Many people see post-crash America as Somalia, but I see it more like Depression-era America unraveling into Mexico or Ecuador. With that as your mental model, you see that people still prosper (because people did prosper in the thirties and still do in the third world) but the forumula is a bit different.
Where rule of law is fuzzy, friendships and relationships become very important. You personal moral code becomes very important. Avoid attracting attention to any wealth you have. Belong to the right party, at least publicly. Do business with people you know and trust. Hope to have an uncle at city hall and another in the army or the police.
You become cynical about the law and the people enforcing it so you ignore it or avoid it where necessary. Getting caught ignoring it doesn’t give you the moral qualms it would have in another era, it just presents a practical problem to deal with. You become cynical about the kind of people who prosper in this system, but you can prosper.
You get used to a certain level of uncertainty and physical danger, but again you counter that with friendships and relationships and religious faith. You develop a certain level of stoicism.
The more you make yourself independent, the less dependent you are on the current exchange rate of your currency versus the rest of the world. You live at a lower level initially but you are less vulnerable. Thats something I noticed in some places, that the people who were considered “poor” actually were quite self-sufficient and immune to economic shocks.
Yes, one can "get through things," no matter what. But what a come-down for the American citizen — to have lost his liberty and his sovereignty, so to be relegated to the status of a "citizen" of an authoritarian third-world society.
Meanwhile, 0bama "...has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance...."
Perhaps we as a people need a really hard fall before we can appreciate the blessings of liberty our constitutional framework — which 0bama holds in contempt — was designed to protect. Maybe the only way we learn is "the hard way."
Anyhoot, living the "new normal" will be interesting....
Thank you, marron, my dear brother in Christ, for your wise, penetrating observations.