I have a discussion REQUEST: Truth about past "Governments" that failed.

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Sourdough

"Eleutheromaniac"
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In a cabin, on a mountain, in "Wilderness" Alaska.
Looking for short (Bullet Point) overview reports of conditions when past governments have failed, might have been economic collapse, bankrupt, currency worthless etc..

Thinking USSR or Argentina, maybe Venezuela, etc..

Really looking for accurate information (like reports by IMF of effect on people who lived there). Not looking for wild-*** guesses. If you actually lived through a collapse, would love to hear your experience, I you have "hearsay" or secondhand information, it is close to unless information. This thread is only about the people's experience, not about political cause or effect.

Please name other countries that failed in the last 100 years......But not failed because they lost a war.
 
Looking for short (Bullet Point) overview reports of conditions when past governments have failed, might have been economic collapse, bankrupt, currency worthless etc..

Thinking USSR or Argentina, maybe Venezuela, etc..

Really looking for accurate information (like reports by IMF of effect on people who lived there). Not looking for wild-*** guesses. If you actually lived through a collapse, would love to hear your experience, I you have "hearsay" or secondhand information, it is close to unless information. This thread is only about the people's experience, not about political cause or effect.

Please name other countries that failed in the last 100 years......But not failed because they lost a war.
Panama?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama

Ben
 
...If you actually lived through ..collapse, would love to hear your experience...

🤔 First / Second Marriages count? ;)🤬 jk

Missing @Rebecca (wow, she doesn't even 'pop up as an Option', anymore.. :( - She had some crazy 'BTDT' accounts from SA... Unarguably a "failed state"..

Sorry, don't know anybody from Zimbabwe either..

jd
 
Would a internal military coup d'état be part of your data base? Seems like that happens often enough.
The victor gets to write the history so yes it would almost take a first person account to get the real story......and that would be one persons story.
A friend has done some deep dives on the history of the civil war and the "indian" wars just after the civil war. He reads all the published mainstream data but considers it a score if he can find original diary's and first person letters and such.
 
We on this and other forums invest a lot of discussion is America going to have economic collapse, or catastrophic depression, or other massive nationwide civil "HELL".

If we don't have a few accurate historical accounts, we could easily be expecting something different. For example, the collapse of USSR, never seemed like a great hardship. Seemed like the people emerged far-far-far better off.
 
Would a internal military coup d'état be part of your data base? Seems like that happens often enough.
My interest is "how" did the collapse of a government directly affect the civilian population...??? Did it necessarily "SUCK" or slowly improve quality of life, maybe it rapidly high speed improved the quality of life for the civilian population.

I am guessing the collapse of USSR and its rebirth as Russia would be the most relevant.
 
We on this and other forums invest a lot of discussion is America going to have economic collapse, or catastrophic depression, or other massive nationwide civil "HELL".

If we don't have a few accurate historical accounts, we could easily be expecting something different. For example, the collapse of USSR, never seemed like a great hardship. Seemed like the people emerged far-far-far better off.
In the case of the USSR the pain came before the fall. A joke from that period goes...

A fellow is standing in a bread line when he says to the guy behind him in line...

I can't take this anymore. I am going to go kill Gorbachev.

A while latter he returns and asks if he could have place in line back again. The guy still in line says...

I thought you were going to kill Gorbachev ?

He replied...

I did but that line was longer.

Ben
 
It's a mixed bag 🤷‍♂️

Some places experienced collapse due to corruption such as Venezuela and hyper inflation- you could call these economic and there are several variances in cause, effect and timescale.

Others experienced collapse due to famine, disease or foreign invaders being too powerful.

In the case of Russia you can look at how policy effected the soviets or you can go furthur back to see how political philosphy shook things up from when tsar nicolas ii and his family were murdered and lenin took power, the policy differences between him and Stalin, the escalation of occurances in russia with the bolsheviks and the societal implications of a changing ideology about basic rights and wrongs and the very structure of their culture- it could be vehicles of control such as neighbors informing on each other's or extreme events such as the holodomor under the commies or the holocaust under the fascists.... in which case its not exactly a case of the government collapase but instead a case where individuals are persecuted for their beliefs/identity

Sometimes governments fail incredibly, and populations just starve such as china's "great leap forward". We saw cannibalism and civil unrest due to nothing more than poor organization, and therefore resource shortages concerning daily necessities.

In all cases, outliers survive and thrive depending on how they insulate themselves (such as basic escape) form the vulnerabilities of the masses.

It becomes pretty complicated. It's not a simple as the government collapses and **** gets harder for people overal, infact often the government collapsing makes things easier for certain groups and thise groups due to their own interests are the benefactors and immediate sponsors of the government collapse- sometimes the groups that benefit are criminal, some times those groups are just "end of the roaders" who are too far out into the peripherals of society to be effected.

It could be a slow decay due to overtaxatiom/regulation it could be an overdue uprising like in shri-lanka or an insurgency sponsored by foreign powers such as Rhodesia.

A survivalist should in my opinion be capable of surviving without the government, and a good survivalist should be prepared to survive in spite of the government. The methodology varies, but the general basis is self-reliance.

Every system has vulnerabilities, be it governments or individuals. The key is keeping it relevant to you. I don't think this discussion can be distilled to a few simple maxims and bundled up with a nice bow on it- its about as messy as anything human.
 
Great statement.
"A survivalist should in my opinion be capable of surviving without the government, and a good survivalist should be prepared to survive in spite of the government. The methodology varies, but the general basis is self-reliance."

Reminds me of Heinlein's statement against specialization.

I had a aunt long ago who watched the regime change in eastern africa and another friend who visited russia soon after things opened up...
I guess in my mind the cartels, mafia and gangs can be a major factor... When folks have to have a body guard at all times ...the times they are changing.

Where has there been as rich a country as the usa that has gone from wretched excess to what?
I am trying to get my head around the "or what".
 
Rome Babylon Great Britain...

Ben
I guess wretched excess is a term that is hard to define.... I hear the average person in GB lives at a level of Mississippi, no offence to Mississippi. I see so many "poor" people here in the usa that live in a single family dwelling or single family apartment and lots of heat and cooling and many times their own car or cars.....
 
What about the Roman Empire?
I am interested in what I should expect. So, try to keep it to the last 100 years, and the impact on the middle and lower income class.
 
I guess in my mind the cartels, mafia and gangs can be a major factor... When folks have to have a body guard at all times ...the times they are changing.
OK.......that is very relevant to what I am looking for.
 
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In Alaska in the 80's we had 76% of the banks, credit unions, savings & loan companies go bankrupt.

It started early 80's ended early to mid 90's. Homes that were new and had sold for $164,000.00 were foreclosed and resold for $10,000.00 to $12,500.00 "EACH".

FDIC moved my company bank accounts three different times in the 80's.
 
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Anybody mention Haiti. There's a failed state. Yet somehow people still exist, and there's still rich people and businesses.
 
UserNameTaken: Please clarify. Are they less rich or more rich?

I am sure many rich will have changed their positions, along with Po folks; more Po and less Po over time. All things change for all people.
I meant, even in the chaos and gang wars, life (food availability) still seems to be functioning, at least at some level, though it is a "shtf" situation. Obviously I haven't been there. I read there was around 10,000 millionaires in Haiti, though who knows how many remain. But the govt officials on TV clearly aren't starving. And someone owns the hotels and security companies protecting the rich, and trucking companies delivering NGO food.

While the US is a long way from Haiti economically and politically, and is unlikely to ever get close to outright chaos, short of a nuclear war. We are clearly a country in decline, with deep divides, politically and especially economically. Just this week in my town, a guy robbed the bank for the first time in a decade (only got two blocks). I read people were running out of Walmart with shopping carts full of... FOOD! I drove by the church with the food bank the other day. At 7pm in the dark, at least 40 people were lined up outside for food rations. That is not a healthy economy, and it's like that every time I drive past. We've had so many misconduct with firearms and actual shootings in the past few weeks I've lost count.

My house is walled and gated, in an HOA. The last board meeting it was discussed hiring a 24 hr security patrol (which will triple our dues). I don't leave my nice cars parked in public unattended anymore, and drive a sun bleached, peeling paint beater car on errands around town. The next town over posted a public warning, 80 cars have been stolen this year, in a town of 29,000.

People are desperate and losing their minds. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
 
You are absolutely right. It is going to get worse for many. Some not so rough.
I feel for the ones with kids and are now barely able to hang on.

But there is an upside on this as we move through it. It is going to be a rough three months ahead.......
Three months?
Just got some first person (not internet) news about the cartel/gang/really bad people from other countries operating in montana forcing regular local dirtbags to do bad things or have their entire family done away with in a very bad manner.
This mess we are in as a country is going to take a bit longer than the first quarter of next year......from my perspective.
 
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