What the next ten years looks like from here

[Taverner]

Over the summer, expect the price of everything to go up by at least half. They will blame this on "instability in the mideast." The price of oil will go up, thus causing everything else to go up. This will be common for the next ten years. Of course, your pay won't go up. http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/25/unpaid-jobs-the-new-normal/">In fact, expect the "new jobs" to be unpaid ones, as this is the new trend. Your last task at your employer may be training your new replacements, a bunch of "interns" who are your age and have your skill level, but just happen to work for free.

As this happens, demand will go down since nobody will be able to afford rent, mortgages, food, etc. With demand going down, companies will start laying off more and more paid workers, and hiring folks to work for free. Prices will not go down, however, and many of these companies will falter, and get bought out by those with large cash reserves. Within the next ten years, expect there to be maybe five or six major corporations that control everything. This is the consolidation phase.

The US Dollar will lose value on the international market. Gold may seem like a wise investment, but if no one has any money, how could they buy gold? I've never understood the logic of the gold bugs. A more realistic replacement for cash would be storable food. Rice, flour, sugar, dried meat will have a street value in trade. All of the imports coming into the US will start to evaporate, and American consumers will be forced into buying local, partly because gas is so expensive, and partly because it will become a bartering item.

With the loss of tax revenue (no one will be taxing bartered items, and nobody will be making money) the US Government will start to turn insolvent. They might start the printing presses, but this will just start hyperinflation and make the US Dollar completely worthless. They might start counterfeiting Euros or some other currency, but that won't last and will likely be the final nail in the US Government coffin.

Of course this was the plan all along. The Rich and the Corporations have always wanted slave labor, a desperate workforce afraid to strike back, and for them to be a 'superclass' not unlike royalty. They will have the walls, the guns and the security guards willing to kill and dispose of anyone who might want to make things a little fairer.

[villager]

1. so what you're saying is the window for "striking back" is narrow and limited

...before the Overclass imposes its "Soylent Green"-like arrangement on the rest of us...?

[Taverner]

4. It is and I don't know if its too late or not

I didn't even factor in the environmental factors that will help this plan along. An ocean without life, most wild animals extinct...these will drive up inflation as well.

[dionysus]

2. .

:tinfoil:

[Avant Guardian]

3. Once the GOP gets back in total control

And it is inevitable in a two party system, they will implement their agenda on steroids and everything will collapse.

Get your house paid off ASAP.

[RT Atlanta]

5. Dont give up!

"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice..." -MLK Jr.

[lutefisk]

6. Isn't that pretty much what's happened over the last ten years?

Prices have gone up dramatically on most necessities, such as food, mass layoffs, corporate consolidation, the U.S. dollar has tanked (look at the Euro and the Loonie over the past 10 years), and the government was close to insolvency in the past two+ years.

When the Teapublicans regain total control of the Federal government, they might actually finish us off as a nation. Look what they've done in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin in just a few months.

:hi:

[Taverner]

7. Well yeah - my predictions (if you even want to call them that) are based on previous events

I find patterns for a living. I see a pattern and this is where we're headed. Quite honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if employees start paying their employers for hiring them. It's going to get that bad.