The next ten years will not look like the last ten. They will be a shock to many people. Theories like petrocollapse will become mainstream. The first world will begin to look like the second and third world.

Industrialized Countries Backslide

If you want to see what the next decade will look like, look no further than France, Ukraine, and Iceland today. This week one to three million people took to the streets of France for a second round of protests against President Nicolas Sarkozy's handling of the economic crisis. Protests later turned violent as youths clashed with police.

Protests have also erupted in Ukraine. Ukraine’s economy has gone into a nosedive, its banking system is paralyzed and millions of people have lost their jobs in recent months, industrial production has plunged 26.6 percent in the past year, the national currency, the Gryvna, has lost 50 percent of its value since last summer, default on Ukraine’s $105 billion foreign debt may be imminent or barely avoided.

In a 24-page internal memo leaked to the Ukrainian media, Finance Minister Viktor Pynzenyk warned in late January that Ukraine’s economy is on the verge of collapse, “We have entered an extremely serious and deep crisis. Ukraine’s [economic] situation is the worst in the world.”

“It’s a war of all against all,” says Dmytro Vydrin, an independent deputy of the Supreme Rada, Ukraine’s parliament. “Our best hope at this point is that chaos will win out over ill-intentions, because the worst thing will be if one group wins and establishes a monopoly of power.”

In October of last 2008 Iceland’s three largest banks failed unable to pay about $61 billion of debt, 12 times the size of the entire economy. The Iceland banking failure slashed more than two thirds off the value of the krona last year, pushing inflation 20 percent and sending unemployment to a record high. The inflation rate is still high although it fell to 17.6 percent in February, from a 19-year high of 18.6 percent the month earlier.

Worldwide, a wave of social and political unrest could sweep through the world's poorest countries if G20 leaders fail to come to their aid, the World Bank warns today, March 22, 2009. A new report from the Overseas Development Institute says the a collapse of the global economy would cost developing countries $750 billion in lost output, drive millions more into poverty, lead to an increase to nearly a billion in the number of people going hungry, and cost 90 million lives.

If all of the above spreads to China and Mexico in the form of political instability and disrupts production, there will be a bunch of clueless formerly middle class people wondering what happened to their limitless supply of cheap products to consume.

US May Face Bankruptcy

I will spare you the details of Stimulus's, TARPs, derivative bubbles, toxic bank asset market plans, and just focus on the big picture.

Ordinarily, U.S. federal spending is about 20 percent of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP). But as a result of the economic downturn and rapidly increasing spending, federal spending as a percent of GDP has risen by a third to 26 percent. Add state, county, and municipalities, I estimate total government spending to be about 36 percent of GDP. Of the proposed $3.6 trillion 2009 federal budget, almost 40 percent or $1.38 trillion will have to be borrowed because of plunging revenues. Just two years of deficit this size would equal 93 percent of the entire 2008 federal budget.

The end of cheap natural resources compounded by the debt collapse will prevent the future growth needed to pay the interest on federal, corporate, and consumer debt. We are seeing a last ditch spending effort to revive growth while other nations will still lend the U.S. money. After this, it is game over.

President Obama went to Harvard, but it was in law not economics, and even if he studied economics it would have been the wrong kind, universities need to retool and start teaching powerdown and steady-state economics because that is all we will have left within ten years. We will have to develop new economic models that do not rely on growth to pay interest on our debt. Most of our leaders and and educators have never had to start a family farm or small business. They don’t have the appropriate technology skills that we will need over the next ten years.

Don’t be fooled by the Obama-bump in the global casino stock market. The current surge from the toxic assets plan will end 24 months as it ignores the fact that the government is responsible for guaranteeing half the value of the toxic assets. The toxic assets won’t disappear; they will just be moved from one pocket to another on the taxpayer dime. Its like creating a market to sell shares in the Titanic. Don’t get back in the market. Financial players are running the market back up so they can get out of it.

A U.N. panel will recommend at next week’s G20 summit that the world replace the dollar as its reserve currency in favor of a shared basket of currencies, a member of the panel said on Wednesday, adding to pressure on the dollar. The world knows the dollar will lose its value over the coming years. Last week Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao expressed concern about the outlook for the U.S. and the safety of its Treasury bonds. "We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S., so of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. Frankly speaking, I do have some worries."

A new world reserve currency will be a huge blow to the dollar and may make it more difficult or impossible for the U.S. to finance our hemorrhaging deficit. This week, auction demand for U.S. Government debt was weak and a U.K. auction actually failed. Watch for China also to call for a new reserve currency at next week’s G20 summit.

What We Will See by 2019

Here is a short list of what we are likely to see over the next ten years: The end of the go-anywhere any-day airline industry as we know it. A 20 to 50 percent reduction in long-haul trucking. The mothballing of the international space station. $6-$10 gallon gas and the end of one or all of the big three automakers. Closure of several national retail chains. A DOW of between 4000 and 6000. Pension benefits cut by half. The Great Depression II will not have ended. Resurrection of the “victory garden” now called the “I need to eat garden.” Mass migrations. Reinstatement of the draft to fight resource wars or mandatory national service. Shortages of spare parts and higher minimum order quantities. Gas lines and rationing. Ideas such as petrocollapse and a steady-state economy will have joined global warming in mainstream consciousness. With a decline of world oil production of 6 to 9.1 percent per year, we will see GDP drop from $14.58 trillion in 2008 to between $7 and $9 trillion by 2019.

Reaching Limits to Growth by 2019

Our system is the mother of all Ponzi schemes. The three key lynchpins holding it all together will start coming apart in the next decade.

First, the house of cards construction of it requires several “ifs” to all be maintained. For instances, if the system can keep expanding to pay the interest on the debt, if the minority can continue to exploit the majority, if we can continue to find cheap energy and natural resources, if large nation states can be maintained to keep global markets open, if we can continue to operate at a high degree of inefficiency and waste, if we can maintain a consensus and motivation, etc.

Second, because we have put off our problems with cheap energy and technology adaptations, it is now becoming more likely that we will run into several of our problems at the same time. Our system will not run out of land or food or resources or pollution absorption capability. What it will run out of is the ability to cope. Today we are witnessing the Obama administration trying to maintain a consensus to spend at ever higher levels to solve our problems. When problems arise exponentially and in multiples, problems that could theoretically be dealt with one by one can overwhelm the ability to cope.

Third, as our population continues to grow, it’s weight upon the house of cards becomes increasingly crushing. More cheap energy, food, land, clean water, transportation, etc. are all needed. What was once a manageable problem at a population of 1 billion, starts to become a catastrophe at 7 billion. At some point limits to growth are reached.

New Mindset for a New Future

With the population we have, the cultural story we tell our children, our spread out auto-dependent suburban infrastructure, and our infinite growth economic model, we are set up for failure. Every step in the same direction is just digging a deeper hole: more debt, more decaying infrastructure, no real value employment, little population control, hopelessly inappropriate skills and eduction.

The Only Solution That Will Ultimately Work—One Child Families Through New Culture

Some of the next “solution” sections are touched on in my previous essays. However, about half of my readers are new to Culturequake. Read on if you’re new.

If we are going to engineer a softest landing for the next generation we do need to strive for: a steady-state economy, re-localization and expanded nonprofits, local community, respect for our elders, dissolve the nation-state, indy-media, transition from agriculture to horticulture, and community education—basically a new culture(s). Standardized “no child left behind” should be replaced by “every child can plant a forest garden and feed their family.” But no matter your cause, it is a lost cause without reducing population. Planting a food forest and having four kids is one step forward and four steps backward.

Reducing our population to 1900 levels will go the furthest to a brighter future for our children and our fellow species from whom we have stolen so much. One child families can reduce human population each generation from 6.7 billion, to 3.4 billion, to 1.7 billion, to 838 million and so on all within one century. Everyone will still be able to nurture a loving family.

Change Has to Come From the Bottom Up

Change will not come from top-down centralized governments. Nation states protect assets of the wealthy, tilt the table to concentrate wealth up, and just do not inspire local change. We have to let go of the nation state, and re-localize more than just our food production. This will mean fewer big box stores and gadgets, but also a better future.

My own family is trying to make the transition now from consumers to edible forest gardeners and educators. It’s hard because our society does not give us alternatives. It’s, “get a job or we don’t give you any happy juju points to buy food or stuff with.” “Free land, forget it.” “Here, stare at this light box five hours per day, and zone out watching 21,000 commercials per year.” “Sit down, shut up, and don’t ask questions in school.” “Don’t save your seeds, buy this new and improved variety from us.”

I do know we are going in the right direction though. Our fruit, berries, greens, and nut polyculture will yield more per acre than traditional farming practices without the inputs and at a fraction of the maintenance. We are planning succession through design and are working with nature using the model of a forest instead of applying scarce inputs to fight succession and because we have killed the soil. See my review of a new film called A Farm for the Future for more information about permaculture.

Restore the Original Cultural and Economic Model

Moving towards a stead-state economy is an important first step, but it is only the beginning. It is time to dump the agricultural revolution economic model of privatizing the land, locking up the food, forcing people to get a job and work for the system just to live and eat. Humanity’s anthropocentrism and dominion have gotten us where we are today: hot, dry, and crowded.

It used to be that you “give support to get support;” now it is “make things to get things.” The new agricultural revolution or Taker model leaves us unfulfilled, and destroys the planet’s biodiversity. The original model worked for three million years until the agricultural revolution. Small tribal communities provided cradle-to-grave security for everyone. No Medicare card required. The beauty is that thousands of different cultures used this model for millions of years, plus it works for the average person. You didn’t have to be a walking Buddha or the second coming to be fulfilled, happy, and supported by your community.

Some question the merit of reconsidering the original cultural models, or as I propose merging the best of both modern and traditional cultures to create new cultures. Original indigenous health for example may be better than we have been led to believe. Take the work of Dr. Weston Price in the 1930s. His research was done at a time when many such groups still lived free of the influence of Western civilization and what he called “foods of commerce.”

For nearly 10 years, Dr. Price and his wife traveled around the world in search of the secret to health. He traveled to hundreds of cities in a total of 14 different countries in his search to find healthy people. He observed perfect dental arches, minimal tooth decay, high immunity to tuberculosis and overall excellent health in those groups of people who ate their indigenous foods. He found when these people were introduced to modern processed foods, such as white flour, white sugar, refined vegetable oils and canned goods, signs of degeneration quickly became quite evident. Dental caries, deformed jaw structures, crooked teeth, arthritis and a low immunity to tuberculosis became rampant amongst them. When native people at the diet our bodies are actually adapted to, they rarely died of heart disease or cancer. Dr. Price documented this ancestral wisdom including hundreds of photos in his book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.

So What Do We Do Now?

The majority is not ready to unplug from the system until it sees repeated examples of a better way to live—of new cultures. They need see a workable solution to our “forced work” system. People also need to walk towards something better, not away from something bad. For those already becoming the change we want to see, we will be the inspiration for those who follow.

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Visit www.culturequake.org to read the most updated version of this essay and to read the blog as a whole work, visit the Culturequake amazon.com book store, and learn more about the book Culturequake: The Fall of Modern Culture and the Rise of Earth Culture. Visit www.restorationfarm.org to learn what we are doing to grow new stories and cultures. ©2009 Chuck Burr LLC.

Notes:

Business Week
French Take to the Streets

In These Times
Orange Fades to Black: Heralded for its Orange Revolution five years ago, Ukraine is coming apart at the seams

Financial Post
Europe scrambles as Iceland's banks fail

The Observer
G20 warned unrest will sweep globe

The Washington Post
Stocks Up After Seesaw Session

Donella Meadows
Limits To Growth: The 30-Year Update, p. 222

CIA
The World Factbook: United States

Bloomberg
Obama Says His Budget Would Put Economy on ‘Firm Foundation’

Reuters
U.N. panel says world should ditch dollar

Michael Ruppert
Interregnum: Reflections on an Obama Landslide and the Path Ahead

International Energy Agency
World Energy Outlook 2008

Jerry Mander
In The Absence Of The Sacred, p. 79

Dr. Weston Price
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration