Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

[Higgenbotham]

They say the banking system is strong right now and not to worry. Having repeated that, the only thing that comes to my mind is find someone who predicted the collapse of SVB was imminent and see what that person says. If no such person can be found, then in my opinion nobody really knows whether the banking system is strong right now or not.

Here is that person:

Short Seller That Nailed FTX, SVB, and Silvergate Says ‘They’ May Be Next; It’s a Global Scheme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X538TJSsaHM

[Tom Mazanec]

I remember when I was in high school in North Carolina in the 80s, there was a popular country song called 'A country boy can survive'. It was true then and will be even truer in the future.

That may have been true in 1980. Now I suspect even the 'country boys' are dependant on the skyscraper of cards that is our technological civilization.

You have never been to the mountains of NC, have you?

No. But I know reality.
Do NC hillbillies make their own clothes, from fiber they grow or ranch themselves? Do they plow with animals or machines? Do they use fertilizer or pesticide on their crops? Do they make their own tools out of iron they mine and smelt themselves? And on and on.

[Higgenbotham]

I was born in 2000, so I will likely die sometime around 2075. I know you aren’t big on predictions for this kind of thing, but what do you think I will see in my lifetime, Long Descent-wise? Will it be very obvious that our civilization is in decline by then? Or will it still be too gradual to notice? How will the average person’s life be different in the year 2075?

Enjoyer, you’re going to see the end of US empire, a steep if unsteady economic contraction, a significant decline in world population, and a ragged but ongoing decrease in the availability of fossil fuels and everything made from or with them. You may well outlive the United States of America, in which you can look forward to living in one or more weak, unstable successor states, with plenty of political turmoil. When you’re old there will be a significant number of young people who will not believe that people were traveling into orbit in space shuttles when you were a child.

https://www.ecosophia.net/march-2023-open-post/

[aeden]

Green party loons will be extinct quicker than they are as it implodes in this next h.4.1. looting debacle underway.
Hill Billy is not a Ridge Runner and some stocked up with non chip facts since all politics is local as the Swamp Frogs chorus.
In plain view we had been polite we started in 2019. H is correct numerous issues ignored.
This phase two bear marker was not seen as we are not even at phase three yet.
Pro Tip. They do not even pretend to care or ever have.

Euripides [ after some thought] I loathe a citizen who acts so fast To harm his country and yet helps her last,

The Frogs.

Shall we discuss the baleful manipulation and brutality in the slaughter of your very own by you.
https://deseret.brightspotcdn.com/dims4 ... 677690.jpg

Human Action understands the Market or the Government since no other solution exists.
You the Government and the Avarice of another corrupt Age. The Book and the Letter appear not to concern the Left.

Your Physiotherapists sensitive views will not care when they are also consumed by Bish non linear reality.

A political class is maneuvering to come out on top. The tiny bubbles to the wasting and now the crushing was the feature you ignored.
Good for the Senate got back to you. Matters not.

[Guest]

That may have been true in 1980. Now I suspect even the 'country boys' are dependant on the skyscraper of cards that is our technological civilization.

You have never been to the mountains of NC, have you?

No. But I know reality.
Do NC hillbillies make their own clothes, from fiber they grow or ranch themselves? Do they plow with animals or machines? Do they use fertilizer or pesticide on their crops? Do they make their own tools out of iron they mine and smelt themselves? And on and on.

This is one of the most ignorant statements I have ever seen.

WW3 does not mean all clothing and machinery vaporize. Rural whites know how to mend and sew. They know how to cannibalize old cars and repair engines. Their forefathers grew crops before fertilizers were being produced in factories. You don't have to mine raw minerals from the earth to repair or make a hammer. You can use scrap metal to make tools or a gun. WW3 does not mean people wake up naked in the hills. They will use what is left behind. These people can sew and make clothes from curtains. They can build their own house. They can hunt. I don't know anyone personally in the mountains who has a mortgage. They live in single wides or modest houses and drive old trucks.

How many Americans in the 1800s mined iron ore to make a hammer or nails?

There will be plenty of old buildings around after WW3.

Obviously, you have zero experience with country people. The country boys will survive. Will you?

[Higgenbotham]

You have never been to the mountains of NC, have you?

No. But I know reality.
Do NC hillbillies make their own clothes, from fiber they grow or ranch themselves? Do they plow with animals or machines? Do they use fertilizer or pesticide on their crops? Do they make their own tools out of iron they mine and smelt themselves? And on and on.

This is one of the most ignorant statements I have ever seen.

WW3 does not mean all clothing and machinery vaporize. Rural whites know how to mend and sew. They know how to cannibalize old cars and repair engines. Their forefathers grew crops before fertilizers were being produced in factories. You don't have to mine raw minerals from the earth to repair or make a hammer. You can use scrap metal to make tools or a gun. WW3 does not mean people wake up naked in the hills. They will use what is left behind. These people can sew and make clothes from curtains. They can build their own house. They can hunt. I don't know anyone personally in the mountains who has a mortgage. They live in single wides or modest houses and drive old trucks.

How many Americans in the 1800s mined iron ore to make a hammer or nails?

There will be plenty of old buildings around after WW3.

Obviously, you have zero experience with country people. The country boys will survive. Will you?

Once the number of deaths grow, the salvage economy could well become the largest sector of the economy. I've mentioned in passing a couple times how it will come about. Basically, the cities will be stripped clean and a lot of that stuff will find its way into rural areas where it will get reused.

Likewise, not only will the infrastructure of roads, bridges and electrical systems not be maintained or replaced, vandals will rip up whatever they can salvage and cart it away - guard rails, manhole covers, or what have you.

If there's say 3 million people left in the US as things wind down toward a bottom that is some decades away, there will be a lot of usable material to scrounge out of empty buildings. And having that stuff to use before it all wears out will help some. Once it all wears out or can no longer be accessed then it's back to the Stone Age for real. Interestingly, the fact that there will be a lot of free clothing, etc., to scrounge out of abandoned buildings will be the very thing that makes the ability to manufacture go away for good. Why learn to make clothing when you can just take it out of dead people's closets.

The reasoning in the last paragraph is there will be a window of time where old manufacturing equipment could be brought back to life and used to make clothing in a scaled down manufacturing process. Due to how much old clothing will be available for salvage, I'm guessing that will not happen. Rather, that window of opportunity will pass and clothing will be made at home after all the salvage is used up.

This dynamic is already somewhat at work in the world today.

Secondhand fashion: Is it really good for Africa?
Used or surplus clothing from Western countries often ends up in Africa. Whether that’s good remains open to question.
BY CAREY BARAKA

November 25, 2021

Midday in Gikomba, the biggest market in Nairobi, Kenya. One trader urges shoppers to buy his vintage trousers. Others sell t-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, most with Western fashion brand labels. Some clothes have the names of American colleges emblazoned on the front.

Kenya is one of Africa’s biggest importers of secondhand clothing, in 2019 importing some 185,000 tonnes. These clothes — called mitumba in Kenya after the Swahili word for “bundles” — form the bulk of Kenyans’ fashion choices: an estimated 91.5 per cent of households buy secondhand clothing priced at Ksh 1000 (around $9) and below.

Commentators remain divided as to whether this is an encouraging sign of a circular economy at work or a problematic barrier in the way of economic survival of African countries’ own textile industries.

The mitumba industry is an important source of revenue for the Kenyan government: taxes raised from this sector amount to Ksh 12 billion ($107 million) a year. In every African country where secondhand clothes are imported, they bear different names. In Zambia, they are called salaula — selected by rummaging. In Ghana, they are called obroni wawu — dead white men’s clothes.

https://www.voguebusiness.com/sustainab ... for-africa

[John]

** 25-Mar-2023 World View: The final death hovel

That's an interesting scenario, but it
leaves some things out:

• If there are really only 3
  million people left, then the vacuum in
  the land mass will be filled with tens
  of millions of people from other
  countries, such as China, Korea, Canada,
  Mexico and Europe.
• By the middle of the 2030s,
  intelligent robots will be
  self-sustaining and will be running
  around doing stuff.

[Higgenbotham]

Once the financial collapse occurs, getting to the United States will become difficult due to lack of fuel and transportation infrastructure. Also, the second and third world megacities like Mexico City and Lagos, Nigeria (I'm bringing that one up because it's been discussed previously) will likely fare worse than the major US cities in terms of population loss. I would expect war bands from Mexico, perhaps numbering in the tens of thousands under the leadership of war lords, to cross the US border on foot looking for revenge and loot, and to reclaim territory. They may get as far as Kansas before being devastated by the Winter weather.

The population of Rome fell 40 fold from its peak to the nadir of the Dark Ages. Why that can't happen to every city in the world with population over 1 million, I have no idea, because it surely can. Lagos, Nigeria has grown 100 fold in 60 years. It can't collapse 50 fold in the next 20?

In 1866, the population of Lagos was 25,083 people. A century later, the population grew to 267,083 people.

http://brendangrimeslagos.weebly.com/demographics.html

We know they have no idea of the exact numbers but it gives an approximation of the tremendous growth rate.

[Higgenbotham]

The safer areas, in my estimation, are going to be the areas where social capital remains stronger. Those are the areas with lots of red and orange on the county map of the US I linked to, which is old but still should be somewhat accurate. There will be some areas outside of that that will do OK if the government can be maintained at least on the local level and is well run (i.e. lower on the scale of corruption) but that typically goes hand in hand with the red and orange areas.

What will the red areas do about the blue mobs showing up in their towns in America after the collapse?

** 25-Mar-2023 World View: The final death hovel

That's an interesting scenario, but it
leaves some things out:

• If there are really only 3
  million people left, then the vacuum in
  the land mass will be filled with tens
  of millions of people from other
  countries, such as China, Korea, Canada,
  Mexico and Europe.

Same general ideas. Without realizing that they were the same general idea, my responses were consistent - lack of fuel will limit the movement of people.

There won't be enough fuel and supplies for most people to get to the area where most of the red counties are.

Once the financial collapse occurs, getting to the United States will become difficult due to lack of fuel and transportation infrastructure.

I guess it's up to each individual to determine for themselves whether it is believed that will be the case or not.

I keep repeating myself in much the same way other posters do, which is one reason for this Dark Age Hovel. So here I go again:

My more specific predictions would be:

• There will be a major global financial panic and crisis. Supply chains will break, resulting in unavailability of critical raw materials and components. Global trade will begin to shut down. As it begins to become apparent that the supply chain linkages are permanently broken, the global interlinked financial markets will shut down and cease to exist. This will all happen very quickly. It will not take years from the initial panic.
• The focus of governments will turn to controlling their panicked and hungry populations. Due to lack of availability of imported goods and adequate storage "sufficient to reconstitute" a system consistent with nation state government, this will prove to be too little too late and most government will devolve to the local level as populations lose faith in their national governments and the national governments lose the resources and ability to control their populations.
• There will be no large scale nuclear war. Instead, the population will be culled through starvation, local strife (including settling of long-standing scores) and disease. Wave after wave of pandemics will sweep the world.
• Similar to national economies and governments, centralized utilities will fail or become so decrepit as to be unsafe and unusable. All centralized utilities including the power grid will shut down permanently.
• The initial worldwide kill rate during the first couple decades following the financial panic will exceed 90%. The global population will be in the range of a few tens of millions when the bottom is hit in two or three centuries. Similar to the last dark age, the world's largest cities will have a population on the order of 25,000 and a large town will be 1,000.
• Life during the coming dark age will be similar to the last dark age but worse due to environmental damage and pollution.

Regarding the supply chains.

Lately there's been a lot of attention placed everywhere on inflation and the Federal Reserve's statements that "inflation is transitory". I think the Federal Reserve is really focused on the supply chain bottlenecks and is trying to get through them with additional "money printing" hoping that will alleviate the bottlenecks. The more appropriate statement would be for the Fed to say "supply chain bottlenecks are transitory" but they won't say that.

First, we can all recall back in 2006 or so that the Federal Reserve Chairman stated that "subprime is contained". It wasn't. Next, we can recall that when the Fed started QE and added trillions of junk assets to their balance sheet in exchange for money they "printed" and gave to the banks, the intent was to eventually "normalize" the balance sheet by selling the junk assets at a later date. We knew that was not going to happen. Now they have turned the US bond market into junk but interest rates are just starting to rise.

One way to consider what future supply chain bottlenecks might look like would be to look at the path of the Fed balance sheet since QE was started. This is what it looks like:



The path of future supply chain problems will only be for them to get worse with perhaps some slight improvements or abeyances until the financial system finally blows up along with the supply chains.

My interpretation:

Since covid or thereabouts, Fed balance sheet going up = supply chain problems getting worse; Fed balance sheet going down = supply chain problems getting better.

[Higgenbotham]

The safer areas, in my estimation, are going to be the areas where social capital remains stronger. Those are the areas with lots of red and orange on the county map of the US I linked to, which is old but still should be somewhat accurate. There will be some areas outside of that that will do OK if the government can be maintained at least on the local level and is well run (i.e. lower on the scale of corruption) but that typically goes hand in hand with the red and orange areas.

What will the red areas do about the blue mobs showing up in their towns in America after the collapse?

There won't be enough fuel and supplies to run a 3-5,000 acre farm, which is the typical size of a farm in those areas.

Here's some background to that statement, as the situation existed late last year.

Already struggling, farmers face another challenge with diesel shortage
Zoë Blume/
Gaylord News
Dec. 26, 2022

As if this year hasn’t been rough enough on the agriculture community, farmers can now add “global diesel shortage” to their hardship bingo card for 2022.

Just weeks after Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an executive order to continue drought relief efforts for farmers in that state, reports of what some are calling a devastating diesel shortage and the higher prices that come with it are rolling in to accompany farmers into the already harsh winter season.

“I’m harvesting soybeans that aren’t even worth harvesting right now,” Oklahoma farmer Tim Heinrich said last month.

Heinrich, who runs a 3,000-acre operation in north central Oklahoma, says a modern combine like the one he uses typically needs about 150 gallons a day to get the job done – a job that might ultimately cost him more in fuel than he will get back in sales. And the combine is just one piece of the operation affected by diesel costs.

“Most of us have diesel pickups that we use to feed cows with all winter long, all the trucks hauling the crops to and from the farm, all of our farm sprayers, our combines and our tractors,” said Heinrich, who also serves on the Garfield County Conservation District board of directors. “All of it is at the mercy of the rising cost of diesel.”

https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2022/12/ ... -shortage/

Another thing that can be clarified regarding that is if someone looks at the statistics on farm size, it will be seen that the average farm size in those states is smaller than 3-5,000 acres. That's because a lot of farmers retire and sell off most of their land but they still have what is considered to be a farm and a lot of farmers work at regular jobs and have smaller farms. A typical full time farming operation will be in that 3-5,000 acre range approximately and uses a lot of fuel.

There was a lot of talk about a diesel shortage late last year but it didn't materialize. The article says shortage but I think it was only in the sense of higher prices and everyone got the fuel they needed to run their operations.