Economic Outlook

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There will be less and less food to go around. Fewer clothes and material goods of every kind. We'll all be increasingly crowded. Less important as individuals. Average life spans will decrease. Every kind of crime and every form of insanity will increase. There will be more government by decree, by default, by coup d'etat . . . and less by democratic action. Terrorist activities will become far more desperate, far more violent, much wider spread, much more random, and increasingly directed against totally innocent bystanders.

It's only a matter of time until we have genuine worldwide famines and pestilence . . . both by accident and as the result of calculated political action. Both runaway "peaceful" nuclear devices and intentionally detonated atomic weapons will kill millions of people and contaminate hundreds of thousands of square miles. Interestingly enough—perhaps by coincidence, perhaps because of larger reasons we don't fully comprehend—the incidence of "natural" disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and hordes of insect pests will probably increase right along with the increase in man-originated catastrophes.

Economically, there will be more—and more violent—swings in the price of commodities. The stock markets of the world will increasingly be run up and down by rumors, privileged information, and pure caprice. Inflation of every possible intensity will sweep the world, as will large and small recessions and depressions . . . and purely chance mixtures and combinations of simultaneous inflation and depression.

Expect more wars, both great and small. More nationalist movements. More attempts to secede from old political and geographical organizations. More demands for "action". More protests. More neighborhood squabbles. More Saturday night knifings. More child abuse.

Nothing will run as well as it "used to". There will be more power brownouts and blackouts. Telephone service will deteriorate. Roads fall apart. Institutions crumble and lose meaning. Many of the physical, social, and economic interconnections that hold industrial society together will be severed. Lawlessness will prevail and some people will "fight back" by joining gangs that use any means necessary to guarantee their members a little security and the necessities of life. Others will try to exist on what's left over. Still others will simply give up and withdraw into catatonic stupors.

That, of course, is just the general trend: a long, slow, downhill slide. The good news is that there will be a few temporary "reprieves" and momentary "gains" along the way. The bad news is that at any given time there will always exist an increasingly great chance for an unexpected savage catastrophe of truly terrifying size, shape, and hue.

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