The Coming Collapse?

[My] theory states that the United States and the Soviet Union will have collapsed for the same reasons, namely: a severe and chronic shortfall in the production of crude oil, … a severe and worsening foreign trade deficit, a runaway military budget, and ballooning foreign debt. … Other factors, such as the inability to provide an acceptable quality of life for its citizens, or a systemically corrupt political system incapable of reform, are certainly not helpful, but they do not automatically lead to collapse, because they do not put the country on a collision course with reality. - Reinventing Collapse, by Dmitry Orlov

Author Dmitry Orlov compares the collapse of the Soviet Union with events he sees happening in the USA today. In Feb 2009 he provided some Social Collapse Best Practices:

We [Americans have built] a brave new world where the Chinese made things out of plastic for us, the Indians provided customer support when these Chinese-made things broke, and we paid for it all just by flipping houses, pretending that they were worth a lot of money … And now it turns out that … the last five or so years of economic growth was more or less a hallucination, based on various debt pyramids, a "whole house of cards"…

When the Soviet system went away, many people lost their jobs, everyone lost their savings, wages and pensions were held back for months, their value was wiped out by hyperinflation, there shortages of food, gasoline, medicine, consumer goods, there was a large increase in crime and violence, and yet Russian society did not collapse. Somehow, the Russians found ways to muddle through…

Here is the key insight: you might think that when collapse happens, nothing works. That’s just not the case…

Forget “growth,” forget “jobs,” forget “financial stability.” What should [the US government] realistic new objectives be? Well, here they are: food, shelter, transportation, and security. Their task is to find a way to provide all of these necessities on an emergency basis, in absence of a functioning economy, with commerce at a standstill, with little or no access to imports, and to make them available to a population that is largely penniless. If successful, society will remain largely intact, and will be able to begin a slow and painful process of cultural transition, and eventually develop a new economy, a gradually de-industrializing economy, at a much lower level of resource expenditure, characterized by a quite a lot of austerity and even poverty, but in conditions that are safe, decent, and dignified.

Bottom Line
I’ll summarize Orlov’s big four concerns:

Food - The food industry in America is highly subsidized and very dependent on oil. This is a good time to practice gardening so you know how to raise some food as a supplement to high food prices and shortages.

Shelter – if you lose your job, can you afford to make the rental or mortgage payments where you live now? Downsize now if you can’t afford your current lifestyle. If you don’t have a home, look for an opportunity to be a caretaker where you live rent-free for an absent owner while you maintain the property.

Transportation – if or when the price of gas skyrockets again, will you be able to afford your commute? If there is a gasoline shortage (like the 70’s), what will you do?

Security –

"Security is very important. … people must be ready to come to each other’s defense, take responsibility for each other, and do what’s right. Right now, security is provided by a number of bloated, bureaucratic, ineffectual institutions, which inspire more anger and despondency than discipline, and dispense not so much violence as ill treatment."