Ever notice how a host of ominous things is always just about to occur, but never seems to really manifest as expected? The mid-summer doldrums seem to have settled over the news cycle these days. All the dire headlines are still out there, but I get the feeling of one stuck in a movie theater watching previews while the main feature never seems to hit the big screen.
A casual browse around the net will still find all the gloomy predictions. I write about them, along with so many others, but the various waves of the "long emergency" are building like a slowly rising tide--it keeps coming but never seems to get here. At the moment we are being warned of all the following:
1) Rising unemployment pushing at Depression era numbers.
2) Housing values still searching for a bottom and and foreclosure spike imminent.
3) A massive $3 trillion default wave in commercial real estate.
4) Rising defaults in consumer and credit card loans.
5) 1000 more bank failures possible in "the coming years."
6) 50% of Americans just one month from destitution.
7) Dollar heading for "sudden" devaluation.
8) Bank holidays coming.
9) Farmers cutting back dramatically on crop plantings=food shortages ahead.
10) Swine flu about to return in a mass epidemic.
I even saw one article talking about all this in the context of a deliberate plan to cause depopulation and bring the total numbers down from 6.5 billion to about 500 million. Now that's real gloom and doom. These stories run like race horses around the news and blog tracks on the Internet, but never reach the finish line.
This was just from today's headline browse, all things that are impending, imminent, looming on that dark horizon out there. But it never seems to get here! The system, and "daily life" just seem to be going along as always. Sure there are more vacant storefronts and for rent signs out there, and some cities feel the pain more than others, but by and large things all run pretty much as normal. 50% of Americans aren't destitute. The dollar hasn't collapsed. Bad securities or not, the big banks are still open for business. The stock market has been manipulated up by slick algorithms and other trading ploys. Oil prices seem to have stabilized. I can still buy anything I want to the local grocery store. The dread "Swine Flu" was so mild that it logged a kill ratio far smaller than our typical seasonal flu--yet the government and WHO seem hell bent to create a vaccine and start mass inoculations. Why?
On any given day you can take you pick from any of those ten headline categories above and read four or five articles on what is about to happen, what is coming, what is just around the corner in this endless round of the long emergency. But it really never happens. The massive societal collapse that all these articles hint at is just not ready for prime time yet. So go get some more popcorn with a big gulp soda and settle back into your seat for a while. The previews still have a ways to go before the movie starts.
A casual browse around the net will still find all the gloomy predictions. I write about them, along with so many others, but the various waves of the "long emergency" are building like a slowly rising tide--it keeps coming but never seems to get here. At the moment we are being warned of all the following:
1) Rising unemployment pushing at Depression era numbers.
2) Housing values still searching for a bottom and and foreclosure spike imminent.
3) A massive $3 trillion default wave in commercial real estate.
4) Rising defaults in consumer and credit card loans.
5) 1000 more bank failures possible in "the coming years."
6) 50% of Americans just one month from destitution.
7) Dollar heading for "sudden" devaluation.
8) Bank holidays coming.
9) Farmers cutting back dramatically on crop plantings=food shortages ahead.
10) Swine flu about to return in a mass epidemic.
I even saw one article talking about all this in the context of a deliberate plan to cause depopulation and bring the total numbers down from 6.5 billion to about 500 million. Now that's real gloom and doom. These stories run like race horses around the news and blog tracks on the Internet, but never reach the finish line.
This was just from today's headline browse, all things that are impending, imminent, looming on that dark horizon out there. But it never seems to get here! The system, and "daily life" just seem to be going along as always. Sure there are more vacant storefronts and for rent signs out there, and some cities feel the pain more than others, but by and large things all run pretty much as normal. 50% of Americans aren't destitute. The dollar hasn't collapsed. Bad securities or not, the big banks are still open for business. The stock market has been manipulated up by slick algorithms and other trading ploys. Oil prices seem to have stabilized. I can still buy anything I want to the local grocery store. The dread "Swine Flu" was so mild that it logged a kill ratio far smaller than our typical seasonal flu--yet the government and WHO seem hell bent to create a vaccine and start mass inoculations. Why?
On any given day you can take you pick from any of those ten headline categories above and read four or five articles on what is about to happen, what is coming, what is just around the corner in this endless round of the long emergency. But it really never happens. The massive societal collapse that all these articles hint at is just not ready for prime time yet. So go get some more popcorn with a big gulp soda and settle back into your seat for a while. The previews still have a ways to go before the movie starts.
