Is the US destined for social & economic collapse?

[Default0ptions]

There’s a fair bit of (very good and well worth a read) contemporary fiction set in the almost worse than the third world conditions of the bulk of ‘flyover’ America.

It does give a real insight to the plight of the ordinary American citizen doing their best in a world proscribed by the failure of the ‘American Dream’

[johnny]

I once slept in my car in the US on the last night of my time at university before getting a flight out of there. I saved about $120 on a motel room and was very pleased not to get shot in a drive-by gang shooting.

I was homeless for about 3 months in my last semester in college. The car didn't work very well for sleeping in, tried it for a couple days in the fine arts building parking lot, ended up in a storage unit. Jammed the mechanism from the inside so I couldn't get locked in, before tucking in for the night I drove around on my air cooled motorcycle, it radiated heat for like hours and made the place toasty for half the night.

I was sleeping at rest areas across America and Canada going from drilling rig to drilling rig for years, GOM to Prudhoe Bay. I'm thinking about getting one of those inflatable beds for the back seat of the car should I start traveling while towing my motorcycle from venue to venue. Hotels have gotten outrageous in cost since Covid.

My main worry about the US is the level of drug usage and that the authorities need to get tough on the importers and dealers.

The homeless encampments are certainly a thing, but any statistics on them reveals that California is the main issue. We've got it locally, mostly downtown, the daughter lived there for a year because she's always wanted to, and it was too much of a hassle. She found one sleeping inside the apartment buildings garage, near her car one day. Apparently snuck through the opening doors before they closed, the place was pretty well locked down 24/7. But then the tents were driven away from the capitol building, and they began springing up on the grass strip between sidewalk and road right across the street from her yuppy centric apartment building. She bought a townhouse and moved to the suburbs.

Coincidently, the mass transit trains went from a nice ride to a place folks began riding to stay warm (it goes by the honor system, no restrictions on cheaters just walking on) and the drug use got pretty obvious. The daughter was happy to not have to ride them when she changed jobs recently. It didn't take but a couple years for those inner city type issues to begin to spread out with mass transit by rail.

[johnny]

There’s a fair bit of (very good and well worth a read) contemporary fiction set in the almost worse than the third world conditions of the bulk of ‘flyover’ America.

Flyover America is great, and where I spend all my time traveling. The homeless and drug issues are more big city and coastal. Flyover America is where people help you when you are in a bind, they understand what America once was, they wish it was that way again.

The coastal cities however...avoid those like the plague. I speak from experience of course, hardly need someone claiming things about places they've never been contradicted by a reality I've been living for half a century now.

[BritDownUnder]

There’s a fair bit of (very good and well worth a read) contemporary fiction set in the almost worse than the third world conditions of the bulk of ‘flyover’ America.

Flyover America is great, and where I spend all my time traveling. The homeless and drug issues are more big city and coastal. Flyover America is where people help you when you are in a bind, they understand what America once was, they wish it was that way again.

The coastal cities however...avoid those like the plague. I speak from experience of course, hardly need someone claiming things about places they've never been contradicted by a reality I've been living for half a century now.

Please name some of these novels as I am genuinely interested. I have gotten into looking at YouTube videos by people such as Nick Johnson and Peter Santenello who visit some real horror places in America but also some real gems including one town in Iowa with no unemployment, no drug problems, no homelessness etc - all in flyover third world America. As one American told me that if you don't like the politics or people in your particular part of America it is so diverse you can just move and find your niche.

Are you sure you have actually been to America? Have you ever lived there other than on holiday? Just interested.
I once stayed in a $28 per night motel and would have rather stayed in the car. Interesting place.

On the subject of California there was a nice documentary called "Leaving California" done by an Iranian immigrant about middle-class people leaving California for other states and the main thing that struck me was that only 18% of African-Americans graduate the public high school system in California along with about 25% of Latinos, 48% of whites and 65% of Asian-Americans. Not a good look for the future.

[Default0ptions]

@BDU - Jeff Zentner is a great read: https://www.jeffzentnerbooks.com/

[Default0ptions]

There’s a fair bit of (very good and well worth a read) contemporary fiction set in the almost worse than the third world conditions of the bulk of ‘flyover’ America.

Flyover America is great, and where I spend all my time traveling. The homeless and drug issues are more big city and coastal. Flyover America is where people help you when you are in a bind, they understand what America once was, they wish it was that way again.

The coastal cities however...avoid those like the plague. I speak from experience of course, hardly need someone claiming things about places they've never been contradicted by a reality I've been living for half a century now.

Thanks Johnny - interesting stuff. It’s useful to hear from your boots on the ground experience

[johnny]

Flyover America is great, and where I spend all my time traveling. The homeless and drug issues are more big city and coastal. Flyover America is where people help you when you are in a bind, they understand what America once was, they wish it was that way again.

Thanks Johnny - interesting stuff. It’s useful to hear from your boots on the ground experience

Over the next 5 days I'm doing central and south central Missouri, checking out interesting monuments in a cemetery near the Arkansas border (been fascinated with interesting grave markers since I bumped into Alvin Yorks in Tennessee by accident), Shilo Civil War battlefield in Tennessee, then north along the Smokies through every mountain town from Chattanooga north to the Virginia border, than east across northern North Carolina until I hit the Atlantic. By then things will suck and there will be traffic and "technology triangles" and idiots galore. I'll do some family visiting and head back on a fast route.

In the spring I usually do the northern US border from Montana east to Sault Ste Marie before holding my breath in the southern LP of Michigan near Detroit and the return to idiot Midwest "civilization".

I drive an old and well worn car owned and almost exclusively built and sold to old farts in a now long forgotten age of American iron that fits right in with the non city folk, I look like them, was raised among them, can talk like them, and despise the coasts and cities and wish that America still looked like the one I grew up in like them. The good news is I can still find old America...just not within within 50 miles of where yuppies have gathered with their second vacation homes and whatnot. Hard to find near most coasts, although you can in Louisiana in the swamps, islands off the coast of Maine, and some remote spots along the Pacific once you get clear of San Fran hell. Much easier to find old school America in flyover country, just don't mention where you currently live or what you do. They are suspicious if they discover you aren't a good ol' boy anymore and raised your kids in suburbia instead of on the farm, or working in a factory or doing "real" jobs.