Closing the 'Collapse Gap': the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US

[Fumesucker]

by Dmitry Orlov

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/23259

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am not an expert or a scholar or an activist. I am more of an eye-witness. I watched the Soviet Union collapse, and I have tried to put my observations into a concise message. I will leave it up to you to decide just how urgent a message it is.

My talk tonight is about the lack of collapse-preparedness here in the United States. I will compare it with the situation in the Soviet Union, prior to its collapse. The rhetorical device I am going to use is the "Collapse Gap" – to go along with the Nuclear Gap, and the Space Gap, and various other superpower gaps that were fashionable during the Cold War.

The subject of economic collapse is generally a sad one. But I am an optimistic, cheerful sort of person, and I believe that, with a bit of preparation, such events can be taken in stride. As you can probably surmise, I am actually rather keen on observing economic collapses. Perhaps when I am really old, all collapses will start looking the same to me, but I am not at that point yet.

And this next one certainly has me intrigued. From what I've seen and read, it seems that there is a fair chance that the U.S. economy will collapse sometime within the foreseeable future. It also would seem that we won't be particularly well-prepared for it. As things stand, the U.S. economy is poised to perform something like a disappearing act. And so I am eager to put my observations of the Soviet collapse to good use.

Much more at the link:

[fed_up_mother]

1. Well, this is true. When you own nothing, you have nothing to lose.

:)

[galileoreloaded]

2. and this is why the rational for "if we go, China goes, so they will support us" is flawed...

3/5 of the Chinese and Indian people live in abject poverty. they won't really notice. We will squeal like stuck pigs. good way to win an economic war huh.

[Fumesucker]

3. Soviet citizens were inured to hardship..

And used to doing whatever it took to get by.

Americans act like two days without cable is going to kill them, there was a thread about hurricane Ike yesterday or early today which made that point very strongly.

The real difference between the average Soviet citizen and the average American though is that the Soviet knew he was being lied to by his government and media on a consistent basis.