Six Months on... Global Collapse Destinations?

[westsail42]

my $.02.

We are experiencing the (negative) effects of an economy built on credit. This has nothing to do with one politician or political party. This started way back in the early 80s, just after the last "big one".

Any "fiscal conservatism" practiced by consumers or business owners has slowly eroded since then "giving in" to increasingly cheap credit. Consumers and business have taken on debt to high levels never seen before. Now it has come crashing down.

The difference between this and, say, the dot-com bubble, is that directly affects almost EVERYONE. Anyone who has a credit card, mortgage, HELOC. (If you werent invested in high-tech, you didnt get hit so hard when the dot-com bubble burst).

This time, they are saying the consumer can only bailout the economy. But, the consumer has already been over-leveraged with high credit card debt, big mortgage payments, car payments, etc. Any credit left is being taken away. To make matters worst, the average consumer has almost no savings. And if you were unfortunate to lose your job, things are still worse. There is NO WAY the consumer can bail out this enconomy in the short term.

It will be years before things really turn around. When it does, it will not be the same economy we have become used to the past couple decades. Hopefully it will be built on assets, equity and real value. Not credit.

Problem is, for the US at least, the "next generation" of workers (todays kids/teenagers) are less likely to produce the innovation and entrepenurship this country has been fortunate to provide that revs up the economic engines. The US is/will be outpaced by other countries. Meaning, it wont be the US alone that will turn the global economy around. And as was said earlier in the thread, the US will have lost all that much more economic clout.

Implications for cruising, in the short term, will be destabilisiation of smaller countries and civil unrest. It is no coincidence that piracy has been on the rise. The cruiser will need to be more alert of the social and economic issues going on in the places they plan to visit.