Quote from: RE on Dec 31, 2023, 03:06 PM

Quote from: K-Dog on Dec 31, 2023, 11:45 AMCollapse it seems, waits around the corner.

2024 looks like a Collapsalooza waiting to happen.

RE

Dec 31, 1999 was better. Waiting around to see what would shut down at midnight, planes falling out of the sky, all the electronnics going haywire in nuke power plants and electrical generation facilities, civilization literally just coming apart around us.

Everything since then has been shoulda woulda coulda collapse. ther than 2008 it has been difficult to get a decent recession going in the US, let alone a collapse. Even the recent lousy inflation burst hasn't managed to get an official "recession" going, heck we aren't even as bad as the late 70's and early 80's stagflation, we've been living past the global peak oil for 5 years now, unemployment is low and inflation has diminished purchasing power just like the economy needs to devalue our national debt and keep the markets afloat.

The most interesting visible collapse consequences that I've noticed is the growing homeless issues, be they growing run of the mill homelessness or the new mobile homeless with RVs that look like rolling death traps (local Walmart starts filling up right after closing time). Weird other things, like new car prices being amazingly high (who the hell can afford $75k cars and trucks?), persistently high lodging costs for hotels that don't appear to be associated with traffic (few cars in the lot early the next morning) or hotels in nowheresville that are running high quality hotel prices. Plenty of weird stuff, after effects of all the government spending flowing through the system, and companies making sure profits remain high even with lesser sales volume?

But unless the wars and geopolitics get out of control, it just looks like the usual slow grind.