"Robert Sturgeon" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 6 Aug 2006 20:13:55 -0500, "Jeff McCann"
wrote:

(snips)

I'm not talking about going through an economic shift, but
an economic/societal collapse. Different story...

Time to define our terms, I think. So, what does an economic/societal
collapse mean to you?

Personally, I expect American society to die with a whimper, not a bang,
over a span of many generations, in a way that is not readily apparent to
many who are living through it.

That's possible, and most likely. But...

I can give you another scenario: 5 or 6 120 kt nukes go off
in NYC, LA, DC, Chicago, Seattle, etc. (Hezbollah, Al Qaida,
etc. have "won".) The investment, banking, and fed gov
systems go into paralysis.

All of which is backed up, off site, routinely, at least as to the more
important stuff, and all of which tends to have a rather extensive paper
trail (an auditing requirement), allowing fairly easy restoration in many
cases.

No banks open,

The banks outside the affected zones, and even in them, may well be open
much sooner than you think. One neat innovation is portable banking centers
built on mobile trucks or vans, specifically for use in disasters. Have you
seen them? Most major banks seem to have them lately.

no stock markets,
no commodity markets.

Most of which have either backup arrangments or ownership interest in
various other exchanges, so that they are capable of continuing their
essential activities.

See, e.g., Disaster planning saves Wall Street, and Corporate Governance,
Business Continuity Planning, and Disaster Recovery, below, and especially:
Policy Statement:
Business Continuity Planning for Trading Markets
Securities and Exchange Commission
[Release No. 34-48545; File No. S7-17-03]
http://www.sec.gov/rules/policy/34-48545.htm

No way to maintain the electrical
grids, because of no way to pay the workers and suppliers.

Don't underestimate the willingness of these people to work for deferred pay
in an emergency. Also, there are interagency agreements for utility
companies to provide essential labor and expertise to each other in
emergencies.

No way to restart the financial markets, because most of the
leadership and workers in NYC are dead, and the buildings
are in ruins, and the financial infrastructure won't be
rebuilt for years, if ever.

Then what's left of the fed gov
(most of the leadership already being dead) starts
distributing the billions (or is it trillions?) of dollars
in paper money they have stored up for just such an
emergency.

There is no reason that they need to give the money out in an inflationary
manner. They will simply exchange other obligations for cash, as necessary,
though.

Then the worker bees in places like Denver and
San Jose figure out that they aren't going to get paid, and
if they do get paid, it will be in money that is losing its
value faster than a 1923 German Mark.

Extremely unlikely that there will be that sort of currency devaluation.

Then you go to your
standard rioting, looting, killing, and general collapse of
society. Millions of dead bodies start piling up, and the
population of the U.S. is rapidly heading towards half or
less of what it was a couple of months before. State and
local governments start devolving from fed gov control and
issue their own currencies, which don't hold their value
either. Local warlords start... well, you get the idea.

There may be a series of civil disturbances, but nothing that can't be
handled. We've had that before.

I'm not suggesting that is likely, or even the most likely
result of that nuclear attack scenario. What I am saying is
-- assuming that it can't possibly happen is a mistake.

True.

It
has recently happened, to lesser extents, in societies which
have suffered lesser shocks. A good example is the former
USSR, which has gone through a monetary collapse, a severe
population decline (the life expectancy is now only about
60), a social collapse, with alcoholism becoming even a
bigger problem (contributing to that life expectancy
decrease) and with millions of pensioners becoming
impoverished as their state pensions' values evaporated
along with the value of the ruble.

Has the Russian society and economy actually collapsed, even with a
revolutionary change in government as well as all the other problems you
mentioned? In other words, in most places for most people, does the mail
get delivered? Do most people go to work each day and buy shelter, food and
other necessities with their earnings? Do their kids get go to school?
Does the electricity still come on when you flip a light switch? Does water
flow from the tap when you open the valve? Can decent people walk the
streets of their neighborhood without being killed and eaten by spiky haired
mutants?

And all they had to
shock them was an inefficient social/economic system, a
failed war in Afghanistan, and a nuclear power plant
disaster. Extrapolate the results from my 5 or 6 nukes
scenario, and you easily get to a near-total societal
collapse. For fictional depictions, see: The Postman, Road
Warrior, etc.

It wouldn't be like the transition from buggy whips to Model
Ts. It would be a transition from the complex, highly
ordered Information Society to a chaotic world of scarcity,
destruction, and death. Another poster summed it up
succinctly in another thread -- no cops.

To a greater or lesser degree in most places for most people. But will that
be a permanent condition, or deteriorate even further? Or will things soon
begin to get better and problems get sorted out as a recovery begins within,
say, months?

Jeff