[dolanbaker]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16391040
Imagine a world of spiralling food prices, water shortages and soaring energy costs.

For many living in the world today, this nightmare scenario is already a reality. Even for the well-off living in developed economies, it is becoming all too familiar.

And on current projections, it's going to get a whole lot worse. Short-term fluctuations in supply and demand aside, a global population explosion combined with finite resources means the planet cannot sustain ever-increasing levels of consumption using current models of production.

And there isn't much time to do something about it.

"The challenge we are facing over the next 20 years is unprecedented," says Fraser Thompson, senior fellow at the McKinsey Global Institute.

[Revi]

It's an opportunity for some people. Just like it's an opportunity for vultures when a lot of carrion is around due to a war or a famine. I think we are actually much closer to the edge of trouble than most mainstream sources would have us believe. All it takes to make a catastrophe in this country is if we couldn't get 3 gallons of hydrocarbons per day. What are the chances of the world providing 3 gallons of goo to each American in exchange for a 1.8 billion dollar IOU every day? It will work for a little while, but eventually somebody doesn't want our scrip.

[Pops]

Revi I think many of us have gone over the edge. Stuart Staniford at Early Warning has talked in the past about how much more resilient our modern society is than those of the past due to our huge surpluses, for example how "easily" we recover from natural disasters like Katrina (I think that was an example) and how this surplus will ease us through depletion and transition.

The problem is that our surpluses (both physical and imaginary like capital gains) are nowadays immediately turned into 100% imaginary surpluses (capital) which can disappear quite fast. Take for example the shenanigans by a few that led quite a few to see their "surpluses" disappear virtually overnight:

Crisis Wiped Out 18 Years of Household-Wealth Gains

Granted, much of the 40% lost was never really gained, IOW the "value" was only valuable if you cashed out ( ;^) ). However, that doesn't negate the fact that lots of people threw real "surplus" down a rabbit hole that closed up in a blink.

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[Revi]

I think putting your retirement money in one of the large banks nowadays is like giving it to your crazy uncle who loads it into a van and heads to the casino. They spend half of their money gambling on derivatives with the money the fed loans them for free. The whole economic system is pretty scary nowadays. I try not to think about it.

[SeaGypsy]

In Australia we recently got the right to set up our own retirement funds; operated according to guidelines which leave a lot of room to move, diversify or concentrate, cooperatives etc. are all legally possible using our mandatory superannuation. This news has barely seeped through to the 'alternative/ intentional communities folks, as they have been mostly busy bludging on welfare and don't have any superannuation/ forced long term investments. However now that the teetering is building resonance, more folk with serious money in these long term MS funds will be looking at their options. It could become a bit of a scammer's paradise, some might say it is now. I would say there is a serious opportunity right there. How's your pitch? How's your product? Shouldn't that be the other way around?