Are the American people obsolete? Salon argues that because of globalisation and technology there is now a increased separation between capital and labour. The activities that generate wealth have both been outsourced to cheaper shores, and become more efficient because of technology. As a consequence the social contract in Western society between rich and poor - the rich provide the capital while the poor provide the labour - is breaking down. The rich still have capital, but they can now move the production of goods to the East, creating a shortage of jobs in the West.
The New York Times has a great interactive graphic on How the Giants of Finance Shrunk, then Grew, Under the Financial Crisis. It's really interesting seeing how, if the Market Capitalization of each firm is represented as an area, the each firm shrinks massively during the financial crisis, and now how the firms are rebounding.
Here is a video showing how badly Detroit has been affected by the collapsing housing market. Towards the end of the video you can see some amazing mansions in the worst-hit areas of Detroit that you can supposedly buy at a massive discount.
The first post describes what might happen if the US collapses in the same way economically as the USSR did in the 1990's. It then goes on to making recommendations about what to focus on - essentially food, transportation, shelter and security. I thought it was fascinating because although I have been thinking for a number of years that the economic situation was going to get bad, I didn't envision quite a collapse of that order of magnitude. As the crisis continues however, the possibility suddenly seems to become credible.
I found the comments interesting in the Boing Boing post. It seems as though quite a number of people were actually starting to find themselves in situations reminiscent of those described in the first post - primarily from posters in the US. Scary.
A while ago, I created a Mathematica plot comparing the Great Depression, the Tech Crash and the Oil Crisis with the current financial crisis. This analysis was inspired by a chart I saw last year comparing these recessions with our current situation. Anyway, I thought it was worth bringing the chart up-to-date.
[Edit] The original chart I saw was this one.[/Edit]
