What happens if a collapse arrives?
April 20, 2007 12:24 PM   Subscribe

Assume the U.S. economy tanks massively, due to whatever factors concern you the most. What exactly might life be like in the U.S. for the average citizen when this happens? Who will be ahead, and who will be screwed? Not counting the wealthy, of course, who will just stay afloat regardless.

I'm being a bit vague so as not to bias the discussion. Others have hashed out concerns about the U.S. economy elsewhere on Metafilter, and I too share some of those concerns. I want to bypass the question about whether the economy will tank, and -assume- that it does.

In this changed economy, where will jobs be? How will neighborhoods change? Might there be migrations of some sort like during the Great Depression? I know there's many ways that the housing market, inflation, trade imbalance, employment, lending, rising oil costs, and so forth can interplay and affect day-to-day life, so I'm more concerned in your scenario and how it affects Joe Sixpack, rather than arguing the odds on whether such scenarios will happen. How will Joe Sixpack working in a Wal-Mart distribution center and renting his house compare to Joe Sixpack who's 10 years into his ARM on a 200K house and commutes 15 miles a day?

I know quite well this is a speculative mental exercise, but it's not the answers I'm after as much as the discussion itself.

I have seen a few discussions elsewhere on this, but 1990s Russia and Argentina tends to get trotted out as examples. However I feel that the relationship of these societies in the 1980s to the U.S. now is not very analogous.
posted by zek to Society & Culture

This post was deleted for the following reason: Assume this is hypothetical chatfilter.

 
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