> Every generation believes it is living through the end of something.

Many generations are. Last century saw the collapse of the British and Soviet empires - titans by any measure - through mismanagement. Europe as an international power was also broken (compared to how they used to be). I can easily imagine 1900s me fleeing to America in fear of the end times and feeling quite justified in his choices with hindsight. Less obvious where to run to these days as the US not-an-empire looks like it may crumble.

Most of the people who died didn't get an opportunity to complain, so we live with some serious survivorship bias on how bad things got.

This how empires collapse:

- To maintain fellowship, the empire spreads money to buy influence

- eventually this starts to cost too much, so the empire reduces spending

- wars ensue and independent voices emerge

- unable to establish order, the empire loses its influence and collapses

You can see this patterns as the US is overspending (high debt / trade deficit) while reducing its diplomatic influence on international programs. Not sure how they can save the USD value over time.

very cool website

Criminals and medical doctors are funnelling a fortune into domestic and foreign real estate, and into premium cars. Nearshoring and outsourcing centers are fleeing the country. Polish army expenditures are at the level of Israel and South Korea. The budget is spent on 40 years old retirees while Russian drones and missiles are freely entering and penetrating the airspace. I'd say so long Poland, a failed experiment again. Polish elites don't even have to flee this time, they're already watching from their 10th or 20th real estate in Spain, US, or Italy.

I feel you... the situation is more or less the same for Greece (and many other countries). Things are not looking very good and I don't know how all this situation is going to stabilize or even better come back to normal.

The west wanted a confrontation with Russia (pushed Zelenski out of the Misk accords; keeps supplying weapons for the lost cause Ukraine; Merkel lied about seize-fire intentions; NorthStream was infighting in the coalition pushing Germany further from Russia).

The Israel wanted a confrontation with Iran, and used it's --as we now all know-- pit-bull lapdog USA to do most of it for them. They killed Iran's leader and some of his family: something we long ago decided is "not modern".

Both countries are not giving in. And they should not. These are existential matters for them; they crossed red lines; they are illegal escalations by all rules and conventions. But the west can do what it wants.

Now Europe is caught in the middle. US has fuel, and basically annexed Venezuela. Europe has to pay through the nose for energy.

The narrative has never been more blatantly misconstrued in the corporate media: Russia will not attack Europe, and if genocidal-Israel can have illegal A-bombs while refusing inspections why bother with Iran doing the same?

Fearmongering. All to "save our democracies and freedom". It's getting old really quick. And combined with ridiculous immigration policies they may destroy Europe as we know it in a few decades, I'm afraid. But saying so, results in the immediate "extreme right-wing Putin propagandist" label, and thus can be disregarded.

...as seen by one ChatGPT.

thankfully, this years winter is expected to be relatively mild

This is one of the most cogent summarizations of the status quo that I've seen.

It leads nicely into a conclusion that, even without the preface, seems reasonable: build personal buffers of water, electricity, and cash.

Phew, thanks God Europe introduced unremovable plastic caps and deposit for plastic bottles. It's gonna save it, right?

I feel like this is overdramatized a bit.

For instance: it's mentioned that EU gas storage is at 67% and Germany's at 56%.

What is not mentioned though is that Poland's storage is at 97% because the previous administration, for better or worse, was paranoid enough to invest in a sizeable marine gas terminal and the current one stocked up early.

Regarding real estate: adjusted for inflation prices peaked 2.5 years ago, interest rates are also much lower than back then. Nobody is buying because all the Ukrainian refugees who were moving to Poland are here already and that's the last bump in population this country will see for the foreseeable future.

Also there's the threat of war on Polish soil, which affects investor sentiment.