I don’t think we should cheerlead a mad max united states or its collapse. That would create an extraordinarily dangerous situation for the entire planet. I think instead what we’ll see is a decline in global power projection and in the dollar. It’s going to be an incredibly painful situation in america as a result. So much consumption is built-in because of car culture and how spread-out and unwell the population is. Having a sharp decrease in living standards would condemn a vast majority of the country into poverty, and they will basically be forced to move to cities. So I think you’ll see some kind of eventual re-industrialization with these formerly middle-class suburbanites now living in rough urban conditions. The rich will probably see some kind of managed decline - sell the cape cod house, no european vacations, etc. There is a trend towards rich dense villages in the suburbs that will accelerate. So ultimately I think it will look like rich people kind of clinging on in their wealthy village centers trying to hang on to their lifestyles, and urban areas of huddled masses desperately trying to build some kind of real economic base. As for rural areas, I do think things could get violent and there could be insurgencies of MAGA-type people trying to bottom-up rebuild their country. I’m especially worried about how white supremacy will play into this, Tulsa style, since we’ve seen how bad this is during times of relative prosperity.

I mean, this is just one guy’s perspective. But pretty much no matter how you cut it, a transition to a multipolar world is going to be a rough ride for america. Eventually, it will be good in that there will be a more balanced economy with a reasonable trade and fiscal deficit, less dependent on services. The question is whether that transition will be so painful as to create a Weimar-esque environment and the world has to deal with a nuclear yankee reich. However, I think this is an extreme scenario, since there would be substantial domestic pushback. Or at least I’d like to think…

I’ve learned a decent amount about this in the past. Like others have said, it’s about living somewhere without a legitimate grocery store (no fresh produce) within some radius, so the residents just wind up buying junk from the convenience stores. The sinister twist is that they actually have tried interventions where stores with real food are opened up in underserved areas, but they all go under because the residents are so hooked on junk. Furthermore, they have been eating convenience foods for so long that they no longer know how to cook for their families. It’s a truly bleak reality.

Yes, these stores sometimes still carry rice and beans, as well as frozen fruits and vegetables. But the options are limited and you have to be extremely disciplined. Here’s a blog that suggests that. Spot-checking dollar general, out of 28 pages of frozen items, I saw 6 frozen vegetable options (and 0 fruit options), and these were probably intended to be side dishes. As for rice and beans, Americans don’t really eat those because the western diet is crappy. This shows up in epidemiology studies as the “Hispanic Paradox” because Latinos are the only people in America who regularly eat a healthy bedrock of the diet: rice and beans.

Once again, this problem is a baseline crappy western diet teaming up with an undereducated demographic (some spots have < 50% high school graduate population) that is usually working 60 - 80 hours a week to barely make ends meet, combined with a lack of fresh produce availability, and you get food deserts where people are just trying to make it to tomorrow buying the junk in front of them because it’s one of the only sources of solace in their lives.