[Pops]

From ClubOrlov...

In the context of this Wager, the term “collapse” means that key components of the infrastructure of American life, ... will have been compromised so profoundly that our lives will have been fundamentally changed.

Read Howard's criteria and vote.

[Pops]

I'm going to give this a qualified no, mainly because Howard has kind of a scattershot set of criteria.

The grid and the web goes down, colleges close, elections called off, finance and IT wiped out and everybody gardens and uses "more rudimentary forms of conveyance"? Naw.

But some banks and financial institutions and various corporations failing and a general market crash? Sure. Entire job categories eliminated? Fuel supply interruptions? Sure, I can see those happening.

[ian807]

I'm sure it will collapse. I'm unsure as to the time frame. Our enemy is complexity. A good shock to the financial system might cause damage to what we think of today as "civilization," but will be recoverable in a few decades as long as there are energy resources to support repair. There won't be energy resources to do this, of course. The loss of energetically and economically profitable oil and other hydrocarbons will cause a longer term decline, and kill quite a few people. Long term (i.e. a century or 5), however, some sort of recovery is possible, albeit with a much lower population and much more modest energy requirements.

[seahorse3]

These guys missed the collapse. Here's the proof - in 2000 the US was patting itself on the back that it would be debt free in a decade, with record surpluses:

Today, President Clinton will announce that The United States is on course to eliminate its public debt within the next decade. The Administration also announced that we are projected to pay down $237 billion in debt in 2001. Due in part to a strong economy and the President’s commitment to fiscal discipline, the federal fiscal condition has improved for an unprecedented nine consecutive years. Based upon today’s new economic and budget projections for the coming 10 years from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB):


The United States can be debt-free this decade. By dedicating the entire budget surplus to debt reduction, The United States can eliminate its publicly held debt by FY 2009. The next Administration and Congress will need to decide what priorities to address: eliminate the public debt by FY 2010 and still use part of the surplus for responsible tax cuts, prescription drug benefits for Medicare recipients, and investments in key priorities like education and health care.

http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/new/html/Fri_Dec_29_151111_2000.html

So, look at just wow far we have come. From predicted record surpluses to record deficits, three wars, more people on food stamps than ever, more people on the poverty list than ever, the Greatest Recession and drop in housing prices since the Great Depression, the Patriot Act, the National Defense Authorization Act, both of which suspend habeas corpus and allow indefinite detention, warrantless wiretapping etc. It just proves that these two frogs are debating collapse while they boil. These two bone heads betting on collapse are akin to two guys sitting in a burning house betting when they will smell the smoke.

Unfortunately, we have already collapsed. The real tragedy is people don't even see it, not even many of the "doomers" who are waiting and preparing for it. It won't be missed in the history books. They will wonder what we were thinking. We weren't. Ignorance is bliss. Now, onto the presidential conventions, the hovering helicopters, brown shirted security officers, and designated "free speech zones" so far away the news reporters can't even find them.

[ritter]

Unfortunately, we have already collapsed.

Collapsed indicates past tense. Collapsing would be present tense. I think we're just witnessing the beginning of the collapse. It's going to get a whole lot worse. It's like the perfect shitstorm trifecta: Peak oil, collapsing global economy and climate change. Which will be the jab, cross and uppercut that finishes us?

[SeaGypsy]

Clinton was in many ways, as big an idiot as Bush 2. We seem to have moved from idiocracy to liarism.

Dmitry is a very good writer, very entertaining, and I will always be grateful to him for his insight. However, since 2008, 'things collapse' have become much more convoluted/ difficult to define.

Firstly, Howard's description of collapse is both vague and not collapse, more an attempt at redefinition. "Some major banks failing/ Major stock market crash worse than '08...." Na. Collapse is no functional banking system, no stock market, what remains of the state going berserk to retain power by any means, reversion of the first world to something resembling Somalia. Why the need for redefinition, softening the reality, making it more palatable? His whole position seems to be about bargaining, while his host's is about denial. Bargaining is more advanced than denial, but it is neither acceptance or strategy for a life beyond collapse.

The next 10 years time frame for the bet; we will be watching more of what we have seen the last five years. No recovery, no collapse. Yes heaps of trouble, failure, war, market mayhem. No collapse. American Somalianization is at least a decade away or more.

[basil_hayden]

None of that will happen in 10 years because the US controls the rules to the game right now, except for #10 which has already happened. Name 3 Americans who do not have bitter contempt for politics and politicians - I can't.

Stock market and banks collapse? Print more money.

Unemployment and unrest? Start a war.

Institutions such as universities collapsing? Raise rates.

The only thing that I can see that would remotely feel some pressure in 10 years is air travel and food; even that would have 20 more years of legs in my opinion.

I'll take that wager in a heartbeat.

[vtsnowedin]

What many fail to see is the intertwined nature of the US economy. Let some key industry fail ,such as the auto industry, and the falling dominoes that are dislodged by that can bring down the whole economy and with it society and civil order.
I don't see any leadership with a clue of how to balance the books and the bills will certainly come due. When that happens there will be a decline or collapse and you will be able to measure it by the millions of Americans that have died. Perhaps thirty to fifty million. Not to worry though as world wide it will probably amount to two or three billion so we will still be at the head of the pack. Small consolation though if your one of the Americans that has died.

[bochen280]

I say we have 10000000000000000000000000000000+ more years of growth.

[Lore]

What many fail to see is the intertwined nature of the US economy. Let some key industry fail ,such as the auto industry, and the falling dominoes that are dislodged by that can bring down the whole economy and with it society and civil order.
I don't see any leadership with a clue of how to balance the books and the bills will certainly come due. When that happens there will be a decline or collapse and you will be able to measure it by the millions of Americans that have died. Perhaps thirty to fifty million. Not to worry though as world wide it will probably amount to two or three billion so we will still be at the head of the pack. Small consolation though if your one of the Americans that has died.

I have to agree, the politicians are useless with what we're about to face. Not that we're not already facing big trouble, we're just afraid to look it in the eye.

- No existing or new administration can change the demographics of an aging US population, or reduce the numbers of people on an import dependent over populated planet where profits are derived from the global lowest bidder.

- Modern automation and technology has done more to destroy real value and wealth for the individual then at any time in history and will continue to do so for the short term.

- National and global wealth disparity will continue to grow.

- Resource depletion will certainly and inevitably catch up with the talk of same. There are no bullets left to shoot, let alone magic ones, only duds.

- Food and water security will be this decades proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back.

All it takes is a series of several bad events to converge in a short span of time to start the ball rolling down hill.

[efarmer]

People always wish for binary or yes and no answers for issues with analog or shades of gray
answers and input and output criteria. So Efarmer, in an almost unbroken string of posts to the same theme, is with Pops. People all wish to be right or found wrong and scramble.

Peak Oil is a scramble without knowing right or wrong but having an underlying sense of threat and emergency and challenge based on a real definable issue and scenario. This set of factors has not changed since inception, our negotiating and coping banter with the issue shas also been a constant since inception. Proof is murky, trends are not, and truth is variable depending upon source. Nothing new here on heavy subjects and concepts.

If there were easy and yes/no answers this site would not exist and persist. It has and does.

So now let's get on to the wager and what it might possibly be worth win or lose under the
circumstances thereof.

This one goes in my bullshit file unless someone has great tabs to attach to pull it back out...
EF (I also have a wager that white mice cause cancer, discuss amongst yourselves....)

[Loki]

Agreed Pops, his criteria are too arbitrary and too pessimistic, at least short term.

Collapse is a decadally scaled process. What we're seeing right now is decline. Collapse is to decline what climate is to weather. 2008 was a significant storm but the trendline goes back farther than that. A few more decades of this kind of decline and we get collapse, complete with shuttered universities and downed electrical grids. But it ain't gonna happen overnight.

During decline many of those who still have well paid air-conditioned jobs shuffling papers and such will stick their heads in the sand, some out of cluelessness about economic history, some draped in a cloak of self-righteous narcissism. The “I'm still doing fine, therefore everyone is doing fine” kind of illogical solipsism (Shorty comes to mind)---or, “I'm still doing fine, and those who aren't deserve to be ground underfoot” kind of petty sociopathy (Cog comes to mind).

I suspect Howard's five-percenter friends will be in the five percent for the rest of their lives, even as we creep closer and closer to five percent of zero. As long as they can continue looking down their noses at the peasants all will be fine in their world.

[vision-master]

We all are going to collapse soon anyhoo........... lsol

[Tanada]

Collapse to me really means the end of the rule of law and a restructuring by those who survive the chaos. I give that a 50-50 chance for the next decade, 100% chance for the next century.

[Kristen]

A lot of people have collapsed and given up. For them it's already game over and they are purposeless.

[gollum]

The next decade is a hard call, I bet we're in the middle of one. Twenty years out is easy though, we'll be done by then.