Michael Snyder
Economic Collapse
Nov 24, 2012
If Americans will trample one another just to save a few dollars on a
television, what will they do when society breaks down and the survival
of their families is at stake? Once in a while an event comes along
that gives us a peek into what life could be like when the thin veneer
of civilization that we all take for granted is stripped away. For
example, when Hurricane Sandy hit New York and New Jersey there was
rampant looting and within days people were digging around in
supermarket dumpsters looking for food. Sadly, “Black Friday” also
gives us a look at how crazed the American people can be when given the
opportunity. This year was no exception. Once again we saw large
crowds of frenzied shoppers push, shove, scratch, claw, bite and trample
one another just to save a few bucks on cheap foreign-made goods. And
of course most retailers seem to be encouraging this type of behavior.
Most of them actually want people frothing at the mouth and willing to
fight one another to buy their goods. But is this kind of “me first”
mentality really something that we want to foster as a society? If
people are willing to riot to save money on a cell phone, what would
they be willing to do to feed their families? Are the Black Friday
riots a very small preview of the civil unrest that is coming when
society eventually breaks down?
Once upon a time, Thanksgiving was not really a commercial holiday. It
was a time to get together with family and friends, eat turkey and
express thanks for the blessings that we have been given.
But in recent years Black Friday has started to become even a bigger event than Thanksgiving itself.
Millions of Americans have become convinced that it is fun to wait in
long lines outside retail stores in freezing cold weather in the middle
of the night to spend money that they do not have on things that they do
not need.
And of course very, very few “Black Friday deals” are actually made in
America. So these frenzied shoppers are actually killing American jobs
and destroying the U.S. economy as well.
The absurdity of Black Friday was summed up very well recently in a
statement that has already been retweeted on Twitter more than 1,000
times…
“Black Friday: because only in America people trample each other for
sales exactly one day after being thankful for what they already have.”
It has gotten to the point where it is now expected that there will be
mini-riots all over the country early on Black Friday morning each year.
The following are a few examples of the craziness that we saw this
year…
-”Fights break out when stores open on Black Friday”
-”Black Friday madness at Georgia Wal-Mart”
-”Black Friday Frenzy: 2 Run Down in Washington, Man Pulls Gun in Texas”
-”Black Friday 2012: Rush at Victoria’s Secret Pink at Oak Park Mall in Overland Park, Kan.”
-”Black Friday shoppers smash door at Urban Outfitters”
-”Black Friday Shopping Hysteria From Around The Country [PHOTOS]”
-”Disturbance leads to scare at Westroads Mall”
-”Teens In Custody After Woodland Mall Fight”
-”Boy Robbed During Black Friday Shopping At Arundel Mills”
-”Shoppers Were So Obsessed With Black Friday Deals They Left Their Infants Unattended”
Fortunately, many Americans are starting to get fed up with Black
Friday. In fact, one activist named Mark Dice actually went out and
heckled Black Friday shoppers this year. I found the following You Tube
video to be very funny, and I think most of you will too…
In the end, it is not that big of a deal that people want to fight with one another to save 50 dollars on a cell phone.
But this kind of extreme selfishness and desperation could become a
massive problem someday if society breaks down and suddenly millions of
extremely selfish and desperate people are scrambling for survival.
With each passing day our economy is getting even weaker, and the next
wave of the economic collapse is rapidly approaching. What are people
going to do when the next spike in unemployment hits us and nobody can
find work?
To get an idea of where things are headed, just look at Europe. In both
Greece and Spain the unemployment rate is over 25 percent and civil
unrest has become almost a constant problem in both of those countries.
So what kind of riots will we see in the United States when the economy gets much worse than it is now?
Already there are signs of social decay all around us, and most
Americans are completely unprepared for what will happen if a major
disaster or emergency does strike.
Sadly, the reality is that most Americans live on a month to month
basis. Most families do not have any emergency savings to speak of, and
one recent poll found that 55 percent of all Americans only have enough
food in their homes to survive for three days or less.
To me, that is an absolutely insane number.
We just came through a summer of extreme drought and global food
supplies have dropped to a 40 year low. Our world is becoming
increasingly unstable, and the global financial system could fall apart
at any time. Most of us just assume that there will always be huge
amounts of very cheap food available to us, but unfortunately that
simply is not a safe assumption. The following is from a recent article
in the Guardian…
Evan Fraser, author of Empires of Food and a geography lecturer at
Guelph University in Ontario, Canada, says: “For six of the last 11
years the world has consumed more food than it has grown. We do not have
any buffer and are running down reserves. Our stocks are very low and
if we have a dry winter and a poor rice harvest we could see a major
food crisis across the board.”
“Even if things do not boil over this year, by next summer we’ll have
used up this buffer and consumers in the poorer parts of the world will
once again be exposed to the effects of anything that hurts production.”
When I watch my fellow Americans trample one another to get a deal on a
television or a video game, it makes me wonder what they would be
willing to do if they went to the store someday and all the food was
gone.
Desperate people do desperate things, and someday if there was a major
economic breakdown in the United States I think the level of desperation
in this country would be extremely frightening.
