Global Financial Crisis: Empty Supermarket Shelves In Greece Should Be A Huge Wake Up Call To Clueless Americans

Michael Snyder:  What you are watching unfold in Greece right now is eventually going to come to your own neighborhood.  Someday, people living all around you will be storming the supermarkets in a desperate attempt to secure the food and supplies that they neglected to store up when they had the chance.

Of course the Greeks never thought that it would happen to them either. Their civilization had endured for thousands of years, and they were a part of the most powerful economic alliance on the face of the planet.

Most Greeks never imagined that they would be plunged into a multi-year economic depression that would ultimately lead to “bank holidays”, long lines at ATM machines, and people diving into dumpsters in a frantic search for something to sell.  And this is just the beginning of the chaos in Greece – things are going to get much, much worse for them.

Hopefully, this will serve as a wake up call for millions upon millions of clueless Americans out there, because we are on the exact same path that Greece has gone down.  The sad truth is that no amount of “American exceptionalism” is going to prevent us from suffering the consequences of decades of very foolish decisions.

We are steamrolling toward our own version of economic collapse, and when that time arrives you don’t want to be caught totally unprepared for it.

In some cities in the United States, it only takes an inch or two of snow during the winter to set off panic hoarding at local supermarkets and hardware stores.

So what is going to happen during a real crisis?

The Greek people are just like us.  They are proud, sophisticated people that are highly educated.  But now that a full-blown collapse of their economy is imminent, they are feverishly hoarding cash and food…

Greeks were hoarding cash and food Saturday amid mounting fears the economy could collapse, cracking open their wallets only to stock up on essentials and stripping supermarket shelves in the process.

Mothers, elderly men and university students were spotted pushing heavily overloaded trolleys or coming out of shops weighed down by bags of food, with essentials such as sugar, flour and pasta top of the list.

In the well-off area of Glyfada in Athens residents appeared to have panicked, thrusting everything from vast rolls of toilet paper to multiple packs of lentils into their carts.

If you do not believe that something like this could happen in the United States, you are being delusional.  And someday, we may actually experience a crisis in which the store shelves are emptied and they do not get resupplied.  What would you and your family do during such a scenario?  The following photo of what is happening in Greece right now comes from Twitter…

“A colleague of mine send me this pic from a supermarket in Athens #Greece(!!!)… welcome to Venezuela (???)”

Via @VasilisDalianis

And of course not all Greeks have enough money to hoard food and supplies at this point.  As poverty has grown, dumpster diving has become increasingly popular.  Some dumpster divers are looking for something to sell, while others are simply looking for something to eat…

Piled high with rubbish congealing in the summer heat, municipal dustbin R21 on Athens’ Sofokleous Street does not look or smell like a treasure trove.

But for Greece’s growing army of dustbin scavengers, its deposits of rubbish from nearby stores and grocery shops make it a regular point of call.

“Sometimes I’ll find scrap metal that I can sell, although if I see something that looks reasonably safe to eat, I’ll take it,” said Nikos Polonos, 55, as he sifted through R21’s contents on Tuesday morning. “Other times you might find paper, cans, and bottles that you can get money for if you take them back to the shops for recycling.”

But that could never happen in America, right?

After all, aren’t we “the greatest nation in the world”?

Sadly, what we experienced in 2008 was just a preview. 

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