There is a great amount of reality denial going on across the US.
Right now, Phoenix still is glassy eyed about the prospects of building a $900M Tower of Babel/condominiums/business center in the middle of the city, even though the businesses involved are jumping ship. The city fathers haven’t figured out that the salad days are over, and the new reality is drastically reduced tax revenues and fiscal conservatism.
The smarter people know that economic bad times are coming, but after a few seconds to realize that all that really matters is housing and food, both of which are, and will remain in abundance, they assume that there will be riots in the streets because the public can no longer buy wall sized HDTVs for every room of their deeply mortgaged houses.
Not gonna happen. There are likely to be a whole bunch of unemployed, blue and white collar workers who for the first time in their lives are going to be living slim, but if the government is smart, and keeps them in housing and with food in their bellies, they are not going to be rioting much, either.
Obama will probably try to reinvent the WPA, but it is unnecessary, because international trade will be halted, and America will need workers to rebuild all those industries we outsourced.
The most important thing is to keep a sense of realism and responsibility. It won’t be terribly hard to return to the idea of only spending what you earn, and no more, at all levels.
Will Food Stamps be good for ammo purchase?