My main concern, even though it is in Russia, is that are the younger people replacing the old people in the dacha arrangement. I wrote an essay for a friend today about the direction of the U.S. and hope that Russia does not follow our example.
DIRECTION OF THE U.S.
“It’s been a slow burn since 1945, when most of our food was grown on small farms and gardens [and I can vividly remember those gardens.]
Over the ensuing 10 years and more, the older, skilled gardeners began dying off and/or discontinued gardening because of age and the convenience of big box grocery stores, which were supplied food by plane from California, Texas, Florida, and even overseas. Soon the seasonal local gardens were replaced by a 12-month non-local gardening season supported by planes. Trucks were the spokes for the airplane and train hubs, in a vast hub-and-spoke national food system. The latter development was one factor that allowed the younger generation to skip growing gardens and preserving food for winter survival.
In 1956 the Federal Highway Act was passed thus adding new highways and widening existing highways; consequently, more trucks began moving food to big box grocery stores faster and in many directions. Cheap diesel prices for trucks allowed stores to stock shelves for brief periods using a just-in-time system to reduce inventory costs.
Concurrent with the changed transportation systems and development of big box stores, the topography of large and small farms, near large cities, began disappearing being replaced by housing developments for a huge post World War II population expansion plus a population flight from cities to the suburbs. Earliest was the first Levittown in 1947 built on 1200 acres of potato fields on Long Island. With many of these housing developments, the pesticides market, no longer needed for disappearing farms, was switched to the crazy notion that every new house needed a green lawn. Some home owners retained the gardening tradition, but it was my experience that many children did not often follow suit; growing food was no longer the “in thing.”
Also, the housing topography change demanded big box consumer stores located in nearby large malls to be accessed with more roads and more cars. Most farms succumbed to sale for the “urgent need” to supply Americans a place to fulfill their consumerism supported by higher post war wages.
I recall the late 1950s and 1960s period which I label the "Progress Began Regress Period" for the U.S., as it developed a foundation for further regress with excessive consumerism and a move away from traditional glass packaging to the plastic demon. Gone were the local dairy farms and the trucks that delivered glass milk bottles to the milk boxes on door steps.
The local delicatessens used stiff paper boxes to hold potato salad and Cole slaw; what was not immediately eaten was transferred to Mason jars. TV dinners and other prepared food from grocery stores supplanted an excellent home cooked meal environment. Over time and with less activity by the population, the waist lines expanded. The death of Chambers stoves, the best in the world, occurred due to less home cooking.
The 1970s included: Peak Oil on the continental U.S. 1970; abandoning the Gold Exchanged Standard in 1971 [due to costly guns and butter policies of the 1960s]; in 1973 Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, advised farmers to "get big or get out … adapt or die," believing that bigger farms were more productive [this policy was the latest step to industrialize agriculture]; plus Petrol Dollar recycling was instituted in 1974 requiring that all world-wide oil sales to be denominated in U.S. dollar thus allowing the U.S. to expand its debt capacity via a U.S. protection policy of Saudi Arabian oil resources.
We now look back at a large societal destructive mess. The U.S. nation debt exceeds $23 trillion and there is massive debt on all other fronts for unfunded liabilities, plus local, municipal, and state debts in most governmental units. Sadly our once mighty industrial system has been greatly transferred outside our borders, a national disgrace, as our payment for imports now exceeds our export income.
We on converging on many Black Swan events that could cause a collapse: we will again reach Peak Oil after the fracking fields dwindle down; we have Peak Water; Peak Soil; Colony Collapse Bee Disorder; Peak Infrastructure; and more.
The canary in the mine is that only four percent of Americans now feed the other ninety-six percent, a dangerous imbalance, in the face of a geopolitical event or an EMP. If the latter occurs, the food shelves at big box stores will be cleared similar to the clearing of food shelves prior to a prediction of a blizzard in New England. Food riots will ensue with desperate starving people in search of food on their terms.
On the surface, all seems fine, but the next financial collapse will be shock us and the world. It will be bad, real bad!"
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