CHAPTER THREE - COLLAPSE

The following summer was like no other that I had experienced in my twelve years nor was it like any other possibly in the history of the world. I didn’t go to camp. There wasn’t any. There was no Folk Festival to work at. No picnics. No softball games. But there was a war, like my sixth grade geography teacher had said would be, in the Middle East. But amazingly, it didn’t spread over the whole world.
“The wisest thing the President ever did,” Dad told the minister one Sunday in June, one of the last Sundays we’d get to church that year, “was to keep us out of the war.”
“He knew it was unwinnable,” responded the pastor. Reverend Schneider and Dad were pretty close. They worked together on many projects as Dad served on church council and in the Sunday School.
“Right,” Dad answered, “he did some bargaining to preserve the union.”
“He sure did. And so far he’s keeping the Sino-Russo Alliance out of our country. But for how long?” Reverend Schneider inquired.
“Who knows?” Dad said, “but they have no reason to invade. With what we agreed to economically, there will not be much to defend at some point.”
A year earlier, the fear was that Iran was going to acquire the ability to build a nuclear weapon, be the powder keg in the Middle East, and start a world war. As it turned out, they were the powder keg but didn’t need to build nuclear weapons. Russia and China provided them. Call it an unholy alliance if you wish, but it worked in their favor. When most of our troops had withdrawn from the Middle East, Russia had informed us that Iran was going to attack Israel with both theirs and China’s support. We were strongly advised to stay out of the fray and in return, they would contain the war to the Eastern Hemisphere. The President agreed. Iran nuked Israel. Israel got only two retaliatory missiles to their targets. The US and Great Britain stayed out. Israel was destroyed almost even before its missiles hit Iran. The place is an ecological mess. The consequences of the radiation were both immediate with large loss of life and also long-lasting. We don’t know how long the effects will be felt nor if we will ever feel any consequences in this country. China and Russia mobilized to clean up the mess and bring some sense of normalcy to the region which was part of the agreement they made with the Western powers. It will keep them busy for a while. The prevailing westerlies carried the radiation from the Mediterranean over the rest of Asia. It’s not a pretty picture, but the bottom line is that China now controls the Middle East oil fields. All this happened during the last few weeks of school. Our teachers kept us informed but it sure was a somber and anxious end of the school year.
Dad said, “They won’t invade soon. They’re too busy cleaning up the mess.”
“But changing the world’s currency from the dollar to the euro is going to have some impact, right?” Reverend Schneider asked.
“That’s the one that’s going to be hard to overcome,” Dad answered.
“When the dollar fails, and the money stops flowing, what else happens?” Reverend Schneider asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Dad answered. “It all depends on what the Federal Reserve Bank does. More than likely, they’ll start printing more money, way too much money. Run away inflation. It would shrink our debt comparatively but it would make savings accounts, certificates of deposit, retirement plans, annuities, and insurance policies have less and less value to the point where there would be no benefit to having dollars.”
“The Federal Reserve Bank has too much power doesn’t it?” Reverend Schneider asked.
“Kind of,” Dad answered, “more of the problem is it’s an unchecked power, not subject to the checks and balances that were set up in the Constitution. On the good side, the Federal Reserve has had a stabilizing effect on the economy and on the money supply for years, so it sort of works.”
Reverend Schneider asked, “Isn’t that why Kennedy was assassinated? Because he was trying to eliminate the Federal Reserve Bank?”
“Well,” Dad said, “that’s another one of those theories. There are all kinds of guesses who needed Kennedy eliminated and maybe that’s a true one.”
“So what’s going to fail first?” the Reverend asked.
“My guess,” Dad answered, “that it will be the stock market, then after that, insurance companies as they are invested so heavily in the stock market, and after that the banks, and then finally the government.”
“All the governments?” the Reverend asked.
“Probably; they all run on money and when the money dries up, no one will want to work for them any more. And as the supply of gas and oil dries up, no one will even be able to get to work. And eventually, there will be no electricity-generating capacity. They will run out of fuel or they will run out of workers and the lights will go out.”
The Reverend asked, “I imagine it will worse than a recession, more like a depression?”
“Not like a recession, but even worse than a depression. I envision it being a regression,” Dad answered.
“A regression; what’s that?”
“That’s when we have to return to doing things the way we did before technology and industrialization – the way we fended for ourselves 200 years ago,” Dad responded.
Reverend Schneider inquired, “So when the governments fail, what additional consequences will there be?”
Dad answered, “The obvious one is people will lose jobs but there will still be plenty of work. People will work trying to keep themselves alive, finding water and food or growing and harvesting food. Also trying to keep others alive such as people that are on respirators, or those who need kidney dialysis, people in nursing homes. They’ll even be trouble in the hospitals when the air conditioning goes out and there is no electricity to run machines. I imagine the health care workers will have quite a challenge. That’s if they can get to the hospital. Perhaps the busiest people will be the undertakers because people will die, especially those who are being kept alive by the medical profession.”
“Additionally, there will be a migration. People will migrate toward food, toward water, and away from the cold. All that talk about closing the borders to keep people out of this country might turn around. Maybe Mexico will close its borders so we cannot migrate back to where it is warm, but people will have to move. Nothing we’re really looking forward to.”
“So how’s the farming community going to respond?” the Reverend asked.
“Well, I’m not sure,” Dad said, “But you know all these big chicken houses that we have around here. The chickens survive because they have forced fresh air, temperature control, automatic feed and water. They’re all protected by generating systems, so that when the electricity goes out, those life-support systems continue but they’ll only run until the fuel tank is empty. I would hope that most chicken farmers or turkey farmers would open up the doors and let them out as soon as they know that there won’t be a way to keep them alive. Sure, when they’re released, they won’t know what to do but they’ll start scratching; they’ll start fending for themselves. They’ll find some water source but something will find them too. Predators. The dogs, the cats, raccoons, fox. So, many will die but many will survive, and they will be a food source for someone. But if they’re left in the buildings, they’ll all die. It won’t be a loss to the farmer if he is counting on
the chickens for income because there will be no one processing anymore. No more egg dealers. No one slaughtering chickens, so he might as well let them out. At least they’ll be food for some one.”
“Dairy farmers have the same tough situation. No sense milking them. You can’t sell the milk; no truck would come and get it, out of fuel, so there will be some changes there. No electricity to run the silo unloaders. It will be a challenge for every farmer. Didn’t think much about people who have hogs. Some of those buildings are temperature and climate controlled. If you let them loose, they’d be a pain, I guess, but you cannot spend an inordinate amount of time feeding them. There would be no place to sell them but at least you could slaughter one once in a while for food.”
“As far as the crops in the field, all those people who are out of work and looking for a way to earn some food would be available to help bring the crops in, the old-fashioned way. Cart, bucket, by hand, any way to get some kind of food stored for the winter and to help some of the animals survive.”

To be continued… Tune in next week, Mort