Collapse of Civilization

[Sid Belzberg]

WE CAUGHT HIM! Watch what happened when
@ezralevant spotted the president of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on the street in Davos today. We finally asked him all the questions the mainstream media refuses to ask — including about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. SUPPORT: http://WEFreports.com

https://twitter.com/RebelNewsOnline/status/1747317006985040178

[Bob Armstrong]

Collapse of Civilization
(Started: 23/10/30)

Weekly Overview

Notes:

1.The “Weekly Overview” of the topic is posted for the benefit of new members who may have come in between the “Weekly Overviews”. It provides an executive summary of the issue for new viewers.

2.The Stats of participation are important to allow all to determine the extent of continuing interest. For thread originators/responders, they are important to see if the interest no longer warrants the labour. Or alternatively, those of us discussing it are drawing in more participants, because they have begun to see the importance of our topic.




A. Statistics

Year End/Week # 9 (23/12/25 – 31 [7 days])

(Sometimes Adjusted for no. of days)

A. Weekly Stats:
.....................................................2023 Average
Last Week's......Prior Week's........Views/Day
Views/Day........Views/Day.............(9 wks.)

…24........................46.......................42


................................................2023 Average

Last Week's.....Prior Week's......Responses/Day

Responses/Day....Resp./Day.......(9 wks.).

........2.......................4........................3


B. Analysis of Last Week's Stats

Last week's stats are running substantially behind those of the prior week. They are also behind those of the 2023 year.

But it does seem that this non-chess topic is one of interest to CT'ers ....good on the initiator, Bob Gillanders (I started the thread for him).

C. Is Our Civilization Now Collapsing?

Civilizations do not collapse overnight........there is a long, steady, continuous deterioration before hand. Then, all of a sudden, the tipping point has been reached, and we get metamorphosis (Like caterpillar to butterfly, only in reverse!). Either Dystopia, or a new empire rising like the Sphinx from the ashes, sometimes worse than the one it replaces.

Do we care who is going to be in control, as humans battle to survive in an environment more and more hostile to their continued existence (Negative Climate Change; Possible Nuclear War; Pandemics; etc.)? The very collapse of our civilization is on the horizon!

D. Indicia of a Collapsing Civilization

Comment below on what the current evidence is that our world's civilization is now collapsing......we'll add some of your ideas here! If we miss it, remind us:

1. Increasing dependence on private, volunteer Food Banks.
2. Increasing "Negative Health" factors, such as obesity (Despite amazing advances in medicine and medical technology).
3. An agenda by unknown forces to impose on the World a "New World Order/Great Reset"- a world government that, on the evidence to date, will be authoritarian, and likely “totalitarian”. Even if this movement's intentions are “benevolent”, they are totally misguided in understanding the fundamentals of human nature.
4.Increasing inability to cope with increasing environmental changes.
5.Decreasing trust in science, and thus the government – challenge to the medical authorities around COVID-19 vaccination, and vaccination generally.
6. Increasing monopolies by mega companies, putting small entrepreneurship in a precarious position.

Additional Notes:

1. The goal of this thread is not to woodshed an opposing view into submission. Every position is entitled to post as it sees fit, regardless of the kind of, and amount of, postings by other positions. What is wanted is serious consideration of all posts........then you decide.

2. I personally, as the thread originator (After an initiative by Bob Gillanders), am trying to post a new response at least twice per week, but admit my busy schedule means I am sometimes falling short on this. So it is necessary,as is happening, that a number of other CT'ers are posting responses here somewhat regularly.

Bob A

[Pargat Perrer]

Sid,
You are right about the high survival rate of authentic businesses.
These other guys do not realize that in instances where there is personal liability, like borrowing from the 'mom and dad bank', the businesses rarely fail, while when other people's money is involved and all liability is within the 'company' and very little personal liability, as in his 'failed' companies that Trump is so proud of, the 'business venturers' have milked their 'company' to their personal benefit to the max. before deliberately letting it 'fail'... In Libertarianism there would always be 'personal liability' even when a 'company' fails, and hence in that system, failures would be rare...

LOL business startups would be even more RARE! LOL

What an idea .... allow unfettered capital .... but impose personal liability ..... sounds like Mafia economics .... "We gotsa all kinds of money for you ... you don't a-pay us a-back on a-time with interest, we start-a with the kneecaps .... capice?"

[Dilip Panjwani]

"in reality, much more than that is needed and in fact, very few, less than 10% of business owners, are capable of guiding a business to success. This is why we have the current venture capital system, which allows for greater than 90% failure rates of new businesses. If we replaced the current VC system with pure Libertarianism, economic collapse would quickly ensue."

This statement is incorrect. About 50% of businesses last longer than five years in North America. Very few businesses are VC funded, in fact, less than 1%. The 10% success rate applies to VC-funded businesses whose model is to "shove all in" until they have a winner to cover for the other nine that did not work.

Access to capital does not equal access to venture capital. In Bangladesh, the Grameen Bank was vital to the country's economic growth and sustainability. The Grameen Bank set up operations in the United States in 2008 and has proven highly impactful, characterized by very high repayment rates, just like in Bangladesh. The greatest beneficiaries of this source of capital have been impoverished women.

In Canada, about 70% of employment is thanks to small businesses. In the United States it is close to 50%. The ability of people to steer a business to viability should not be underestimated, as is clearly evident.

Sid,
You are right about the high survival rate of authentic businesses.
These other guys do not realize that in instances where there is personal liability, like borrowing from the 'mom and dad bank', the businesses rarely fail, while when other people's money is involved and all liability is within the 'company' and very little personal liability, as in his 'failed' companies that Trump is so proud of, the 'business venturers' have milked their 'company' to their personal benefit to the max. before deliberately letting it 'fail'... In Libertarianism there would always be 'personal liability' even when a 'company' fails, and hence in that system, failures would be rare...

[Bob Armstrong]

The traditional figure I have heard for many, many years is that 80% of small, new businesses fail within the first 5 years.

With tougher times, it looks like that figure has now risen to 90%. The competition is very stiff.

And there are lots of new businesses coming on stream.......so it appears the problem is not access to capital, as Dilip seems to be maintaining (Though under-capitalization is going to be fatal in some cases).

Bob A

[Pargat Perrer]

"in reality, much more than that is needed and in fact, very few, less than 10% of business owners, are capable of guiding a business to success. This is why we have the current venture capital system, which allows for greater than 90% failure rates of new businesses. If we replaced the current VC system with pure Libertarianism, economic collapse would quickly ensue."

This statement is incorrect. About 50% of businesses last longer than five years in North America. Very few businesses are VC funded, in fact, less than 1%. The 10% success rate applies to VC-funded businesses whose model is to "shove all in" until they have a winner to cover for the other nine that did not work.

Access to capital does not equal access to venture capital. In Bangladesh, the Grameen Bank was vital to the country's economic growth and sustainability. The Grameen Bank set up operations in the United States in 2008 and has proven highly impactful, characterized by very high repayment rates, just like in Bangladesh. The greatest beneficiaries of this source of capital have been impoverished women.

In Canada, about 70% of employment is thanks to small businesses. In the United States it is close to 50%. The ability of people to steer a business to viability should not be underestimated, as is clearly evident.

You put in the time constraint of 5 years, I did not mention a time constraint.

Here is the latest truth:

https://explodingtopics.com/blog/startup-failure-stats

What Percentage Of Startups Fail?

According to the latest data, up to 90% of startups fail. Across almost all industries, the average failure rate for year one is 10% However, in years two through five, a staggering 70% of new businesses will fail.

And things are going to get worse, they already are getting worse:

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/comp...ng/ar-AA1m5MxW

I repeat my point:

If we replaced the current VC system with pure Libertarianism (unfettered access to capital for everyone), economic collapse would quickly ensue.

Of course, this scenario has never happened and will likely never happen. Business people DO have SOME common sense!

[Sid Belzberg]

This is a strong argument AGAINST Libertarianism, which says that all is needed is unfettered access to capital.

In reality, much more than that is needed and in fact, very few, less than 10% of business owners, are capable of guiding a business to success. This is why we have the current venture capital system, which allows for greater than 90% failure rates of new businesses. If we replaced the current VC system with pure Libertarianism, economic collapse would quickly ensue.

"in reality, much more than that is needed and in fact, very few, less than 10% of business owners, are capable of guiding a business to success. This is why we have the current venture capital system, which allows for greater than 90% failure rates of new businesses. If we replaced the current VC system with pure Libertarianism, economic collapse would quickly ensue."

This statement is incorrect. About 50% of businesses last longer than five years in North America. Very few businesses are VC funded, in fact, less than 1%. The 10% success rate applies to VC-funded businesses whose model is to "shove all in" until they have a winner to cover for the other nine that did not work.

Access to capital does not equal access to venture capital. In Bangladesh, the Grameen Bank was vital to the country's economic growth and sustainability. The Grameen Bank set up operations in the United States in 2008 and has proven highly impactful, characterized by very high repayment rates, just like in Bangladesh. The greatest beneficiaries of this source of capital have been impoverished women.

In Canada, about 70% of employment is thanks to small businesses. In the United States it is close to 50%. The ability of people to steer a business to viability should not be underestimated, as is clearly evident.

[Dilip Panjwani]

Ironically, Chapters started in 1995 in Canada as a merger with another large chain store. Meanwhile, in 1994/1995, a young 30-year-old man with no savings had just quit his job as a software programmer at a Wall Street brokerage firm and had no access to capital. That did not deter him from plotting the downfall of bookstore chains, starting with a meeting in none other than a Borders bookstore coffee shop.

He went to the bank every entrepreneur with no access to capital goes to, the bank of Mom and Dad. They loaned him a significant part of their limited life savings, and he started Amazon books out of a garage in the days of the fledgling internet.

Countless entrepreneurs with very little capital benefited from micro-loans, starting in 1983 with the founding of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh by Nobel laureate Mohammed Yunus. This bank loaned to the impoverished who had no collateral to offer but their integrity and steely determination to make their business work. The Grameen Bank has over 2500 branches today and is one of the most successful ventures ever. The woman selling delicious fresh nann bread from her stand does not concern herself with McDonald's or other large food chains. She worked out how to make her venture work with her demographic and unique food, and indeed, millions of these small businesses worked because their very existence depended on it despite giant competitors everywhere.

The same was true of Jeff Bezos; he was up against a giant, and with a small loan from his beloved parents, his entire family, including his parents, depended on him to make his fledgling online business work.

The key to making a small business work is adapting to adversity and pivoting. Tenacity and determination are important. A small amount of luck is always good, but that is only a small part of how and dependant on how you treat that luck. I can think of countless examples of well-financed businesses that went under because of an unwillingness to adapt and change with circumstances.

Absolutely. Even if access to capital is made possible, removing the biggest criticism against capitalism, there will still be winners and losers based upon ability, and evolution will continue accordingly...

[Pargat Perrer]

...... I can think of countless examples of well-financed businesses that went under because of an unwillingness to adapt and change with circumstances.

This is a strong argument AGAINST Libertarianism, which says that all is needed is unfettered access to capital.

In reality, much more than that is needed and in fact, very few, less than 10% of business owners, are capable of guiding a business to success. This is why we have the current venture capital system, which allows for greater than 90% failure rates of new businesses. If we replaced the current VC system with pure Libertarianism, economic collapse would quickly ensue.

[Pargat Perrer]

PP, harm as an outcome of fair competition, like loss in a fair chess tournament, does not violate the Natural Law; everyone else, including your co-marxist Bob A and my 5 year old smart neighbor... have understood the meaning of fair competition, except you... never mind, have a Merry Christmas!

I hereby challenge ANYONE to post a legal definition of Fair Competition as specified in the Libertarian Natural Law, "You shall not harm others except in Fair Competition".

If no one can define it such that no lawyers would be needed, then Libertarianism is DOA (Dead On Arrival). I put it that way because Dilip has posted that no lawyers will be needed to interpret Natural Law. LOL

Anyone who attempts this should be warned that even Dollop, the one encouraging Natural Law, has been unable to post a definition and when pressed for one, simply declares that everyone already understands it. LOL Yeah, everyone already understands Tort Law as well! LOL

Imagine proposing a theory of something, and when pressed for details, simply saying "Everyone already understands it" and never explaining it. What a coward and a fool you look like, Dollop!

EDIT: I feel sorry for your 5 year old neighbor if you have been influencing him or her. Sounds like brainwashing to me.

[Sid Belzberg]

Bob,
With your insight into the book business, don't you think that several on-line book sellers (including electronic book sellers) will soon provide strong fair competition to Chapters and Indigo, all towards the benefit of the consumers?
The world keeps on changing... for the better, when corrupt politicians cannot interfere!

Ironically, Chapters started in 1995 in Canada as a merger with another large chain store. Meanwhile, in 1994/1995, a young 30-year-old man with no savings had just quit his job as a software programmer at a Wall Street brokerage firm and had no access to capital. That did not deter him from plotting the downfall of bookstore chains, starting with a meeting in none other than a Borders bookstore coffee shop.

He went to the bank every entrepreneur with no access to capital goes to, the bank of Mom and Dad. They loaned him a significant part of their limited life savings, and he started Amazon books out of a garage in the days of the fledgling internet.

Countless entrepreneurs with very little capital benefited from micro-loans, starting in 1983 with the founding of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh by Nobel laureate Mohammed Yunus. This bank loaned to the impoverished who had no collateral to offer but their integrity and steely determination to make their business work. The Grameen Bank has over 2500 branches today and is one of the most successful ventures ever. The woman selling delicious fresh nann bread from her stand does not concern herself with McDonald's or other large food chains. She worked out how to make her venture work with her demographic and unique food, and indeed, millions of these small businesses worked because their very existence depended on it despite giant competitors everywhere.

The same was true of Jeff Bezos; he was up against a giant, and with a small loan from his beloved parents, his entire family, including his parents, depended on him to make his fledgling online business work.

The key to making a small business work is adapting to adversity and pivoting. Tenacity and determination are important. A small amount of luck is always good, but that is only a small part of how and dependant on how you treat that luck. I can think of countless examples of well-financed businesses that went under because of an unwillingness to adapt and change with circumstances.

[Dilip Panjwani]

Looks like your 5 year old neighbor knows nothing about circular logic.

Natural Law: you shall not harm others, except in fair competition

Fair Competition: competition conducted without violating Natural Law

LOL Dollop Panhandler, inventor of Natural Law For 5 Year Olds! LOL

Maybe when he turns 6 he will realize how you've tricked him! "You can harm others except when you would be harming others."

Come back when you have a REAL definition of Fair Competition.

PP, harm as an outcome of fair competition, like loss in a fair chess tournament, does not violate the Natural Law; everyone else, including your co-marxist Bob A and my 5 year old smart neighbor... have understood the meaning of fair competition, except you... never mind, have a Merry Christmas!

[Pargat Perrer]

Hi Bob,
In a Libertarian world, with easy access to capital, and with more entrepreneurs existing to join hands with you, you would have had a fair opportunity to improve your little family business, to be able to co-exist with, and perhaps do even better than Chapters...

In this fantasy world, everyone can run a small bookstore and make a profit! LOL

"Literally" everyone! LOL

[Pargat Perrer]

I have a 5 year old neighbor, turning 6 in a few weeks. He is a smart chess player, and also reads Chesstalk! He told me today: It is very pitiful that this guy Pargat on Chesstalk cannot understand that 'fair competition' is competition conducted without violating the 'Natural Law'... like a match of chess played with equal whites and blacks for each player!

Looks like your 5 year old neighbor knows nothing about circular logic.

Natural Law: you shall not harm others, except in fair competition

Fair Competition: competition conducted without violating Natural Law

LOL Dollop Panhandler, inventor of Natural Law For 5 Year Olds! LOL

Maybe when he turns 6 he will realize how you've tricked him! "You can harm others except when you would be harming others."

Come back when you have a REAL definition of Fair Competition.

[Dilip Panjwani]

Dilip:

You do not understand the small family business, nor the book business. Chapters and Indigo have decimated the small book store business.

The Mega Corporations can set the price for their suppliers, because of their volume of purchases.........no retailer will refuse their business because of the mega-corp demand that they sell to them at LESS than anyone else.

The consequence of this decreased purchase price was that the sale price of a book was LOWER than my brother could get from the same wholesale supplier, because of his lack of volume business. So he would go buy the sale item at Chapters, bring it to the small family business, price it at the market non-sale price, and the family business could turn a small profit. It is the same as small corner convenience stores stocking up at the COSTCO Business Centre in Toronto.

That helped..... but time is against the small book store owner.......sales migrate, from their core customer base, slowly, over to Chapters. People will spend more at their friendly small corner store only so long. Basic Monthly Budgeting drives the customer to the lower price.

Some small bookstores tried being a specialty/niche book shop. Even they didn't make it (Women's Book Shop on Spadina Ave.........was there for a long time, but had to give up the ghost......to my knowledge it never came back here in Toronto (Someone correct me if I am wrong on this).

Your capitalization of every small book store, to become Mega Book Stores, to compete with Chapters, is, at least, wrong market economics, and, at best, a joke.

Bob A

Bob,
With your insight into the book business, don't you think that several on-line book sellers (including electronic book sellers) will soon provide strong fair competition to Chapters and Indigo, all towards the benefit of the consumers?
The world keeps on changing... for the better, when corrupt politicians cannot interfere!