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I've temporarily dialed back on my charitable contributions. I believe that the US is at the front end of an unprecedented economic and political disaster, so I
by JohnFen 2y ago
I've temporarily dialed back on my charitable contributions. I believe that the US is at the front end of an unprecedented economic and political disaster, so I need to use the resources available to me to protect myself and my loved ones as best as I can.
Once I have that arranged, I can think about giving again.
- hiAndrewQuinn 2y agoRelated, I was thinking earlier today about at what probabilities and timelines of regime collapse it makes sense to start seriously planning a move to another country under. A 10% chance over a 10-year timeline feels about accurate to me - low probability, but not so low it feels safe to gamble with.
- mrtesthah 2y agoWhat formula would you even use to quantify that?
- paulcole 2y agoThe entire world has too much riding on the US not collapsing. I think it’s a 5% chance over the next 100 years.
- hiAndrewQuinn 2y ago5 over 100 feels high to me but not order-of-magnitude off. I'm at maybe a 2 myself. I agree that's an entirely unreasonable amount of risk for everyone to just be waving off though.
- paulcole 2y agoI think 5 in 100 is totally reasonable to wave off. I’m not giving it a second thought personally. If it happens it will be so bad that I’ll almost certainly die as a result (due to chronic illness) so I should just keep on living as-is and not worry about it.
- hiAndrewQuinn 2y agoAn, to be precise I really meant everyone, like including national banks and giant corporations and stuff. Ordinary folk like you and me can almost certainly ignore it, it's just weird I rarely hear people talk about how to price this kind of thing in for very long term assets.
- fsckboy 2y agothe "very long term" property of assets has very little present value with any reasonable discount rate, and fewer experienced people to actually care about it.
- financypants 2y agoI think any government has q 2% chance of collapse at any moment
- zmgsabst 2y ago5% over 100 years is historically incredibly low. On average, governments last 250 years — which means we have a 0.4% chance per year. Using that figure, 100 years has a 33% chance of collapse — as our background. Or roughly 4% per decade. People wave off that risk because there’s not a lot that can be done: we don’t know how to make perfect governments and we’ve never discovered a good way to, eg, eliminate the ratcheting tax burdens that destabilize society.
- hiAndrewQuinn 2y agoYeah, part of my argument is that that 250 year number is heavily skewed by past civilizations where life was much worse and so people were much more apt to just tear everything apart. I don't think it holds for countries at current First World standards of living. As we improve living standards further the number of years regimes will last for will stretch out even more. I'm not too crazy about this as an anarchist, mind you, I think there are better stable equilibria we could get to. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, I guess.
- aaronblohowiak 2y agoI used to think this, but lately I'm not so sure. Beyond financial services, What does "the entire world" rely on US for anymore?
- csa 2y ago> Beyond financial services, What does "the entire world" rely on US for anymore? Our market.
- Loughla 2y agoThe fact that we buy so much of everything.
- jes5199 2y agopetroleum wealth
- nouripenny 2y agoThe US government has many military bases and troops stationed in other countries. It can project violence across the planet. Any entity with that power has strong ability to dictate what others do, and induce dependency. https://globalaffairs.org/bluemarble/us-sending-more-troops-middle-east-where-world-are-us-military-deployed https://globalaffairs.org/bluemarble/us-sending-more-troops-...
- ambicapter 2y agoThat isn't something that people "rely on" though. If that power is lost, some other power will come in to fill the vacuum.
- tonyhart7 2y agothey aren't, EU is keeping busy with Russia, while China is growing uncheck on Asia
- lazyasciiart 2y ago
- Jedd 2y agoCan you think of any long-lived ( > 100 years), empire-scale civilisations that have collapsed despite a firm belief they were non-collapsible and/or essential to all surrounding nation states? Without consulting wikipedia, I can only think of about 17 off the top of my head.
- paulcole 2y agoI am impressed that you are so well versed in history. What % chance do you think there is that the US collapses in over the next 10, 25, 50, and 100 years?
- LoganDark 2y ago> I am impressed that you are so well versed in history. You know, schools used to teach this type of stuff.
- jazzyjackson 2y agoThis is a salient point, I don't know how other countries handled it but American schools as an institution were absolutely wrecked by covid, a significant portion of the youths just straight up stopped attending school, and I'm in a bubble but most parents I know are homeschooling at least part time now, when they wouldn't think of doing so just 5 years ago Does not bode well for the future of informed populi
- tmpz22 2y agoFollow this chain of events: * The US economy nearly requires a degree for economic success * US demographics cliff results in a heavy short fall of student enrollments * US Federal government deeply cuts funding for universities * US higher education offers remote learning to attract students and reduce costs, much of which deeply lowers the standard of education * LLMs are deeply integrated into social products including snapchat and twitter * LLMs are capable of completing a significant amount of curriculum * The US Department of Education is removed, including teams responsible for tracking academic success on a national and state level Words like collapse are I think not the right word. But the long term institutional harm of this sequence of events may hit the country very hard. Bringing back factory jobs ain't gonna fix it, if tariffs are even capable of doing that.
- nebula8804 2y agoWhat do you think of a worldwide collapse? The lazy argument is that China will take over everything, that they think in 100 year increments. However they have terrible demographics, have serious risks like food security, and have mucked up their economy through their real estate collapse. We all know of the US's issues and there is no other country that is really challenging these two....so how about everyone fails and we are all poor and destitute together?
- amrocha 2y agoChina had no intention to take over anywhere. They’re happy where they are.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoNo intention to take over? So they’ll walk away from Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan? Also, leading countries in Asia and Africa into debt traps and dependence on them through the BRI is not very different from taking over.
- amrocha 2y agoHK and Xinjiang are already part of china. Tibet and Taiwan have historical ties. China has no expansionist ambitions, they just want what they perceive as theirs. And like, idk if you know this, but the world bank and the IMF are the ones offering the predatory loans. Countries choose to work with China instead exactly because the terms of their loans are better than the western alternatives.
- csomar 2y agoThat is true and a big part of the reason why the world let the US get away with lots of stuff. But I think if the nature of the economical relation changes too much (ie: the US demand more juice to flow back to it), I can see how these countries might seriously consider (and maybe go for it) to break from the system. Will be a very wild ride.
- mpreda 2y agoBut the US is efficiently disentangling itself from the entire rest of the world as we speak; so that argument may not hold anymore in the near future.
- rufus_foreman 2y agoYou should write down your predictions and take a look at them 5 years from now.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y agoI can’t speak for the original commenter, but I predicted 4 years ago that Trump was done in politics because the American people wouldn’t stand for a riot in the halls of Congress. Now that he’s back and the rioters are pardoned, I’m listening more closely to the people who predicted that would happen, and they uniformly say there’s a small but significant chance of a collapse.
- nebula8804 2y agoAny people in particular you listen to? There is so much noise and everyone has a 'prediction'. Post election both sides have gotten really good at using sophisticated talking to sound like they know what they are talking about(Especially the right). I go on Reddit(main subs) its one universe, go to small less known subs, its a second universe and then Twitter is a third universe, all three are different alternative realities.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y agoI guess I would point to prominent politicians as the best examples, although there's also smaller voices I see on Twitter and such. Schumer, Pelosi, Bernie, AOC, et cetera. I don't necessarily agree with all of their policy proposals but it seems like they understand Trump and what his goals are pretty well.
- nebula8804 2y agoIronically, I was actually a volunteer for Bernie, AOC back in 2018 when she was running her campaign and I went and continued this tradition trying to help AOC supported politicians like Tiffany Caban (post AOC, the party woke up and destroyed most progressive challengers) Looking back, it really felt like a waste of time. I should have taken a hint when I saw mostly old people there, and early 20 something political science majors. Two groups that have a lot of free time on their hands or have a personal reason to be there. I have lost a lot of faith in these people over the last few years. It was hard work to get AOC into office and a lot of her original hard fighting crew have been pushed out post election. While AOC is making waves on Twitter, I haven't seen any tangible positive changes that have been a result of her being there. We could talk about pieces of the GND being in the IRA but still thats a stretch. What I dont understand is why you believe these people are talking about a 'collapse'? I haven't heard this too much from the progressive left. Thats more the right wing e/acc folks that want to push the country to collapse faster because then they can rebuild faster or something like that.
- zol 2y agoWhat do you think constitutes a collapse? Can you give a modern times example of a country collapsing in a way you’re imagining the US might?
- BrenBarn 2y agoNot exactly a country, but Hong Kong comes to mind. . .
- csomar 2y agoHong Kong did not collapse. eh, it is doing okay. Sure you have a reduction in liberties but that's not what collapse means.
- Retric 2y agoThe people who lived in Hong Kong are worse off today even outside of political freedoms.
- HPsquared 2y agoIt's more "regression" or something. "Collapse" implies a dramatic event and something completely broken.
- Retric 2y agoThe collapse of the Roman Empire took decades and British Empire had a similarly long decline, but I understand your sentiment.
- HPsquared 2y agoYes, Gibbon makes for interesting reading. Decline can indeed be prolonged. I suppose it's like how some things get very slowly better over the decades, other things get very slowly worse over the decades.
- breppp 2y agoWhere would you move that won't be affected by a United States collapse, or alternatively you can't predict a bleak scenario over a 10-year timeline?
- hiAndrewQuinn 2y agoWell, presumably you'll have a much easier time living through the fall of a country in another country. As to "which countries don't seem like they'll collapse with over 1 in 10 odds within 10 years"... Most of them? I guess if you thought this risk was exceptionally high the EU's visa free travel would be the best hedge you could get right now.
- almostnormal 2y agoEven if the EU doesn't collapse there's a non-zero risk of war though, after Russia is done with Ukraine.
- timeattack 2y agoI highly doubt that Russia is capable or willing to get into a fullscale war with EU. It's more than 3 years into war with Ukraine without any meaningful result, but repercussions for Russia, while not fatal, still significant. There was very limited military aid for Ukraine, yet Ukranian UAVs explode in Moscow and regions almost every day. Also there's a gas pipe from Russia to EU amidst the conflict which both sides afraid to even touch. Also EU has nuclear.
- almostnormal 2y agoFull scale is unlikely. Russia could not, but they might send 250k/year to die in Estonia. EU and Nato (with or without US) would defend. But I doubt they would go all the way through Russia to force them to stop. Nuclear option is not likely to be used for some "minor" conflict like that, because it would go both ways quickly.
- 2y ago
- devilbunny 2y agoPlan how to become the new regime, if you think it's likely. This period looks wild, in no small part because 90% of even the fringe-y media don't like Trump, but I doubt much of his shenanigans will hold up once court cases happen. People will get bench-slapped (the only lawyering pun I know, but it's a good one).
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoThe risk that at least some people are worried about is that they will just start ignoring court cases. I don't have any idea how likely that is.
- devilbunny 2y agoPossible but... very unlikely.
- sumeno 2y agoThey've already been ignoring court orders
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoJust did it, unfortunately.
- Atiscant 2y agoA dissenting voice that might of interest here is Peter Zeihan. He claims that the US is one of the few places that won’t collapse in the coming decade. I do claim here is right, but his analysis is, if nothing else, interesting. His book, The End of the World Is Just the Beginning, is an easy enough read.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y agoThis depends greatly on the working definition of collapse. If your mere existence becomes illegal it doesn't really matter if the economy is technically still functioning.
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoI guess if you are are straight white make you will probably be ok. Most of my friends are women and/or LGBTQ, and almost all of them would be considered enemies by the current administration.
- mercutio2 2y agoGeez. I loathe the administration, but I would really prefer it if people on my side quit it on the hyperbole. In no sense has the current administration expressed that “women” are enemies. Feminists, like myself, need to quit it on the arguing “anyone who is anti-feminism is anti woman”. It’s the exact same rhetorical flourish as “anyone who is anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic”. In this era of Trump’s statements bearing no relationship to truth, we can’t sink to the same lows. Or the bullshitters have already won.
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoI wasn't clear. My friends are all vehemently anti trump. That's why he would consider them enemies. Not because they are women.
- holyra 2y agoI am an EU citizen and I am concerned about the collapse of the US and more shortly about its expansionism claims. US has such a military dominance and violent culture that I am afraid it will produce a global war. I now think that the EU needs to rearm, not to defend against Russia, but to protect us against US collapse and expansionism. China is our better bet in this coming disaster.
- skrebbel 2y agoI upvoted you before I read the last sentence, and then removed my upvote again. The US is a terrible ally, for all the reasons you cite, but unless they somehow become a democracy, China would be worse in every way.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- geraldhh 2y agonot to dispute, but the fact that most of our stuff is 'made in china' might play into the public perception of this dynamic more than the political labels attached.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoThe parliamentary structure of the invader doesn't matter very much to the invaded. The assessment that the US is more likely to invade another country than china is not ridiculous anymore.
- ethbr1 2y agoIt very much matters, because it's a reason an invasion happens at all, especially between peer states. https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-3134,00.html https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-3134,0...
- derektank 2y agoThe parliamentary structure does matter actually. There is no way for the president of the US to launch a war of conquest without approval of the US Congress (there are a limited set of military actions the president could authorize under the war powers act or an existing AUMF but they would not merit being described as an invasion). That would require majority support in both houses of Congress, which can barely hold together long enough to pass a spending a bill.
- gcanyon 2y agoMy wife and I are not-so-many years from retirement. Ten years ago, we were already planning to retire someplace with more reasonable healthcare. We were already confident in that decision, but the current situation has made it absolute, and possibly pushed the timeline forward.
- nradov 2y agoWhich specific countries have more reasonable healthcare, and also allow retirees to immigrate? Most countries are reluctant to take in people who seem like non-productive burdens. If you're wealthy you can sometimes buy your way in, but wealthy people in the US already have access to excellent healthcare.
- gcanyon 2y agoGenerally you get insurance but it's way less than in the U.S. As an example, when we were in Portugal 8 years ago we needed to get my wife's prescriptions refilled and the person we were staying with said to go to the ER. We confirmed repeatedly and then did as they suggested. The doctor at the ER questioned us and said "we could have been busy and you would have had to wait." But long story short, we spent about half an hour all up to get the prescriptions, and it cost us $27. That was with zero insurance, paying full freight. Filling the prescriptions with no insurance cost less than the co-pay in the U.S. As far as I've researched: Portugal will let retirees in and after five years you can get citizenship -- you might still want insurance, but it's affordable. Spain is similar I think, and we're also looking at Italy, Greece, and Croatia. In Uruguay you need insurance, but if you start a business it's straightforward. In Thailand healthcare in general is excellent and mostly affordable. We're looking at 30-40 countries all up, but those are the main ones we're looking at. "Wealthy" is relative -- for example the minimum monthly income to get a visa for Portugal is something like $1,000 for one person, $1,700 for two. And we don't plan to live the high life, we just want someplace with nice weather, nice history/scenery, and that won't require us to do GoFundMe's to fund our future.
- jltsiren 2y agoA 10% chance of collapse every decade is a reasonable baseline for a stable country. At least if a civil war or a major invasion counts as a collapse. That gives you a century of stability in the expected case, which is quite exceptional.
- catlover76 2y ago[dead]
- keming 2y ago> Once I have that arranged, I can think about giving again. The cost of gutting healthcare is going to go way up. It’s much more costly to fight 10 pandemics that are affecting 90% than it is to maintain vaccinations and control of 10%. That 10% affected becomes 90% affected quickly without assistance.
- analog31 2y agoI wonder how important private charity is anyway. The US leads the world in private charity, yet we're worse off than countries with less charity and more robust public institutions, such as the safety net, health care, and so forth.
- etrautmann 2y agoThere’s not a direct causal link between the metrics you’re describing. The economy is too large for private philanthropy to meaningfully impact things like health care delivery costs but it can still be crucial for the arts, community programs, and science funding and all sorts of other unconnected things.
- lazyasciiart 2y agoThat doesn’t tell you how important it is, because certainly nobody is currently planning to replace private charity spending with public institutions.
- etrautmann 2y agoInteresting - I’m planning to dial up contributions since they’re so much more needed and impactful now.
- etrautmann 2y agoAt a broader level, parochial thinking and circling the wagons plays into the catastrophe song political narrative that is a strategy of the Steve Bannons of the world. Id encourage generosity for those who have the means. It’ll at least make you happier.
- csomar 2y agoThat is fair. This about governments, though. As an individual, you can be quite vulnerable; and you should always prioritize yourself first (if you are struggling, how are you going to help anybody else). Also remember that you can significantly contribute in non-financial way (ie: teaching, connecting people to jobs, etc..)
- almostgotcaught 2y agothere are two kinds of people, as defined by how they react to things becoming scary: those that withdraw to protect themselves and those that remain and risk themselves to protect others. i personally believe communities composed of the former cannot survive. coincidentally enough, american people are overwhelmingly of the former type.
- keming 2y ago> american people are overwhelmingly of the former type HMOs, later PPOs, etc. in the U.S. seemed like a good idea, but health insurance wasn’t available or affordable for the minority. But there’s Medicaid, Medicare, the ACA, and much more, so the U.S. government has subsidized care and assistance. Another “workaround” for unaffordable health insurance is going to an emergency room at a hospital, assuming you can get there, but many can. It’s slow as hell, but being seen in hours can be better than being seen in months. The downside is that this results in crippling debt for some. Bankruptcy can be declared, but then your credit is shot, and if you’re poor you may need credit. Healthcare quality overall is quite good, though, even for the minority. It’s far from perfect, but compared to rest of the world, it’s not the worst place to get sick. Now- why did an activist president, house representatives, and senators get elected that are cutting funding for global and U.S. healthcare? I can’t imagine it’s not the fault of foreign actors and the ease of manipulating 50% of the country through Fox News and social media. You wouldn’t believe how different the belief sets are here between that group and the rest. It changed radically in the last ten years. The rest of us are far from indifferent to what’s happening. We just don’t know how to fix it. Protesting probably won’t change it, though we protest. Boycotts probably won’t change it, though we boycott. We don’t have enough in the government to even impeach, and what good would that do? They own all three branches of government. They used Gerrymandering and fired election officials, replaced leaders, subordinates, and did mass layoffs to ensure all future victories. They kicked certain news media out of the W.H. and are considering shutting other media companies down. It all happened so quickly. Much more quickly than in the past in Germany or Russia.
- Delomomonl 2y ago[flagged]
- andelink 2y agoWhat sort of comment is this? What purpose does it have? I also don’t see how you make the conclusions you do from the parent comment alone
- throwaway69123 2y agoas a foreigner to the us i am investing heavily in the us, there is a pathway where the legal and social changes could result in considerable economic benefit over the next two years. you should consider how that could occur before waving it off ideologically. i am coming from an investment point of view and am largely agnostic of the politics.
- cowhow 2y agoI'd unironically be interested in hearing what economic benefit you think is coming in the next two years? The nonsense tariffs being thrown at allies and uncoordinated destruction of government foreign aid/social services seem like net negatives to me. I could see the United States Bitcoin reserve thing bumping up the value of crypto, but that whole space is so volatile I would only put in money I'm willing to lose.
- aprilthird2021 2y agoPlease share your investment prospectus with us. What is the pathway and what economic benefit do you see down the line? I would love to reallocate my investments in my country, but the road we're on right now, I see it only ending worse off
- Viliam1234 2y agoThere is always something. Previously it was covid, etc.
- llamaimperative 2y agoCOVID and our current political predicament are basically the same event, and COVID was a once in a lifetime pandemic. Sure something is always the most pressing threat to stability, but that does not imply all eras are similarly unstable.
- faceloss 2y ago[dead]
- m3kw9 2y agoIt is only the 3rd month of a 4 year term. Couple that with Elons move fast and break sht, you got some really risky stuff happening.
- kennyloginz 2y agoFear is the enemy.