As the deterioration of economies accelerates throughout the world, frightening signs of civil breakdown on a massive worldwide scale emerge. Unfolding events are beginning to look like scenes right out Escape from New York.
Salon points out that “Blackwater [a high tech group of mercenaries] is now receiving inquiries from dozens of new clients, mainly shipping companies and shipping insurance companies. All of them want the same thing: for Blackwater mercenaries to guide their freighters and tankers safely past Somalia, through the world’s most dangerous waters, the hunting grounds of bands of pirates armed with Kalashnikovs and grenade launchers, attacking anything that comes into their sights.”
In Mexico, the wealthy are dropping big time money on beefed up security by hiring personal bodyguards. “Mexico’s violence afflicts both rich and poor, but the nation’s income gap is so pronounced that criminals scour the society pages for potential kidnapping victims, for whom they demand, and often receive, huge sums in ransom.”
In the UK, armed gangs poach game across the country for a black market in food. “As times get harder in Britain’s cities, armed gangs are heading for the countryside – and stealing deer, salmon and rabbits to feed a burgeoning black market in food. Police in rural areas across Britain are reporting a dramatic increase in poaching, as the rise in food prices and the reality of recession increases the temptation to deal in stolen venison, salmon, or rarer meat and fish. There have even been reports of drive-by poachers, aiming guns through the open windows of moving vehicles to pick off deer or other game.”
In Japan, senior citizens have turned to robbery and shoplifting, some even deliberately get arrested just to eat. “More senior citizens are picking pockets and shoplifting in Japan to cope with cuts in government welfare spending and rising health-care costs in a fast-ageing society. Theft is the most common crime of senior citizens, many of whom face declining health, low incomes and a sense of isolation, the report said. Elderly crime may increase in parallel with poverty rates as Japan enters another recession and the budget deficit makes it harder for the government to provide a safety net for people on the fringes of society.”
Add that to the increasing civil unrest in China, India, Iceland, and you a have a powder keg waiting to blow. With American breadlines growing, increased unemployment and foreclosures, it won’t be long before all this violence and chaos begins escalating in the US.
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