Many respondents believe the US economy is already in dire straits, the poll found
More than four in 10 Americans believe the country is heading toward a complete economic meltdown within the next decade, according to a new poll.
The survey, released by YouGov on Wednesday, shows Americans are more worried about the economy than potential threats to the democratic system or the prospect of civil war.
42% of respondents said it is very or somewhat likely that there will be “a total economic collapse” in the next 10 years, while a smaller share, 38%, described this outcome as unlikely.
Financial anxiety ran much higher among Democrats, 53% of whom feared an economic breakdown, compared with just 28% of Republicans.
10 years? I’m pretty sure 10 months is 50/50 odds at this point…
I have insight to a company that does automotive loans, and the number of people getting offers for 30% APR 84 month 0-down loans (and accepting them) is way too fucking high.
People can’t really afford cars. The US government considers domestic car production so important, that we are practically banned from buying “better” cheaper cars made in China. The auto manufacturers know this and are absolutely chowing down in the captive market. The working class is going to lose reliable transportation, at the same time companies (and the government) are pushing to end Work-from-home options, and there is basically 0 public transportation in the US.
So a lot of people aren’t going to be able to afford the systemically artificially inflated cars to get to their arbitrarily in-office jobs and they can’t reasonably take the systemically hobbled/non-existent bus or train.
Oh, did I mention that we’ve pissed off and mistreated and deported all of the migrant labor that made fresh food widely available and cheap in the US? Oh, and we also emptied critical agricultural water reserves in a smooth-brain attempt to fight a fire 200 miles away. Don’t forget, global shipping and fuel prices are fucked because of a war we decided to start to distract from the fact that the president is practically in the Epstein files more than Epstein himself? So come summer, we’re going to have no food because we have no water and no labor, and importing food is going to be even more expensive? And that’s before the capricious 100%+ tarrifs the president is slapping on everything via a fucking tweet.
Come on… I don’t think I could fuck up running a county this bad if I was actively trying.
You have to be joking, 84 month 30%??
They sell them on the amount someone would pay per payment, tell people for just $400 every other week they too can drive away in their
dreamfunctional car/truck.Its the same idea of the 15 easy payments of $19.99 shit from long ago. Issue is people need a way to work so they justify the cost the same as rent and food (that are also squeezing people).
And just like the subprime crisis in 2007 all it takes is one life event and it all goes off the rails.
Not joking.
I hate how right you are. And half the country is going to cheer it on without even understanding. And when things do go to shit they’ll find some minority group to blame it on and their base will eat it up.
They are doing these types of loans with houses too. This is after the bubble popped due to the relaxation of variable rate mortgages. Stop the fucking world, I want to get off.
10 years? That’s optimistic…
Within 10 years? Haha!
Today’s empires are tomorrow’s ashes. This too shall pass. A better world is possible.
Today’s empires are tomorrow’s ashes.
The US goes through recessions roughly every ten years, thanks to credit expansion and contraction. If anything, the next recession has been postponed far longer than expected.
The idea that we’re going to be “ashes” in another ten years… the fucking doomer juice has blasted basic American history out of everyone’s brains. Go back and live through the Great Recession, then talk to me about End Of Empire. Live through 9/11. Countries don’t just stop existing because of a stock market sell-off, ffs.
Upvoted and agreed. But I think the US financial collapse has more to do with:
∙ Short-term incentives — businesses chasing next quarter while ignoring the long game. CEO tenure averages around 7 years, but comp structures reward short-term predictability over long-term health. Make the number go up, cash out, someone else’s problem. ∙ Crushing debt — not “insolvency” in the household sense, since the US prints its own currency, but debt-to-GDP at ~120% and interest payments consuming an increasing share of federal revenue creates real risks: inflation, dollar credibility erosion, and crowding out actual investment. ∙ No savings cushion — ~57% of Americans can’t cover a $1,000 emergency. That’s not a recession risk, that’s a detonator.Empires don’t fall suddenly — they transform. The Roman Empire never really “ended”; the eastern half ran unbroken from Constantinople for nearly a thousand years after Rome’s western collapse. The threat isn’t a single dramatic crash. It’s a long, slow institutional rot that’s already underway.m
This isn’t your fault, but I’m on mobile in the default web interface and fuck this side-scrolling code block thing.
The threat isn’t a single dramatic crash. It’s a long, slow institutional rot that’s already underway.
You could have made the same critiques under Bush in 2007 or Reagan in 1987 or Nixon in 1971.
These aren’t new problems or new forms of rot. I think you’re underestimating the forces keeping the gears turning. This isn’t our first rodeo with a shit President. Go back and read about Bush 41, LBJ, or Truman. Go read about Cleveland and McKinley and Wilson and Hoover. These people were shit. But they weren’t the end of the nation. They certainly weren’t the end of the system.
sure. eventually. The times between empires are not always great.
Still votes for trump…
I’m still 90% sure the fucker cheated - hell he even admitted as much right after he ran
Of course he did.
The evidence of Musk knowing the results way before the actual people in charge did clearly is foul play. They even found Musk manipulating votes and the South African immigrant is STILL not behind bars.
They’re dismantling voting systems. Not just the machines, but the actual “systems”. The people counting, how its counted, what’s valid or not, where you can vote, when you can vote, who can vote.
They’re sowing doubt at a rapid pace. Every election that they lose is fraud. Every election that they win is not.
They threatened everybody who was honest. They threatened the counters. They threatened judges. They did Jan 6 and killed two cops and harmed many others.
Let’s not beat around the bush. Trump cheated. Period.
If he didn’t actually cheat he absolutely openly tried. Fake electors, calling State governors looking for “a few more votes,” the insurrection at the Capitol, etc.
They straight up told us the revolution would be bloodless if the left let it be
Trump supporters used 2020 election lawsuits to gain access to vote counting machines and leaked software online.
The Mueller investigation absolutely proved that Trump’s 2016 campaign gave private polling data to Russian agents, discussed them dropping dirt on Hillary, and proved than Kushner had convos about setting up a private line between the Trump admin and the Kremlin by routing communications through the Russian embassy
At least trans people can’t use a public john, and dangerous books are being kept out of libraries. That’s the important thing. /s
At least my kids are being kept dumber than a fence post.
Well good news is i have atrocious amounts of student loans so im well hedged against economic collapsed!
Next 10 years?
Motherfucker, it is currently ongoing.
Fucking goddamn, Americans are propogandized as fuck.
I think we’re in the process of collapsing, not collapsed yet. Bad timing for me, I just landed the best job I’ve ever had by a wide margin. I’ve been approaching fight-or-flight mode for a while. Fortunately I’m in California and I haven’t been personally affected that much, yet, other than the psychological damage from reading/watching the news.
Don’t feel guilty about carving out a nice slice of life for yourself amid the chaos. Congrats on the job.
Thanks :)
Yeah, but it’s collapsed when it’s over, the next couple years of collapsing is the worst part
Hope you have a plan for increasing wildfires, inusrance costs going to the moon, being able to get around town and get to work with $150+ a barrel oil, and when Lake Mead and Lake Powell’s water levels get lower, and lower, and lower.
They get low enough, Hoover Dam stops generating power.
That happens, the US SouthWest powergrid starts to look worse than Texas’, real fast.
I think I’m somewhat ready for everything you listed except a water shortage. Not too worried about that at this point, we periodically get large amounts of rain and my drinking water comes from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir. If/when I can get my hands on an Aptera that’ll be reassuring as well.
Duh
“It’s collapsing now” is included in “will collapse in the next ten years”
10 years is optimistic
In 2015, I used to say “A vote for trump is a vote for total system collapse.”
Glad to see I was right.
In 2024, in this very group, I told people voting for Trump is voting for more genocide over there AND genocide over here…
Quit thretening me with a good time
Are you, though?
Signs point to no, but it depends what the outcome is in 5-10 years. Each time it swings one way too far, the result is the other way going even further. If this swings super hard left we could see an end to the GOP functionally… which I can’t imagine happening but anything is possible if the left resurgence is strong enough.
The fallout for this to happen though really requires the administration to fall even further, which everything points to.
I expect a massive economic collapse every 5-10 years.
Which is about how often conservatives get full government power. I wonder if the two are related…
Yes but their reasoning differs based on political preferences.
Financial anxiety ran much higher among Democrats, 53% of whom feared an economic breakdown, compared with just 28% of Republicans.
That’s because a hard requirement to be a Republican in 2026 is to maintain a complete disregard for obvious facts and an utter disdain for realities that do not match a fantasy of their own greatness.
Must be infuriating to do a survey on the American public. No matter what you are trying to find out around 50-60% are just going to drool on your survey and maybe draw a phallic symbol with a giant crayon.
Idiocracy was a documentary.
If only. The president in that film cared for his people, and sought experts.
I once did a workstudy job where we did data entry of the results of surveys.
The survey clearly said just fill out these bubbles, etc., and that it was basically a multiple choice thing. No comments would end up in the results. Something you would think any idiot would understand.
And yet, you’d sometimes get entire manifestos written in the white spaces between questions, and the margins. I think at the time, OBE (outcome based education) was something that had the conservatives all outraged for whatever reason, because there were several screeds about it.
My coworkers and I got a good laugh out of some of this, that’s for sure. The best was when they wrote their screed, mailed it in, and didn’t fill out any of the questions. LOL!
And yeah, for all that did, they might as well as got out the crayons and drew a dong on it…
30%*
No the 60% who don’t vote
This is why billionaires are building bunkers. They know what’s coming, because they’re the ones doing it.
If you buy the Dollar Endgame hypothesis, the dollar, which hasn’t been backed by gold for over 50 years, will become virtually worthless. But, that will only be the beginning.
If you think the worst thing that can happen in America is a fascist dictatorship, you’re wrong. This isn’t an America problem, it’s a world-wide problem. The entire world economy, currently held together by nothing more than incestuous lies and wishes, will very likely collapse, and not in the distant future.
I’m glad my parents died before they could see this, I’m not looking forward to seeing it myself, and had I any clue about this 30 years ago, I would not have had a child.
Bunker building idiots. Bet they’re selfish as fuck and have nothing but items for their own survival saved up instead of maybe a hoard of books, seeds, tools and the like.
One of two outcomes:
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If you actually truly need the bunker, the world has gone to absolute shit and there will be nothing worth living for except hand-to-mouth subsistence farming. I don’t think anyone has a clue as to what actual collapse would look like. Congrats, you’ll just starve last.
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If you’ve got hundreds of thousands of hungry and starving people and any small percentage know you have a bunker with food and medicine, they will get in or burn you out with fire trying. They literally have nothing else to do and nothing else to lose.
I’ve often had conversations with preppers, asking them questions, basically asking them if they are ready to ultimately become farmers. Very few seem to have really gamed things out beyond having bullets and some MREs or whatever. That might be helpful in very short-term types of scenarios, I guess?
They say they’d hit the local Costco or grocery store or whatever when they are running low.
LOL, have they even seen what happens when a power outage hits an area even for a few days? Even if one has zero morals applied to anyone outside one’s immediate family and start raiding houses and businesses for food - do these people think no one else is going to be doing this? All grocery stores will be cleared out in short order, without question.
SMH.
They really don’t have a clue. They just assume they can take whatever they need by threat or violence and whoever else has guns will be on their side. Plenty of those guns will be aimed at them to take what they have, too.
And then?
Next to none will have a clue about “after.” Civilization is a community full of skilled trades. From the blacksmith to the tanner to the farmer and the miller. Think any of the preppers will be out in the field, day in, day out, planting, harvesting, storing, cutting wood, prepping food for winter? Got any draft animals? Got a place to care for and feed them all winter? How about getting sick or hurt and being unable to work? They ate up this “American Self Reliance” BS with a shovel, and it’s complete trash. Their personal chauvinism will see them just as dead as everyone else.
I’m vegetarian, and I get lots of stupid questions about how I’ll survive “the apocalypse” or whatever. Literally, I was asked that question about the apocalypse, specifically.
Anyway, after I addressed how I don’t believe in xtian mythology or eschatology…
For one, how many omnivores have the ability to be full-time hunters, as is implied? I’d say it’s close to zero, including the so-called “hunters” that do it for sport now. Oh, and what happens when you run out of bullets? The answer from some is “bow and arrow”. Oh really? You know how to make new arrows? If you shoot arrows anywhere, you know how incredibly easy it is to lose them…not mention what happens when your neighbors all have the same idea - what happens when the whole place is completely devoid of any game?
It’s not nearly as tacticool-sounding to talk about doing back-breaking work, working the soil, tending to your crops, saving seed, and so on. It sounds way more romantic to talk about yourself shooting animals and eating them, skipping the technical bits of how to clean and process said animal, including building a fire to cook it. Pulling a trigger is something any ape can do. I’m not so sure about the rest of it for any given person, most especially these big talkers. I’m not sure about my ability to start a fire from scratch, without a lighter/matches, especially under less than ideal conditions.
Secondly, how many people know how to properly clean and process things like deer? Oh and then there is storing the meat, without refrigeration… I’d would submit that surviving omnivores would have their diet drastically changed, too. Anything you kill you’d have to eat in short order. For people that know how to jerk meat, that might give it longer shelf life. I bet most people after such a collapse would get quite good at foraging for things like mushrooms and plants, as well as taking to learning something about raising crops. I have a feeling all of us would end dropping anywhere from a few to several pounds, again, assuming survival.
Lastly, it’s not like being vegetarian is some kind of suicide pact, if the entire world is turned on its head, LOL. These people sit there and ask all these stupid hypothetical questions with a big smug grin on their face while the current situation is that we are more awash in options for fruits and vegetables than we’ve ever been in history and it’s clear that they think because they are currently omnivores and have a gun or two and maybe a few dry goods in their basement that they have all contingencies worked out…
Foraging for wild plants is a skill you need fully established before having to rely on it for survival, it’s just like hunting, dressing an animal, and meat preservation. Do it wrong and at best you’ll get a little sick, at worst it will kill you quickly.
Also, in a hypothetical apocalyptic situation, you’ll be competing with millions of people who will be eating anything they can. I can’t remember the stats, but I think the Appalachian deer population took something like 40-50 years to fully recover from the Great Depression. A lot of hungry people will do a lot of damage.
Foraging for wild plants is a skill you need fully established before having to rely on it for survival, it’s just like hunting, dressing an animal, and meat preservation. Do it wrong and at best you’ll get a little sick, at worst it will kill you quickly.
Oh, without question. I don’t mean to imply it’s something all us coddled moderns could just start doing. As you point out, it’s like these other things most people (myself included) have no idea how to do. Even people fairly decent at identifying mushrooms sometimes get it wrong.
Also, in a hypothetical apocalyptic situation, you’ll be competing with millions of people who will be eating anything they can. I can’t remember the stats, but I think the Appalachian deer population took something like 40-50 years to fully recover from the Great Depression. A lot of hungry people will do a lot of damage.
Yeah, I would think it’d be like catastrophes of old - all the cats and dogs would mysteriously disappear. Again, people have this romantic notion of “living off the land” as a homesteader and “hunting for food” and thinking they are going to bag a deer whenever it’s time for lunch and it will be easy and something sustainable and I think it’s pure delusion.
Ever watch Alone? Those people are avid survivalists, just doing it for a few weeks and even that looks hard as hell.
No, I watched Frontier House and Survivor Man. Frontier was families put in frontier style homes that were told to work and live like they did back in the land rush days. They had the convenience of most of their log homes being built for them, and an occasional delivery from a mercantile. All period, of course. A very interesting sociological experiment. The results of their labors were inspected by analysts to see if they and their animals would have survived the winter. I think only one family might have survived.
Survivorman? Pretty much learned that surviving in the woods sucks, could easily kill you, he only had to do it for a few days at a time and even he knew he had help just a radio call away.
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Look at the bright side- when it happens, people like you and I can commandeer concrete mixer trucks, load and prep them entirely, and go on an adventure to find all intake/exhaust vents of the billionaire bunkers, seal them shut, and stargaze above them while they asphyxiate. Sure, we’ll go soon after, but we’ll be able to go out having made new friends, under the stars, knowing we did a good thing.
So we just lock them in their bunkers and let them starve.
Vault-dwellers’re terrible. Don’t let them out.
