Direct fights to London for $1400

June 10, 2008 12:05 PM

Why did everything suddenly go bad in the United States?

Air transportation, food prices, water resources, general infrastructure - is Rome really burning?

posted by plexi to law & government (12 comments total)

Chatfilter.
posted by nitsuj at 12:11 PM on June 10

Confirmation bias
posted by JohnFredra at 12:11 PM on June 10

Ask Nero.
posted by Aquaman at 12:13 PM on June 10

Question is, should you eat it?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:13 PM on June 10

chatfilter.
posted by jenkinsEar at 12:13 PM on June 10

i.e. "That's funny. I hadn't heard that."
posted by Aquaman at 12:14 PM on June 10

Rome "fell" over hundreds of years. The British Empire never fully fell. A rough patch means NOTHING, and even a decline phase isn't too serious. If America is in decline, it doesn't become a problem until people freak out about it... the sun still comes up, the ground is still under your feet... you will, most likely have enough to eat, drink and put shelter over head. Don't worry.

(I suspect this thread isn't going to last long though)
posted by Deep Dish at 12:14 PM on June 10

This isn't chatfilter. Please just answer the question, flag it, or go to Metatalk.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:15 PM on June 10

1400 dollars is a right bargain. Last month it was 1800. Look at the bright side.
posted by LoriFLA at 12:16 PM on June 10

This seems dangerously close to chatfilter, and unlikely to yield an accurate answer. This is the kind of thing that is best dealt with via hindsight... hell, if the Fed chairman could accurately tell you why all that shit was happening, he'd be well on the way to making sure it didn't continue happening, but I can't say that I have particular faith in The Prophet Ben. A lot of stuff is linked to fuel prices, though -- transportation costs feed into all goods to some degree -- and of course, particularly idiotic decisions about how mortgages should be handled led us to a pretty big crisis in terms of actual value vs. paper value of assets.

Ask again in 15 years, if society hasn't collapsed and the Visigoths aren't using MeFi servers as furniture.
posted by mumkin at 12:16 PM on June 10

We're all consumer whores, and how!

Thie morning my carpool members and I tried to ask the sole driver of the brand new Escalade with a 30 day tag on it this same question, but she was too busy tailgating me for only driving 80 mph on the turnpike.
posted by Derive the Hamiltonian of... at 12:17 PM on June 10

Confirmation Bias.
posted by unixrat at 12:19 PM on June 10