Dmitri Orlov has written about systemic collapse, and the stages of that collapse. Today there is a post at his blog about the state of affairs in Michigan.
Why post this? This could be Rogers Park in the future if we don't have alternatives. If you happened to gloss over the first link, go back and re-read it and remember it was posted in February 2008. Dmitri asserts we are in Stage 1 with Stages 2 and 3 underway. Is he smoking dope or is he on the mark?
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Collapse may be coming to a neighborhood near you very soon. The Chicago area now has an unemployment rate of 7.2% on average, while some parts of it are skyrocketing. I'm told Rockford's rate is 10.4% and climbing.
These unemployment stats of course do not accurately reflect those who are underemployed- those whose hours and pay have been cut (that would be me and many others), those on commission or contract who have experienced huge drops in income, those whose businesses are deteriorating or dying.
Three businesses in Edgewater that I know of have shut down, and more are on the way.
I wish I could believe that the 5 trillion dollars or so tossed at stimulus packages and bailouts were helping, but I cannot believe that more of what killed us to begin with, which is loans we cannot pay back, will help. Somehow, increasing the federal debt load to the point where we are in danger of defaulting does not seem to be a constructive approach, inasmuch as it was overly easy money that created the situation to begin with. The increased government spending will only render our currency worthless that much faster.
Rogers Park, Rockford, Schaumburg, Palatine, and even Lakeview and Lincoln Park, are going to find themselves on a much different footing going forward, and it is not going to be fun. A different world.
And so will communities of every description across the United States, including many who thought they were well insulated financially, as the investments on which their lavish incomes are based fall to worthless or close to it.
I'm very scared. Our government authorities, I'm afraid, will prove utterly ineffectual in the face of rapidly falling dominoes, especially if they try to rescue every failing large company out there, and create even more fiat money in the form of still more hundreds of billions of dollars worth of loans that can never be paid back. They will also throw money at all the wrong things, mainly things that are obsolete for current needs, while starving the very things we will need in order to halfway recover and live comfortably in steeply reduced circumstances- witness the emphasis on highway and road building at the expense of transit in Obama's stimulus program, which seems to have been dictated by various pressure groups rather than logic and principle.
May I suggest that we in Rogers Park, Edgewater, and elsewhere in Chicago start "investing" in the things we will need to carry us through? I suggest an emergency battery-pack type power generator, ample quantities of blankets, sweaters, and bad weather apparal (buy it used or something), lots of non-perishable food supplies, and copious quantities of drinking water (recycle those milk jugs!), plus OTC medicines. And a weapon, if you are trained to use one properly.
And most of all, generosity to your neighbors and tolerance for a higher level of craziness everywhere you go in Chicago and elsewhere, because we are going to see a lot of people in circumstances they never expected to be in and a lot of them aren't going to respond too well to the pressure of it.
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