History rarely presents a smooth, seamless trajectory.
But it does not strain the imagination very much to imagine this could have been Los Angeles, California in 2060 if things had continued along their previous trajectory.
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| Click to embiggen. Check out the wiring. |
The government requires that 90% of your production be sold to the government at prices that they dictate (i.e. 90% tax). Salaries for doctors run about $20 a month and a beer costs $1.
At this point, I have to acknowledge the possibility that the tour-guide MIGHT be a government agent and everything he says is pre-approved.
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| A typical pensioner's living space |
Life is ugly in the 3rd world... Always has been, always will be when you get out of the 'public' areas.
ReplyDeleteThey seem to want the tragedy.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry John but how can you "Want the tragedy"?
DeletePlease expand your thoughts here or perhaps at your blog so I can understand.
I've spent a lot of time in 3rd world countries building schools, medical stations and drilling wells I've learned that they adapt and BE HAPPY even when they are nearly starving.
One of my hardest memories is a family handing ME their entire meal for me to eat with them there being kind.
Otherwise, they go mad and commit suicide (which BTW isn't uncommon). Running at the only well fed folks in their country the Military is just a suicide run for them AND THEIR FAMILIES and their Neighborhood.
Joe your being optimistic about SNIP
But it does not strain the imagination very much to imagine this could have been Los Angeles, California in 2060 if things had continued along their previous trajectory.
Has California's trajectory changed? We still have a dysfunctional (at best) democrat government fighting to keep illegals in their country, running human feces cleaning teams for only the tourist areas of California.
Maybe it's just me but when I KNOW that most of the folks in my area that keep the lights ON and fix roads-run water purification and so on are AGING OUT with very few mostly their family memners going into that employment...
I fear America could be Cuba in just one serious social economic failure or a series of smaller ones.
Antifragile is the term I've learned for building the ability to supplement your food supply, know how to get water and do human waste safely when things go crazy.
Even so I'm quite aware that being "Well Off" with well armed Americans might make me and mine a target.
Praying for wisdom
I am not familiar with the acronym "SNIP".
DeleteIf you mean the Lobster quote, it happens around the 21:55 mark
SNIP means I've used cut and paste your comment as to reply to it directly.
DeleteWhat California's trajectory has to do with lobster I have no clue.
Thanks for the clarification.
DeleteThere is a better than 50% chance that Elliot was getting a snow-job. What are the odds of him running into a fisherman using tackle that costs three months of wages...and the fisherman immediately stops fishing and becomes Elliot's tour guide for the next few days?
The embargo is crushing Cuba and they HATE Trump. I think the Cuban government figured out where vloggers go and plant photogenic, multi-lingual agents to guide the vlogger into anti-blockade messages.
Elliot ran into a statistically improbable number of former university professors while in Cuba. My guess is that was the standard cover for why the agents are multi-lingual and so well versed in what is happening in the US.
Maybe not as much a snow job as you'd think.
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Cuba
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024%E2%80%932025_Cuba_blackouts
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/how-cubas-electrical-grid-collapsed-what-comes-next-2024-10-18/
Lack of resources dedicated to repair and improvements to the grid has its cost.
California's refusal to use fossil fuels and depending on outside the state power might bring them into Cuba's power system.
@Michael: They voted for it.
DeleteJohn I'm pretty sure they didn't vote for this.
DeleteThat's like saying the French voted for the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution.
Revolution seldom asks for permission.
A life like that is what our "betters" and would be masters would like and are trying to impose upon us here...
ReplyDeleteThis could easily be any big blue city by 2030.
ReplyDeletePeople in the US are so sheltered they don't even have an imagination! We just imported 20 million hut-dwellers, how far away from this do you think we really are?
I originally had a date like 2030 written into the text but then reconsidered because much of what makes Havana a hellscape is the disintegration of their buildings, most of which are made of masonry. If you view the video at about the 16:50 mark Elliot tells us that they have been razing the city one-floor-at-a-time as the buildings disintegrate. It might also be to salvage building materials.
DeleteMost of the buildings in the video were built in the 1920s. It will be surprising if our cheesy press-board and windows construction looks that good after 100 years. That is why I pulled +35 years out of the air.
Ah! You were referring to the slow crumbling of the buildings. I was referring to the rolling blackouts, social decay and lack of affordable food.
DeleteThose can happen very quickly given the right amount of chaos. Like the EBT cards FAILURE AND the Blackouts occurring for a few days, maybe a week.
I wish every person who wants our country to become Socialist - Communist should go to one of those countries during their vacation to find out 1st hand what it is like living under those conditions. Go straight to the source. Ask their citizens and observe what their daily routine is. Just for perspective.
ReplyDeleteI know our politicians (looking at you Bernie / AOC and others) don't advertise their experiences living in those countries. I also never hear of 'fact finding missions' being conducted in those countries.
I've met and paid for Bernie's coffee one morning in Montpelier VT.
ReplyDeleteHe's a very clever gentleman and I can see how his charm is why he's a multimillionaire with 3+ lake front houses paid for.
Bernie and AOC want to BE the Socialist Overlords. Eating lobster (and better) living large without limits as the serfs "enjoy the Liberty and Equality" of all "IN this Together" (SPIT) socialism of rolling blackouts and food rations.
People like Sanders and Occasionally-Conscious are proof that we as a society need to bring back tar, feathers and hanging parties....
DeleteFrom The Mavericks song From Hell to Paradise about leaving Cuba
ReplyDelete"For 30 years they sang the song
of promised victory
But who they've fought and who has won
Didn't matter much to me
While I see them driving down the streets
In their fancy shiny cars
Crowds of people to their feet
And their faces full of scars
No pleasantries, no luxuries
No little children's milk
While minister's wives spent all their lives
In China's finest silk"
"this could have been Los Angeles, California in 2060"
ReplyDeleteAu contraire, it's exactly on schedule, and it will happen, bet on it.
Not just the USA either. Civs collapse because no one can accept the real reason for it. I could tell you, but you won't believe me either.