Things are already breaking down all over the US and they have been for many years. Seen a picture of Detroit lately? How about New Orleans? Or just drive through any small town in the midwest and look at the carnage. No jobs, dead malls, everyone on meth, lots of folks on government assistance. Many parts of the US/Mexico border region are in open warfare between rival drug cartels and the police. Police chiefs being shot, kidnappings, beheadings, rocket attacks, car bombs, you name it. Ciudad Juarez (across the Rio Grande from El Paso) is more dangerous than Baghdad and Washington DC is more dangerous than Rio de Janeiro. Here in SD we are quite insulated from this because we have a lot of government money flowing in and a lot of tourist money coming in too. All of this talk about impending collapse cracks me up because it has been happening for 30+ years! The reason most people don’t see it is because they don’t visit the places where the poor people live, they just watch network news, etc… If you really want to prepare for the future, use a little of the money you have left and spend some time in Mexico City, in Sao Paulo, in Buenos Aires. That’s what we are all in for. It will be crappy but people are still going to get along. There will be gunfire in the streets but people will still go shopping. There will still be weddings and birthday parties, it’s just that most of them will be a lot less expensive than they are now. People are going to learn to IGNORE the government. Not fight it, not be frustrated with it, not expect it to get anything but worse but simply to IGNORE it. They’ll pay their taxes but expect ZERO in return. We are very lucky here that we still have good roads! Hopefully that will last a few more years…
Stop worrying and go talk to your neighbors. We’re going to need to work together in local communities to address the problems we face. If you want to go be a lone wolf on your property in the boonies you can try it but unless you’ve spent your whole life as a farmer your odds aren’t good at succeeding.