It's time to start thinking what collapse will look like

Ordinarily, I am an optimistic person. If what I post can seem gloomy, it's because there is compelling reason to believe that all hope has been exhausted. We may not be there quite yet, but we are perhaps closer than we think. Trump's idiocy is an accelerant, but what is coming our way is decades in the making.

I was a barely middle-aged man when the Great Recession happened. About a year and a half prior to the stock market crash of 2008, the warning signs were already there. I was probably unaware of much of what had been going on, but I would see headlines about an increase in foreclosures in what had been hot real estate markets. The headlines suggested that this was not quite business as usual. On a personal note, when the first news of a massive wave of mortgage defaults on subprime loans hit, I learned that a job for which I was a finalist and for which I was likely to get an offer was suddenly shelved. Something about some unexpected budget cuts. I started spending a bit of time on econ and finance blogs around then. That would have been around spring of 2007. The housing bubble was a classic case of greed and hubris on the part of the wealthiest among us. Those responsible would be bailed out. Almost no one was convicted of the fraud perpetrated, and the US government at the time looked the other way as it bailed out these "too big to fail" banks and corporations on the taxpayers' dime, while failing to bail out the people who had bought into the American Dream of being rewarded for hard work. By the autumn of 2008, it was unclear if banks would still lend money to each other. Think of what would happen if there was a complete collapse of a Repo market, except on a global scale. Not much was learned from that disastrous chapter of our history. Eventually, what usually happens in the aftermath happened again: the 1% (or Epstein Class) blamed the poor and the immigrants for what happened. There were enough marks out there who bought that crappy messaging and we are now dealing with an ascendant right-wing nationalist nightmare. 

What I remember was that in the years prior to that economic disaster, despite the warning signs that some perceptive people had noticed, everything on the surface appeared as normal, if you didn't look too closely. And most of us would have had no reason to look too closely. We were raising our families, working our jobs, and trying to make ends meet. The neoliberal order had placed most of us working folks in a situation where we were barely making it with two incomes. The joke about folks using their homes as ATM machines was never really funny, but it was used quite a lot back then. But it kept the veneer of a system that was functioning in place. And then for a few weeks it was unclear if any of us would be able to access any cash in any form. It was apparently that close.

The fact that the relatively innocent victims for the mess that was created by our government and the CEOs who have run roughshod over the average folks paid for the inevitable bailout with nothing to show for it had long-term consequences. For one, it meant that trust in the system was eroded, and as one would expect plenty of would-be demagogues capitalized on the understandable anger. It was a shame that the Occupy movement fizzled after about 2011. For a brief moment there was an opening to something more progressive, more equitable, more benign. And if any nation was overdue for a "color revolution" it was the US. Instead, we got the Tea Party which quickly devolved into MAGA, which itself has been useful for those wishing to replace neoliberal capitalism with the sort of crony capitalism found in places like Russia. 

So with nothing learned, where are we? On the surface things seem normal enough. Chances are your roads are generally in good enough shape. We'll overlook the occasional bridge collapse here or there. Your power grid is functioning as is your running water and sewer system. The electronic billboards that even my small city has are still lit up with ads for businesses and politicians. Schools are still open. If we ignore some gaping holes in our medical sector, most of us can still see a doctor and visit a pharmacy as needed. Television is no longer linear, so most of us are subscribing to some combo of streaming services. Post-pandemic a lot seems to have returned to normal - if you don't look too closely.

But what is going on beneath the surface? Noticed more rural communities emptying out? I have. Noticed that the cracks in the roads and the potholes take longer to repair? Notice that the couple requiring a dual income to stay afloat is now not only dual income but taking on side hustles? Notice that college grads are being told the economy is great but they can't find work and are back living with parents who are desperate to retire? Notice that the US government is now insolvent, if a recent report by the Federal Reserve is to be believed (and this one probably should be)? Notice that what passes for governance looks more like dysfunction? Notice that the perpetrators of fraud aren't even hiding it any more? On the surface, things are normal, whatever that is supposed to mean. But deep down, the system is on life support. We may be well beyond the point of hoping a good electoral cycle or two can undo the damage. 

I have a lot to say about the inevitable collapse, but we are now in a spot where it is high time to admit it.