[Madpaddy]

Good for you Heineken.

And may you enjoy your land for many decades to come.

[Heineken]

Actually, it's getting a little sticky under the collar in my neck of the woods, Madpaddy. I went outside early this morning and it felt exactly like a bathhouse. I kid you not.

I may end up a climate refugee.

[gnm]

I'm wearing highwaters...



I'm at 7'500 feet above sea level. Which works out actually because even though I am fairly far south it stays fairly cool in the summer.. Winter can be nasty though and the weather in general is very changeable...

-G

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'R')e. "wealth."

OK, so let's start with the doctor who lives up in the hills. He owns a house with a half million in equity, has various accounts with another million or two in equity, lives within his means... let's say his net asset worth is about $2 million. He's a millionaire, which makes him conventionally wealthy.

Now the doctor has a gardener, who doesn't own a house but owns his truck and tools, and has some equity in his business, maybe in the range of about $20,000 altogether. He's a deca-thousandaire, if you will.

Now take a look in the stratosphere. A billionaire with let's say $2B in net asset worth.

Who has more in common with whom, we ask...?

Well, the doctor's assets are worth 100x as much as the gardener's. But the billionaire's assets are worth 1,000x as much as the doctor's.

When it comes to tax policies and suchlike, the doctor's interests and the gardener's are more alike than the doctor's and the billionaire's.

[NotMyBlood]

is there any future scenario that allows me to sleep in until 10:00 - 11:00 am? Bang my girlfriend from 12:00 to 12:15, take a nap, grill out steaks for lunch at 1:00pm? read a book, watch a movie, workout , from 2:00pm 5:00pm, hit happy hour for a few drinks from 5:00pm 8:00pm....take a vicodin with some wine and bang my girfriend again from 9:00pm to 10:pm, watch some sportscenter at 11:00pm and drift asleep content...???

I'll vote for that one...

[TWilliam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('coyote', 'T')he Mayan civilization collapsed, but they by no means all disappeared. Some Mayan areas continued to develop beyond the main crash. They were still around to be conquered, one city-state at a time, by the Spanish in the 15th and 16th centuries; and they're still around today. What they lost was empire, population, knowledge, and the highest art. And that may be what happens to us as well. We are not the only culture to have tinkered with civilization; we may become, like the Maya, just another example of a failed civilization experiment, in which people afterward go back to an older way of living.

[coyote]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', 'I')t didn't "collapse", it was abandoned, as were several other Central American civilizations.

There is a false assumption held by our culture that agriculture is somehow superior to horticulture/hunting/gathering in terms of survival benefit, when in fact it isn't.

...We just haven't realized it yet, but the Mayans (and others) did, so they opted to return to the far more successful modality that preceded "civilization".

[TWilliam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('coyote', '-')- is there some line of research supporting your thesis to which you can point us?

[qwanta]

Came across these photos taken in Romania apparently. Started to get the sinking feeling that this is how some places here in the US could look like perhaps sooner than we think.















OK, maybe not that last one

source:
http://ziza.ru/2007/09/28/dobro_pozhalo ... _foto.html

[Blacksmith]

Adaptation.

[Zardoz]

Geez, let's sincerely hope that not all Romanians look like those guys.

Forget the horse carts. That's about as seedy a bunch of guys as you'll ever want to have to look at. Will we end up like that?

[Blacksmith]

Just need a haircut, shave, shower and some clothes from China and they would look like any American.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Blacksmith', 'J')ust need a haircut, shave, shower and some clothes from China...

[PrairieMule]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Blacksmith', 'J')ust need a haircut, shave, shower and some clothes from China...

[sittinguy]

IF it did become that way one day far from now,, you will be dead by that time and so will your kids.... And can you imagine the HELL that this country would go through to get to that point, BUY MORE BULLETS

[frankthetank]

No.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', 'G')eez, let's sincerely hope that not all Romanians look like those guys.

[TheDude]

"Creatures," that's nice.

Have been reading up on caravans/vardos. They do some very fancy work:

[eXpat]

Been there last year. Romanians are actually quite resilient and strong people IMO. My guide in a tour I took around Romania told me that one of the most popular slongans there, is that the Black Sea is the only friend Romania ever had, because it never attempted to invade them. In a lot of places in the north, communities and people get isolated during winter, due to the extreme cold and snow, so they traditionally have to be as much self sufficient as they can be. My worries in a SHTF situation are not with that people, but with the ones pampered by the modern western life style.

[jesus_of_suburbia_old]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'G')ypsies from the pics are not Romanians and have nothing to do with Romania.