As a traveler, you should know that even though the US has some problems, we have very little in common with these countries. You lose crediblility when you try to compare the US to these places, IMO.
You are thinking way to small and way to short of a time frame. We (as in the whole world) are entering into a new "dark ages" period that could last 500 years. This little bear market rally shouldn't even be talked about until we take out the old highs. The stock casinos (er markets) around the world have all crashed and are not going to new highs anytime soon if ever. Who knows if there is going to be a war or not, a lot of crazy leaders in a lot of crazy countries out there. The depression in the 30's and the recession in the 70's were just little blips in the grand scheme of things. What we are in now is a very slow, very long drawn out process of complete world wide deleveraging. I hate to sound so negative, but my gut feeling says so.
I never got this buy gold/silver for the collapse crap. You can't eat or drink it and it's going to do damned little to protect you when you're looking at the business end of a gun.
Correct. However, there will come a time in between the current period when paper money is considered to be worth something, and the final product where NO currency (including gold) is considered to be worth anything, where people will still value it. For example, if there is hyperinflation, for a time people will still consider gold to be worthwhile, and you can use it then to buy things like food and other essentials. Eventually if we have a complete collapse it too will be considered worthless, but there should be a period where that is not the case. Anyways, we aren't going to have a collapse like people are talking about based on purely economic factors... we will have to have some real pressure on available resources like food, clean drinking water, and energy to cause a major war... all things that are likely. When we reach a point where our global population has attained completely unsustainable levels, when our natural resources are even more depleted than they are today, and when it's not a question of how much you are willing to pay for food/water/oil/whatever but whether you can get it AT ALL... then expect WW III to begin. It won't be a question of paying a high price for essentials, it will be a question of countries not being willing to ship food/energy to you for ANY price, because they can't even feed their own population. Under those circumstances, you take your military and go take what you need... and when everyone is trying to do that, then you have a very bad situation. Even after that started, a true global collapse would not come right away, but probably some time into such a conflict. We have never been through a period like that before on a global scale, so it is very difficult to predict exactly when it might happen, and how long or in what manner it would take to play out... but rest assured, that is exactly where we are headed sooner or later if we don't change our behavior as a species, and right now I see absolutely no signs of that happening in any significant way. My bet is to see this period start by the middle of this century, but it's tough to say.
Yes it is and yes it will. 45k more troops will be heading to Afghanistan soon. WWII climaxed in 1942 (measured by casualties and vehicles/ships/etc., destroyed) but it started well before Pearl Harbor.
Read Barton Biggs Wealth War and Wisdom for a look at what works on a practical basis in catastrophic situations. Hint: 1) It isn't always the same thing 2) There are no assurances 3) Helps to be on the 'winning side'
This is true. But who cares? Does the USA NEED to be the single, dominant world power? Does it even matter?
Not saying you don't have a very valid point, but I'll add this. Does the USA need to be destroyed from within? Cuz this admin. is hell bent on doing just that.
Hopefully you are right about this and that is certainly their stated intention (liquidity draw) but I wonder if they stick to it if faced with a losing battle with deflation and the restriction of a debt ceiling? Seems like they have at least opened the door to tap over $1T in funds without any regulatory control. If recovery doesn't materialize we may need to add another few hundred billion to the national debt to cover their obligations to the money market funds.
The solutions are so easy. Stop spending so much money, pay back your debts, pulll out of 44 countries your military is in.