America Has its Own Growing Secession Movement

Watching the results of Scotland’s secession gambit was quite a ride, if not a little disappointing in the end. It would have been fantastic to see that proud nation independent once again. I suppose it's not to be, at least for now. While Downing Street breathes a sigh of relief, perhaps they should reexamine the demographics of the voting results. They certainly don't bode well for the future of the United Kingdom.

For starters, the growth of the independence movement was quite impressive. From 2011 until the day of the vote, there were quite a few polls taken on the matter. While there were many swings from month to month, support for independence probably averaged around 30 percent until 2013. From 2014 on, it slowly but consistently climbed into the mid 40's. So who was responsible for this growing popularity?

Mainly the young and the poor, who are increasingly finding themselves in the same category as time goes on. 73 percent of those over 65 voted against secession, after fearing for the state of their pensions should Scotland break away. It's very likely that the oldest generation is the only thing keeping the “U” in the U.K.
The writing is on the wall, as it is in most countries. It seems that younger people don't like being ruled from far away elites who don't represent them, culturally or politically. As the previous generation dies off, they will slowly become the majority. This burgeoning urge to break nations down can be seen across the globe, and is a natural course of history. Of course, the United States is no exception.

Back in 2008, the Middlebury Institute conducted a poll, asking Americans how they felt about secession. It's a tough question for Americans to answer, because “secession” has become such a politically charged term since the Civil War. Despite this, 22 percent of Americans agreed to the statement “any state or region has the right to peaceably secede from the United States and become an independent republic.” As in Scotland, this belief was far more prevalent among the younger generation as well as the poor. 40 percent of those ages 18-24 said they accepted the right to secession.

Since secession is more popular with the younger crowd, how has it advanced over the course of six years? A recent poll taken between August and September found that 23.9 percent of Americans would support their state seceding from the United States. While this is only a slight increase, there are several more interesting trends that can be seen if you compare the 2008 poll to the 2014 poll.

For instance, the 2008 poll not only asked the public's support for secession, but how they felt about their own state seceding. While 22 percent supported the idea of secession, only 18 percent supported their home state seceding. Fast forward to the recent poll, which asked the same exact thing, and now 23 percent would support a secession movement in their home state. A somewhat significant increase over a few short years.
Also, the 2008 poll found more support among Hispanics, a growing demographic. The 2014 poll saw more support among Tea Party voters. Liberals were more open to it during 2008, because they were living under a conservative administration. Under a liberal president, the support has flipped to conservatives.

So to recap, secession is becoming more popular among Hispanics, the young, and the poor, all growing groups in the United States. And every time the presidency switches from conservative to liberal, the people in the opposite ideology open themselves up to the ideas of secession. Essentially all segments of society are being exposed to these ideas; something that should alarm the bureaucrats in D.C.

Adding to this fire, is the increased mobility recent generations have experienced. It was originally thought that building freeways, trains, and airports would break down cultural barriers. It has in fact done the opposite. It has made it easier for people to move to like minded communities, based on race, culture, income, and political affiliation. For instance, during the Carter election of 1976, 26.8 percent of Americans lived in landslide counties. During the 2004 election, that number had more than doubled to 48.3 percent. I can't imagine where it's at now.

Americans are self segregating themselves and lines are being drawn, even if it's somewhat subconscious. While we're an incredibly diverse nation filled with many races and cultures, those sorts of nations only last as long as the arrangement is prosperous for all (think Switzerland).

Even during the 19th and 20th century, when many ethnic and political groups found themselves marginalized by mainstream society, at least their children were growing more prosperous than their parents. But we're not that nation anymore. Without at least some prosperity for all, diverse nations don't hold together. In fact, once the money train makes its last stop, most multi-cultural and multi-racial nations end violently (now think Yugoslavia).

It's really not that surprising that separatist sentiments would be growing here. As the government becomes more centralized, it's forcing many of America's cultures together, marginalizing everybody. Washington is pushing their culture on us. They don't want the second amendment, they don't want legal marijuana, they don't want to end the war on terror, they don't want to end abortion etc etc.

You'll notice those are all pretty diverse opinions, but they're all largely the opinions of the elite in Washington. No matter what they choose on any given issue, they'll always piss off tens of millions of Americans. Sometimes it happens to be red states and sometimes it happens to be blue states (or insert any other dichotomy you can think of). But no matter who is elected president, or who takes the house, or who gets placed on the supreme court, somebody is going to get the shaft. That somebody is almost always 49 percent of the population.

And ultimately, 50/50 countries don't last long.

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The Second Ebola Outbreak is Just As Strange as the First

 

Exactly one month ago I wrote about, and charted the alarming spread of the Ebola virus. As I explained in the article, the virus is behaving very strangely. It doesn't become infectious until the person shows symptoms, it isn't airborne and it's extremely lethal; all conditions that would normally keep a virus from reaching an epidemic status. And yet it continues to spread like wild fire.

By the time I had the opportunity to write about it, 800 people had died in the span of over 5 months. Now one month later, the number of deaths has nearly doubled to over 1500 people. Extrapolating on that trend, it would not be surprising to see the virus infect over a hundred thousand people by December.

Despite the uncharacteristic spread of the virus, it  isn't the oddest thing to come out of the news lately. Recently it was found that the Ebola virus had spread to the Congo, and a total of 31 people have died of the infection. In a strange twist however, that outbreak ended up being completely unrelated to the Ebola in Western Africa:

The World Health Organization has just confirmed that the newly-identified cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the Democratic Republic of Congo is genetically unrelated to the strain currently circulating in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria.

A WHO collaborating research center in Franceville, Gabon, the Centre International de Recherches Médicales, had previously identified six Ebola positive samples sent to the laboratory. They report today that, “the virus in the Boende district is definitely not derived from the virus strain currently circulating in west Africa.”

What are the odds? I mean, Ebola outbreaks don't just happen every day. While it could be completely coincidental, this Ebola strain happens to be spreading just as fast as the West African outbreak. The first confirmed death in Congo occurred on August 11th, from a woman who was supposedly infected from eating bushmeat. Now, just shy of a month later there have been 53 cases and 31 deaths.

To put that in perspective, the last Ebola outbreak in the DRC killed 36 people between June and November of 2012. Another Congo outbreak killed 14 people between December of 2008 and February of 2009. 31 deaths over the course of 3 weeks is completely out of the ordinary, especially in the rural isolated community where this outbreak first occurred.

I think now may be a good time to strap on our tinfoil hats, because this is downright creepy. The rapid infection rate of the West African virus leads me to believe that this is a mutated strain, with a greater capability of infecting humans. Researchers in the field have come to the same conclusion:

For starters, the data show that the virus is rapidly accumulating new mutations as it spreads through people. "We've found over 250 mutations that are changing in real time as we're watching," Sabeti says.

While moving through the human population in West Africa, she says, the virus has been collecting mutations about twice as quickly as it did while circulating among animals in the past decade or so.

"The more time you give a virus to mutate and the more human-to-human transmission you see," she says, "the more opportunities you give it to fall upon some [mutation] that could make it more easily transmissible or more pathogenic."

Meanwhile the Congo Virus is also infecting humans at a rate far above previous outbreaks. Mind you, this is a separate strain existing roughly 2000 miles away from the West African virus. And yet it's behaving in a similar manner.

It may be safe to assume that this virus is also unique in its ability to mutate, adapt, and infect humans. Again, what are the odds? While I'm no scientist, I can only assume two possibilities. Perhaps there is a very broad and natural process at work that we have yet to witness with our own eyes, or there is something much darker behind this "anomaly".

I think there's only one thing that needs to be said here. Among the academics and the elite, Ebola is a pretty popular candidate for global depopulation. If this is an engineered virus, released with the intent of culling the human population, then the timing is perfect to introduce a new strain in a remote region. The West African outbreak is pushing local relief efforts to the brink. As for the global relief effort, another outbreak in a completely different region would divide their dwindling resources, ensuring the infection has no boundaries. The virus could quickly spiral out of control, allowing it to go global. For once, I pray that I'm only paranoid.

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Californians are Praying for Rain, but Someday They'll Beg it to Stop

With the worst drought on record wreaking havoc across the State of California, residents may be finally coming to terms with the hardest truth of our state. Perhaps, California is not as sustainable as any of us thought. Since its inception, the climate, resources, and natural beauty of the state has drawn in millions of people. What none of them could have guessed, is that they were moving here in a relatively pleasant and prosperous time in history.

Despite a couple of devastating earthquakes, this past century has been pretty calm compared to its historical norm. Recent climate data suggests that over the past thousand years, California has gone through droughts that lasted ten or twenty years. Others lasted well over a hundred years. It appears that the millions of people who moved here, arrived in one of the tamest climates of the millennium, and it may become pretty much impossible for the state to sustain this population in the near future.

Though, it isn't just droughts we should be worried about. Looking through the geological and climate history of the state reveals an environment very different from the one we recognize today, and one that was prone to extremes. While Californians have been well aware of the “the big one” that is expected to hit the state someday, very few residents are aware of some of the other threats to their lives. If anything, earthquakes may be the least of our concerns. After all, earthquakes aren't nearly as devastating to developed nations as they are to third world countries. While our infrastructure is in fact crumbling, it is still miles ahead of countries that often face thousands of deaths from an earthquake, compared to the small handfuls of casualties we usually face.

While the potential for massive devastation is still there, Californians shouldn't be losing sleep over earthquakes, or droughts, or forest fires. They should be concerned with something a little more biblical in nature.

In November of 1861, Oregon and California were experiencing a lot more rainfall than usual. This deposited a heavy layer of snow in the Sierra Mountains, but probably wouldn't have been remembered if not for what happened next.

In December of the same year, a new rain storm moved in. This one was unusually warm, and it melted the heavy snow in the mountains, causing a series of devastating floods across Oregon and California. Before anyone could pick up the pieces, they had to wait for the rain to cease.

The rain didn't stop.

For the next 40 days, it continued to pour down on the Western United States, California in particular. When it was all said and done, the state was facing the single greatest disaster in its history, rivaled only by the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

The entire region had been soaked, and some areas had received as much as 8 feet of rain. Sacramento had been so badly flooded, that the state legislature had to be moved to San Francisco for 6 months while the capital dried out. The entire central valley had turned into an inland sea that was 20 miles wide and 300 miles long, and a lake had formed in the middle of Death Valley. No one is sure just how many people were killed, but it's estimated to be in the thousands, along with at least 200,000 cattle that drowned in the deluge. A quarter of California's taxable land had been destroyed, driving the state government into bankruptcy.
The event is now known as the Arkstorm by modern climatologists, and according them, it occurs roughly every 100-200 years, so we're just about due for another one. If it were to occur again, it could spell the end of California as we know it today.

Financially speaking, it's estimated that it would cause anywhere from 300-750 billion dollars in damage, and would probably bankrupt the state once again. Casualties would be unimaginably higher, now that the state has nearly a hundred times more people than it did in 1860. The Central Valley would be completely devastated, and the price of produce would rise to ridiculous levels, possibly worst than what we've been seeing with the current drought. However, damage to California's levees in the delta region would probably prove to be the golden state's coup de grâce:

Much of Central California's water supply and agricultural areas are protected by an antiquated and poorly maintained set of levees along the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers that are in serious danger of failure during an extreme flood or major earthquake. The 1,600 miles of levees protect 500,000 people, 2 million acres of farmland, and structures worth $47 billion. Of particular concern is the delta at the confluence of California's Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, about 80 miles inland from San Francisco Bay. The Delta Region receives runoff from more than 40% of California, and is the hub of California's water supply system, supplying water to 25 million people and 3 million acres of farmland.

What this event could do to our water supply would be absolutely devastating. Just imagine 25 million people with no access to fresh water. If those levees fail and are not repaired in time for the dry season, sea water from the San Francisco Bay would creep into the fresh water we rely on to survive. It could take months for the levees to be rebuilt, and if millions of people were to go without water for even a few weeks, it would be nothing short of apocalyptic.

Between the fiscal irresponsibility of California's political leaders, the unsustainable shift in the climate, and the upheaval that will be caused by natural disasters, this state is on the road to ruin. If you live in California, and don't have any long term plans on leaving, then stock it, cock it, and buckle up. It's about to get pretty crazy out here.

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2683#.U_ZdBqPj3zQ
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/the-arkstorm-californias-coming-great-deluge
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/megastorms-could-down-massive-portions-of-california/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARkStorm

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Watership Down, and the Seven People You'll Meet After the Collapse

On the surface, Watership Down doesn't appear to have anything the survival community would be interested in. Told from the perspective of several rabbits that are trying to find a new home, the cartoon is filled with silly characters, and a lot of the same themes you would see in any kids movie. If you get around to watching it though, you'll see it is a gut wrenching story of survival in a savage world that most modern viewers can't believe is rated PG.

Based on the novel by Richard Adams, the author wrote the rabbit characters as surrogates for humans and our behaviors. The rabbits have their own social structures, culture, language, religion, and even a mythology that attempts to explain why they are near the bottom of the food chain. Just like any good science fiction or fantasy story, by changing the setting so drastically the author can tell a very human story about modern society, without the viewers being clouded by their own ideologies and cultural norms.

You may still be wondering what this film has to do with preparedness. With a movie about rabbits living in vastly different circumstances than us, there really aren't any survival tips to be gleaned from the story, but bear with me. The movie is about these rabbits escaping the destruction of their warren (rabbit colony), setting out into a world filled with traps, predators, and conditions that they have very little control over.

They often face as much danger from members of their own species as they do from their environment (sound familiar?). It's one of the most apocalyptic films I've ever seen, and I'm surprised it has never been categorized under the “Post-Apocalyptic” genre.

What it lacks in survival advice, it makes up for with human advice. The diverse set of characters that we see in the film are really just stand-ins for different human personalities, and there's a lot to be learned about the kinds of human behaviors that surface in dire situations. Below are the seven characters you are bound to run into when the SHTF. Spoilers ahead.

The Prognosticator

 

Fiver is one of the stranger characters in the movie. He has the gift of second sight, and it's his frightening visions that serve to warn the rest of the rabbits in the warren, of the impending disaster that is coming. Most of the rabbits don't believe him, but he manages to convince a few to flee with him. Of course, his vision eventually does come to fruition and almost none of the rabbits that stayed behind managed to survive.

While you probably don't receive visions of the future, for all intents and purposes, preppers would be considered the prophets of their society after any major collapse. Most preparedness minded folks have a firm pulse on current events, a thorough grasp of reasonable deduction, and some gut instincts for good measure. Altogether, this gives them an often overwhelming awareness of events that may threaten society.

The Mediator

If you take a look at any group of people, whether it's the workplace, a family, or a group of friends, there's probably one member that doesn't stand out in any way, but is crucial to the success of that group. This person is well rounded, but usually doesn't have any special ability. They are always working quietly to settle disputes, allay fears, and pick up the slack that others leave behind. They're usually very good at bringing out the best of every person in the group.

In this case, Hazel would have to be considered the mediator. He's the main character of the story, and often serves as the middleman between his strange brother Fiver, and the rest of the rabbits who don't understand him. His ability to bring a diverse set of personalities together under such stressful circumstances, eventually brings him into a leadership position in the group.

The Lemming

Known only as the Chief Rabbit in the movie, he is the leader of the warren that the main characters flee from. He's really only concerned with maintaining the status quo, even in the face of certain death. You could say he suffers from denial and normalcy bias. I was tempted to call him a tyrant, but I think he still wants what's best for the warren, even though he should be in no position to lead them. When Hazel first tells the Chief of his brother's prophecy, and speaks of how often his brother's visions turn out to be accurate, he is snubbed instead. Their disagreement doesn't end there though. Like all good lemmings, they not only don't accept minority opinions, they often attack them. Anything that threatens the status quo must be punished, even if it means their own demise.

As the rabbits try to quietly flee the warren under the cover of darkness, he sends one of his goons to stop them. They're told “You're all under arrest, for spreading dissension, and inciting mutiny”. They manage to get past him anyway and flee, and the rest of the rabbits that decided to stay with the Chief meet a rather gruesome end. I should also mention that he shares a characteristic with the leaders of the other two warrens shown in the movie. He is, shall we say, “well fed”. I'll let you decipher the political symbolism behind that.

The Improviser

There's certain people who have a wonderful knack for thinking on their feet. For some reason they are always able to distance themselves from the urgency of any situation, and have a clarity of thought that allows them to solve problems while others are panicking. If you ever have the rare opportunity to see someone pull this off, you'll never forget it. Some people aren't even aware they have this ability if they've never been in a dangerous situation.

In this case, Blackberry saves his fellow rabbits several times with his quick thinking. As they flee the warren, some of their members become exhausted and can't swim across a stream that is in their way. Suddenly they hear a dog approaching, and their fear and urgency tempts the group to leave the weaker members behind. He soon discovers a piece of wood that will help them float across before the dog can catch them. Later on he manages to figure out how to disable a snare that has trapped one of their friends, and he just barely escapes with his life.

The Sell Out

Eventually, Hazel and his companions are too exhausted to continue, and are lucky enough to stumble upon another warren of rabbits. Their “leader” is named Cowslip, and he offers them shelter in his home, assuring them that they have plenty of empty burrows at their disposal. As Fiver points out, something isn't right about this place. The warren is almost completely empty, and the remaining residents never give a reasonable explanation for it.

Despite their small population, they always have an abundance of food to give to their new guests. Cowslip himself reeks of decadence and domestication. In the book he is described as “princely”. In the movie he is obviously well fed and pampered. He loves to wax poetic in an effeminate, blasé voice, and appears to be a bit of a nihilist. Their surplus of food has left them with all the time in the world to appreciate art and culture, but has left them with poor survival skills (I can't think of a better way to describe mainstream America).

When Bigwig is caught in a snare, Cowslip refuses to help. After he is rescued by Blackberry, the others figure out the true nature of this warren. The humans from a nearby farm are feeding the rabbits to fatten them up and maintain their numbers, followed by trapping and eating them on an 'as needed' basis. Cowslip and his companions begrudgingly accept their controlled lives, in exchange for the food that is provided by the humans. Their warren only has the illusion of being a wild and free place, when in reality, the rabbits living there are so domesticated by human hands, they don't need even need cages to imprison them. They march to their deaths willingly, if it means they'll receive a free ride along the way. This is why Hazel and his friends were allowed to stay in their warren. Having unwitting rabbits around gives them lower odds of being snared.

The Tyrant

One of the last warrens that is encountered in the movie, is led by a character that is only referred to as “The General”. The book describes his history in detail. He was at one time, caged by humans, and eventually escaped before finding a new warren. There he managed to kill their leaders, and take over the warren for himself. He has turned it into a brutal, militaristic society that eventually went on to conquer several other warrens nearby.
He treats the female members like second class citizens, and the men are sent out on military patrols to maintain his rule, protect the warren, and keep anyone from escaping. The movie shows in graphic detail what happened to one member named Blackavar, who attempted escape. After he was caught, The General had him “marked” by being clawed, bitten, and having his ears chewed to pieces. He's never allowed to see the surface of the burrow, and has been cowed into submission.

You'll meet your fair share of petty, delusional tyrants after the collapse. Heck, there's enough of them roaming around now to clog a sewer. They're shrewd and dangerous, and are only concerned with advancing their own goals. They'll hurt you in any way they can if you get in their way, and if they fall, they'll take all of their followers down with them. And sometimes, there's only one way to stop a tyrant...

The Warrior

Originally a faithful lieutenant of the Chief Rabbit, Bigwig decided to flee the warren with Hazel and the others. Ultimately he helps them escape. Time and again he survives situations that would be fatal to most, including being trapped in the snare at Cowslip's warren. He never fails to put his life on the line for the rest of the group, and uses his cunning to fight foes that are far stronger than him.

By the end of the movie he manages to infiltrate The General's warren, and free several of their members, including Blackavar. The General then leads a raid against Hazel's group, hoping to kill Bigwig and punish the rabbits he freed. After barricading all of the weaker rabbits together, he takes a final stand against The General by placing himself between the tyrant and the rest of the rabbits. He hides himself under a layer of dirt and manages to surprise The General, engaging in a bloody fight to protect his friends. He eventually defeats him, and drives him and his lackeys out of their burrow.

This buys enough time for Hazel and his pals to reach a nearby farm, and chew off the leash of a vicious dog. They flee back home and let the dog chase them straight into The General's forces. This leads to a final climactic battle that ends with the dog savagely killing The General and his minions.

It was a pretty horrendous scene.

Overall, Watership Down is a remarkable story of survival that reveals quite a bit about the human condition. Despite being a cartoon, the story doesn't pander or insult the intelligence of adult audiences, and the plot seems to line up with the kinds of scenarios that many survivalists believe we will soon be facing.

At its root, it's really a story about refugees fleeing the total destruction of their society. The characters aren't just trying to find a new home and avoid the traps and predators that are found along the way. They're trying to escape from the tyranny and temptations of a broken world, and they manage to find freedom and decency in a place that is isolated from the rest of that world.

I doubt any major studio would have the guts to make such a graphic and principled cartoon for kids today. If you'd like you or your family to see it, there's a free version on Veoh.com, and some outrageously expensive dvd's on Amazon. Though I wouldn't show it any children unless you feel they are mature enough to handle the content.

As a final warning, if you watch this movie, you'll never be able to listen to “Bright Eyes” again without tearing up. I'm a real tough guy, I swear.

images provided by Watership Down Wiki

The Bizarre Growth of the Ebola Outbreak: This Graph Says It All

As I view the cascade of news coming in on the Ebola outbreak, it leaves me scratching my head a little. Ebola is of course, an extremely lethal virus. The first outbreak that occurred in 1976 had a 90 percent mortality rate (we're currently at 60 percent with this one). It's also a highly contagious disease, but only through the proper channels. It isn't an airborne virus. You have to come into direct contact with the bodily fluids of the infected to contract it yourself.

Ebola never seemed to be capable of pandemic levels of destruction. It just doesn't have the right ingredients, so to speak. Usually viruses that kill the most people have a lower death rate, if you can believe that. It allows the victim to spread the disease for a much longer period of time. And unlike most viruses, Ebola doesn't become contagious until you actually begin to show symptoms. Anyone within the vicinity of the victim now knows that they have to take certain precautions, so it stops spread so easily. Normal viruses will have you spreading their ilk everywhere before you or anyone else knows you're infected. Altogether, this current outbreak is baffling, and so far, has outmatched all previous Ebola events by a large margin.
And yet, it just keeps on coming:

Doctors Without Borders said its teams are overwhelmed with new Ebola patients in Sierra Leone and that the situation in Liberia is now "dire."
"Over the last weeks, there has been a significant surge in the epidemic - the number of cases has increased dramatically in Sierra Leone and Liberia, and the disease has spread to many more villages and towns," the organization said in a statement. "After a lull in new cases in Guinea, there has been a resurgence in infections and deaths in the past week."

“Surge” would be a good way to describe an affliction that historically, has never really acted in such a way. To those of you who have been following this outbreak since it began in February, it's easy to watch the death count slowly rise without seeing what's going on behind the numbers. I know, because until today I was guilty of that as well. I've read the headlines for months, and watched that death toll slowly climb, not realizing just how bad this outbreak may be. The deaths of nearly 800 people over the course of many months, while tragic, wouldn't normally be such an alarming event. Those kinds of numbers pale in comparison to other viral outbreaks in history.

But, there is something different this time around. After looking through the CDC updates of the outbreak going back to March 25th, I noticed that the spread of this virus has been prolific, exponential, and unlike any previous event. To help visualize this, I went through CDC numbers and charted them. Below is a graph with each interval being around 1-2 weeks apart. Rather than just adding up the casualties from week to week, I decided to show the difference between the number of deaths from one interval to the next.

It looks like the Virus almost died out by the end of April, before making a huge comeback in May and June. It was almost under control, and probably would have burned out shortly thereafter. It was almost a non-event, no more serious than any other historical outbreak, but instead the virus surged into uncharted territory. We've never seen this many deaths spread out in so many countries. It appears to have fully escaped the ability of any government to control its spread, and is growing by leaps and bounds. We can only speculate as to how bad it's going to get.

One thing's for sure, there's something different about this. I suspect that the virus has mutated a bit. Perhaps it isn't contagious in the same way it used to be. Maybe it has gone airborne, or maybe it's starting to become contagious before the infected show symptoms. Perhaps the slightly lower death rate is helping the virus advance, or it's spreading so much because the outbreak didn't occur in an isolated village as it normally has over the past 40 years. But then again, how in the hell did this virus manage to spread to the cities so quickly? So many questions we don't have the answer to, or may never know.

Meanwhile, the authorities don't seem too concerned. I'm skeptical of their level of awareness. They don't seem to grasp that they may be dealing with a totally different situation this time, and the virus isn't following the norms and rules that we expect it to. CDC director Dr. Tom Friedan has been busy assuring us that all is well, and the world outside of Africa has nothing to fear.

"The plain fact is, we can stop it. We can stop it from spreading in hospitals and we can stop it in Africa [which] is really the source of the epidemic and where we're surging our response so that we can control it there...It's not going to spread widely in the U.S. Could we have another person here, could we have a case or two? Not impossible. We say in medicine never say never. But we know how to stop it here,"

Sure you do Tom.

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China Is Headed Towards a Brutal Collapse In The Near Future

(image link)

When Greece fell into shambles a few years ago, many economists looked to their 'debt to GDP' ratio for an explanation. At over 100 percent, it seemed to be an obvious cause (now at around 150 percent). However, when looking around the world, many nations have far more than this. In fact, it seems that the larger and more important a nation is to the global economy, the more debt it can take on before it faces economic collapse. This doesn't mean it won't happen, only that it's going to take longer for some of these behemoth economies to fall apart.

This week it was revealed that China, now the second largest economy on Earth, has a debt burden that is over 250 percent of its GDP. This is an explosive increase from 147 percent in 2009. Thus far, this massive amount of debt has been accompanied by slower economic growth. While the country still appears to be booming, yearly GDP growth has dropped to 7.7 percent in 2013, down from 10.4 percent in 2010, and 14.2 percent in 2007. While credit and debt played a large role in jump starting China's impressive economic comeback over the past 30 years, it's beginning to take exponentially higher levels of debt to maintain the same amount of growth that China has been used to.

I suspect this will continue for much longer than most nations, because very little of this debt is from foreign countries. Their system is pretty much identical to the way our debt is bought by the Federal Reserve. There isn't as much outside pressure to pay it off, so they'll be able keep this going for quite a while. And China is facing the same situation as the United States. Our politicians keep packing on the debt, year after year, desperate to keep the party going. While I reported on China's rising influence in the world, make no mistake, this may be a temporary advance.

Nations rise and fall throughout their history, and China's rise was likely facilitated by their population explosion in the 20th century, combined with their partial adoption of capitalist principles. They had hundreds of millions of people willing to work for practically nothing, so of course capital and investments rushed into the country. But as the incomes and demands of the labor pool grows, investing in China will become less attractive, and growth will slow. Hence China's growing debts, inflation, and global purchases of real estate all over the world. They're hoping that if they spend and invest enough money, even if that money amounts to an outrageous amount of debt, it will be enough to put the fire back in their economy. I have my doubts that it will work, and even if it did, that isn't even the most unstable aspect of China's future. While China considers its 1.3 billion citizens to be a major problem, their efforts to reduce the population may prove to be disastrous.

Their one child policy has created a lopsided population, where there will soon be many more older retirees than younger workers who can support them. While many developed countries are struggling with the financial burdens of supporting their large aging population, at least they didn't spend a whole generation forcing people out of having children.

Plus, China's cultural desire for males over females, has caused most female children to be aborted or otherwise killed after birth. As you can imagine, having significantly more men than women is going to cause their population to bottleneck even further. The weight of their oldest generation is going to be resting on the head of a pin, financially speaking. If China's huge population of young desperate farmers fueled her growth in the past, then the next generation of ambitious urban kids, severely outnumbered by their parents, will be her downfall in the next century.

If our country is facing such a mind boggling amount of unfunded liabilities from our aging population, you can imagine how bad it will be in China. All of the factors that may cause an economic collapse of the United States, will be considerably worst in China. Along with China's many economic issues, the country is also a police state with a population severely lacking in morality, and a huge wealth disparity between a small number of elite and the impoverished masses (sound familiar America?). And like many multi-ethnic nations these days, China is bursting at the seams with separatist movements that consist of Tibetans, Mongolians, Uyghurs, and Hong Kongens.

If history is any lesson, a collapse of China will make that land into Hell on Earth. Throughout history, anytime China wasn't united behind a strong centralized government, they were embroiled in bloodshed and chaos. Look at this list of the most devastating wars in human history. Among the ten listings below World War 2, five are Chinese rebellions and civil wars. Between 1850 and 1949, around 37 million Chinese died (lowest estimate) in domestic wars that left the country open to foreign occupation for many years. This culminated in a further 20 million dying during the last Japanese invasion of mainland China in 1937.

Simply put, a stable united China is not the norm of human history. The Chinese "Nation" has usually existed as a series of squabbling states bent on controlling the region. If anything, China's current situation is more of an anomaly in recent times.

I do believe that China will soon surpass the United States as the preeminent economic and military power on earth. However, China's global dominion will be short lived. The numbers simply aren't there. The current debt explosion is the first definitive indication that China is on an unsustainable course (if those ghost cities weren't a big tipoff). And when their bubble finally bursts, it will probably end in one of the most devastating civil wars in human history.

Who will surpass China as a global superpower after that, I can't even begin to guess. For the sake of humanity though, hopefully, nobody will.