Soviet Union collapse of Yesterday versus USA collapse Today

[Doly]

Since I'm in Northern California, that makes me a citizen of the latter, which is aptly named Ecotopia.

As much as I dislike a good deal of what comes out of certain other regions, e.g. religious extremism and authoritarianism in all its forms, I don't want to see us break up.

I suppose you know Ecotopia is taken from the book of the same title. It's a good book, but as names go, I prefer the name Cascadia for the same region (google for it).

As for breaking up, I think it's a very likely outcome as the economy of the USA starts disintegrating (and it's doing so right now). A number of states will look around and think: "Hey, I could do better on my own." The rest will follow quickly, in a country that is so oriented to maximize profits.

[Kingcoal]

I think its apples and oranges. The US economy is run by the rich. That was never the case in Russia. As the US economy fails, you will see draconian measures such as the elimination of government bennies. The super rich are not dumb; they know what's going on. They will continue to manipulate the US and EU economies for their own benefit while the masses suffer. I think that the oil producers will continue to do well. Those in power will then point out who the enemy is; the oil producers. They will use that "disparity" to justify resource wars.

It's already begun: Link

[RdSnt]

By "worse shape" I would take that to mean the US is in a much more precarious financial situation than Russia ever was. More pointedly though is the broad distribution of comfort, relative to Russia's population, that exists in the US. America's exceptionalism and ignorance has left the vast majority of the population seriously ill prepared for what will be quite serious economic hardship.
I would relate the Russian "collapse" as akin to the Great Depression, in that the distribution of wealth in America at that time, and the population distribution, was similar to what Russia had during its troubles. The majority of Russian people experienced a relatively small decline in their already meager livelihoods.
The collapse of the American economy is going to be a huge blow to the US population.

It's hard to believe but the U.S. is in worse shape than Russia ever was.

I actually lived in Russia when it collapsed. Nowadays I live in US. So I kinda can compare and in my opinion giving up $4 coffee drinks is not in the same ballpark as being unable to get food and hardly could be an indication of "worse shape than ever" but what do I know - I am fooled.

[Pretorian]

Would you say the US is poised for a greater fall than Russia experienced?

Nope, quite the opposite. US would do better (without $4 coffee)

You are kidding, right? Thats a catastrophe for an average American. First, coffee, then $8 burgers, I can see hungry riots right there.
On a serious note, 70-80% of US jobs are service related, like those coffees, $160 dental fillings, $100 000 surgeries, ets. They do not produce shit, just providing services for those 20-30% who do. Not saying that those jobs arent important, not at all. But this way or another they live off those who do grow wheat, pump oil&gas, melt iron, ets. So, if you will skip on that coffee, fill your teeth in Hungary and cut that hernia out in Germany all those baristas, waiters, medical assitants &ets will be looking for work. It takes 15-17% unemployment to see a line of 50-70 people trying to get a dishwasher position no matter what pay is /hours are. About the same rate and you can find a professional pilot, engenier, biologist, chemist, economist working as a security guard , some might have Phds.
Have you seen a rocket scientist living on the street? I have.
Well, not exactly a scientist, but an actual enginier who was making intercontinental BMs for you guys, in the nice sity of Dnepropetrovsk. They are still out there for you guys, waiting its hour among the depths of Siberia

[dsula]

It takes 15-17% unemployment to see a line of 50-70 people trying to get a dishwasher position no matter what pay is /hours are. About the same rate and you can find a professional pilot, engenier, biologist, chemist, economist working as a security guard , some might have Phds.

That's what I'm afraid of. I'm an micro chip design engineer designing consumer electronic crap. What am I going to do if nobody buys cell phones anymore? *sob* I'm so screwed. I don't want to start farming, I'm afraid of cows.

[TheDude]

Some fairly wellknown author has published a book on the thesis that the US actually consists of about six distinct nationalities: New England, the Southeast, the industrial northern Midwest, the agricultural central Midwest, the Western desert states, and the Northwestern forest states.

You're probably thinking of The Nine Nations of North America by Joel Garreau.



Published 1981, Callenbach's novel Ecotopia came out in 1975.

[btu2012]

I think my question is, if the US goes into a depression, for example, will that depression lead to war, i.e., something akin to war being the culmination of the 30s depression? Or, can the US somehow go into a depression, lick its wounds, and it not end up with world war, like the Soviet Union in the 90s?

I would expect the US to decline but not crash in the same sense as the Soviet Union; first of all because no one will come around to "teach" Americans how to run their economy while robbing the country. They will have to engage in a cold war over energy resources irrespective of the crash; the crash will only intensify the impetus to stimulate the economy through the military-industrial complex.

Expect proxy wars, with local powers and "terrorism" as the ostensible enemy; China, Russia and smaller others being the targeted powers behind. Broad and shifting alliances and a long, miserable fight for energy survival, coupled with increasingly strict controls on the dissatisfied populations (this, on all sides). America won't be the worst, even though the transportation sector will be hit in the US more than in other places.

Btu

[WyoDutch]

East Europe is blowing up right now. Erik Berglof, EBRD's chief economist, said that the region may need €400bn in help to cover loans and prop up the credit system.

Europe's governments are making matters worse. Some are pressuring their banks to pull back, undercutting subsidiaries in East Europe. Athens has ordered Greek banks to pull out of the Balkans.

The sums needed are beyond the limits of the IMF, which has already bailed out Hungary, Ukraine, Latvia, Belarus, Iceland, and Pakistan – and Turkey next – and is fast exhausting its own $200bn (€155bn) reserve. We are nearing the point where the IMF may have to print money for the world, using arcane powers to issue Special Drawing Rights.

Its $16bn rescue of Ukraine has unravelled. The country – facing a 12pc contraction in GDP after the collapse of steel prices – is hurtling towards default, leaving Unicredit, Raffeisen and ING in the lurch. Pakistan wants another $7.6bn. Latvia's central bank governor has declared his economy "clinically dead" after it shrank 10.5pc in the fourth quarter. Protesters have smashed the treasury and stormed parliament.

"This is much worse than the East Asia crisis in the 1990s," said Lars Christensen, at Danske Bank.

"There are accidents waiting to happen across the region, but the EU institutions don't have any framework for dealing with this. The day they decide not to save one of these one countries will be the trigger for a massive crisis with contagion spreading into the EU."

Europe is already in deeper trouble than the ECB or EU leaders ever expected. Germany contracted at an annual rate of 8.4pc in the fourth quarter.

If Deutsche Bank is correct, the economy will have shrunk by nearly 9pc before the end of this year. This is the sort of level that stokes popular revolt.

The implications are obvious. Berlin is not going to rescue Ireland, Spain, Greece and Portugal as the collapse of their credit bubbles leads to rising defaults, or rescue Italy by accepting plans for EU "union bonds" should the debt markets take fright at the rocketing trajectory of Italy's public debt (hitting 112pc of GDP next year, just revised up from 101pc – big change), or rescue Austria from its Habsburg adventurism.

So we watch and wait as the lethal brush fires move closer.

If one spark jumps across the eurozone line, we will have global systemic crisis within days. Are the firemen ready?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/4623525/Failure-to-save-East-Europe-will-lead-to-worldwide-meltdown.html

[ReverseEngineer]

We are nearing the point where the IMF may have to print money for the world, using arcane powers to issue Special Drawing Rights.

Now there is an entertaining idea. How does the IMF print money for the world? In what currency do they print said money? Anybody here with a clue as to what "Special Drawing Rights" are?

Reverse Engineer

[Plantagenet]

We are nearing the point where the IMF may have to print money for the world, using arcane powers to issue Special Drawing Rights.

Now there is an entertaining idea. How does the IMF print money for the world? In what currency do they print said money? Anybody here with a clue as to what "Special Drawing Rights" are?

The IMF is headquartered in DC and largely funded by the U.S..... Of course the emergency currency they will use will be US dollars.

[bratticus]

We are nearing the point where the IMF may have to print money for the world, using arcane powers to issue Special Drawing Rights.

Now there is an entertaining idea. How does the IMF print money for the world? In what currency do they print said money? Anybody here with a clue as to what "Special Drawing Rights" are?

Reverse Engineer

I'm afraid to look but my gut says to guess "fiat money" and "dollars". Was I right?

[PenultimateManStanding]

My doom-o-meter is flashing red.

[Daniel_Plainview]

We are nearing the point where the IMF may have to print money for the world, using arcane powers to issue Special Drawing Rights.

Now there is an entertaining idea. How does the IMF print money for the world? In what currency do they print said money? Anybody here with a clue as to what "Special Drawing Rights" are?

The IMF is headquartered in DC and largely funded by the U.S..... Of course the emergency currency they will use will be US dollars.

How excellent! Geithner gets to print money for the whole world.

[Bas]

My doom-o-meter is flashing red.

And you're not even in Europe. Seems to me that the Euro has largely protected the participating countries up untill now but that may not be for much longer. And then we will feel the sideeffects of not having a unity that has reached a level of perfection that the US has. I have faint hope that this article is overly alarmist though, I guess we'll find out soon enough.

[PenultimateManStanding]

My doom-o-meter is flashing red.

And you're not even in Europe. Seems to me that the Euro has largely protected the participating countries up untill now but that may not be for much longer. And then we will feel the sideeffects of not having a unity that has reached a level of perfection that the US has. I have faint hope that this article is overly alarmist though, I guess we'll find out soon enough.

The American auto industry is on life-support. States are in deep fiscal emergency. The safety-net is gone. Pension funds are wiped out. Reminds me of that scene in the old Time Machine movie where the talking rings spoke of the disaster that befell them. Some chose a life underground and became ghoulish cannibals.

[ReverseEngineer]

How excellent! Geithner gets to print money for the whole world.

It sounds to me like the Banksters do an End Run around Geithner and go straight to the Master Printer himself, Ben Bernanke. The IMF and the Fed are owned by the same people.

Now, currently in our national printing scheme, the Treasury is issuing T-Bills which the Fed will buy if nobody else will and give them Dollars in return. So question is, what does the Fed take in return for the Dollars it prints up for the bankrupt Eastern European countries? Their worthless Bonds, I suspect.

So the whole world basically is going into massive debt held by the original Banking families who own the Fed. Since clearly nobody is ever going to pay this off, they get to eat the debt of the entire world. That is Justice.

Reverse Engineer

[PenultimateManStanding]

To print bills you need paper. There aren't enough trees. Just like Easter Island.

[ReverseEngineer]

To print bills you need paper. There aren't enough trees. Just like Easter Island.

Computers of course overcame this problem, they just need to send some digital bits over the internet to Latvia, Ukraine et al. Then those countries use that money to pay their bills, just like GM is using funny money to pay its bills. So the whole WORLD is flooded in dollars now to pay off all the debts, basically rendering all currency worthless and bringing us back to Zero. This is just a slightly slower way of cancelling all debts. How they attempt to reboot afterwards remains to be seen.

Reverse Engineer

[PenultimateManStanding]

they just need to send some digital bits over the internet to Latvia, Ukraine et al.

Yes, I thought of that too. It's kind of weird, though. Just send some digital bits? bytes? Makes paper bills seem so substantial with all the cool graphics and craftsmanship. Maybe they can send a digital image of George Washington along with the bits cash.

[pedalling_faster]

We are nearing the point where the IMF may have to print money for the world, using arcane powers to issue Special Drawing Rights.

Now there is an entertaining idea. How does the IMF print money for the world? In what currency do they print said money? Anybody here with a clue as to what "Special Drawing Rights" are?

Reverse Engineer

it has to be pretty and it has to be cleverly printed, by cleverly i mean their anti-counterfeiting holograms, etc.

maybe we will end up with competing fiat currencies.

oh, never mind, we already have competing fiat currencies.

which country will be the first to go back to the gold standard ? India ? Israel ?