OVER THE TIPPING POINT
We are past the tipping point, folks; and someone, somewhere has been there, done that before.
Here’s a note from a chap by the name of Dmitri Orlov, a Russian engineer and, like me, an 'informal’ economist.
A while ago, he says, during the Russian economic collapse, I whimsically proposed a “Collapse Party”.
He's recommeding the same approach in the U.S. because today's economic climate is so close to Russia's at the beginning of its financial collapse.
The Collapse Party platform, he explains, featured planks such as the freeing of prisoners to whittle down the prison population before a general amnesty becomes necessary due to lack of funds; a jubilee - forgiveness of all debts - to wipe the slate clean of all these bad loans, and a few others.
Elsewhere, I proposed that it is a good idea to stop making new cars - just run down the ones we already have, and we'll run out of cars (at the same time as) we run out of gas.
I am happy to report that this has been banner year for the Collapse Party (in the United States).
Without fielding a single candidate, we managed to push through much of our agenda: many states are releasing prisoners due to the fiscal crisis, the federal government is now involved in avoiding foreclosures, a huge credit card debt write-off is in the works (not quite a jubilee, but still...) and now automakers are ready to consolidate or declare bankruptcy.
Next year, perhaps we will repatriate troops and shut down overseas military bases, also in line with the Collapse Party platform.
One thing that makes political collapse particularly hard to spot, he concludes, is that the worse things get, the more noise the politicians emit.
The substance to noise ratio in political discourse is pretty low even in good times, making it hard to spot the transition when it actually drops to zero.
South Africans: Tune out the political discourse, dump the dollars, buy gold, keep the interest rates up and save, save, save.
(Sources: www.globalresearch.ca; Nouriel Roubini ‘Twelve Steps to Economic Disaster; Dmitri Orlov, “Closing the 'Collapse Gap': the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US.”)
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