[Tyler_JC]

Don't we know how this story ends?

Inflation is under-reported. Pension plans slowly vanish as each dollar gets worth less and less while the Cost of Living Adjustments fails to keep up.

The smart guy with the 401K is able to beat inflation while the pensioners falls further and further behind. The dumb guy loses everything in his 401K and ends up about as worse off as the pensioner.

Good luck!

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', '
')How many people feel sorry for all the clueless who went over their head buying homes they couldn't afford? or is that a rhetorical question?

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'N')ot many police out here, and not many barbarians either....

[hubbertspeak7777777]

deleted

[Cloud9]

The cops ran out of gas in central Florida during the 04 hurricanes. I saw one national guard soldier at a ruined gas station. We had no law enforcement. The natives remained quiet. The difference, that was a one time event that would be over as soon as we could make repairs and clean up the mess. This long emergency is a different matter. Most men will leave their homes looking for work. Some will leave to loot and will wind up on the county work gangs.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'N')ot many police out here, and not many barbarians either....

[Heineken]

Texas strikes me as a particularly rich potential source of barbarians, Ludi. And yes, I have lived there.

Ditto my own state.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'T')exas strikes me as a particularly rich potential source of barbarians, Ludi.

[jlw61]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'T')exas strikes me as a particularly rich potential source of barbarians, Ludi. And yes, I have lived there.

Ditto my own state.

[Ludi]

I've never seen so much as a public argument during the ten years since I moved back here. They are the most polite barbarians in the world, I guess.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I')'ve never seen so much as a public argument during the ten years since I moved back here. They are the most polite barbarians in the world, I guess.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I')'ve never seen so much as a public argument during the ten years since I moved back here. They are the most polite barbarians in the world, I guess.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '
')Starvation kinda does that to you.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '
')Starvation kinda does that to you.

[catbox]

I just want to see what massive unemployment will do for the system.
Pension?......that's my chickens out back. I'm gonna sell eggs when I'm 80 for 10 dollars a dozen!

[MrBill]

Oh, there will be beer... and porn too for that matter! ; - ))

[efarmer]

We have come to depend on the various government and
corporate and union incomes for retirement and sustainable
life. I have a relative who has been a staunch union tradesman
all his life and who has a fat retirement pension. He is dismayed
because it is largely invested by his union in Chindia and other
emerging markets and so after being a Made in America fanatic
all his life, he is pulling for the emerging markets to keep working
hard while he retires.

If the good bankers and managers who run these funds are
out gunned by the thieves, as we witnessed with the recent
subprime and credit rating and strategy debacle in New York,
then much of this stuff is in the wind.

We largely abandoned community and barn raising and neighbors
pitching in to SAVE each other for things like corporate managed
charity funds and the like. The silver lining is that in America we
have people who may be a generation of experience past
the grass roots community, but they have the inherent goodness
in quantum, to get back to it if the government and corporate
"cheese makers" lose a wheel and shoot off into the weeds.

I will bet on the basic decency of much of everyday Americans
to make a radical adjustment much better than a swollen, rotten,
and bloated New York and Washington based power elite can
envision. But Kunstler's sage words still reign supreme here:

"We will do what we have done until we can't, and then we won't."

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '
')Starvation kinda does that to you.

[Homesteader]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '
')Starvation kinda does that to you.

[Heineken]

Starvation goes through well-defined phases, I believe.

One of the middle phases is that you try to eat anything. Dirt. Grass. Earthworms. Your neighbor's brain.