The UK: How will it end?

[Kieran]

Recession
Business' going under in their droves
Unemployment soaring
Unheard of levels of house reposessions
Inflation then hyper-inflation as all important goods go into short supply
Rising crime levels as people resort to stealing to survive
Depression
Starvation
Die-off
Recovery to a different way of life - fittest/luckiest survive
The world starts to ro-organise slowly with new priorities - water, food, shelter, sustainability, humanity.

God that is sad. I have exposed my worst fears above.

You raving optimist

Where will it all end? - global nuclear war of course...

[snow hope]

Recession
Business' going under in their droves
Unemployment soaring
Unheard of levels of house reposessions
Inflation then hyper-inflation as all important goods go into short supply
Rising crime levels as people resort to stealing to survive
Depression
Starvation
Die-off
Recovery to a different way of life - fittest/luckiest survive
The world starts to ro-organise slowly with new priorities - water, food, shelter, sustainability, humanity.

God that is sad. I have exposed my worst fears above.

I always knew you were an optimist snow!!!

LOL Andy. Believe it or not I was a complete optomist until my late 30s. Then I opened my eyes and saw that there was a whole load of grey between the black and white I had been used to. I have learnt more in the last 8 years than I learnt in the previous 28..... I stopped sleep-walking for a start and I chose the red pill - there was no other choice (like most on here I am sure).

[danza]

Snow hope wrote

LOL Andy. Believe it or not I was a complete optomist until my late 30s. Then I opened my eyes and saw that there was a whole load of grey between the black and white I had been used to. I have learnt more in the last 8 years than I learnt in the previous 28..... I stopped sleep-walking for a start and I chose the red pill - there was no other choice (like most on here I am sure).

And isn't it a bitter pill to swallow. My advice for what its worth is that you know whatever happens economically is out or our control. So a recession happens and that leads to a depression. It will waste your energies being very anxious about it as its out of all our control, the wheels are already in motion so to speak.

At the worst we just all have to make sure that we can house and feed our families. There will always be work, you may have to take on something unexpected in order to earn money.

[clv101]

Unheard of levels of house reposessions

Seeing as there will be approximately the same number of people and the same number of houses in the country as all this happens - how do you see the people distributed between the houses during the unheard of levels of house repossession?

Ummmm, I don't think there will be 60m houses Chris?

I think what is going to happen is that families will go back to being 2 parents, 2/3/4 kids, 2/3/4 grandparents all living in a 2/3/4 bedroom house. We are going to have to pool our resources and move in with the extended family as more people become unemployed and as more people are required to grow food and support each other during the tough times to come.

Many houses will go to rack and ruin - houses without fires and chimney brests for instance - no way to heat the house. Areas of the country that are too remote to survive will be abandoned. Many city tower blocks will be abandoned. Some inner city areas may well be abandoned due to gangs/violence/crime/general chaos.

I HOPE I have this completley wrong Chris, but this is the kind of worse case scenario I can see develop. I HOPE it will be better, but I don't like to rely on HOPE.

I don't mean equal number of people and houses, just the same number of each as we have now. I think you might be right about "unsutiable" places being abandoned - we're already seeing that in the US. The result being larger family units. Which isn't all bad.

[Philip W]

I think we will be surprised how resilient and innovative people and communities are.
If you look at Zimbabwe, they are in a most terrible situation. I would have predicted a collapse and implosion years ago. It still has not happened. The unofficial market has taken over from the official one and life has continued, albeit in extreme hardship by modern standards but not historical standards. Armageddon has not happened.

I think the UK (and the West) will slowly go back in time, firstly we will go back to the 40/50s (petrol rationing, limited travelling, local heating rather than central heating, locally grown food and garden produced food, less meat consumed, air travel for the Jet Set only). Then back to life in the late 1800s (coal economy, limited personal transport, manually intensive work, shift back to working on land, no air travel, transport of goods by sail etc).

Life expectancy will fall as life gets harder, hi-tech hospital treatment will no longer be the norm. Human life will get cheaper (more expendable), less H&S regulations/employee rights, more personal responsibility. Less personal freedom, a less individual society. The idea of retirement will no longer exist, the luxury of further education for the masses will cease, young adults will need to be earning from 16 to 18 rather than early 20s. We will eat and live with the seasons.

I don't see Armageddon just a return to something more sustainable. Nicer in some ways, harsher in others.

[Kentucky Fried Panda]

Hey! This mince tastes like feet!

[fifthcolumn]

A collapsing standard of living will only take place if we don't start building renewable infrastructure.

If we DO build renewable infrastructure and leave enough of it to allow us to build more then we will get a positive compound interest effect and after enough doublings of installed base we will be back to where we are now. After that it will come down to resource constraints. How much iron, copper, etc we have to build more infrastructure.

[clv101]

I think we will be surprised how resilient and innovative people and communities are.
If you look at Zimbabwe, they are in a most terrible situation. I would have predicted a collapse and implosion years ago. It still has not happened. The unofficial market has taken over from the official one and life has continued, albeit in extreme hardship by modern standards but not historical standards. Armageddon has not happened.

I think the UK (and the West) will slowly go back in time, firstly we will go back to the 40/50s (petrol rationing, limited travelling, local heating rather than central heating, locally grown food and garden produced food, less meat consumed, air travel for the Jet Set only). Then back to life in the late 1800s (coal economy, limited personal transport, manually intensive work, shift back to working on land, no air travel, transport of goods by sail etc).

Life expectancy will fall as life gets harder, hi-tech hospital treatment will no longer be the norm. Human life will get cheaper (more expendable), less H&S regulations/employee rights, more personal responsibility. Less personal freedom, a less individual society. The idea of retirement will no longer exist, the luxury of further education for the masses will cease, young adults will need to be earning from 16 to 18 rather than early 20s. We will eat and live with the seasons.

I don't see Armageddon just a return to something more sustainable. Nicer in some ways, harsher in others.

I don't agree we'll "go back in time". We're going forward in every way. The only similarity with the past is that the net amount of energy available will fall back to levels seen in the past but pretty much everything else will be different. Different number of people, different technology, different environment... fundamentally I don't expect symmetry.

[SunnyJim]

Unheard of levels of house reposessions

Seeing as there will be approximately the same number of people and the same number of houses in the country as all this happens - how do you see the people distributed between the houses during the unheard of levels of house repossession?

I see many places being boarded up for years while people share/live in tents etc. Look at the 'refugee camps' of repossesed people in the US! Their houses still stand, but they are boarded up. Squatting's the answer.

[SunnyJim]

I think we will be surprised how resilient and innovative people and communities are.
If you look at Zimbabwe, they are in a most terrible situation. I would have predicted a collapse and implosion years ago. It still has not happened. The unofficial market has taken over from the official one and life has continued, albeit in extreme hardship by modern standards but not historical standards. Armageddon has not happened.

I think the UK (and the West) will slowly go back in time, firstly we will go back to the 40/50s (petrol rationing, limited travelling, local heating rather than central heating, locally grown food and garden produced food, less meat consumed, air travel for the Jet Set only). Then back to life in the late 1800s (coal economy, limited personal transport, manually intensive work, shift back to working on land, no air travel, transport of goods by sail etc).

Life expectancy will fall as life gets harder, hi-tech hospital treatment will no longer be the norm. Human life will get cheaper (more expendable), less H&S regulations/employee rights, more personal responsibility. Less personal freedom, a less individual society. The idea of retirement will no longer exist, the luxury of further education for the masses will cease, young adults will need to be earning from 16 to 18 rather than early 20s. We will eat and live with the seasons.

I don't see Armageddon just a return to something more sustainable. Nicer in some ways, harsher in others.

I don't agree we'll "go back in time". We're going forward in every way. The only similarity with the past is that the net amount of energy available will fall back to levels seen in the past but pretty much everything else will be different. Different number of people, different technology, different environment... fundamentally I don't expect symmetry.

I agree with you Chris. We won't be lucky enough to simply return to the past.

We will be more closely monitored, controled and measured. We will have far less personal freedom than we ever did back then. Given a choice between what we had and what we will likely get I'd choose what we had any day.

[MacG]

We will be more closely monitored, controled and measured. We will have far less personal freedom than we ever did back then. Given a choice between what we had and what we will likely get I'd choose what we had any day.

Don't bet to much on increased control. Current systems for monitoring and control are rather vulnerable and require a functioning society to work. The alternative might be increasing theft and asset stripping.

If a nation or region lose the ability to grow, while other nations or regions are still growing, the most logical thing to do from a day-to-day perspective is asset stripping. Mainly copper, but later iron, and even human body parts for transplants. The growing regions will have the ability to pay for the stripped assets, and that will fix the agenda for everyone in the shrinking region.

The only reason Russia could bounce back was because of the assets still in the ground, all other assets were stripped and sold.

Control will only be performed in order to facilitate the asset stripping - if you just don't interfere with the stripping, you will probably be left alone. Not that there will be much joy in that - you might actually wish for the old bureaucrats and cameras.

[SunnyJim]

I had in mind the monitoring of food production and increased percentage of our earnings being taken as tax. A percentage of which will be taken for the cause. e.g. Feeding our troops in the Arctic.

As tax revenue's drop the govermint will do everything possible to try to keep them up. A loss of revenue is a loss of power, and a loss of a place at the top table. It's inevitable, but I doubt they will see it that way. This will involve a crack down (already started) on benefit claimants (sick and ill), black market sales, non-currency trading etc etc.

Community food growing schemes may face more legislative challenges from the goverment in the future, as where work is exchanged for food there is no tax to pay....

[MacG]

I had in mind the monitoring of food production and increased percentage of our earnings being taken as tax. A percentage of which will be taken for the cause. e.g. Feeding our troops in the Arctic.

As tax revenue's drop the govermint will do everything possible to try to keep them up. A loss of revenue is a loss of power, and a loss of a place at the top table. It's inevitable, but I doubt they will see it that way. This will involve a crack down (already started) on benefit claimants (sick and ill), black market sales, non-currency trading etc etc.

Community food growing schemes may face more legislative challenges from the goverment in the future, as where work is exchanged for food there is no tax to pay....

Yea, you're right. It will probably get worse before it gets better. There is a lot pf recorded history of such behavior in the late Roman Empire. Taxes on farmers increased to a level where they did not even have seeds for the next season left, and when the farmers abandoned the farms they made laws prohibiting that, and even forced the next generation to take over the farm.

On a positive note, Joseph Tainter cite some archaeological evidence that life in the provinces actually improved after the fall of Rome.

[oilslick]

Recession
Business' going under in their droves
Unemployment soaring
Unheard of levels of house reposessions
Inflation then hyper-inflation as all important goods go into short supply
Rising crime levels as people resort to stealing to survive
Depression
Starvation
Die-off
Recovery to a different way of life - fittest/luckiest survive
The world starts to ro-organise slowly with new priorities - water, food, shelter, sustainability, humanity.

God that is sad. I have exposed my worst fears above.

Yes, but what's your worst case scenario?

[emordnilap]

Recession
Business' going under in their droves
Unemployment soaring
Unheard of levels of house reposessions
Inflation then hyper-inflation as all important goods go into short supply
Rising crime levels as people resort to stealing to survive
Depression
Starvation
Die-off
Recovery to a different way of life - fittest/luckiest survive
The world starts to ro-organise slowly with new priorities - water, food, shelter, sustainability, humanity.

God that is sad. I have exposed my worst fears above.

Yes, but what's your worst case scenario?

BAU?