Reading the news of Countrywide's annoucement today (HT CNNFN.com) combined with Amgen's annoucement of layoffs (HT CNNFN.com), I kind of get that goose walking over my grave feeling (fey, the old Gaels would call it). Countrywide is one of the largest mortgage companies, and certainly Amgen is a giant in the industry I am in. When problems start appearing here, it becomes a little worrisome.
When does a system, a civlization, a way of life, realize that it is on the way out. Was Rome in 409 cognizant of the fact? Constantinople in 1452? Europe in March 1914? Antebellum South in March 1861? The day before it happens, do they truly believe it will happen?
In John Christopher's book No Blade of Grass (A fabulous end of civilization novel from a British point a view) the two protagonists, having information few else have, that the end is imminent, are having a conversation in a pub:
" John let his gaze travel again beyond the open door of the inn. On the green on the other side of the road, a group of village boys were playing cricket. Their voices seemed to carry to the listener on shafts of sunlight.
'We're probably both being a bit alarmist' he said. 'It's a long cry from the news that Phase 5 is ou t and about to a prospect of a potatoe diet or famine and cannibalism. From the time the scientist really got to work on it, it only took three months to develop 717.'
'Yes,' Roger said, 'that's something that worries me too. Every government in the world is going to be comforting itself tonight with the same reassuring thoughts. The scientists have never failed us yet. We shall never really believe they will until they do.'
'When a thing has never failed before, it's not a bad presumption that it won't fail now.'
'No,' Roger said, 'I suppose not' He lifted his nearly empty glass. 'Look thy last on all things lovely every hour. A world without beer? Unimaginable. Drink up and let's have another.'"
Would those on the other side of civlization changing events be able to truly say that they knew the day it happened? Will we?
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