It IS the OIL stupid.

[K-Dog]

So...it ISN'T about the oil.....

I just don't like the social sciences pretending they are the physical or natural sciences, and in particular this one where "rational actors" (whatever the hell they are) being required to make anyone's ideas work. No one has ever called geology or engineering "voodoo geology" or "voodoo engineering" but voodoo economics makes perfect sense and probably always will.

People do have a calculator of sorts inside of them that triggers them to action.  It is anything but rational.

[K-Dog]

The German Economy.

Collapse it seems, waits around the corner.

[RE]

Collapse it seems, waits around the corner.

2024 looks like a Collapsalooza waiting to happen.

RE

[TDoS]

Collapse 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.

 

[RE]

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

You have developed a bad case of normalcy bias.  300,000  refugees/month hitting the border isn't enough for you?  That's like Xerxes Persians hitting the 300 Spartans at Thermopilae with a new army every month.  The Houthis are still sinking Maersk freighters in the Sea of Aiden and the FSoA just sank 3 Houthi torpedo boats to retaliate.  Trumpovetsky still might get himself reelected.

That which cannot continue indefinitely won't.  Maybe 2024 won't see a catastrophic cascade failure and we'll have to twiddle our thumbs awhile longer, but we're getting closer all the time.

RE

[TDoS]

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

You have developed a bad case of normalcy bias. 

How many decades of non collapse, while collapses are being claimed, are required to make normalcy bias a-okay?

I thought you were a ROE participant from way back? That would put your buy in back what, a quarter century? Isn't a bit of normalcy bias creeping in perfectly natural? You bought like RVs and bug out vans years and years ago....how many bug outs because of collapse did you endure in them, waiting for the world to come back to its senses before the cities became safe again? Had fuel, working ATMs, grocery stores open, etc etc.

Considering the age of folks here, normalcy bias might be perfectly safe because it ain't collapse that's gonna get us. More like not waking up one morning in our comfy beds, falling and breaking a hip, never having never missed a meal or become one for the ravaging hordes of starving suburbanites fleeing the cities.

300,000  refugees/month hitting the border isn't enough for you?  That's like Xerxes Persians hitting the 300 Spartans at Thermopilae with a new army every month.  The Houthis are still sinking Maersk freighters in the Sea of Aiden and the FSoA just sank 3 Houthi torpedo boats to retaliate.  Trumpovetsky still might get himself reelected.

Are you worried about immigrants making it to the Great White North? The US didn't collapse when millions of Germans were flooding the US in the 1880's. How about the Irish in the 1850's? Grandpap came into the US during the Eastern European immigration wave, sometime early 20th century. Does history interpret them as the cause of the Great Depression?

I'm thinking immigrants are immigrants and while I'm no more happy with it than anyone else, it isn't as though this is the first time, and they certainly aren't the collapse we've all been waiting for. When does Yellowstone go BOOM! Magnetic poles shift? Sure the Mayan Calendar gig was good for awhile, but by the time it came and went we didn't even have peak oil anymore, or the BOE event, the AOC still hasn't shut down. Those last two have some hope though, but only for it happening, not for it causing collapse.

Trump getting reelected though could be terribly entertaining, disruptive, and possibly collapsy in weird ways.

And the US has been blowing up pirates and vagrants they don't like since the Marines were bashing the pirates of the Barbary Coast or the Shores of Tripoli. As non-collapse as current events can be, until the Russians start nuking US aircraft carriers or something and then the Big Show could be collapse worthy.

That which cannot continue indefinitely won't.  Maybe 2024 won't see a catastrophic cascade failure and we'll have to twiddle our thumbs awhile longer, but we're getting closer all the time.
RE

We've been getting closer since the day any of us was born. And "continuing indefinitely" is the same as "it won't require infinite time" and that sure doesn't mean it will be 2024 and doesn't preclude "anytime after we all die of natural causes anyway".

How about some optimism? Not normalcy bias, but optimism, so we can enjoy the time we've got left, and then we;ll croak before being eaten by zombies or whatever, and here is how we do it. Each and every one of us survived the claimed Great Dieoff called for the end of the 1980's. All of us. We zipped right through that one like it wasn't even there because...well...it wasn't. So we can be thriled with having gotten an extra 33 years becoming 34 years this evening, and kick back and enjoy the couple we have left before the ticker stops ticking, or that brain aneurysm turns out the lights, or that drunk driver makes a grill ornament of us.When you only got a little time left, make the most of it!

Happy New Year everyone, and enjoy and be happy that you escaped The Great Dieoff of the late 1980's that was so earth shattering that normalcy bias got us through it without a scratch, and handed us another 34 years to boot! Fingers crossed for 35 years next year for everyone here!

[RE]

I thought you were a ROE participant from way back?

No, I didn't write arguments based on ROE.

That would put your buy in back what, a quarter century? Isn't a bit of normalcy bias creeping in perfectly natural? You bought like RVs and bug out vans years and years ago....how many bug outs because of collapse did you endure in them, waiting for the world to come back to its senses before the cities became safe again? Had fuel, working ATMs, grocery stores open, etc etc.

Owning an RV was a precaution against ending up homeless, as well as a way to live cheap once I retired.

Are you worried about immigrants making it to the Great White North? The US didn't collapse when millions of Germans were flooding the US in the 1880's. How about the Irish in the 1850's? Grandpap came into the US during the Eastern European immigration wave, sometime early 20th century. Does history interpret them as the cause of the Great Depression?

Not worried about immigrants to Alaska.  Most people won't come here for the same old reason:  Too cold.

German and Irish immigrants never flowed in here at the rate of 300K/month.  It took decades for those waves of immigration to play out.  There was time for them to be absorbed into the economy, which at the time was growing.
 

How about some optimism?

I don't see any good reason for optimism.  The economy is a mess, the world is swimming in irredeemable debt and while 2024 may not be "the big one", I find no reason to think things will get any better over the year.

RE

[TDoS]

Owning an RV was a precaution against ending up homeless, as well as a way to live cheap once I retired.

So when you called the RV a bugout machine you didn't mean it? 30 seconds in.

How about some optimism?

I don't see any good reason for optimism.  The economy is a mess, the world is swimming in irredeemable debt and while 2024 may not be "the big one", I find no reason to think things will get any better over the year.
RE

Well sure, optimism can be a little hard to come by in the present, but just think about all the years of life and running around you've gotten since all the collapses dodged or not occurred? And I never said things get better, or that getting better is the reason for optimism. The reason for optimism is because we all made it through the last big claimed collapse point, and have lived reasonably non-eaten-by-cannibals lives since then. This gem of a Frostbite falls rant is wonderfully statistics filled from 8 years back or so. It is great...and upon comparing the ideas therein, with the reality that followed, you can't ooze a LITTLE optimism? Because we is all still here! Water comes and goes as it often has (remember the Hoover damn level watching way back when...did it ever get to dead pool status?) and that means it has been more and more years of not being eaten by our fitter and stronger and better armed neighbors.

All us old farts know where this goes should a collapse finally rear its ugly head, and as we see our personal ends approaching we can rejoice in it not being a collapse end, but a normal one! You've got to score that as win.

I say optimism is warranted for these reasons, that after decades of waiting, it looks like we all get to die in bed rather than eaten by the starving hordes. You never needed your RV for bugging out, guns and ammo can be passed on to the children, and surely we can all agree that dying of old age is better than being brained with a club and eaten at the end of the day?

[RE]

I think we can just agree that we look at the same glass and you see it as half full whereas I see it as half empty.

I don't have a Bugout Machine anymore, but not because I don't think it's a good idea to have one.  It just became too difficult for me to maintain while moving from one place to another in the sick care housing industry.  I can't live a nomadic existence anymore either, so for me it no loger has utility.  I'd still recommend having one to people who are reasonably healthy though.

No, the malls haven't yet turned into Zombie wastelands, just the parking lots.  Yes the lights still work most of the time, at least if you don't live in Puerto Rico or Argentina.  You can still buy a house if you can afford $500K mortgage.  You can't rent a 1 bedroom in Anchorage though if you're a cripple.  You get on a waiting list where your waiting time never goes down.

Anyhow, feel free to rejoice that you still might die peacefully in your bed rather than consumed by cannibals.  I do not rejoice at the ever deteriorating state of the world.  It doesn't look very good to me from my vantage point.  Yours is different.  So it goes.

RE