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Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Discussions about the economic and financial ramifications of PEAK OIL

Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Unread postby GHung » Fri 14 Sep 2018, 11:02:18

Several news outlets are reporting on Paul Manafort copping a plea today in the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse which is the Home of the US District Court and the US Court of Appeals in DC. This is an older photo. Watching the news reports, it actually looks worse than this:

Image

I'm just wondering why the US Government can't see its way to cleaning up one of its most important courthouses. No funds? Nobody noticed or cares? How much of our most prominent infrastructure is in decline while we bicker over stupid stuff?

Edit (from Wikipedia):
It was listed by the National Register of Historic Places[3] and is a contributing property to the Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site. It was renamed in 1997 in honor of E. Barrett Prettyman, the former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.[4]


Seems the National Park Service may be responsible for exterior upkeep. Says alot.
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Re: Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Fri 14 Sep 2018, 11:40:19

Some dirt on a building is a sign of "collapse in our face?" :roll:

When the Cassandras have to resort to braying such as this, THAT is a good sign collapse is NOT "in our face".

Just for the US: Consider debt piling up, pension plans in disarray, banks basically a crime wave in many cases, crumbling infrastructure, massive corruption in many aspects of government, and the total financial unsustainability of many US obligations (with crickets, instead of doing something meaningful about it). And say AGW denial and pollution to round out the list -- just for a quick list of real problems off the top.

A dirty building?

Yeah, let's all go hide under our beds the rest of 2018. :lol:
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Unread postby GHung » Fri 14 Sep 2018, 11:50:18

Outcast_Searcher wrote:Some dirt on a building is a sign of "collapse in our face?" :roll:

When the Cassandras have to resort to braying such as this, THAT is a good sign collapse is NOT "in our face".

Just for the US: Consider debt piling up, pension plans in disarray, banks basically a crime wave in many cases, crumbling infrastructure, massive corruption in many aspects of government, and the total financial unsustainability of many US obligations (with crickets, instead of doing something meaningful about it). And say AGW denial and pollution to round out the list -- just for a quick list of real problems off the top.

A dirty building?

Yeah, let's all go hide under our beds the rest of 2018. :lol:


Who TF is braying? When people have to resort to hyperbole such as this, perhaps it's a case of whistling past the graveyard, eh?

My point is that when the simplest things get pushed to the back burner,, obviously for years, it's a sign. The things you list are likely unsolvable. Cleaning the front of an important and prominent building is easy.
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Re: Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Unread postby mmasters » Fri 14 Sep 2018, 13:06:23

Thread rating: 1/10
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Re: Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Unread postby onlooker » Fri 14 Sep 2018, 13:13:33

The problem is the signs of Collapse are NOT in the face of many rich world citizens. We are talking about the Environment. The Economy has, is and will always be a subset of it. Resource depletion continues apace, species die offs continue, the ocean is becoming a dead zone from overfishing, pollution, acidification and algae overproduction ie. red tide-fertilizer runoff. Forests continue to be cut down exacerbating drought conditions , flooding and soil erosion. Even the damn Plankton at the base of the food chain and responsible for much of the oxygen creating are dying off. So, while I get Ghung's point, the bigger issues are blocked from the awareness of most. It is not the Economy stupid, it is the Environment stupid.
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Re: Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Unread postby GHung » Fri 14 Sep 2018, 13:14:37

mmasters wrote:Thread rating: 1/10


Beats the shit out of a zero (that would be you).
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Re: Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Unread postby Ibon » Fri 14 Sep 2018, 14:03:51

The cynic in me interprets the declining infrastructure to be by design. If your public institutions are starved of resources and underfunded then the wealthy can more easily exploit the system, to disenfranchise the government in order to have free reign in their schemes of rigging the system with corruption. Think about it. With smaller ineffective government and lack of oversight and less regulation who stands to gain? The middle class or the very wealthy?
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Re: Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Fri 14 Sep 2018, 15:10:48

After a couple of centuries, they did spruce up the US capital dome.
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Re: Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Unread postby Sys1 » Fri 14 Sep 2018, 15:49:40

I love the idea of seeing collapse in apparently futile signs.
This thread strongly reminds me a scene of Mad Max 1 where you discover police headquarter :
The dilapidated “Halls of Justice” signify the loss of order and law. The damaged and rusted sign symbolises this.
By the way, we could even define the state of our civilisation collapse with Mad Max reference.
In the first Mad Max, contries decays but stand still yet. In the second one, technology is still available but quite rare and in the hands of few who gather in "stronghold" and use it to dominate others. In the third one, the civilisation converges fast towards a post industrial dark age very similar to Middle Age where technlogy becomes quite close from mythologie.
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Re: Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Unread postby GHung » Fri 14 Sep 2018, 17:02:11

Image SrooLoos agrees ;-)
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Re: Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Unread postby Newfie » Sat 15 Sep 2018, 06:30:54

Many years ago, SEPTA, the transit agency in Philadelphia l, had a problem with one of its subway lines catching on fire. It was a combination of some break/axel problems and the amount of trash left to collect in the tracks.

David Gunn became General Manager and he was a big on cleanliness. He removed graffiti, cleaned up the subways, and secured additional funding among other improvements. At the headquarters, every morning at 6:30am, a maintenance worker polished the area and cleaned up any trash blown in over night. The entrance was always neat and tidy.

His presence was felt throughout the organization, I was never a tight ship but it leaked less.

Within a week of Gunn’s departure that practice stopped, plastic bags and beer bottles littered the grounds. The change permeated the organization and it deteriorated. It didn’t sink, but the drive to do better evaporated.

So yes, sometimes small appearances matter. They may not drive the change but are at least reflective of the corporate self image. Like a depressed person letting their appearance go. Looking good does not prove competence, for sure. Looking shabby doesn’t prove incompetence in itself. But each is a clue, an indication.
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Re: Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Unread postby Cog » Sat 15 Sep 2018, 06:45:08

Cleaning the facade of the building, may well fall outside the contract of whomever has the contract to clean the inside. This might require opening this up to bids to start the federal contracting process. Environmental, safety, prevailing wage, minority contractor preferance will then come into play. One does not simply order work done ouside what is in a contract.

In my former life in the private non union world, the boss would have said "Cog, power wash that crap off the building" and it would be done by COB. But this is not that world.
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Re: Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Unread postby GHung » Sat 15 Sep 2018, 08:53:39

Cog wrote:Cleaning the facade of the building, may well fall outside the contract of whomever has the contract to clean the inside. This might require opening this up to bids to start the federal contracting process. Environmental, safety, prevailing wage, minority contractor preferance will then come into play. One does not simply order work done ouside what is in a contract.

In my former life in the private non union world, the boss would have said "Cog, power wash that crap off the building" and it would be done by COB. But this is not that world.


Or it could be because it's under the purview of the National Park Service which has seen repeated budget cuts.

https://therevelator.org/budget-crunch-national-parks/
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Re: Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Unread postby Cog » Sat 15 Sep 2018, 08:59:07

Budget priorities bro.
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Re: Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Unread postby onlooker » Sat 15 Sep 2018, 09:04:09

Cog wrote:Budget priorities bro.

Yes, we need more funds for the bloated military budget and its endless wars. :-D
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Re: Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Unread postby GHung » Sat 15 Sep 2018, 09:31:13

onlooker wrote:
Cog wrote:Budget priorities bro.

Yes, we need more funds for the bloated military budget and its endless wars. :-D


Has Our Government Spent $21 Trillion Of Our Money Without Telling Us?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/ ... 7801097aef

.........Given that the entire Army budget in fiscal year 2015 was $120 billion, unsupported adjustments were 54 times the level of spending authorized by Congress. The July 2016 report indicates that unsupported adjustments are the result of the Defense Department's "failure to correct system deficiencies." The result, according to the report, is that data used to prepare the year-­end financial statements were unreliable and lacked an adequate audit trail. The report indicates that just 170 transactions accounted for $2.1 trillion in year—end unsupported adjustments. No information is given about these 170 transactions. ........
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Re: Signs Of Collapse In Your Face?

Unread postby Cog » Sat 15 Sep 2018, 10:32:50

21 trillion is not 2.1 trillion. Decimal point lives matter. LOL. You guys aren't even trying.
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