Commercial collapse, when it arrives, will again cause much more of a psychological crack-up than you'd expect from a purely organizational problem. The quantities of immediately available goods and services right before and right after the collapse would remain about the same, but because market psychology is so ingrained in the population, no other ways of coping would be considered. Hoarding would become widespread, with looting as the obvious antidote. There would be an instant, huge black market for all sorts of necessities, from shampoo to vials of insulin.
Another telltale sign of political collapse is actual disintegration, where regions declare independence. In Russia, that was the case with Chechnya, and it led to a prolonged bloody conflict. Here, we might have a "Reconquista" where former Mexican territories become ever more Mexican, the South might rise again. New England, California, and the Pacific Northwest might decide to go their separate ways. Once the interstate highway system is no longer viable and the remaining domestic airlines are extinct, there is not much to keep the two coasts together. What once united the country was the construction of the continental railroad, but railroads have been too neglected to hold it together now. A country consisting of two halves tied together via Panama Canal is de facto at least two countries.
Financial collapse is already quite far along, and is guaranteed to run its course. Bailouts can make insolvent institutions look solvent for a time by providing liquidity, but one thing they cannot provide is solvency. For instance, no matter how much we bail out the auto companies, making any more cars will still be a bad idea. Similarly, no matter how much money we give to banks, their loan portfolios, loaded down with houses built in places that are inaccessible except by car, will still end up being worthless. By continuously nationalizing bad debt, the country will make itself into a bad credit risk, and foreign lenders will walk away. Hyperinflation and loss of imports will follow.
Political collapse is guaranteed as well. As tax receipts dwindle, municipalities and states will no longer be able to meet the minimal maintenance requirements for existing infrastructure: roads, bridges, water and sewer mains, and so forth. Municipal services, including police, fire departments, snow removal and garbage collection, will also be curtailed or eliminated. The better-organized communities may be able to find ways to compensate, but many communities will become impassable and uninhabitable, generating a flood of internal refugees.
Typical Marxist-inspired claptrap - down to the 'five stages' of social evolution.
Merry Christmas BTW.
Leviathan,
It's the five stages of GRIEVING - getting over the claptrap that is in your own mind.
-Marx
This is an amazing article - worth reading right through. I recently lived for four months in 'silicon valley' and saw pretty much no sign of change, which suggests either that the doom-sayers are wrong, or that most change is yet to happen, or that Americans are in denial. Although the financial crisis was big news, there was no analysis of the type found in this article, just that awful CNN repetion of the sound-bite of the day. The author mentions a few things that are obvious to any visitor but 'not talked about' in the US, such as the apparent state of near-civil-war the place seems to exist in. The tension between classes and ethnicities is palpable, much greater than I have experienced anywhere else, suggesting that the authoer is correct in asserting that if government was unable to provide policing, life might quickly be very different. I haevn't seen much analysis of what the consequences of a collapsed US are for the rest of the world.