“This pattern is nearly the same as in any pyramid scheme.”
“These systems could all implode at the same time. Food, water, energy, money. Everything.”
This analysis comes from an all-star team of economists and pathologists and advisors. Their wisdom and insight are beyond your imagination:
“At first, it’s almost impossible to perceive. Everything looks fine, just like in every pyramid scheme.”
Err…everything looks fine in a pyramid scheme? It never has to me. Maybe you need to be sitting at the top of one for it to seem that way. Which these sages are. They’ve been embedded, influential members of this pyramid scheme for decades. And now that it’s unmistakably shivering apart they honestly think they’re telling us peasants something we didn’t already know.
But as far as the entire civilization collapsing…well, that’s another point-of-view thing. It probably will be a total catastrophe for Ruling Class drones like these “experts”. But society isn’t going to collapse.
It’s going to shatter.
Oh, the sick, evil financial house of cards will collapse. It’s tottering under the remorseless greed of financiers and economists and pushers of derivatives and junk bonds and toxic loans and everyone who tortures numbers for money but never does a single thing of value.
For those people…all those financial parasites…yes, the fall will be a total collapse. “Will arbitrage for food” signs won’t find a lot of takers. In fact, many will get beaten to death if they’re fool enough to admit their pasts.
But remember: if every last dollar and pound and euro is worthless tomorrow…the physical resources will be exactly what they are today. And they are vastly greater than in previous collapses. They won’t be worth what they should, thanks to the gulf that finance has put between it and productivity and commerce. High finance is anti-wealth.
That’s what really sickens me about the financial classes. Even the Chicken Littles like these belatedly concerned “elites”. Maybe especially them. Because if next week finds us all in a Mad Max / Road Warrior world, those morons will be wanting to be fed on the grounds that “we tried to warn you!” Beyotch, please. Warn me about a patient’s health after I’ve already done the autopsy? Timely!
But the West’s fall won’t be into a universal Dark Age this time. There’s a feedback mechanism: the more quickly and thoroughly the Ruling Class falls, the easier people can seize locally stationed (but “globally owned) resources.
An instant, total financial collapse might very well be the best possible outcome at this point. Anything less and our Ruling Class might cohere long enough to seize actual stuff, rather than worthless financial records. We’ll be better off dealing with local bandits than the Beltway kind.
“Everything looks fine, just like in every pyramid scheme.”
I’d be willing to live on cat food for quite a while if it meant starving to death everyone who believes that.
World's Only Rational Man 
There’s one thing I take away from the Mormons; have a year’s supply of food on hand. I do. It’s not what my wife and I eat on a daily basis, but do from time to time; 2-3 yr shelf life is on the label, but if we don’t eat it before it expires, which by the way I’d still eat in a pinch, we donate to food shelters and by more. And have a good water filtering system available, which will be handy if it ever rains in TX again.
Don’t know if we’ll ever truly need it. But everyone (who can) should have the years’ worth of food..
For decades I’ve asked myself whether the next big war would be over food or water. My answer was always water. Without water you don’t have a food supply. Energy being the answer is on the rise in my book seeing how the US still has no energy policy to speak of. But my prediction is still water. Good thing (for US) is that North America has the great lakes.
Yes, I’m starting to finally put stuff away. Plan to spend a few thousand of my savings on very long shelf-life goods in the coming months. To my shame, I hadn’t thought of just donating the shorter-lived stuff to charity as its date nears. That frees up worries about a monotonous diet while also doing good. Thanks!
Pretty interesting. It’s a shame that human society ever walked down the path of mobilizing itself around a system of living that was essentially a pyramid scheme. I guess for the masses, the operations were not easily understood and they just took progress, growth, and consumerism as “life.” Because, you know, the smart people, the people up top – they know what’s really happening, and they have it under control, right? Perhaps this will be a good thing, though. When we aren’t used to or obsessed with progress reinforcing our idea of moving forward in time, then we can finally start to slow down and just appreciate what we have, something Americans have forgotten how to do long, long ago. We were so obsessed with our idea of life, and of ourselves in it, that we stopped actually living it. Look at how closed off from each other everyone is now, strangers can hardly even talk to one another. If any of that makes sense… my ideas can be kind of half-baked.
My only point is that I’m somewhat scared, because in our interactions with the few dozen people who are important to our lives, it is hard to remember, much less comprehend, that there are 310+ *MILLION* other people in this country that are all going to be fighting for the same food and supplies we will be. With gas shortages in California as well as their ever-rising price, I think its clear that various aspects of our stable society are starting to crack, and we will start seeing more and more problems everywhere. If I can get some money, I’ll probably back up a few boxes with non-perishables as well.