Western Democracies Are In Collapse

Most people cannot conceive of an economic collapse. Normalcy bias is common and distorts expectations, especially in areas outside of personal expertise. If it didn’t happen yesterday or last month or in their lifetime, then many people consider the outcome “impossible.”

Those who can conceive of such events may try to convince others, but proselytizing can be frustrating and usually fruitless. Most try, give up and then become more productive by shifting their efforts toward protecting themselves and their families.

I am often asked: “Can the US collapse.” My first answer is that we are already there. If you define collapse as a process rather than a singular event, then we have been in collapse for a while. The questioner than focuses on avoiding a culminating event which is the collapse of function markets, the currency and law and order. Regarding that, I am less certain regarding, but only slightly so. The damage already incurred by the country and the accelerating trends seem to make such a culminating event unavoidable.

A preview of what is coming is available in Europe who is further into the process than the US. Spain is crumbling as is Greece. Neither are the United States, an objection that will be raised to such a comparison. This differentiation undoubtedly was made back in the day when no empire was as strong as Rome’s, yet it crumbled and disappeared.

Spain and Greece have fewer options to defer their impending ultimate collapse. But they and the US are subject to the same rules of arithmetic. The US may be able to bend these a bit longer via money printing, but it cannot avoid immutable mathematical relationships. Money printing is kicking the can further down the road. It is not a solution and likely makes matters worse. It might lengthen the road somewhat, but it produces a bigger and more painful culminating event.

Michael “Mish” Shedlock provides a description of what has been occurring in Spain. As time passes, the numbers to solve their problems are increased ever upward. No one knows the final numbers, other than they will be worse tomorrow than they are today.

Mish describes the current condition:

The Spanish implosion is breathtaking in every way: Human Flight, Capital Flight, Real Estate, Employment, and Taxes. The cost of a full bailout is now €300 billion, up from a preposterously low €30 billion projection in June.

Mish describes some recent headlines from Spain:

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