[jesus_of_suburbia_old]

Well, that was a fucking bummer.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TommyJefferson', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', 'H')yperinflation happened later, 1992-1993. 10000% inflation in 1993
...So you see it wasnt that bad.

[jesus_of_suburbia_old]

Dmitry says that the privatized, profit driven healthcare system of the US will wither away with the economy and reduce us into folk remedies. Should PO aware healthcare practioners in the US look into exiting the country to somewhere healthcare is government funded?

I currently studying to be a respiratory therapist. I don't know many folk remedies for what I am being trained to put into practice. I suspect the demand for my knowledge and skills will still exist. With increased pollution and a decrease in the availabilty of heating and proper sanitation. Chronic respiratory illnesses should skyrocket. Check out this article about the top ten most polluted cities in the world; very disturbing.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')There are places where life expectancy approaches medieval rates, where birth defects are the norm not the exception, where children's asthma rates are measured above 90%, and where mental retardation is endemic," the report says.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daculling', 'P')retorian, thank you for your insight. Was there a weapon for every man, woman and child in the hands of the citizenry?

I think you know where I'm going here... our outcome might be very different, but I agree... worse.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jesus_of_suburbia', 'D')mitry says that the privatized, profit driven healthcare system of the US will wither away with the economy and reduce us into folk remedies. Should PO aware healthcare practioners in the US look into exiting the country to somewhere healthcare is government funded?

[EnergyUnlimited]

Pretorian,
You had presented many insightful posts regarding Soviet collapse.
You suggest, that US collapse could be worst (more messy), as people are expecting from government far more, than Russians did.
I cannot agree with you on this account.
I think, that US collapse will look more like Weimar Republic collapse.
People will still expect more and more from government and government will ask for more and more powers & authority in exchange. This process had already beginned.
Within not too long time US will have an intrusive authoritarian government, something like Hitler had setted in 1933.
All freedoms will go down a drain, but the party will keep going for few more years at least. I would not rely on inflation to take care of my debt under that scenario, as a result would probably be an extremely miserable one.
More and more idiotic decisions in respect to international policy will be taken, more and more hopeless wars will be started up to the point when most of nukes on the world will be fired within few minutes or hours.
Than you will have your collapse, but it will be a weird one.
For those, who survive (and there will be a lot of them contrary to "all dead" popular belief) all the world as we know it will fall apart.
Great majority of cities will cease to exist and lawless life environment comparable to this observed in Soviet population centres will not come to existance. That is, because this kind of life can go well only in large population groups (and those will be gone...). Smaller communities will quickly eliminate pathological elements in one way or another and without much undue difficulty.
For these reasons you will observe collapse of US to a large set of smaller or larger communities, often hostile to each other.
There will be also a plenty of "Wild West" areas.
All that is likely to evaluate towards something like "postcivilization feudal system" with time.
Modern economy will probably never revive, as fossil fuels will no longer be there to facilitate it, but if it does revive, it will take many centuries or even millenia perhaps.