The lucky suburbanites will be the ones with the forethought to trade in their suburban McHouses for property in the towns and small cities and prepa… - James Howard Kunstler

The failure of the GSEs would make the S&L fiasco of the 1980s look like a bad night of poker. The failure of the GSEs would pose a far graver situation than the LTCM flameout. It could easily bring on cascading failures that might jeopardize global finance. This time, the… public would feel the pain.

Paper money is bad enough, as France learned under the tutelage of the rascal John Law in the early 1700s. The nation was broke, exhausted by foolish wars, and heaped under unbearable debt.

[...] The disturbance of global oil markets as the permanent energy crisis begins is liable to interrupt global commerce and global travel. Fewer… will fly [...]. However, these same energy problems will surely reduce crop production, which would lead to reduced food aid to desperate populations [...], which would then lead to compromised immune systems and the... [invasion] of poor, hungry, and... unhealthy people [...]. This is an obvious recipe for conflict and woe. Where the refugee camps [are] set up, [the] disease will surely follow.