Meanwhile, over at the economic collapse blog,
24 Nations Are Currently Facing A Debt Crisis…
There has been so much attention on Greece in recent weeks, but the truth is that Greece represents only a very tiny fraction of an unprecedented global debt bomb which threatens to explode at any moment. As you are about to see, there are 24 nations that are currently facing a full-blown debt crisis, and there are 14 more that are rapidly heading toward one. Right now, the debt to GDP ratio for the entire planet is up to an all-time record high of 286 percent, and globally there is approximately 200 TRILLION dollars of debt on the books…
Spain has over $1.0 trillion in debt outstanding… and Italy has €2.6 trillion. These bonds are backstopping tens of trillions of Euros’ worth of derivatives trades. A haircut or debt forgiveness for them would trigger systemic failure in Europe.
EU banks as a whole are leveraged at 26-to-1. At these leverage levels, even a 4% drop in asset prices wipes out ALL of your capital. And any haircut of Greek, Spanish, Italian and French debt would be a lot more than 4%.
Then he details how ominous it looks in Asia, what with China overall debt to GDP being 300%.
There are very smart minds hoping to find a way to break a very fundamental natural rule – if you give mankind ease, the population’s psychology will adapt to exploit it, and not to create even more ease. In fact, as the population adapts to exploit it, they are adapting to destroy the very ease you provide to them. The main effect of globalism is to put everyone on the same cycle, so it is not unreasonable to expect that a collapse will bring down the entire globalized world at one time.
I hate to say it, but barring pandemic, I would predict war, and not a minor asymmetric thing.
Apocalypse cometh.
One way history fools even astute observers is that its iterations of repetition only look similar in hindsight.
When people today think of warfare they think of the nation-state wars of the last 200 years, wars of secession and wars of political revolution.
My thesis is that, like an economic collapse becomes inevitable once an unimaginably large ocean of IOU’s (debt) is filled, warfare much more like the English Civil War (neighbor vs neighbor over seemingly insignificant issues) becomes inevitable once an invasion (3rd world immigration and the forced association of racial integration) have shuffled the human cultural deck.
What if the USA in a decade looks like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina:
– roving bands of the FSA?
– self-interested government officials treating refugees like cattle?
– previously trusting people who obeyed the rules discovering they are seen by everyone else as meat?
The USA has an awful lot of ammunition sitting around, and enough firearms in private hands to arm every man, woman and child. Of all the things that may be in short supply, guns and ammo don’t seem likely to be on that list.
A world like that of the English Civil War, where previously neighbors who ate meals at each others’ homes were killing each other and being stopped by a patrol who demands whether you’re for the king or parliament, and giving anything but the right answer is an immediate death sentence, is truly worrisome no matter what one’s preparation level.
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