[DonT]

I have looked and not found this article here, but I bet it's made an appearance on the forum (good for a repeat). This guy contends that the U.S. of A. only has about 9 years left,and then...the great experiment that is the U.S. will be over. The history of past empires/great powers suggests that none have survived beyond about 250 years.

Is he right? Are we on borrowed time? What will happen in the next 9 years? Are we focused on surviving the chaos, and on the next generation, our kids and grandkids, being taught how to survive it? My question: do we see chaos and anarchy, or do we just become, at some point, a second rate nation like the UK, and slouch along awhile longer?

Some interesting points here by the author. It made me think.

http://www.patrickhenrysociety.com/hard-truths-biggest-duty/

 

[NTA]

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/14/trumps-new-reality-republicans-and-democrats-are-both-finished.html

In the next 9 years, not much. Maybe elect some Libertarians or something different from R D's. I do hope they both lose support.

 

[DonT]

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/14/trumps-new-reality-republicans-and-democrats-are-both-finished.html

In the next 9 years, not much. Maybe elect some Libertarians or something different from R D's. I do hope they both lose support.

Not much hope of that, IMO. I think we simply have run out of money, and we will continue to fail to pass actual budgets, and the debt continues to rise to a level that is already unsustainable. We become the UK, we have to decimate the military, in order to service debt and the massive welfare state that the government refuses to address. The welfare state will start to break down over time, as we see happening now with states and cities nearing/on the brink of bankruptcy. Add the current social justice chaos in the streets of major cities, which will get worse, not better. Not a pretty picture.

 

[Nemo]

The welfare state will start to break down over time, as we see happening now with states and cities nearing/on the brink of bankruptcy. Add the current social justice chaos in the streets of major cities, which will get worse, not better. Not a pretty picture.

Make sure you remember the 3 Bs plus 2.

Beans, Bullets, Bandaids plus barter and bullion.

Nemo

 

[GM404]

I think the end is near. Not as a religious point, I just don't think things can remain as they are; the downward spiral is only accelerating and once the jet gets into a flat spin, there is no recovery.

The best I can hope is that the geographical area of the USA will just be divided much like Europe. If that happens, I will probably head out towards whatever the country of Texas/Oklahoma might be.

Oh yes, and I think this is worthy of sharing from the post Don shared above:

The Constitution, while brilliant in its time, is dead. It is largely ignored in the courts and on the streets. This is evident by watching the shenanigans in Nevada, or the protests in which cops are ordered to allow and even encourage violence. It's obvious in the fact that when some cops do choose to become tyrants, they often do so with the tacit approval of their departments, who either look the other way or award them for their actions. In fact, the very people who are supposed to defend you in this corrupt system, are currently calling for gun confiscation and ex parte orders. Yes, the American Bar Association, many of whom are criminal defense lawyers, want your guns taken away.

 

[NTA]

I used to think that most of the crazy stuff / spending to support it would end once we ran out of money. But no, they print all they want, even use it to prop up the stock market. Someday the value of US dollars will tank a lot.

Don't need others to buy our gov bonds. The fed gets the banks to buy them at a discount, then the banks put them on deposit back with the Fed. Not to mention the QE balance sheet the Fed accumulated with direct money printing. $Trillions - eventually it will hurt.

 

[Nemo]

Yes it will be over sooner than we all think. Special attention to the "As We Know It" part.

Nemo

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-world-as-we-know-it-is-about-to-end-%e2%80%94-again-%e2%80%94-if-you-believe-this-biblical-doomsday-claim/ar-AAs56IJ

The world as we know it is about to end - again - if you believe this biblical doomsday claim
The Washington Post, Kristine Phillips 23 hrs ago

A few years ago, NASA senior space scientist David Morrison debunked an apocalyptic claim as a hoax.

No, there's no such thing as a planet called Nibiru, he said. No, it's not a brown dwarf surrounded by planets, as iterations of the theory suggest. No, it's not on a collision course toward Earth. And yes, people should "get over it."

But the theory has been getting renewed attention recently. Added to it is the precise date of the astronomical event leading to Earth's destruction. And that, according to David Meade, is in six days - Sept. 23, 2017. Unsealed, an evangelical Christian publication, foretells the Rapture in a viral, four-minute YouTube video, complete with special effects and ominous doomsday soundtrack. It's called "September 23, 2017: You Need to See This."

Why Sept. 23, 2017? Meade's prediction is based largely on verses and numerical codes in the Bible. He's honed in one number: 33.

. . .

interesting read continues, click above

 

[gunsmoker]

An animal rights group forced a photographer to pay $$ to settle a suit over THE PICTURE OF AN ANIMAL, which PETA said was the intellectual property of the animal (an ape took a selfie while playing with the photographer's camera).

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/12/asia/monkey-selfie-settlement/?iid=ob_mobile_article_footer_expansion

Years ago, I read about how an Ivy-league law professor (Harvard or Yale) was arguing for the Bill of Rights to apply to pets, livestock, and possibly all animals (I forget the details).

I tell you, now that we have men calling themselves women or non-binary genderless things, THE NEXT STEP is to renounce their species and "identify as" or "present to the world as" dogs, dolphins, lizards, horses, and unicorns.

And of course that will help open the gates to inter-species marriage.
When a guy who calls himself a pony named Cuddles decides that he's going to marry a woman and the marriage license says that it's between a woman and a horse, how much longer before some other woman comes along and actually marries a real horse of the equine genus?

America is F'kd.

 

[Phil1979]

Gunsmoker pretty much nailed it. Already there are people claiming to be various animals, going so far as to have disfiguring surgery and implants to look like their pretend identity. And to think, there was a time when people like that would be locked up in mental wards.

What's to stop them from "marrying" "someone" of their species identity? The "progressives" would love it, but not why many might think.

The kooks are merely useful idiots of the "progressives" to shake things up. Once the "progressives" get their way, they'll probably lock up the kooks or gas them.

 

[OWM]

Damn I wish I could present and argument that things are not as bad as you all say ,but I can't. You are all correct and that scares me.

 

[NTA]

I believe the coming financial crash and ugly international events will suddenly get the country focused on things other than the nonsense that dominates today's news.

 

[45_Fan]

Both the left and right have fully embraced populism and the leaders of both sides are increasingly adept at convincing their own people to support state codification of ways to legally strip "the other side" of their rights or flat out violate rights without repercussions as "good" efforts.

Populism is easy. Polarize, delegitimize, disenfranchise, lock[out|up]. After that, it's not government. It's both sides working together to properly codify their eventual oppression. Everything after that is just haggling overlords while it all burns.

Direct election of Senators ushered in populism, prohibition laid foundations, the war on drugs brought more government muscle, and the war on terror was the coup de grace.

 

[68908]

Both the left and right have fully embraced populism and the leaders of both sides are increasingly adept at convincing their own people to support state codification of ways to legally strip "the other side" of their rights or flat out violate rights without repercussions as "good" efforts.

Populism is easy. Polarize, delegitimize, disenfranchise, lock[out|up]. After that, it's not government. It's both sides working together to properly codify their eventual oppression. Everything after that is just haggling overlords while it all burns.

Direct election of Senators ushered in populism, prohibition laid foundations, the war on drugs brought more government muscle, and the war on terror was the coup de grace.

Well said, that is what we see happening socially.

 

[68908]

An animal rights group forced a photographer to pay $$ to settle a suit over THE PICTURE OF AN ANIMAL, which PETA said was the intellectual property of the animal (an ape took a selfie while playing with the photographer's camera).

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/12/asia/monkey-selfie-settlement/?iid=ob_mobile_article_footer_expansion

Years ago, I read about how an Ivy-league law professor (Harvard or Yale) was arguing for the Bill of Rights to apply to pets, livestock, and possibly all animals (I forget the details).

I tell you, now that we have men calling themselves women or non-binary genderless things, THE NEXT STEP is to renounce their species and "identify as" or "present to the world as" dogs, dolphins, lizards, horses, and unicorns.

And of course that will help open the gates to inter-species marriage.
When a guy who calls himself a pony named Cuddles decides that he's going to marry a woman and the marriage license says that it's between a woman and a horse, how much longer before some other woman comes along and actually marries a real horse of the equine genus?

America is F'kd.

Glad you can look forward to the future and see it coming, cultural Marxism complete.

The complete destruction of the traditional nuclear family unit.

 

[68908]

I don't know if we can put a year on it, but surely someday stealing all this money from people and giving it to the government and then just wasting it, and giving it to people who did nothing to deserve it other than breathe most certainly will end.

Socialism and Marxism have proved themselves to be completely destructive to economic systems.

 

[Taurus92]

I believe the coming financial crash and ugly international events will suddenly get the country focused on things other than the nonsense that dominates today's news.

Janet just assured us it will be like watching paint dry.

 

[45_Fan]

I don't know if we can put a year on it, but surely someday stealing all this money from people and giving it to the government and then just wasting it, and giving it to people who did nothing to deserve it other than breathe most certainly will end.

Socialism and Marxism have proved themselves to be completely destructive to economic systems.

If I keep stealing $10 bills out of your wallet but leaving a $20 every time I did, you'd be hard pressed to call it theft.

On the upside, if the whole thing waits just long enough before it goes up in smoke, we may have proper terms and ideas to come to grips with a post-scarcity economy. It won't be socialism or Marxism or whatever 'ism is popular today but, we're hitting a point where there will be a whole lot of fry cooks getting replaced by robots and I have serious doubts if even %5 of the displaced workforce will get newer and higher paying tech jobs building or fixing those robots. Lots of stuff is about to get "interesting" on lots of fronts.

 

[Taurus92]

If I keep stealing $10 bills out of your wallet but leaving a $20 every time I did, you'd be hard pressed to call it theft.

Wow, that's even better than free stuff.

On the upside, if the whole thing waits just long enough before it goes up in smoke, we may have proper terms and ideas to come to grips with a post-scarcity economy. It won't be socialism or Marxism or whatever 'ism is popular today but, we're hitting a point where there will be a whole lot of fry cooks getting replaced by robots and I have serious doubts if even %5 of the displaced workforce will get newer and higher paying tech jobs building or fixing those robots. Lots of stuff is about to get "interesting" on lots of fronts.

Post-scarcity economy? You mean the next Utopia? You're being sarcastic, right?

Post-scarcity economy
Post-scarcity is an economic theory in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor needed, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely.

Wow, just wow. So, why would we need to worry about the laid off fry cooks?

 

[45_Fan]

Wow, that's even better than free stuff.

That's currently part of the reason why fed power keeps growing and fewer people care. People aren't paying taxes, they're paying for state by state lotto tickets. State budgets are limited and the federal one is just magic.

Post-scarcity economy? You mean the next Utopia? You're being sarcastic, right?
Wow, just wow. So, why would we need to worry about the laid off fry cooks?

No sarcasm at all.
Polarize, check.
Delegitimize, check.

Non-skilled jobs are on the cusp of being erased by automation on scales never seen before. Nobody requires you to think about it and nobody cares if your response is "let them eat cake". Somebody else is working on it and the populace will choose their answer over your lack of solutions anyway so don't worry your head about any of it. You'll accept what's coming quietly or they'll lock you up.

 

[Taurus92]

That's currently part of the reason why fed power keeps growing and fewer people care. People aren't paying taxes, they're paying for state by state lotto tickets. State budgets are limited and the federal one is just magic.

And the Federal govt holds carrots, conjured up by that magic, in front of states that are functionally bankrupt and says "bark like a dog." and they do.

No sarcasm at all.
Polarize, check.
Delegitimize, check.

Non-skilled jobs are on the cusp of being erased by automation on scales never seen before. Nobody requires you to think about it and nobody cares if your response is "let them eat cake". Somebody else is working on it and the populace will choose their answer over your lack of solutions anyway so don't worry your head about any of it. You'll accept what's coming quietly or they'll lock you up.

Yup, the automation thing is happening and nothing is going to stop it*, but who thinks this is going to end well?

Post-scarcity economy? That's either a Bill Gates or Bernie Sanders promise of The New, new improved Utopia. I was hoping that wasn't a real thing, but unfortunately some believe it. There is such a thing as too much capacity, especially on a finite planet. We just need some more low interest loans to get the ball rolling. <=sarcasm.