Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

America seems to be teetering on economic collapse: a large portion of the population feels disaffected, there is ever-increasing wealth disparity, grid-locked politics, Crony Capitalism, Climate Change, 10s of millions of people chronically unemployed, National Debt, and most importantly, people simply expect it because everyone has a natural tendency towards pessimism, it's probably evolutionary, and Doom-saying has been a staple in religion for millennia.

From the macro perspective, hard times are coming but at the micro perspective, personal satisfaction and happiness with life won’t change too much. Extended families will have to live together with only one car and one “data” cell-phone plan; vacations will just be to Uncle Joe’s house on the river; fraternal and civic organizations will supplant private club memberships; and hollow pretensions will notably disappear. Certainly, science, education, sports, family, community and all the things that affect you personally; those things aren’t going to change in nature, only in specifics.

Look how communities reacted during The Depression & WWII. If people are already settled in & mostly homogeneous, getting through very difficult financial times is workable & non-violent. You won't be buying kiwi & "gluten free" food, fewer trips to Jazzercize, only 5 pairs of shoes in the closet, & you'll have to cut down on the double-shot lattes, but medicine, basic food stocks & most institutions, public & private, will continue without much change. Certainly the Internet will exist, along with connectivity enough for social networks.

The plain fact is, we need to discard the old ways because our problems are systemic. Nobody wants to give up what they got: the entrenched winners, especially those who are retired & no longer productive to society, have all the power now, and that has to change. When The Collapse comes there will be a chance to reorient.We'll pull through it, and the catastrophe will allow us to have a Constitutional Convention and change a few things.