Is everything falling apart?
I&#x27;d argue that the greater risk of things falling apart is economic rather than political. We&#x27;ve built our society on two near-ponzi schemes that are in danger of falling apart. The first is pension funds which are paid into by current workers to pay out for past workers. Pension funds inherently depend on population growth to avoid shortfalls. They rely on the fact that more people pay into them then take out from them at any one time.  This literally meets the definition of a ponzi scheme and it will be heartbreaking when it comes due.<p>The other near-ponzi scheme is the real estate market.  In my city of Toronto, average real estate prices have gone from 2x average income in 1972 to 16x average income today. To continue growing at this pace they&#x27;d have to reach 128x average income by 2072. Those prices are absurd enough that it&#x27;s clear there will be a slowdown in real estate prices before then. But much of our society is built on real estate growth and we aggressively encourage people to own real estate assets worth more than the entirety of their net worth. When these assets stop going up, or even worse start going down there will be major complications for society.  I&#x27;m not talking about the adverse effects of a temporary market correction, I&#x27;m talking about a new normal in which real estate is flat or downward trending.  When real estate is no longer an incredible investment opportunity it will have significant adverse effects on society.  For instance, homes are currently a large part of people&#x27;s retirement plans and selling a home is often used to pay for an extended stay in a nursing home (which is quite expensive).  For many people the home represents over 60% of a retirement plan. In my parents lifetime, their home value increased to roughly 10x what it was worth. If my home increases 4x instead this is a substantial adverse impact. If my child&#x27;s home increases 0x this is disastrous.<p>The things we fundamentally depend on to provide things as important in society as retirement are breaking badly.  Meanwhile we&#x27;re so obsessed with political differences that we barely talk about or work towards solving the slow economic crisis we are facing.