Shouting theatre in a crowded fire

Snow was on the ground, hardly surprising in late December, and the Judge walked carefully from his car to the courthouse entrance.

“Hi Robert” called a homeless man from the other side of the car park, “How about a week this time?”
Robert paused “Sorry Jimmy, two days is what you’re due, and that’s what you’ll get”

To some, that a week in Jail is what they would wish for as a Christmas present, says a lot about the state of society. For the rest of us, what lies ahead is becoming increasingly clear. Had you but studied the Roman Empire after Diocletian, it will be worringly familiar. Another voice adds to the chorus …

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

This Is How It Ends: All That Is Solid Melts Into Air

“Correspondent R.J. and I have been discussing the consequences of the sharp decline in the value of labor which is painfully obvious in the chart below and the many other charts depicting the declining purchasing power of wages and the skimming of the majority of the economic gains by the top 0.1%. 
In effect, it no longer pays to work beyond the bare minimum needed to survive as all the value generated by labor above this minimum is either skimmed by the Bezos, Buffetts, Gates, Zuckerbergs et al. or it's paid in higher taxes to the government.” “When physicians, nurses, managers, et al. stop showing up for work, the system breaks down very quickly.”
"The most competent will realise the impossibility of keeping it glued together and so they will exit first. The most noble will try to keep it going but they will burn out and drop away, leaving the incompetent to oversee the final collapse.