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it seems like the entire globe is looking at some extremely dark times coming down the pike. kind of makes you wonder about all the 2012 prophecies. there's unrest, anxiety, and frustration all over the place. so what's the big picture? are we looking at truly global implications? are we headed to some new kind of alignment? a "new world order" for lack of a better term?  i mean even in "the west" people are starting to get angry because all the promises made by big government are proving false. we're all at a point of having to restore fiscal sanity, and this is creating a great backlash from certain sectors who stand to lose the most.  the "world economy" created by globalization is in shambles, oil is expected to shoot through the roof due to the libyan turmoil, the entire middle east is in chaos, and in many ways, we seem to lack clear leadership. where's the good news? there hasn't really been any for several years now. it seems like we're reliving the late 70s all over again. that passed, will this too? or is this bigger?

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Heh.  Well, I wont say I havent thought about the 2012 prophesy.  But I still find it hard to believe that stone age people that didnt even have toilet paper could predict the end of the world without divine guidance.  

I do think, however, that the events taking place in the Middle East and N. Africa will cause us to take another look at becoming throwing off the addiction we have to their oil.  It is insane for us to continue to pay oil prices that can so easily be manipulated by people that hate us.

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i think this is bigger than just oil. the world seems unstable. food prices are going up, and people are getting restless. some are fighting for survival, while others are fighting to keep their piece of the pie. right now, the major chaos has been confined to less developed countries, but that's only because they don't have the same cushion of wealth that we do. they are the first affected. i think we're nearing the limit of just how many people can inhabit this world.

to me, the the driving factor behind all this instability is globalization. we're now so interdependent that trouble in one region effects the "world economy" and there are so many countries and regions in the world, that there's always trouble of some kind. it used to be that nations depended on their own resources, but globalization has changed that. now, we import and export everything all around the world, to the point that many countries can't operate without it. this means national economies have become specialized in a few areas, rather than being diversified, because they can just import what they don't have by selling what they do. this has allowed many populations to expand beyond what they would have otherwise, and now we're seeing the impact.

i cruised through 4-5 pages of google results on the dangers posed by globalization, and the lion's share of them conclude that the answer is more "coordination" and "cooperation. to me, this is code speak for a one-world government. IMO that would be like driving us further off the cliff.

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I kinda agree that globalization presents some problems.  But is the answer isolationism?  I dunno.  I wonder what would happen if the USA shut itself off from the rest of the world?

As for food prices rising...I do think much of it has to do with oil prices.  Shipping costs rise.  Manufacturing costs go up.  And who pays?  We do.  And people who dont have jobs.  So is it any wonder that people are worried, anxious, scared?  We dont know what the future will hold?  We dont have confidence in the economy to invest.  We cant plan for the future, build a nest egg, save for a rainy day.

And its not just the USA.  Europe has problems with the economy too.  Plus they have draconian taxes in many places.  And I hear Gas is around $8-9 per gallon in England.  (Quite frankly I cant believe they havent burned the city of London yet).  But if their gas prices are that high, can you imagine the cost of other goods?

There are probably other causes for uncertainty and restlessness.  But what I don't believe is that the planets are lining up in such a manner that the world is gonna blow up.  Or that the world is so overpopulated that we cant survive.  There are plenty of regions in the world where there just arent many folks around.  Some places in the USA too.

One thing I think is that some people believe in having a theocracy.  And they demand the rest of us have one too.  And they are willing to kill us to get us to worship their god.

Other people are greedy and will use economics to dominate the rest of us.

But hasnt this always been so?

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Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:
i think this is bigger than just oil. the world seems unstable. food prices are going up, and people are getting restless. some are fighting for survival, while others are fighting to keep their piece of the pie. right now, the major chaos has been confined to less developed countries, but that's only because they don't have the same cushion of wealth that we do. they are the first affected. i think we're nearing the limit of just how many people can inhabit this world.

to me, the the driving factor behind all this instability is globalization. we're now so interdependent that trouble in one region effects the "world economy" and there are so many countries and regions in the world, that there's always trouble of some kind. it used to be that nations depended on their own resources, but globalization has changed that. now, we import and export everything all around the world, to the point that many countries can't operate without it. this means national economies have become specialized in a few areas, rather than being diversified, because they can just import what they don't have by selling what they do. this has allowed many populations to expand beyond what they would have otherwise, and now we're seeing the impact.

i cruised through 4-5 pages of google results on the dangers posed by globalization, and the lion's share of them conclude that the answer is more "coordination" and "cooperation. to me, this is code speak for a one-world government. IMO that would be like driving us further off the cliff.

It is blowback from things like the huge stimulus bill we passed. The US dollar is the global standard and its devaluing is what is causing this unrest.

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it's not the stimulus so much as it is the fed's fiscal policy of quantitative easing, aka the monetizing of our debt.

and dennis, i wouldn't say isolationism is the answer, it's just that we've stopped pursuing our own best interests. every other country does this except us. it's almost as if we've resigned ourselves to taking a back seat in the future. what made america great was that we pursued our own best interest, but now we outsource everything, and have become the world's consumers.

personally, i don't think globalization is something we have a choice in, but we have to start competing again, or we're doomed to follow europe's lead. and interestingly, europe is finally starting to come out of their crazy socialist era, just as communist china is also turning more toward the markets.

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Call me crazy, but I have been preparing for economic meltdown/social disorder for a long time.

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Yup.  I wrote in another thread that I'd like to begin to trade and deal more exclusively with people in the Americas...folks in W. Europe instead of the Middle East and China.  We shouldn't isolate ourselves completely.  Just deal with more friendly folks.  And stop seniding billions to people who stab us in the back.  

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Originally Posted by Mark Simmons:
Call me crazy, but I have been preparing for economic meltdown/social disorder for a long time.

i've kind of been trying to, but that's hard when you're barely scraping by to make ends meet currently.