Social – This one covers many different areas. For me, it consists of everything from your neighbor to The Kardashians and a lot of things in between.  America’s Social institutions have been slowly and steadily decaying from the inside for many years. Just think about how we treat each other, what constitutes entertainment or what passes for living one’s life nowadays. Judging by the vast displays of moral rot, many members of the public at large are outright lunatics.  Reading the comments for the videos above will give you an idea how deranged the average citizen is.

Unfortunately for the commenters they are not deranged enough to qualify for their own reality television show, yet.   Standard American television is entirely empty of goodness, perhaps doing its best to imitate standard American life. Many of today’s most popular celebrities have no talents. One needs to simply piss on the floor in order to be idolized by millions of shallow minded idiots. It isn’t surprising that people demand so little out of their entertainers. Why try to emulate greatness when you can follow failures, and face few societal handicaps?

It’s fun to call people who watch reality television stupid but there are some truly troubling things happening in America. Type “murder suicide” in to google news.  There are multiple every week. It seems like our moral fabric is disolving in front of our eyes. The continuing slide of what constitutes acceptable behavior will have very negative consequences for society at large. It’s important you begin to sperate yourself from these people soon.

Civic - If you have been paying attention you should have noticed that America’s civic institutions are beginning to crumble. Most governments, be it local, state or federal are dead broke and the results aren’t pretty. The Detroit Fire Department is pitching a plan that would allow abandoned houses to burn down rather than put them out, and one city in New York has is being forced to cancel everything from Memorial Day parades to 4th of July fireworks.  This is nothing compared to what’s coming down the pike for the federal government.  If only the problems were limited to money.

Many public servants are as twisted as the people they are here to protect and serve. A full one percent of the San Diego police department is under criminal investigation. In the last 5 years hundreds of Massachusetts public employees, ranging from school teachers to the Speaker of the House,  have either resigned after embarrassing ethical lapses or been criminally charged.  Again, these examples are amateur hour compared to the madness occurring at the feral, I mean federal level.

Financial insolvency is one thing, but moral is entirely different.  You can’t raise property taxes to make up for a shortfall in decency.  This Humpty Dumpty may have the lowest chance of ever getting put back together again, mainly because the king’s horses and men are still stomping on him.

Monetary – I’ve been reading about the financial situation in our country a lot more, and a lot deeper lately.  I “knew” how bad it was but had a difficult time articulating to others, and myself, what exactly the problem is.  I don’t think there’s a maybe anymore. This thing is coming down.

We’ve all seen the insane examples. A recent post on Sovereign Man talks about JP Morgan’s $70 trillion derivative exposure. Honestly, how can anyone pretend this legitimate? Why not just just run it up to 500 zoomzillion?  Sooner or later reality is going to win out and all this silliness is going to come down.  Unfortunately, it’s going to bring a lot of people who had nothing to do with it along for the ride. I doubt I have to go over the specifics for anyone.  The long term outlook for Western fiat money is ugly.

While my personal dollar denominated situation is decent, my alternates are not. I’ve sat around doing nothing for way too long, hopefully you haven’t.   I’ve watched gold, silver, commodity backed ETFs, etc go through the roof for a long time and never acted despite knowing I should of. If you’ve been like me and have been lazy, stop, get your shit together, and figure out a plan now.  Don’t panic but set your set your mind on making something happen.

Medical – Recent studies show upwards of 40% of Americans may be obese by 2030. Prescription pill abuse is rising. There are a whole pant load of old people coming up over the horizon. People with insurance can barely afford a trip to the hospital.  Things do no appear to be sustainable.

I can’t envision a scenario where this thing fixes itself without some sort of major disruption. I see a lot of options and solutions for how it could be but I can’t picture the current connected parties relinquishing it’s control willingly.  The further it limps along the longer the road back is going to be.

In the meantime you have to keep yourself out of the hospital and off prescription drugs. You can’t control everything but you can prevent preventable diseases.

Food – Big Food probably has the ability to stay solvent the longest of all the crumbling institutions, for a number of reasons.  Mostly because, despite agricultural subsidies, which may eventually go away, Big Food operates within a somewhat free market, at least when compared to the monetary and medical systems. Despite their political connections they do maintain successful businesses.

The part that is crumbling with Food is quality.  How much more can they lean out of their systems before the unawakened public is eating 100% nutrient deficient gruel? How much further can they take the processing of food away from a natural state?  The middle aisles of the supermarket is already scary unhealthy, imagine when how bad it will get as production costs rise and real wages fall.

The cliche of struggling senior citizens eating dog food to survive may eventually include a lot more people if the quality of industrial food continues on its present course.