[SumYunGai]

Okay, I see a bit both sides of your arguments Tanada and Sum. First on the pessimistic side, the electrical grid is a key weak point as so much of our civilization and its routine necessary functions are tied to the Grid. Second, JIT does put an element of danger and chaos into the Equation. Now, for the optimistic stance. Sum your assertions while not faulty in logic presumes lack of adaptation and pre-planning.

No, they don't. The Korowicz paper shows in great detail how rapidly the whole system could collapse once an economic crisis begins. It doesn't presume a lack of adaptation, it describes precisely why adaptation is likely to be impossible. As far as pre planning goes, this crisis could start next week and we don't have a plan.

I expect that the US economy and others will quickly transition to a more Command type economy. It seems inevitable.

It seems inevitable until you stop to think about the actual details. When will we transition? After the economic crash has begun? The Korowicz paper shows exactly why that will be too late.

By doing so, the eventualities that Tanada assumes will be realized.

But you don't explain specifically HOW we can possibly avoid the outcomes described in the Korowicz paper. You just disregard them. We can't even get to Tanada's optimistic eventualities unless we can get past the specific problems described in detail by Korowicz. No one ever explains exactly how this could actually be accomplished, it is just blindly assumed that it will be.

Priority will be given to food, military and in some cases health services. Again if we compare countries we must look at countries with strong stable governments and an existing infrastructure to ameliorate the worse of what is to come. I believe the US is one such country. Also, remember that once international trade breaks down those countries that can hold on, will be those that have a relatively favorable resource to population ratio.

Why do you even assume that any countries can "hold on" in the first place? There is no logical reason to assume this, just hope. The US might be in the worst position once international trade ends because the US is so heavily dependent on it. I do agree that a favorable resource to population ratio might be good for the few who survive, though.

[onlooker]

Sum, while I admit that this scenario envisioned by the Korowicz paper whose main ideas I have digested is a credible threat to any semblance of business as usual, I think what must also be accounted for is how we are thinking within the box. The current economic modes are truly unsustainable and yes very vulnerable. I do see truly dire outcomes occurring including die off and catastrophic economic collapse. However, I think that we discount the resiliency of the communities of humans to tailor a new living arrangement in place of the destroyed one. The ideas of the Permaculture movement are very relevant. Even today people are preparing, planing is occurring on the individual to the national govt level. Witness even here on this site the members who are now pretty well situated to live self sufficiently off the grid. I am playing Devils advocate because I am not going to readily expect people and communities to just sit there and do nothing. We are speaking after all of an economic collapse not an environmental one yet. The economic one can be navigated if the Earth is still a viable place to support life. That is why I feel places like Asia are in a much more dire situation because they are already so overpopulated and commensurately lacking in resources. Again, I expect brutal change to take place everywhere but I also expect humans to show grit and resilience as we have always shown.

[ralfy]

I think the goal of each large group in present systems (government, the military, businesses, and households) is its continued existence. At the same time, these groups depend on each other for the same continued existence, and that dependence involves extensive supply chains and lots of energy and material resources. Since they all involve increasing number of people as consumers or employees, then they all need growth.

Thus, if these chains are disrupted, then crisis not only ensues but may lead to more crises, and mutual dependence is threatened. If the combined crisis takes place in the long term (due to limits to growth), then it is possible that each group will try to defend itself at the expense of others. For example, it can hoard or use physical force to ration resources, making sure that the most important groups receive enough of them. In this case, the important groups always involve themselves.

The result, then, will likely not be a centralized economy but a fragmented and feudal one. Citizens will not be defended by the military and the police. Rather, the latter will ensure their own existence by confiscating from citizens. Rather than laws from government, both will come up with their own rules which they will justify through emergency.

Given the cost of maintaining nation-states, borders together with means of long-distance transport will fall apart. Masses of people will be moving from one area to another due to economic collapse, and more so if that is combined with war and environmental collapse. In the long run, no country or region will be better off than others. Even the notion of nations and citizenship may not last, only affiliation to one local group or another.

Citizens can imagine that they will be able to defend themselves against the military and the police, but in most cases that will be either unlikely or temporary. As resources decline and those who were unable to accept limits to growth from the start (which likely means most people) become more violent and desperate, then the armed will soon start turning on each other. With that, mutual defense involves increasingly smaller groups.

Thus, one should probably not hope that the military, police, government officials, the rich, scientists, hoarded goods, firearms, etc., will "save" them in the long term. The best that can take place will be sustainable communities described here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM_aBS1HlUk

and in other sources.

[AdamB]

My state is a net oil exporter and has the industry to not only supply its populace but to maintain its oil infrastructure.

What a wonderful fantasy land you live in, that doesn't require the use of facts.

[GHung]

onlooker said; "Even today people are preparing, planing is occurring on the individual to the national govt level. Witness even here on this site the members who are now pretty well situated to live self sufficiently off the grid."

Many (most?) aren't, can't, won't. Their sense of entitlement is complete, their expectations unrealistic, and their behavior is stubbornly mired in day-to-day life. Most, Americans especially, haven't been challenged in any significant way. The majority of folks don't have much capacity for change, and those who do don't have the incentive to change. When the time comes, they'll be self-serving for the most part. I posit that a strong sense of community is rare these days. Community needs a history that has been lost for the most part, replaced by electronic surrogates.

This will be the difference we would see between a fast crash and a slow collapse. If things unfold quickly, it'll be like learning to swim after the flood comes, and people will latch onto any leader, any promise, that says "America will be great again".

Oh, wait! Just last week we got a mildly alarming, but telling, sample of that behavior.

[Rod_Cloutier]

Strange things are coming soon; this fellow being interviewed claims that both deflation... and hyper-inflation will arrive by the middle of 2017:

https://youtu.be/VoBRckWwN4g?t=1s

How can it be both?

[Pops]

The long-standing ideolized crash a la PO.com and the Tipping Points paper has changed completely. Whatever systemic failure PO might have caused presumes that globalism is a thing, the current trend in isolationism preempts an oil based collapse by crashing the global market preemptively.

gotta get a new paradigm

[evilgenius]

Wait until the forces behind the throne begin to devour the financial industry. That's when the dynamic that has preserved us will begin to crumble. Fracking can't exist without the financial system.

Alex Jones and all the other barbarians are going to be looking for payback. Gutting the financial system is the obvious choice. Huge trade tariffs that choke the movement of money and resources are another. Both of those moves would come with unexpected consequences. Fracking requires a kind of risk taking that only the kind of highly developed global financial system as it faces the US as it exists today can pull off. No wonder Putin backed Trump.

[Newfie]

Pops,
A few of us here, surely myself, have feared/expected a global financial collapse more (or before )than PO.

But things are so interrelated it can be hard to assign causation. I just think the financial system is so overly complex and grounded on international faith as to be inherits fly unstable for a species as competitive as we humans.

[onlooker]

Interesting points. I would just like to highlight the ones about Isolationism and the financial system. In The Korowicz paper, the author posits a financial system/supply contagion and breakdown. I do believe the breakdown in the globalized financial trade system is coming soon. So, this will herald the Economic Crash. Modern economies have been tailored to function via lending and trade. When these options are not forthcoming then one certainly can make the case that Industrial Civilization is in a state of rapid decline. So, all efforts will be made to maintain this Globalized world financial economic system. Surprisingly, this System has not just weaknesses but strengths in that countries are basically helping each other out as lending continues unimpeded and trade and mutual cooperation also form the hallmarks of our current system. So when I say I expect soon a breakdown, I am not sure what timeline that takes. Much now depends on the weakening Oil Industries and for how much longer sufficient energy can be drawn into the Economic system.

[Hawkcreek]

But after that we get a new command economy. Not because we are socialists, but because the wealthy and powerful don't like chaos around them. They need their oil (and their food, sewage removal, clean water, interstates, especially to Aspen Colorado and Martha's Vineyard lol). The wealthy and powerful require order above all. So fracting can exist by government edit. Oil rationing doesn't require a healthy economy, just force. Production will continue in a command economy.

That is equivalent to saying we are going to have armed revolution - in the USA, at least. No one is going to command large segments of this population as long as we have weapons so widely distributed.

Overt slavery is something that anyone resists, if they have the capability. Hidden slavery seems to be ok - at least so far in the USA.

[SumYunGai]

Good points, evil. I see all that playing out in the short term. Makes sense, there is no way in hell our consumer economy will not collapse, probably in the next year. Hopefully sooner.

But after that we get a new command economy.

No, pstarr. After the the economy collapses, we just get chaos and starvation.

Not because we are socialists, but because the wealthy and powerful don't like chaos around them.

Dream on. The wealthy and powerful have no way to stop the coming chaos. They will be in the same boat as everybody else. And they will not be popular.

They need their oil (and their food, sewage removal, clean water, interstates, especially to Aspen Colorado and Martha's Vineyard lol). The wealthy and powerful require order above all. So fracting can exist by government edit.

This is not true. Fracking cannot be maintained by force of will. This is about the physics of energy. Fracking does not provide sufficient bang for the buck to do any good. That is why we are going to have a collapse in the first place. Not enough energy returned on energy invested. When the economy collapses, the government will lose control of everything very quickly.

The long-standing ideolized crash a la PO.com and the Tipping Points paper has changed completely. Whatever systemic failure PO might have caused presumes that globalism is a thing, the current trend in isolationism preempts an oil based collapse by crashing the global market preemptively.

gotta get a new paradigm

The current trend in isolationism is being directly and predictably caused by declining available energy. No new paradigm is necessary.

Fracking can't exist without the financial system.

The entire economy cannot exist without the financial system. When it goes, we go.

[dinopello]

the wealthy and powerful don't like chaos around them

Many economists might model the economy using a chaotic formulation.

A recognizable pattern without near term predicatability