massive population declines. Trade became impossible and unsafe, largely from the stem of disease and political breakdown. Shifts in the climate caused massive population relocations, creating war.

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4946&cpage=1#comment-402900

@Winter:
You attempt to remove blame from the effects of top-down governance. Agriculture in Western Europe declined for numerous reasons all of which can be attributed to mismanagement due to top-down control and the funding of such misallocation. Socialized debt is a future tax. The agricultural sector was suffering under increasing taxes after the hyperinflation of the 3rd century had adversely impacted funding for the military while there were increasing military threats to the east. Pottery records indicate production increased through the 4th, as the rural sector was squeezed for every drop by Rome. As with all debt funding, growth was too rapid, and irrigation was polluted by clearing for too many new settlements. The resultant malnutrition, declining production, localized warlords, and thus disease coincided with the collapse of Western Europe due to the bankruptcy of its top-down militarized, servitude model.

We will likely find the same top-down cause applies to of all Dark Ages– even the famines in Africa.

Let me add to that just like in the West where the boomers are attacking the economy by demanding pensions and even the police and governments are now extorting money with Civil Asset Forfeiture, the Roman legions started to ransack the Roman cities to fund their pensions. And you have not seen anything yet, because the West hasn't yet collapsed economically. After 2016, then you will see the really horrific, extremist actions kick into higher gear. As for the moment, everyone is using the illusory measuring ruler propped up temporarily by a $200 trillion global debt bubble.

These rampaging legions and the barbarians spread the diseases, just as the attacking barbarians at Ukraine threw the diseased bodies over the defensive walls which lead to the introduction and spread of the Black Death through Europe.

Armstrong has even recently put out the thought that the rise in the War Cycle as of 2014 will lead to more disease spread and the pandemic predicted by his cyclic model to peak in 2019.

[iamback]

Why USA lost its economic incentive to assimilate

http://blog.mpettis.com/2014/12/how-might-a-china-slowdown-affect-the-world/#comment-108803

Knowledge doesn’t remove uncertainty. On the contrary, the more information we have, the more the noise increases vs signal. In other words, we end up being under the illusion that we understand more. We end up being more prone to facades. Any system with fat tails ends up having dynamics you’re talking about. Mathematically incorrect. Study Nicholas Taleb's Anti-fragility concept (whom which btw I exchanged emails and it seemed he basically approved of what I wrote in the [first paragraph of the] linked section of my essay). Since you seem incapable of distilling to generative essence of concepts to conceive how that applies to your myopia, let me spell it out for you. The more numerous and distributed (decentralized) autonomous knowledge agents in a system, the less discontinuous the adjustments the system has to make, i.e. the less far out-of-balance the system becomes.

Also you can't seem to wrap your naive mind around the generative essence concept that what held the USA together economically (i.e. motivating immigrants to adopt a common language, as opposed to fracturing into factions of immigrant cultures) and propelled it to #1, was the fact that we were in an Industrial Age and during an Industrial Age, as you pointed out efficiency of distribution is a critical economic factor, thus the USA flatlands, navigable waterways, two coasts to two hemispheres of the world, etc.. gave it an unmatched economic advantage.

Thus immigrants had an incentive to assimilate and the economy had an incentive to stay homogeneous for commerce. But watch what happens when the USA economy starts to implode after 2015, as the $200 trillion global debt bubble collapses into contagion. The incentives for assimilation will no longer exist in the Knowledge Age which survives the collapsing Industrial Age which is only be propped up with the $200 trillion of debt, but the fat lady has sung because the global marginal-utility-of-debt has gone negative and we just can't continue borrowing from ourselves to prop up a dying paradigm of physical industry, fixed capital investment, and physical trade as an overvalued activity. Sorry you are wrong.

But as I have explained in my theory of a fledgling Knowledge Age, that the individual knowledge workers didn't have the economy-of-scale to produce and distribute their own knowledge works in a physical economy, and thus were enslaved by fixed capital in the Theory of the Firm and the Industrial Age. But the internet and virtual work and distribution has changed all that. Just like the Second Industrial Revolution was brought on by network effects from the First Industrial Revolution, we are now underway in the Second Computer Revolution where the network effects from the First Computer Revolution are starting to kick in and take effect. Anyone who fails to understand how this changes everything is going to have their myopic teeth kicked out by reality.

Thus the geographical advantage the USA has is now not only muted, but becoming a liability for as I showed in one of the comments that was censored, the USA can't keep up with internet speeds, because of its huge spread out landmass economics and the resultant fascist politics and oligarchies it creates. I don't have time to spoon feed these concepts. You can either learn to read my writings and think deeply for some days, or you continue to remain ignorant. I don't care! I am too busy actually writing software that will radically change the world in this Knowledge Age. I don't have time to deal with Prima Donnas from the Millennials generation nor senile, selfish, entitled, statist, socialist, authoritarian boomers who don't know when it is time to step aside and let our generation express ourselves.

P.S. Appears Prof. Pettis has censored my prior two replies. Perhaps he is going to allow you to spout off with your 20-something, overconfident myopia (Dunning-Kruger effect) unchallenged. But I am posting all my replies at the bitcointalk forum which has 40,000+ reads, so the truth will not be censored and will be on the internet for posterity when everything I am writing comes true (as have all my other major predictions in the past). Because I understand deeply and you do not. Period.

If I don't bother to come back to reply to any more of your nonsense, it is because you are not worth my precious, scarce time. You go on talking to yourself in this limited readership, echo chamber.

Note, the Generation Y Millennials generation are likely to "reform government" into a new world order by 2033, because as quoted from that linked page:

Born 1981-1993. Turned 18 from 1999 to 2011. Now 18-30 years old.

| | | | | | | |

Roughly 75M in size.

| | | | | | | |

Terrorist attacks on US soil 1st Gulf War Iraq War Columbine shootings

| | | | | | | |

Civic personality"Can-do attitude" Entitled Digital natives

Thus in my theory they will enjoin the dying fork of the bifurcating economy join boomers like Martin Armstrong who think reforming government is the answer.

Whereas, we Gen X will pursue the other fork which is decentralized economy and limited government.

Note Generation Z has different attributes.

I wrote about this extensively in 2012, I will go find a link...

Another proponent of Kondratieff wave cycles is Ian Gordon at longwavegroup.com...

I was writing about that a long time ago along with the generational waves of William Strauss and Neil Howe. I (as AnonyMint) thought I had already put it upthread months ago. Still searching for the link...

Ah, here it was:

Long Wave Cycle (a generational cycle)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=594024.msg6551625#msg6551625

...the Long Wave Cycle (a generational cycle) which predicts the above effect. The youth will take over after 2032, and the kind of world they will create will be one of extreme idealism. This is FDR New Deal style of dangerous. This will launch big government on a bigger scale than we had ever seen before, i.e. "international cooperation" as code word for loss of local sovereignty. The youth will put in place the U.N. Agenda 21 with a gleam in their eye as they are trained and indoctrinated now to believe for example that man-made global climate change hoax is real and is a real problem.

Here follows the research, and I urge everyone to study this carefully...

...
The Occupy Wall Street “movement” (if there ever was such a thing) – and emerging generations of young Americans more generally – is being led by Brand and other pied pipers away from practical reality and into an illusory “world of pure imagination”. What in 2009 had the makings of a New Deal-oriented mass strike upsurge is being steered off course by Wall Street interests in a rehash of 1968.

I did some research on Tue May 01, 2012 6:36 am (quoted below) on the Long Wave Cycle (a generational cycle) which predicts the above effect. The youth will take over after 2032, and the kind of world they will create will be one of extreme idealism. This is FDR New Deal style of dangerous. This will launch big government on a bigger scale than we had ever seen before, i.e. "international cooperation" as code word for loss of local sovereignty. The youth will put in place the U.N. Agenda 21 with a gleam in their eye as they are trained and indoctrinated now to believe for example that man-made global climate change hoax is real and is a real problem.

Here follows the research, and I urge everyone to study this carefully.

I haven't verified whether this long wave cycle principle repeats throughout history, but I assume he has, since he said he spent 10 years perfecting it:

http://www.longwavegroup.com/principle/lefi_map/lefi_map.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58qtcPst2OI

I had read an article that ties this cycle into generational cycle attitudes. I am trying to find it, as I think it explains a difference in world view between Boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y.

===========
Okay I found it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss-Howe_generational_theory#Defining_a_generation
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/james-quinn/2011/11/03/bad-moon-rising
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/james-quinn/the-gathering-storm

Code:

 	    Prophet      Nomad        Hero         Artist
High	    Childhood	 Elderhood    Midlife      Young Adult
Awakening   Young Adult  Childhood    Elderhood    Midlife
Unraveling  Midlife      Young Adult  Childhood    Elderhood
Crisis      Elderhood	 Midlife      Young Adult  Childhood

High = Spring
Awakening = Summer
Unraveling = Fall
Crisis = Winter

Prophet = Boomers (born 1946 - 1964), 40 percent of the workforce
Nomad = Gen X (born 1965 - 1979), 16 percent of the workforce
Hero = Gen Y (born 1980 - 1994), 25 percent of the workforce
Artist = Gen Z (born 1995+)

Boomers = vision, values, and religion (loyalty, idealistic, entitled)
Nomad = liberty, survival and honor (survival, pragmatic, alienated)
Hero = community, affluence, and technology (order, righteous, protected)
Artist = expertise and due process (continuity, flexible, overprotected)

Some links on different attitudes between the current generations:

http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/2431/boomers-generations
http://jojackson.suite101.com/veterans-baby-boomers-gen-x-gen-y-and-gen-z-a185353
http://www.enotes.com/soc/discuss/what-different-characteristics-generation-x-e-90271

I made some interesting comments here:

http://relativisticobserver.blogspot.com/2012/03/hackers-part-3.html?showComment=1335903496830#c239549748064135439

I presented the generational research in the Transparency blog, which explains why we are not going to agree on the use of the government to enforce values:

http://relativisticobserver.blogspot.com/2012/04/transparency-way-of-future.html?showComment=1335900204476#c1703906618219560883

At least we can be rational about understanding why we have different political philosophies.

We Gen X did not grow up entitled. We have to struggle on our own to get where we are. We don't feel entitled, and thus we are not stakeholders in the society that the Boomers built. We trust the free market, because that is what we were dealing with on our own. Social security won't be there for us. The boomers took more than all (debt every where). We've had to scrap and negotiate hard to get some. And instead of giving back to us now the peace of individual freedom that we want, they want to put their value system on us (which will continue to escalate the wars).

So there is conflict ahead.

The Heros are going to rebuild new institutions and fighting the wars to tear down the current corrupt ones. We Nomads are caught in the cross-fire and just trying to find a way to not get squeezed out. Thus we have no choice but to discard the social contract, as it won't be rebuilt in time for us.

http://relativisticobserver.blogspot.com/2012/04/transparency-way-of-future.html?showComment=1335900204476#c1703906618219560883

So now we can understand why boomer's (you) politics are loyalty, enforcing idealistic values, and maintaining entitlements.

And Gen X's (me) politics are liberty, pragmatic survival, individualism (honor), and distrust of values and institutions. I am libertarian anarchist. So trying to convince me that the entitled state should enforce values, is like me telling you that we should privatize the government.

Fascinating.

It explains why we are going to disagree about any political/social topics, such as Hackers, Transparency, media's role in society, etc..

===========
Some useful tables (although I think this deviates in some cases from the generational theory in the prior comment):

http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/james-quinn/2011/11/03/bad-moon-rising

The Boomers (elders) and Heros (youth) are archtypes and will be at odds. Boomers will judge them to have threatened values (remember the Heros are protected), yet ironically the above link claims the Boomers did more drugs, volunteered less, have lower college education, and higher teen pregnancy than the Heros do.

[iamback]

Jim Willie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHsESOY6kNA#t=334

Why are people still listening to these idiot gold promoters? I was debating Jim Willie in email back in 2007, when he admitted to me he is an alcoholic. He made no sense then and still doesn't now. Do I need to publish some of these old emails?

If you have them please do....

Here is one example email. I will have to wade through all them to find the meat of where I formed my opinion of him.

Here is something he wrote which ended being the opposite of what is happening, with the dollar (and thus the US economy) gaining more ingress as the rest of the world is declining first:

> here is a queer thought and question ?
> if the USEconomy slows down, trade deficit might fall, but federal deficit
> might rise
> if that happens, less foreign held US$ to buy USTBonds,
>     when even more are needed to handle an exploding USGovt debt burden

As you can see, everything I wrote below came true. Interest rates declined, QE happened, and commodities (or at least gold and silver) peaked just after 2010. I figured that is about low the global economy could absorb more debt before the global marginal-utility-of-debt went negative. I had these things pretty much figured out back in 2006.

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Re: Don't expect long-term interest rate to increase that much
From:    me
Date:    Mon, August 28, 2006 4:20 pm
To:      jimwilliecb@aol.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks Jim, I didn't consider all those detailed effects.

> the longbond continues down in yield as the US trade deficit and oil bills
> rise
> not much official Fed secret monetization is necessary consequently
>
> if China had a more mature bond & stock market, they would have drawn
>     huge amounts of foreign surplus money to invest
> but they dont
>
> heck, even Europe does not believe it has enough liquidity to handle
> petro-euro sales
> the USTrezBond market is a veritable black hole
>  / jim
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: me
> To: jimwilliecb@aol.com
> Sent: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 4:49 PM
> Subject: Don't expect long-term interest rate to increase that much xat
>
>
> Common logic is that housing must crash, because long interest rates must
> go rise drastically, due to hyperinflation in supply of paper money (M3).
>
> However, that is not what has been happening in reality:
>
> http://www.coolpage.com/commentary/economic/shelby/M3%20vs.%20CPI%20vs.%20Interest%20Rates.gif
>
> As M3 hyperinflation has been accelerating over past 2 decades,
> long-interest rates have been declining.  The trend is very clear, just
> look at the above chart!
>
> Why?
>
> Imho, it is because there is always an oversupply of paper money to buy
> long-term debt (due to the acceleration of M3) and long-interest rates
> reflect the expectations for deflation (global depression) after the
> boomers retire, because standing after the boomers are billions of
> low-wage laborers.
>
> The Central Banks have a lot of room to hyperinflate in order to fill in
> this gap between low-wage and high-wage economies.
>
> And who says the Fed can't print money to buy long-term debt, either
> directly or indirectly!
>
> Bottom line is I expect trends to continue, until the western boomers
> retire, which reaches it's apex around 2010 or so in USA:
>
> http://www.coolpage.com/commentary/economic/shelby/Inflating%20Deflation.html
>
> This is wonderful for us contrarian investors, because the hyperinflation
> in paper money in order to maintain this trend (and not crash the $400
> trillion derivatives), means that commodities, energy (esp. uranium), and
> especially precious metals will accelerate in relative value faster,
> because of the disportionate ratios created by this paradigm.  What I mean
> by disportionate ratios, is for example, how keeping housing prices flat
> (or +/- few %), means dramatic drawdowns in LME inventories for base
> metals, generating supply crises such as we have today in Nickel.  Or how
> the Money Chart gets more out of whack for total supply of Silver & Gold
> relative to total supply of fiat instruments:
>
> http://silverstockreport.com/email/The_Money_Chart.html
> ________________________________________________________________________
> Check out AOL.com today. Breaking news, video search, pictures, email and
> IM. All on demand. Always Free.
>

[iamback]

Am I missing something here or is Coincube and Anonymint the same person ?

Anyways this is me.
[link has been redacted]

And this is me 20 years ago (photos taken in mid 1990s):
http://www.coolpagehelp.com/developer.html

I am suggesting to CoinCube that we write a book entitled, The Post-Industrial Knowledge Age, and publish to Google Play and Amazon Kindle (and perhaps even Apple's walled garden bullshit). Because it seems we have complemented each other naturally, even though we didn't have any a priori relationship. I met him here in this thread.

I haven't yet attempted to research for similar books that have already been published. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt's, The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business, is one related book.

We really need to get these concepts organized, with comprehensive support by real data and citations.

I am not a good enough writer to do it by myself and I already committed to too many urgent programming tasks to even attempt it by myself.

If anyone thinks they are qualified to help, please PM me.

CoinCube, sorry I can't remove that link above, [redacted]

I don't think we have anything to hide. It is not like we are developing an anonymous cryptocurrency or anything nefarious. Just writing about the potential changes for the future in a non-partisan and objective way should keep us out of trouble. But perhaps your employer wouldn't like the controversy of you authoring a provocative book which is not in the medical field, although arguably within the scope of your mathematics double major.

P.S. The above link of mine died, because I decided not to renew the coolpagehelp.com domain, but the page is available on the web archive:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130320133257/http://www.coolpagehelp.com/developer.html

CoinCube, the area of the country you live is still very community oriented and has the traditional values of the USA. I really enjoyed my drive through that region in the summer of 2003 coming from Corpus Christi, TX where I lived for 2 years and headed towards Bellingham, WA where my mother lives. I really thought about settling there, but I hate snow and cold weather. So I can see why you would be foreign to the concept of a USA that is not functioning well. But the population centers of the USA are not in your region. The real USA is decadent and disassimilating, with some exceptions in rural areas and perhaps the NorthWet, maybe even Minnesota area although I've never been there so I dunno.

Btw, I don't hate any race and especially not Hispanics. And there are many upstanding Hispanics who are fine members of the community. I was talking statistical attributes and decadence/disassimilation, not individuals. Remember statistical preferences are not racism. Racism is not allowing a person any chance because of the statistical facts, or worse is stereotypes which are not even statistically valid.

If there are any readers of African or Hispanic heritage, please do not think I automatically disrespect you. I form my judgments on a case-by-case, individual-by-individual basis. Besides, I hope to interact online where I don't even see a person's race. And I am not pure Anglo-Saxon. I have Cherokee ancestry (who Btw migrated from Europe, not Asia like some other tribes), in addition to Welsh (see my beloved grandfather who was a CPA), Southern France (perhaps really Italian), and German.

If you see any city or town named Shelby in the USA, that is because of my ancestor Isaac Shelby.

Hey I grew up until age 15 in inner city New Orleans and Baton Rouge. My sister and I were the only white kids in the entire elementary school in Baton Rouge. The black kids had never touched fine hair before, so I often had oily hands touching my blonde hair from behind my back. I interacted with many blacks, and even I like their style, but fact is that school was a zoo! All the kids did was throw spit balls in the classroom.

My education suffered until my Dad put me in Ecole Classique for 8th grade. Up until that time, I had been to perhaps a half a dozen schools. I immediately accelerated, acing my classes especially Algebra I, then the next year Geometry and Algebra II, Latin, biology. Then completing college Calculus at night before graduating High School, while also becoming a top 3 runner on the XCountry and Track teams. I had a setback in first semester of 10th grade because I had left my mother in Louisiana to go live with my father in Culver City, CA. The first semester I was drunk always but only got one B and rest As. I had a 4.0 (all As), the rest of the way through school from then on.

I think had I been accelerated much earlier, I would have ended up a PhD. So maybe it is good I wasn't but instead my life took a much more tumultuous and tormented path.

[iamback]

I think you've misconstrued my perspective into meaning something that it's not intended to.

I am frustrated by pronouncements without any data or solid hypothesis presented. Now you make some reasoned arguments below which we can try to discuss objectively.

Apologies btw for the tone of my prior message. I am a bit stressed about needing to do so much writing, when all I want to be doing is programming.

So please let us try to make this discussion efficient and finish it once and for all.

I agree, the USA will fracture. It's primed and ready to happen; however, what it fractures into is where I hold my hopes. This country was born from fractures, and I believe that it can be reformed from fractures. When I said "the US would have favorable conditions for recovery" that was taking a huge leap and making an assumption that the people can successfully take back this country for themselves...

I am arguing that point that the economics of the favorable geography (and most fertile farmland in the world) and the Industrial Age paradigm is what caused assimilation, and I am arguing that is going away and thus assimilation will end. You can see Europe does not economically naturally assimilate and the Euro was a failed attempt to force assimilation. Yet when Europeans came to the USA, they assimilated. Why? Because there was an economic incentive as I explained upthread.

My theory isn't necessarily proven. It seems reasonable, but it needs more support with more data and organized research. I am confident it is the correct theory. I have a good record of being an accurate reductionist who consistently distills to the correct generative essence (and otherwise recognizes when his understanding is still insufficient and inconclusive).

The damage caused by Katrina is not directly comparable to the damage that will be caused by economic devastation; neither in lost infrastructure, nor in the manner of public perception. While the government was successful with gun confiscation in New Orleans during Katrina, the majority of the people whose guns were confiscated were of an older generation who believed that they would have those guns returned by court order (which has already happened.) Since most of the residents had fled prior to the storm hitting, there was only a fraction of the population remaining making the job of confiscation much easier.

You are not arguing the government won't attempt to, so I don't need to cite abundant evidence that the government is potentially scheming to do so.

Rather you are arguing that the conditions will not be sufficient for the government to succeed in enforcing it's Max Weber monopoly on force which is its raison d'être, at least not beyond some limits of consent from the constituents. You might for example cite the recent Bundy Ranch, Clark County, Nevada standoff, while I could retort with the Waco massacre and many others like it.

Btw, I visited in July 2006 with my childhood friend Will Weber's father in my Grandad's block in Metairie, LA, and he said they never fled and were never visited by the authorities to take their guns. So I am not confident that Katrina is an entirely representative case. We can also add the 2010 BP oil spill event, where the authorities enabled a corporation to impose martial law control of a portion of south Louisiana.

But here is the salient point. The majority or significant minority of Americans are directly dependent on the State economically (e.g. 57 million were on food stamps during 2008 aftermath, 102 million jobless and potentially on unemployment welfare, millions more seniors dependent on welfare and pensions which Obama will nationalize, etc), and even most of the rest are not sufficiently wealthy and thus are dependent on the economy in which the government is 50 - 75% of GDP.

So the point is that the constituents are going to be in support of socialism, and go along with snuffing out any libertarian militias that want to restore small government. America will fracture precisely because there are different classes of folks and the successful class doesn't want to be bankrupted by the unproductive class. Yet the unproductive and dependent class is the majority, so therein lies the problem that will lead to massively tumultuous and probably violent outcome.

There is not going to be some harmonious assimilation. You are in dream, LaLaLa land.

Maybe my opinion is skewed because of my age, or my upbringing, or the people I associate with, but my personal experiences with many of the people I've spoken with in my own community has lead me to believe that a gross majority still hold on to those core values which are contrary to this "new direction."

They can talk big until they don't have any food to feed their elderly parents.

The people always side with whom butters their bread.

Most people don't realize they are economically dependent, until the shit hits the fan. ETA 2016 - 2020.

I think the degree of totalitarian extent that the Fed is willing to go to is fairly obvious from the preparations they've made, however I'm not sure they can pull it off without a public reaction.

The public supports the government. The government provides for them. The government is 50 - 75% of GDP.

What fantasy world do you live in? What data?

Even under martial law the police officers want to return home to their families safely.

And they want their families to have food on the table too. Most people in the USA are dependent. If we take away the governments ability to expropriate everything as they will soon be forced to do by the coming contagion collapse, then so many people won't have their basic needs take care of. Those most people will support the expropriation. They already do!

We don't live in a nation of self-sufficient constituents any more. Reality check!

One of my customers is an officer with my local PD; I've spoken with him at great length about how the local PD might react under different scenarios such as martial law, economic collapse, and of a situation involving a revolution. What I learned was that the general opinion coming from the majority of the officers (the way they talk about it among themselves) was to follow the Constitution and side with the community before anything else, even if that meant supporting a revolution. I just don't know how the Fed can accomplish what it wants from a logistics standpoint when the personnel losses (those who simply won't be compelled to follow certain orders) will compound with every community...

I spoke with a former Sergeant in Corpus Christi in 2006 and he told me that all police around the country had been deputized by the Feds and could be called up by the Feds (which has become the Homeland Screwurity Dept).

Those police officers who don't follow orders will lose their job or worse. It won't take too many examples before the rest get the clue that if they want to feed their families, they need to follow orders. Besides most the population will be demanding that the police officers enforce the law.

The police are already expropriating the resources of the country with the Civil Asset Forfeiture fraud which is spreading. Are you not aware of this new corruption which is spreading like wildfire across police departments.

]

• The Civil Asset Forfeiture scam[1].
  

[1]

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/10/09/civil-asset-forfeiture-police-corruption-exposed/ http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/11/21/cities-budget-civil-asset-forfeiture-as-part-of-their-funding/ http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/11/11/civil-asset-forfeiture-scam-state-legalizes-marijuana-fed-confiscate-your-home-for-possession-of-just-10-worth/ http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/01/15/civil-forefeiture-laws-are-funding-pensions/ http://www.nestmann.com/the-justice-department-plan-to-maximize-asset-forfeiture http://www.nestmann.com/civil-forfeiture-of-cash-it-could-happen-to-you http://www.nestmann.com/civil-forfeiture-the-war-on-your-wealth http://www.nestmann.com/now-the-military-receives-forfeiture-kickbacks

I make a lot of footnote citations, because many of you readers are (understandably) ignorant and need to catch up on your research reading.

If UN soldiers did come into the US and act as a militarized police force, the heads of government who support this may as well just hang themselves.

Nice dream. Now come back to reality. The people will love to participate in a greater global society that takes care of them. They love socialism and government. Can't you see the $200 trillion debt bubble and the huge welfare states?

Do you think that happened because people hate welfare and being taken care of by Big Brother?

The idea was tossed around, and it was a complete political disaster. They've ruined that card, they can just tear it from the NWO play book now. The outcry was so fierce in opposition that we had political "higher ups" like the governor of Texas, talking about supporting and encouraging people to shoot them on sight. He was joined by several others who would oppose any foreign military occupation within the US. I remember seeing bumper stickers printed with a blue UN helmet in the center of a bulls eye floating around for a while.

People who can't eat are much more compliant. TPTB know they need a big crisis to move everything forward. Perhaps the worst in history ETA 2016 - 2020.

I think you grossly underestimated the actual number of gun owners in America.  "The long-running General Social Survey, maintained at the University of Chicago, has been asking about gun ownership since its inception in the 1970s. It has found that the number of people who say they have a gun in their home is at an all time low – hovering around 30 percent, from a high of 50 percent in the 1970s." This statistic isn't at all surprising and is certainly very low because gun owners are wising up to the reality that they need to keep their gun ownership to themselves. I will never answer yes to that question on a government form and neither would people who are living in areas where gun restrictions are getting tighter. Gun culture is generally well educated (gun culture is descriptive of the group who passes on proper respect for guns as part of upbringing.) One of the pieces of knowledge that has been passed to me was "never, ever register a gun." This is common knowledge. It's estimated that the actual rate of gun ownership in America ranges from between 39% and 59% of the population...

My ex has two guns in the house but isn't about to fight to stop the welfare she is getting from government.

You can't equate that with people who are true Libertarians, which is much smaller percent less than 15%. And the "you can take it from my cold, dead hand" is only about 3 million.

Mexico claiming US territory is a joke, people associate Mexican military with Mexican drug cartels; and for good reason. To think that an armed Mexican force would be able to fend off that much resistance is just too much...

You are completely missing the point. The USA will fracture from within. The productive folks will try to break away to escape be expropriated of all their wealth by the hoards of socialist, communist Hispanics and Blacks and white trash already inside the country.

there are simply too many pieces that will be falling randomly.

The data says it won't be random. The outcome is already written in stone by the economics realities and stratification of the USA into classes and the loss of the Industrial and Agricultural Ages.

Stick a fork in 'er. She is done.

After a massive implosion, by 2033, the Generation Y will ascribe to a New World Order to bring unifying socialism to all the fractured elements that have resulted from the implosion.

You're correct that I have an emotional investment in America; but it's not this country that I'm emotionally invested in, rather this ideology. I still believe that people can find it within themselves not to give up on a dream that they have held onto for so many generations; one that we've gone astray from.

You are wasting valuable energy and time fighting a tectonic force of change. Much better to flow with the change and find your new place in the new reality.

...but there's a part of me that feels like waiting for the knowledge age to save us from tyranny will surely result in megadeath just as with every other failing tyrannical regime for any other reason.

The Knowledge Age won't save anybody. The Knowledge Age is people saving themselves. It isn't a collectivized result. It can coexist with megadeath and probably will.[/list]