Sudden collapse or gradual crumble

Good key questions. Ah, for a crystal ball...My answer would be 'hope for the best, plan for the worst!' I actually think a good gentle crumble could in fact be good for society. In many ways with this increased 'wealth' we have become poorer in society terms. Extended families living apart; 2 parents needing to work to keep a house and food, therefore neglecting raising their children etc. I lived and worked in East Africa for 2 years and having arrived believing they were poor came to realise they were rich in ways we have forgotten how to be.

I would also ask you what you mean by 'society suddenly collapsing'. I think  'collapse' [time frame days -> a few months] would be catastrophic to our western civilisation. I note that some societies in the world are already living an ongoing nightmare due to population, food/energy contraints, and the political fighting this engenders. Perhaps like a Tsunami wave rolling up a beach, hitting those nearest the waters edge first but that will eventually swallow us all. gulp.

Both of you have expressed really great thoughts that mirror much of what I tend to believe in. I like the tsunami comparison, in that it is one type of calamity that can bring immediate, short term and long term devastation, depending on where you are when it hits. But at Sirrocco says, and I concur with as I live in an active earthquake/tsunami zone, you still have to live your life and smell the roses.

Whether is it slow crumble or quick implosion, those of us who are paying attention will fare far better than those who continue to let themselves be led astray by the inaccurate portrayals in the MSM.

Thank you both for sharing, I enjoyed reading your posts.

Jan

FWIW I had independently read Cognitive Dissonance's part Two before I came across this forum topic.  I thought it was a remarkable piece of prose.  Very thought-provoking.  I believe this series of three will be a reference point, at least for me, in the years to come.  It is that provocative.

To thc's question-here goes a few:

Cog Dis' analogy of decaying barns in North Carolina is apt.  A decline phase of a society can be both-  crumbling for a long time then collapse.  I tend to think the downward phase of any complex thing, be it cars, refrigerators, computers works the same way- slow decay to a point then sudden collapse.  Actually, don't most mechanical things that are put into cyclical stress testing machines, for example, a steel beam, go through a slow stress decay over 50,000 cycles, then a 'catastrophic' failure in one cycle.  Perhaps this is simplistic, but it's a principle that makes sense to me.

Just as main post timbers are eaten out by termites, but look and function fine for now (they still hold up the roof just fine), close inspection by an inquisitve and trained examiner shows the reasons to worry.  Then, all of a sudden, SMASH!  The exact thing could be said of the housing market in the early 2000's.  Kyle Bass and others correctly focused on a small thing that others ignored, the divergence of house prices and income (the termite holes before the housing collapse).  Historically these cracks were mainly ignored by the MSM and unknown to 99% of the population.

I would argue that the same principles hold now.   We are seeing the termite holes.  For subscribers to this site, I think we find it amazing that others are so easily able to ignore these cracks.  Abnormally weak employment rebound phase after a deep recession (no expected V-shaped recovery).  Abnormally low GDP growth after a deep recession.  Need of ZIRP seemingly forever.  Need for Fed monetizing debt seemingly forever.  No income growth.  In retrospect, all these things will seem obvious just like the home price-income spread did.  With the growth of the internet, we will have an archive of the voices (like Chris') that were warning people of the obvious.

Another feature of the CD analogy is apt.  Once conditions are 'ripe' i.e. the main timbers are 90% hollowed out, it does not take a force of large amplitude to create the collapse.  For the barn analogy, this could be any of a number of things, a gust of wind, a tree limb falling on the roof, an animal climbing up the post.  Conversely, things that would be expected to knock the post over, don't.  The main support survives a direct hit by a tractor bumping into it.  So our economy survives a Hurricane Sandy no problem.  But a single trader in an interest rate swaps desk loses a billion dollars and starts an increasing amplitude set of financial failures that lead to collapse of a national currency.  That is the concept of how I expect to happen.

A note on risk.  In the 1930's, we were much less inter-dependent, much more "anti-fragile" (to quote Nassim Taleb).  People had pantries, their own gardens, wells, could use a firearm, could hunt game.  Oh yes, and saved money for a 'rainy day'.  If a disaster occured, such as a dust bowl, most people could survive on their own and with help from their neighbors.  That freed up national resources to address the core problem.  Today we are so much more specialized, and so much more dependent on other specialists to provide even the simplest needs- food, water, energy, health care, security, shelter.  This makes a domino effect of a black swan event much worse in final amplitude.  Resources will have to be diverted, i.e. triaged, to provide simple basics, which will significantly deepen and prolong the transition period.

I just listened to a presentation by the guy who writes the subject news letter.  Does anyone know about this letter, have an opinion about its value or any info that might be helpful??  saw presentation at www.criticalwarningradio.com

Thanks