*I always enjoy Stowe Boyd's willingness to talk about rope in the house of the hanged man. I mean, maybe he "hates to say it," but he does.
http://www.underpaidgenius.com/post/8296511985
(...)
"Today’s Way - The Bottom Drops Out - The economy continues to sputter, and because of political ideology, we fall into a true global depression. The combination of mismanaged global finance, inept political leadership, and mounting climatic disasters lead to unprecedented levels of war, famine, and drought.
"The Water Wars begin in earnest, with hundreds of millions of people displaced from drought-plagued areas, and border wars begin fought over 1/3 of the rapidly drying globe: east and north Africa, middle east, and south Asia. Indian and Pakistan exchange nuclear weapons in the most recent of their wars. Trade populism sweeps the world, arising like the Arab Spring, but in industrialized countries of the West, including most Western nations.
"Political systems are usurped by ‘emergency councils’ and hastily scheduled calls for new governments. The working and middle class find common cause, along with the unions, military, and intelligentsia. Trade barriers are erected to end global ‘free’ trade, and nationalistic and protectionist political parties take control, who immediately raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations, and step down all investments in the military. The European Union is dissolved.
"The China Model — a top-down, closed, and controlled state economy, tied to major businesses, and using the the monetary system as a weapon — becomes the de facto mode of government, worldwide. This is the end of the Western convenant, the end of free trade and laissez-faire markets: the Fall of the West.
"I hate to say it, but I am afraid I put the greatest stake in the last scenario, the Fall Of The West. The greed and stupidity of our ruling class — theoretically run by elected officials with our consent, but in fact run by powerful interest blocs with little or no regard for our needs — is the abiding fact of the current economic crisis, which has been going on for decades. We cannot expect them to take actions that are harmful to their own interests, even if it means running the whole world off the cliff...."
(((Maybe I'm an old-fashioned futurist, but when I see three scenarios I have to think we're missing a quadrant.)))
