{"id":12721,"date":"2010-07-19T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-20T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=12721"},"modified":"2010-07-19T21:46:44","modified_gmt":"2010-07-20T04:46:44","slug":"reasons-to-be-not-so-cheerful-part-3-0-0-while-it-may-be-implausible-that-western-civilization-could-collapse-this-much-seems-certain-you-will-not-be-prepared-for-what-happens-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12721\/reasons-to-be-not-so-cheerful-part-3-0-0-while-it-may-be-implausible-that-western-civilization-could-collapse-this-much-seems-certain-you-will-not-be-prepared-for-what-happens-next\/","title":{"rendered":"Reasons to be (not so) cheerful, Part 3.0.0: While it may be implausible that western civilization could collapse, this much seems certain: You will not be prepared for what happens next."},"content":{"rendered":"

So: Let’s drop the shit-hammer, shall we?<\/p>\n

Greece is broke. So is England, and so is most of the rest of Europe.<\/p>\n

California is broke, Illinois is broke, and, if you count unfunded pension liabilities, not only are all the rest of the states, counties and cities broke, so are all of the surlier labor unions.<\/p>\n

Social Security is broke, as is the metamorphosing medical scam to be known, soon enough, as no-healthcare-for-you!<\/p>\n

The United States government is broke, of course, limping along, for now, on funds borrowed against the promise of future confiscatory currency inflation, future crippling taxation — or both.<\/p>\n

Socialism is a Ponzi scheme, and, before you know it, you run out of suckers to milk. Sooner or later, welfare-state socialism has to collapse. As I’ve argued, I don’t think that time is now. Despite our talent, as a species, for forecasting apocalyptic, pandemic doom, in reality the sky hardly ever falls more than once or twice a day.<\/p>\n

Moreover, even though we are enmired in a deep recession — and even though our puerile president is making that recession much worse with every boneheaded error at his command — even so, it is very likely that we are out-producing welfare-state socialism in the long run. That might stick in your craw, but it remains that — even despite the drag on the economy caused by taxes, regulation, deficit spending and waste — the trajectory of the standard of living of every American — and virtually everyone on earth — is steadily upward.<\/p>\n

But, but, but! Government is impoverishing us! I saw it on the big-screen HD-TV in the bedroom, and also on the even-bigger-screen HD-TV in the living room, and, just to be sure, I followed-up on the high-speed internet connection on my 27″ quad-core iMac! Don’t try to tell me the world’s not going to hell in a hand-basket! I’ve got the best hardware and software in the world to tell me how terrible my life is!<\/p>\n

That much is funny to me, but, even so, these circumstances can’t last forever. At some point the parasites will overwhelm the host, and, when that happens, Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So: Let’s drop the shit-hammer, shall we? Greece is broke. So is England, and so is most of the rest of Europe. California is broke, Illinois is broke, and, if you count unfunded pension liabilities, not only are all the rest of the states, counties and cities broke, so are all of the surlier labor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[251,4,24,212,29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12721","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-big-mother","7":"category-disintermediation","8":"category-egoism-in-action","9":"category-flourishing","10":"category-group-therapy","12":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8706,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/8706\/the-fdic-is-going-broke\/","url_meta":{"origin":12721,"position":0},"title":"The FDIC is going broke…","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Business Insider:","rel":"","context":"In "Big Mother"","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17849,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/17849\/overnight-news-if-america-was-already-broke-and-now-its-half-again-more-broke-then-what\/","url_meta":{"origin":12721,"position":1},"title":"Overnight News: If America was already broke, and now it\u2019s half-again more broke \u2013 then\u00a0what?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"February 16, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday, I noted that, \"One third of all American dollars are less than a year old.\" What's the implication? Since the quantity of available economic goods doesn't change much, from year to year, it is reasonable to suppose that soon the dollar will have lost around a third of its\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6747,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/6747\/times-are-tough-but-thats-no-reason-to-be-a-thief\/","url_meta":{"origin":12721,"position":2},"title":"Times Are Tough – But That’s No Reason To Be A Thief","author":"Doug Quance","date":"January 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I haven't had a good rant in a while... and unfortunately, I don't have enough time to have one right now - so the Reader's Digest condensed version will have to do. Most agents who have been in this business a few years or more know when something doesn't look\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dual Agency"","block_context":{"text":"Dual Agency","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/dual-agency\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":254,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/254\/i-believe-that-real-estate-agents-are-either-in-marketing-or-broke\/","url_meta":{"origin":12721,"position":3},"title":"“I believe that real estate agents are either in marketing or broke . . . “","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 26, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"So says Dustin Luther in a post from March of 2005. I was following links from links from one his lists of ten and tripped over this gem. If you want a PDF version of this quotation to hang in your office (or to tape to the mirror in your\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17336,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/17336\/the-ibuyers-are-super-good-at-mulcting-buyers-agents-with-science-thats-why-they-cant-price\/","url_meta":{"origin":12721,"position":4},"title":"The #iBuyers are super good at mulcting buyer\u2019s agents with science. That\u2019s why they\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0price.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 20, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Mike DelPrete is worth reading, so long as you understand that, like The Inglorious Knob, he is one with The Borg. Just lately I mentioned that the iBuyers in Phoenix are nicking buyer's agents for commission \u2013 which is just the kind of dick move you expect from financially-inept sociopaths.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/aidan-bartos-v9rZ3Yz6fSg-unsplash-1-480x320.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":18626,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/18626\/overnight-news-get-woke-go-broke-aint-that-america\/","url_meta":{"origin":12721,"position":5},"title":"Overnight News: Get woke, go broke? Ain\u2019t that America?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 26, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"We watched network TV yesterday, briefly. Cathleen loves the parade, and she and Cleo were both thrilled by the dog show. Miss Chioux likes barking, running and, especially, running preceded by barking. Fun to see from the commercials that all American families are black, and all black families are possessed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12721"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12722,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12721\/revisions\/12722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}