Consider these two quotes from this week, and consider them well. For they are from thoughtful Americans, both connected to the political process, both with a track record of activism. They disagree on many things, but agree on one thing; They see the decline, and neither of them like it.

I do not like it: I have spent too much time in small town America (which Milo would hate, hate, hate) and I like flyover country: ( have good memories of Ohio, Kentucky, Florida, Pennsylvania… and less good ones from San Francisco, Boston, and the rabid monkey of Orlando. But that was in the past. The leadership of the USA has gutted the country, and lost an undeclared third world war. The USA is falling, and from a great height.

How many of you brooding on the dreadful prospect of Hillary have chanced to survey what remains of Democratic Party (cough cough) leadership in the background of Her Royal Inevitableness? Nothing is the answer. Zip. Nobody. A vacuum. There is no Democratic Party anymore. There are no figures of gravitas anywhere to be found, no ideas really suited to the American prospect, nothing with the will to oppose the lumbering parasitic corporatocracy that is doing little more than cluttering up this moment in history while it sucks the last dregs of value from our society.

I say this as a lifelong registered Democrat but a completely disaffected one — who regards the Republican opposition as the mere errand boy of the above-named lumbering parasitic corporatocracy. Readers are surely chafing to insert that the Democrats have been no less errand boys (and girls) for the same disgusting zeitgeist, and they are surely correct in the case of Hillary, and indeed of the current President.

Readers are surely also chafing to insert that there is Bernie Sanders, climbing in the opinion polls, disdaining Wall Street money, denouncing the current disposition of things with the old union hall surliness we’ve grown to know and love. I’m grateful that Bernie is in the race, that he’s framing an argument against Ms. It’s My Turn. I just don’t happen to think that Bernie gets what the country — indeed what all of techno-industrial society — is really up against, namely a long emergency of economic contraction and collapse.

Everyone must understand that the American Era is over: the United States domination of the world is ended, just as the British domination of the world (pink all over the globe) I learned in grade school ended after World War II. For some this was an objective to achieve. For others it is a disaster. For all it is a coming fact. The nuclear weapon, like the .45 Colt, is an equalizer, and it is now inevitable that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons whenever they decide to do so, given that the deal essentially gives up on inspections, and Iran has announced that under no circumstance will there be any inspection of their military installations even if there is inspection – after 24 day’s notice – of their peaceful installations. Intelligence experts say Iran is about a year from their decision to have them. My guess is that there will be a demonstration in Summer, 2017.

Meanwhile the other nations of the Middle East will rush to acquire their own; they can read the newspapers as well as I can.

The trouble is that it is not just the USA. Things are intertwined. Locally, the banks have had their credit rating drop, because of our crazy housing prices.

But we are in a state of collapse, world wide. NZ makes a about 30% of its money from dairy farming, and the market is tanking. Not because of the NZ situation: we are generally doing OK, apart from our mis-allocation of funds into property, which is a function of our not having a capital gains tax and our mistrust of the stock market. But China and India are our markets, and they can’t sell things to the USA. Everything is now connected.

Do your homework and check out copper. Copper used to be easy to mine. Now there are pits in the ground miles across and a mile deep. The percentage of copper is about 3%, in other words, 97% waste. That 3% that can be harvested is a lower grade and quality than a number of years back. But that's okay, because the demand for copper has dropped sharply, and so has the price. Until today of course, it was up. Happy times are here again.

I used to tell people that the wolf was at the door. I used to remind people that there were dark thunder clouds rolling across the horizon. But I quit saying those things. The simple fact is that the wolf is not at the door. The wolf is in the door. Those terrible thunder storms coming across the horizon? They're here. Go back up to the top of this article and read all of those lies again. We are in the midst of a financial collapse that has never been seen on this planet before. What's going to be the ultimate catalyst? Who knows, but there will be one. Some people call them black swan events. When that black swan event does happen, your government, and mine, and our news medias are going to tell us the truth. Have you been reading? They are going to orchestrate a lie just like they have been doing for years and years and years. Be careful and watch out for a serious diversion. ...

It's here, Ladies and Gentlemen. It's not coming anymore. It's here. You need to get your house in order. You still have some time. Get things done now. I pray every day that I am wrong. I like life the way it is right now, but the happy times are over. Reality is here and we are going to have to pay the price. The fat lady is singing, the game is over. You need to brace for impact. Get it done. If you think money in the bank is going to save you, you are sadly mistaken. If you have a bunch of shovels, then you will be a wealthy man. 

We have bought this on ourselves. We have let the culture get corrupt.

When the culture gets corrupt, no one can trust strangers, and two things happen pretty much at the same time: the state starts to hyper-regulate and hyper-control: requiring oaths, attestations, credentials: each needing certification, fees (and at times bribes), and people begin to mistrust their neighbour and the state, keeping business within extended tribal or family networks.

When the state has never been that honest, and tyranny reigns, society reconfigures around family and tribe: and the state is ignored. This is the traditional Chinese (or Italian) society: the Ashkenazi from Lvov to Rotterdam, and both the Orange and Catholic tribes of Northern Ireland. Such a reconfiguration is anti-fragile, particularly as the West goes both full fascist and rewards failure, both of which make societies less stable, more rigid, and far more able to break.

Or, as a wise man said, what cannot go on will not go on. The path our elite are on is broken. Do not be them, or like them.