What are you going to do about it?

[ScottL]

I'd assume States that have traditionally been able to pay more in taxes than they receive aid from the federal gov't. are the likely "survivors" in the event of an economic collapse. That and States with large oil deposits like Alaska and California.

By the way, how IS the weather in beautiful sunny California?

Thanks for asking, the weather is modest and comfortable, though cold sometimes here in sunny California.

[MSimon]

The boom of the 1920s continued until it stopped. Abruptly. It took everyone by surprise.

An Economic chain reaction works very similar to a fission chain reaction. A more sensible pastime would be recognizing that the conditions for an economic chain reaction have slowly been put into place.


The Sword of Damocles drops when it drops.

That sounds an awful lot like a Nostradamus predictions. Sometime, somewhere, something is going to happen....

Yeah, like predicting an ice age. The fact that we can't get within plus or minus a few thousand years must mean that there is nothing to such predictions. The fact that they have happened as far back as the geological record can indicate is irrelevant. It's not going to happen THIS time.

Uh. Recurring ice ages go back about 3 million rears. Before that they happened irregularly in much longer time frames. i.e, millions of years might pass vs 100K.

[Diogenes]

Yeah, like predicting an ice age. The fact that we can't get within plus or minus a few thousand years must mean that there is nothing to such predictions. The fact that they have happened as far back as the geological record can indicate is irrelevant. It's not going to happen THIS time.

Uh. Recurring ice ages go back about 3 million rears. Before that they happened irregularly in much longer time frames. i.e, millions of years might pass vs 100K.

Have read in the last several years, that they seem to correspond to the period when our solar system moves through a certain section of space on the Galaxy's arm. The theory is that cosmic rays creates vapor trails in the upper atmosphere thereby creating reflective clouds in the stratosphere.

Radiation deflected at high elevation prevents warming below.

Here is an example of an article on the topic.

[JoeP]

Yeah, like predicting an ice age. The fact that we can't get within plus or minus a few thousand years must mean that there is nothing to such predictions. The fact that they have happened as far back as the geological record can indicate is irrelevant. It's not going to happen THIS time.

Uh. Recurring ice ages go back about 3 million rears. Before that they happened irregularly in much longer time frames. i.e, millions of years might pass vs 100K.

Have read in the last several years, that they seem to correspond to the period when our solar system moves through a certain section of space on the Galaxy's arm. The theory is that cosmic rays creates vapor trails in the upper atmosphere thereby creating reflective clouds in the stratosphere.

Radiation deflected at high elevation prevents warming below.

Here is an example of an article on the topic.

Hey that is interesting. I sort of assumed that a spiral arm was a semi-permanent collection of stars that orbited as a unit around the galactic core. But apparently that is not true if the solar system transits a spiral arm every 100K years or so?

Another thing I remember is that cosmic rays also oscillate in intensity as the solar system bobs up and down through the galactic plane in our galactic orbit. So maybe that is another source of more intense periods of cosmic rays.

[JLawson]

On the other hand, something like an attempt to disarm "we the people" or open censorship of descent would be taking a match to a tinderbox.

Projecting the future is tricky, clouded by many uncertainties.

Yet it looks like someone in DC's firing up a flamethrower on THAT subject, with the '19 executive orders' on 'gun control'.

I have to wonder - why this? Why now? You have one outlier event, a tragic one, but should that be the basis of public policy, especially when it's liable to generate one hell of a pushback?

But then, setting things on fire can be a really good distraction from other things going on... like the economy.

[ladajo]

The more desperate an entity believes its situation to be, it tends to trend on one of two behavioral patterns. One is to become more erratic and excessive in behaviours, some of which are unrelated to survival. The other is to completely fold and curl into a little ball and wait to cease being. The former is more apparent when the entity still believes there is a chance to survive, the latter becomes more prevalent when the entity comes to believe that all effort is for naught.

I think we are seeing the former pattern in Congress and government Lead SES level personnel. They still think they can survive.

[palladin9479]

There is a half-black Democratic President who just got reelected by a land slide, of course every Republican is screaming that the nation is about to burn down and the anti-Christ is upon us. When Bush was in office the Democrats were screaming the exact same things. It's just one political tribe complaining about their relative position of power in relation to the other political tribe. In four years, should the Republicans get a candidate capable of actually getting elected, then Democrats will be the ones screaming "For the CHILDREN!!!!" and advocating anarchy.

Myself, I vote for whomever is likely to cause less overall damage. Not always right, Bush II took me completely by surprise. What currently scares me is the complete incompetence of the current Republican party, giving the Democrats unchecked power to do whatever they want is a VERY bad idea. The GOP needs to get their sh!t straight and do their job as a check against young liberal activism or we'll turn into another socialist fascist authoritarian regime all to the battle-cry of "For the CHILDREN!!!!".

[Diogenes]

There is a half-black Democratic President who just got reelected by a land slide, of course every Republican is screaming that the nation is about to burn down and the anti-Christ is upon us. When Bush was in office the Democrats were screaming the exact same things. It's just one political tribe complaining about their relative position of power in relation to the other political tribe. In four years, should the Republicans get a candidate capable of actually getting elected, then Democrats will be the ones screaming "For the CHILDREN!!!!" and advocating anarchy.

Simple minded child, here is a clue for you.