best case scenario

BEST CASE SCENARIO
I did not reinstate the comments section because of overwhelming demand. Less than six people asked for that. I did it because I missed the feedback from everyone, even the trolls. Without my daily reality check I felt something vital was missing. It took a week for me to figure out the balance I wanted or I would have done it sooner. I didn't want to moderate, not enough time ( and dangerous ). So it finally occurred to me that I could let anyone post and go back later and delete ( I was already reading comments anyway, and it takes a second to delete ). I'm going to try and not censor at all, just keep copyright infringement away ( if I miss something, please let me know ). However, so that I don't have to worry about other crap, please try to contain yourselves from bad mouthing other authors such as Creekmore or Rawles. You can talk trash about me all you want, but don't make me worry about libel. We'll take that issue as it comes. I'm asking nicely now for your cooperation.
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I'm always running around screaming that the sky is falling ( my e-magazine Chicken Little title not only sounds cool but is a bit of self parody on my ease of panic ). Did you see the season finale of Scrubs last night? The electricity goes out and Barbie screams We're All Going To Die! It was a heart warming moment. Anyway, I know I see our demise at every turn of the corner. I think everyone under reacting is worse, always thinking they have more time to buy their crap. But I know you all look at me, sadly shake your head in weariness, and dismiss me as the boy that cried wolf. Hey, at least I try to keep my sense of humor as I panic. Well, today you caught me me a good mood so I'll talk about what the best case scenario might look like.
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Looking again back through history, there are plenty of empires that slowly faded rather than crashed. I'm not saying I think that will be our fate, since we've wiped out our resource base whereas before those empires just destroyed their economies through imperial overreach. I'm saying if the best case scenario happens we can fade rather than crash. I think things will slowly get worse until we cross an unknown threshold and that will trip us over the abyss, but I'm trying to stay positive for now. Let's just assume it is possible we can hang on by our fingertips and just keep accepting lowering standards of living as a pleasant alternative to a massive die-off. Prep like tomorrow is the Apocalypse, hope tomorrow is just a long descent.
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Let's say our economy continues to contract ( safe assumption- as someone said the stock market is to our economy as the local weather is to global climate, so forget about this suckers rally ). We keep oh so slowly falling back in expectations and resource availability. Imports of oil keep contracting, unemployment keeps going up, government keeps going towards totalitarianism. Inflation keeps getting worse and worse. You keep deleting parts of your diet. First you give up milk, then cut down on store bought produce. First you give up chicken, then beef, then finally you cut the number of days you eat more than an ounce or two of meat as a dish flavoring. Despite the health concerns, margarine replaces butter. You stop eating out, you stop buying convenience foods. You finally jingle mail the house keys and get an apartment. You finally have the wife take a pay cut and work within walking distance since used car parts and mechanical labor become too expensive. You take your kid out of college and give him back his old room ( or move him to the garage since his room is being rented out ).
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You start keeping five gallon jugs full of water so you can bathe and flush the toilet, since keeping the thermostat at fifty seems to allow the pipes to keep freezing. You keep your JC Penney credit card and pay its thirty percent interest because you need to keep buying the family thermal underwear and sweaters to live in a cold home ( the crap imported from China is low quality but all that is available, so it is hard to get one garment to last more than one season ). Eventually you give up the last car. The insurance keeps getting canceled as the companies keep going bankrupt, until you can no longer keep starting over with payments. Gasoline rationing scarcely matters after that. They start to ration your electricity and you can't do much more than keep the lights on. They will up your allotted kilowatts if you buy an energy saving LED TV, but you don't want to pay 30% on that.
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You had been hunting rabbits around suburbia, but they caught one guy killing rats with a pellet gun and busted him on both poaching and discharging a firearm so you stopped doing that ( the guy got three years, no parole ). You tried chickens, but a bug only diet killed them and you can't afford more chicks or feed, or worry about registering them with the USDA. You use your ration card to buy meat at the market and worry about mad cow disease. You wonder how long it will be before they go Soylent Green. There are almost no cars on the street, but the smog gets worse as China keep burning more coal. You also worry about crime, but your federal license came through at last for a box of ammunition for your registered weapon ( registration included a mandatory installation of a thumb print control safety ). Now you can at least defend the home with more than a crossbow. Last month your oldest kid got sick, but the wait at the ER was only 48 hours, so you got some meds in time. Although you started feeling a tickle in your throat right afterwards. Luckily your FedMedCard allows herbal remedies which are much cheaper. You didn't need to do a payroll deduct for that.
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I could go on, but the point is ( besides running out of writing time ) that things will be adaptable, if barely, as we slowly run out of energy. Remember, this is the best case scenario. Still want to depend on the market economy, stay in debt, keep paying rent, keep a car? Junk land and informal employment looks better and better the farther you go into the future.
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