Partypup: I don’t dispute your portrayal of the events to come – just the velocity of change. US is a continental nation with a fifth of global GDP. How can any event just collapse it into Haiti or Bolivia like status in a short time? There are international linkages in trade, finance, politics, military, human etc. that prevent your free fall scenario. What I mean is, if US just vanishes from the face of the earth (in the present form) lot more people than Americans will be hurt severely. That is a powerful resistance to your total loss scenario. All you have said may happen – just gradually over 20 to 30 year period. In fact, I think the retirement of baby boomers will be much more destructive, economically, than what we are seeing now. Look at how “Great Britain” became U.K. a century back. That is our model, not the Soviet Union to Russia collapse.
