Predicting America's Future

There is much to disagree with about this set of predictions.  It's certainly a plausible hypothesis, though:

Okay, listen up. Here's how the real estate market and the economy will unfold after 2010:

1. The housing market continues to crumble. More sob stories about fucked boomers who can't sell. The real estate industry keeps pumping out happy bullshit. The republican and dems who defend the financial industry face angry crowds. The too big to fail bankers pass more laws to rig the system. A cash economy starts bypassing the banking system. This prompts tougher laws that turn average citizen into a criminal for not feeding the financial beast. The trust of the system that has marked the last century starts to wither. Anti-government extremism grows like crazy. This causes a corrosion of society unlike anything we've ever seen before.

2. The retail economy starts to crumble. Who needs a flat screen TV or new game system when you don't have job? Malls die even more than they are doing now. Large spaces of malls and big box stores are converted into government use buildings or demolished. Look for more flea markets in others. "Shop till you drop" seems as distant in time as "Remember the Maine."

3. The garage sale/Ebay economy takes off. Boomers sell off their stuff. Want a luxury car? A boat? A fancy furniture set? They can be yours if the price is right and you have a truck to haul it off. We have to much stuff. Who really needs anything new? Because this economy is off the books, so is enforcement. Disputes once settled in small claims court are settled with baseball bats. This actually is a plus for society. Scammers and petty criminals are killed off or have their bones broken. People aren't working to keep up with the Joneses anymore. A lot of the pressures of the granite counter/SUV culture are gone. As the boomers die off, their stupidity becomes even more apparent. They become a laughable footnote in history. Thanks for the music though!

4. Gas prices drop. Jobless people don't drive. People fearful for their jobs drive smaller cars. The SUV economy dies. It's used minivans now. People are forced live in denser areas. Fringes of the suburbs start to turn into weed-covered wastelands. 

5. You have boomers who can't afford to move and Gen Yers who can't find jobs. They become roomies! You have kids living with their parents well into their 30s. Boomers forgets about those retirements to Tuscany. Fun times are had around the dinner table. Domestic violence between generations. Shut your pie-hole gramps or I'll beat you again with this HDMI cable!

6. Story after story of boomers dying due to lack of decent medical care. Can't afford your insulin or heart medicine? Tuff shit! Buh bye! Boomers who laughed at Obamacare are now all for massive government health care. Gen Xers and Yers join them. Too bad we spent the money for a public options on wars!

7. Wal-mart even takes a hit. They have to close stores in hard hit small towns, this kills small towns ever further. Whole parts of rural areas are abandoned like detroit.

8. Crime invades once rich suburbs. Crimes like drug dealing and meth production now become part of the lost middle class. Connor and Dakota are the new market for drug dealing thugs. Clueless boomer parents are suddenly dealing with drive bys and the rough end of all those "get tuff on crime" laws they voted for. Got meth in your house? It's not yours? Tuff shit! You're going to jail! Now you know what inner city blacks have been dealing with for years. Assume the position Milton!

9. The US military withers. Sorry folks! No tax money? No mean green war machine. Red states take it hardest. How's that "government off our backs" talk workin' for ya? Hypocrite republicans scramble to get their share of an ever shrinking amount of government pork.

10. The highway system starts breaking down in parts. Want to drive through the USA? You might have to go off road on to gravel roads. Some sections might become undrivable and cut off from the rest of the nation. I hope you have GPS and plenty of gas. Break down in the middle of nowhere? Meet the locals! Squeeeal like a pig!

11. Crumbling infrastructure kills large chunks of the retail economy further. Even grocery stores have trouble keep stock on the shelves. Want fresh milk? We're out! Go get your own cow. Local farms take up the slack. This actually creates jobs.

12. Colleges start to close because there is no one who believes a degree gets you anywhere anymore. Even the rich don't believe in colleges anymore. They hire private tutors. American learning goes backwards. Bluto from Animal House looks like a Rhodes scholar. At least he knew there was a Pearl Harbor and a World War II. Some kids can't even speak one language. They grunt and snarl like animals and watch TV thinking TV shows are real. 

13. Cops and local groups of armed citizens go to war with each other. Interesting times in some HOA controlled neighborhoods become their own city states.

In the end, the United States degrades into several ungovernable sections. Civilization survives, but on a much more humble level. People rebuild, but the days of hyperconsumption and globalization are over.