Okay Hari Seldon, here’s why the US is not doing as badly as you think.
Ultimately, violent schisms always end up being between haves and have-nots. These schisms are only starting to develop now and being expressed as tribalism within the existing political framework. Eventually those will spill over into a class conflict.
That’s patently untrue. Plenty of violent internal political strife has developed around tribal groups, but never developed between economic strata. And of course the only all out civil war in the US was between two groups of states, not economic groups. I don’t expect the actual violence to spread beyond fringe groups who are already at each others throats.
Economic problems are not regional at all.
Except they are. Entire towns are having their economies hollowed out. Usually they are towns that specialized too much on one industry, then suffer when that industry dies or moves to another place to exploit. On the other hand, other cities are having severe growing pains as incoming people attracted to their bustling economies are making housing in particular difficult.
None of these technologies are even close to replacing traditional farming on any significant scale.
It’s hard to tell what the timeline will be. That said, factories are already under construction for some types of cultured meat. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw some of the easier meats (e.g. ground beef) be cheaper than animal meats within the decade.
California also needs to make reforms to its water use regulations. Currently, water is parceled out based on historical water rights. Farmers with large historical claims will often use that water to grow hungry crops like alfalfa. The regulations should not privilege some farmers over other farmers, which should help at least some in increasing efficient use of water.
Shortages
Everyone was (and is) seeing shortages as part of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it was often overstated. Supply chain management had for too long focused on being extremely lean at the expense of resilience. COVID-19 threw that into chaos, which has given supply chains a lesson in too much lean. But even when things were at their worst, the grocery stores were never empty. It was just a matter of maybe changing a recipe.
That’s patently untrue. Plenty of violent internal political strife has developed around tribal groups, but never developed between economic strata. And of course the only all out civil war in the US was between two groups of states, not economic groups. I don’t expect the actual violence to spread beyond fringe groups who are already at each others throats.
The context here is the collapsing standard of living in US. If you examine similar examples, as the book I linked earlier does, it’s pretty clear that the schisms are class conflicts in these situations.
Except they are. Entire towns are having their economies hollowed out. Usually they are towns that specialized too much on one industry, then suffer when that industry dies or moves to another place to exploit. On the other hand, other cities are having severe growing pains as incoming people attracted to their bustling economies are making housing in particular difficult.
Obviously things are deteriorating at different rates in different parts of the country. However, my point was that the standard of living is dropping across the country, and working class people are struggling everywhere in US right now. Most people who don’t already own a home have no hope of being able to afford housing at this point.
It’s hard to tell what the timeline will be. That said, factories are already under construction for some types of cultured meat. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw some of the easier meats (e.g. ground beef) be cheaper than animal meats within the decade.
US has population of over 300 million. A couple of experimental factories aren’t going to feed US population. Solving that problem would require large scale investment that is nowhere to be found, especially in a collapsing economy.
All it’s going to take is a couple of weeks of extreme weather to kill the crops, and at that point there’s going to be a famine. This has happened many times throughout history. In fact, climate related famines were one of the major driving forces behind Russian revolution at the start of the 20th century.
Everyone was (and is) seeing shortages as part of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it was often overstated. Supply chain management had for too long focused on being extremely lean at the expense of resilience. COVID-19 threw that into chaos, which has given supply chains a lesson in too much lean. But even when things were at their worst, the grocery stores were never empty. It was just a matter of maybe changing a recipe.
Supply chain management works the only way it can work within US financial system. The lesson that was learned is that the government will just print more money to bail out the companies when a crash happens. Lots of basic items are now gone from circulation, and the problem continues to get worse. We haven’t seen the full impact of the economic war hit yet either, that will be seen in a few months.
Okay Hari Seldon, here’s why the US is not doing as badly as you think.
That’s patently untrue. Plenty of violent internal political strife has developed around tribal groups, but never developed between economic strata. And of course the only all out civil war in the US was between two groups of states, not economic groups. I don’t expect the actual violence to spread beyond fringe groups who are already at each others throats.
Except they are. Entire towns are having their economies hollowed out. Usually they are towns that specialized too much on one industry, then suffer when that industry dies or moves to another place to exploit. On the other hand, other cities are having severe growing pains as incoming people attracted to their bustling economies are making housing in particular difficult.
It’s hard to tell what the timeline will be. That said, factories are already under construction for some types of cultured meat. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw some of the easier meats (e.g. ground beef) be cheaper than animal meats within the decade.
California also needs to make reforms to its water use regulations. Currently, water is parceled out based on historical water rights. Farmers with large historical claims will often use that water to grow hungry crops like alfalfa. The regulations should not privilege some farmers over other farmers, which should help at least some in increasing efficient use of water.
Everyone was (and is) seeing shortages as part of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it was often overstated. Supply chain management had for too long focused on being extremely lean at the expense of resilience. COVID-19 threw that into chaos, which has given supply chains a lesson in too much lean. But even when things were at their worst, the grocery stores were never empty. It was just a matter of maybe changing a recipe.
The context here is the collapsing standard of living in US. If you examine similar examples, as the book I linked earlier does, it’s pretty clear that the schisms are class conflicts in these situations.
Obviously things are deteriorating at different rates in different parts of the country. However, my point was that the standard of living is dropping across the country, and working class people are struggling everywhere in US right now. Most people who don’t already own a home have no hope of being able to afford housing at this point.
US has population of over 300 million. A couple of experimental factories aren’t going to feed US population. Solving that problem would require large scale investment that is nowhere to be found, especially in a collapsing economy.
All it’s going to take is a couple of weeks of extreme weather to kill the crops, and at that point there’s going to be a famine. This has happened many times throughout history. In fact, climate related famines were one of the major driving forces behind Russian revolution at the start of the 20th century.
Supply chain management works the only way it can work within US financial system. The lesson that was learned is that the government will just print more money to bail out the companies when a crash happens. Lots of basic items are now gone from circulation, and the problem continues to get worse. We haven’t seen the full impact of the economic war hit yet either, that will be seen in a few months.