When the Riots Begin

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Are you talking about the mass delusion that a bunch of guys with guns can actually do squat against a government with bombers, tanks and biological warfare?

Every generation wants to be a hero. People think we are going through terrible times yet they forget that the world has actually gone through at least one dark age already and humans are all still here...

Lets all check back here dec 6th 2010. I'll make some crow pie and Zeno can eat that along with his hat. Maybe wash it down with some healthy scepticism.

Yes there was a documentary with Ted Koppel that talked about how political dissenters are killed and then its covered up

Weak economic growth will return, but the jobs will not. The most likely scenario for the American economy for the next few years is slow growth followed by gut wrenching contraction. Basically you will see the business cycle grafted onto an ever steepening secular decline. The root cause is that the world has finally decided that it no longer wants to lend so much to America. He was probably shocked and certainly dismayed, but Barrack Obama discovered during his recent swing through Asia that even American protectorates like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are saying no to more American debt. All presidents get 1,461 days in office for any 4 year term and Obama spent 4 of those days in China hoping to get the Chinese to lend more. It was a very significant investment that yielded nothing other than an unmistakable snub.

Without the ability to borrow, the American economy is like an engine without sufficient fuel. It will not stop and it will keep chugging along but the crack and sputter will send an unmistakable signal that all is not well. The discontent that follows will show the world that America is no different from other countries. Some of you may spit on Mexico today, but mark my words, the events that will come to pass in the United States will make Mexico something of a haven in comparison.

The economy ALWAYS recovers.

Just not always within your lifetime.

A whole generation grew up during the Great Depression. Yeah, things got better, but their outlook and way of coping with life was set from the impact of that event. Likewise, there was a generation that watched everything they worked for disappear in that depression and died pretty much penniless.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capito ... id=topnews

Why do they call it creating jobs when they just give money to people for doing nothing? Borrowing as a nation to allow people to live in the style which they believe themselves entitled to is no way to fix a broken economy. To repair the damage from decades of excess, Americans must accept whatever jobs that are available even if it means taking a massive cut in pay. Indeed, if America is to live within its means, Americans as a whole must make do with less and that means a lower income for all. It is not just about compensation, doing what needs to be done moves the country forward, holding out for that ideal position is what sets everyone back. So many people are hunkered down in their own world of make believe that if they keep receiving unemployment benefits, they will never seek out gainful employment at market compensation. These people would rather hide out at home than face the world as a minimum wage loser.

Will the bill pass? There is a scent of treason in attaching a contentious jobs bill to military appropriations that are vital to the prosecution of two wars. Who will betray the country of has the nation already been betrayed?

Yep. Governments are stable things, especially when backed by such massive amounts of firepower as the US government. Americans didn't riot during the Great Depression, with orders of magnitude more suffering than in the present recession, they're not going to riot now. While the US faces severe long-term economic problems, it's still not in exceptionally bad fiscal shape compared to countries that have borrowed like banana republics, such as Italy, Greece or Japan. Only a few countries like Norway and Chile have handled their finances like adults.

Well said pbcoll.

I think our Zeno discounts environmental factors in the great depression. There was a very bad drought.

You couldnt just go work on any farm because, well, many of them had little or no water, let alone the ability to grow things. There was no access to seismology or water drilling rigs for average people. There was also a problem with things like locusts, which ate crops.

And I think Zeno discounts the fact that these things happened within living memory. Many of us either experienced it or are quite intimate with the details from our parents and grandparents. Zeno sitting in singapore is denied such immediacy, and can only read and speculate. Poorly.

Zeno, the bulk of us live in suburban areas with yards both front and back of our houses. The average house I live in sits on a lot that is approximately 12 by 18 meters. The house occupies about 1/3 of that, allowing the rest for flower beds and a place to park. These could easily be used to grow vegetables, and some people here do that.

This would allow 90% of the people in my town of 60 000 to grow enough veggies to feed themselves for a year. And it would allow most North Americans to do the same. Those with bigger lots could easily carry the difference to support those that live in apartment buildings.

Even those in apartments could raise some veggies on their balconies.

All the knowledge to do this is easily accessible in families. The space is there. The environment is right.

Perhaps the generation right after mine was the first to not need to raise their own food. The staples of our diet grow easily everywhere in North America. Potatoes, Carrots, Cabbage, onions, Peas, Cucumber, Radishes, turnips, lettuce, spinach, and on and on. Strawberries for example, grow wild, as do berries of all sorts.

And this doesnt even account for millions of fields that can be used to grow all these things. It is just that right now they produce a good deal of wheat which is exported to countries like yours that lack so much arable land. For example, the USA has 18% arable land, while you only have 1.5%. Even up here in cold Canada we have 4%.

Even if what you say comes to pass, people are just going to phone up grandma and ask her how to grow potatoes. Then they will tear up their lawn and feed themselves.

The students are already starting to protest against tuition increases. Some were recently arrested in San Francisco for taking over school property. Look at how unfair it is for the young’uns. People in their twenties are unlikely to draw any unemployment benefits and if they do receive anything the amount will be pitiful. Their fall back options like working in retail or food and beverage are getting snatched up by people in their forties and fifties who, in their desperation, are willing to work for less and be thankful for the opportunity. And yet all the debt that is being incurred now to “create jobs” will hit Americans under the age of forty hardest as it is they who have worry about principal repayments.

There is a growing movement in the United States to grow one’s own food. Raising backyard chickens have taken off with alarming speed. But people who would speak of growing vegetables to attain self sufficiency have most certainly never tried it. If growing a few tubers and cabbages can keep you alive, I propose that you go ahead and live that way. You will quickly learn that you could not get enough calories from the vegetables you grow to compensate for the energy you expend in growing them. To harvest enough energy from the sun so that such a life is possible, you will need space and that is why farms and homesteads were so sought after in the days of yore.

But this movement towards self sufficiency is a sign that beneath the veneer of positivism lurks darker thoughts. People are afraid that they might not have the money to put food on the table. America, as the world’s agricultural superpower, will not run out of food; but distributing it in a manner that is equitable is going to become increasingly difficult and contentious because the government will have to borrow to feed the growing ranks of indigent parasites. And this debt will exact a very heavy price as it essentially mortgages the future of America’s children. The term banana republic has been used and it comes to mind.

There is no comparison between this present age and the Great Depression. You might as well be talking about different worlds. However, if the Great Depression is the analogy you want to use then think also about changes in the way people live as a result of the financial bust. My point was that in the 1930s most Americans lived on farms and even if they lost money in the crash, their lives went on like it had before albeit poorer. If you are forced into bankruptcy and lose your home today, there are going to be some gut wrenching changes to the way you live.

As others have pointed out, life in the rural US was extremely bad during the Great Depression. First of all, agricultural production was mostly commercial, not subsistence farming, so a general economic collapse affected farmers no less than shopkeepers. Also, there was the Dust Bowl and so forth. In at least some rural areas, times were actually harder than in the cities. And actually farmers were already doing badly before Wall St. went down in flames. I doubt the Okies saw themselves as insulated from the crisis at the time. Obviously farms can also be foreclosed, and you can't farm without water. But yes, the Great Depression and the current recession are in totally different leagues, which was precisely my point.

To point out the obvious, there is a big difference between protests over tuition increases and major riots, and between major riots and violence threatening the government's stability. Plenty of governments in your continent are well aware of the differences. Young Americans do have good reasons to protest; they're paying taxes to fund Medicare (will it still exist when they're old enough to be entitled to it?), and they're going to be the ones paying taxes for the money the baby boomers borrowed. In effect, the Greediest Generation, which inherited the most successful industrial sector in history, is robbing its children and grandchildren.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/us/20 ... r=1&ref=us

Freeze this winter, riot in the summer.

Violance breeds Violance, if you pick up a gun, you are perpetuating the cycle.

That was not the case when Rome destroyed Carthage. After the third punic war there was peace and quiet for a long time.

ruveyn

Japan too.

Sometimes a big stick needs more than a shake. Sometimes violence is the right solution.

The forthcoming violence will solve nothing but instead tear the country apart. Things are held together now by the wispiest threads of silk; hope against hope that all will eventually work out. It is the death of such hopes that will be fodder for mass social unrest. When people realize that their impoverishment is a permanent change in status and not just a blip on an otherwise beautiful life, the rage which follows their despair is an all too human reaction.

Winter came early and it is cold. A white Christmas this year neither tinkles nor jingles. It is instead an all too obvious reminder of the difficult times for those who can no longer afford to heat their homes and must therefore live wrapped up in layers of shame. For many, government handouts are the only thing that allows them to maintain the illusion of well being.

An America that is finding it increasingly difficult to borrow puts on a show and pledges $100 billion to fight climate change without first asking the Chinese if they would lend. You cannot fight wars, extend medical benefits to every citizen, and still maintain tens of millions of people in middle class comfort without having them work for the money that they receive. Something has got to give and it is clear that the Obama administration has decided to drop the lifeline to the unemployed.

What do you think that these people will do when they finally realize that they are actually poor?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... id=topnews

Push comes to shove and the money is running out. Raise taxes to fund unemployment benefits and the marginal businesses will be pushed over the edge and thus worsening the employment picture. Cut benefits and people will be forced off the ledge that they have been hanging on to. No win, just lose-lose.