[p2p-research] my baseline 2 cents on the meltdown (primarily focusing on US) and predictions

[Michel Bauwens]

This is a pretty good description of what I call the 'low road' to p2p,
which is indeed becoming more and more likely, and of course, it could also
be a low road to something even worse ... I could pick some points here and
there, but overall, this is a quite realistic scenario that could play out
in the coming  years

however, it does leave out any possible positive social mobilizations, I
realize this vision is quite normal from the US point of view but perhaps
less in other parts of the worlds where the social fabric is quite less
dislocated and the state apparatus less taken over by predatory private
interests ...

Miche;

On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 1:06 AM, Matt Boggs <matt at digiblade.com> wrote:

> 1) employment is not going to recover to pre-great recession levels for at
> least a generation, maybe more, in terms of % of people employed.  The late
> Clinton economy is the best you or I will see in our working lives.
> 2) Politics will continue to be dominated by monied interests and that
> dominance will increase, rather than decrease.  They will use their power
> to
> fight over the shrinking pie, rather than to increase it, and will make any
> real systemic restructuring of the economy essentially impossible.
> 3) a right wing "populist" will get in after Obama.  Since the only sort of
> stimulus they can do is war stimulus, they will pick a war with someone.
> Who, I'm not sure.   In economic terms they will have all the wrong
> solutions to various real problems.
> 4) Under both Democrats and Republicans the deterioration of civil
> liberties
> will continue.
> 5) Median standards of living will take at least a 20% drop within 10 years
> or so.  Maybe more.  Not sure exactly when, but if anything, the % may be
> an
> underestimate.
> 6) Resource nationalism will continue to rise as will 1/1 deals between
> countries.  China has already restricted rare earth sales, for example.
> Countries will start insisting on doing the value add in their own
> countries
> rather than shipping raw materials overseas, if they have the ability to do
> this.
> 7) As state and local governments loose their ability to govern (a process
> which will proceed in cycles), there will be cyclical of cuts in basic
> services, including police, road repair, schooling and so on.  Get thee to
> a
> very affluent neighbourhood, if you can.
>  Entitlements will be cut, perhaps openly, perhaps through statistical
> tricks, but it will be done.  There is a bipartisan consensus on this, and
> when Republicans get in charge they will be able to find enough Dems to
> sign
> off this time.  (If Obama can, he'll do it before then, but Republicans
> want
> to use this against him.)
> 9)  There will be another major economic crisis, probably within 8 years.
> In principle it could happen within a year, the timing depends on political
> actions I'm not sure how to predict.  I consider this nearly inevitable.
> 10) I expect an end to the war on some drugs, because States are going to
> want to tax the drug trade and need to.  Likewise the prison-industrial
> complex is likely to suffer.  Its constituency is not as powerful as some
> other important constituencies.
> 11) New Oh yes, I should mention that I expect an actual population
> decrease
> when things get really bad, a la Russia's collapse.
> In the longer term I expect severe water shortages, for both people and
> crops, in large areas of the world including big chunks of the US, China
> and
> India.  Climate instability will continue to increase, and in about 10
> years
> (according to a friend whose judgement has been good on this) various sinks
> will be overloaded and we'll start seeing some really serious global
> warming
> increases on top of the instability.  Expect food to be short and much more
> expensive, expect inland areas to devolve back towards local manufacturing
> and for megashops to start collapsing.  Expect coastal vs. inland to a big
> division, until global warming starts wiping out coast areas.
> Americans will put off cutting the military, I think, till they've gutted
> virtually everything else.  I expect the military will probably win the
> fight against financial interests when the moment comes, though we'll see.
> There will be various break-points along the way, where decisions can be
> made which will make a difference but I think it's close to impossible to
> avoid a failed Obama presidency and a right wing backlash against that
> Presidency.  Once the right wing fails, there will be another chance, a
> slight one, to turn things around.
>
>
>
>
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