r/collapse • u/Johannes_P • 3d ago
Economic IMF warns global economy ‘could soon test the limits of resilience’
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/oct/13/imf-global-economy-world-economic-outlook-uk-gdp-forecast-2026130
u/Johnny55 3d ago
Complex systems collapse catastrophically
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u/wastingtoomuchthyme 3d ago
....and a lot faster than people had expected .
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u/Slumunistmanifisto 3d ago
In maintenance terms, complex machines require a more thorough eye and maintenance schedule because of more moving parts that depend on others.
Deferring maintenance for profit will seize the engine that provides us life support.
The oil pump failed a while ago...
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u/Johannes_P 3d ago
I remember reading about how during WW2 Sherman tanks were more efficient than Tigers because the former were less complex and thus more easily maintainable than the latter.
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u/RoboProletariat 3d ago
The two tanks had completely different design ideas.
USA: The tank should be repairable, wash out the guts of the old crew and get the tank back into battle with a fresh crew. The tank should be easy to transport and easy to produce across multiple production sites. Surely lots of small rounds from lots of guns flying towards the enemy is better than one large round at a time.
GER: The tank should be an invincible super weapon where the crew is never harmed. Surely obliterating one tank at a time with a large shell is better than a high rate of fire with smaller shells.
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u/redditmodsRrussians 3d ago
Its like a plane crash. Things start slow with some warning on the HUD/Garmin displays and the checklists start telling pilots what to do. However, the pilots (mostly the rich) have decided to ignore all the warnings and just go on vibes that make them feel good. Plus, they think they are gonna be the most ok because they will just nose up at the last minute so nothing hits the cockpit. Reality is panic ensues once the ground starts comin up fast while the Garmin is screaming at them about incorrect air speed, attitude and altitude. Right now, we are all at about 900ft off the runway with only a few thousand ft of runway left but going 160kts with no flaps. Turbo fucked into a cocked hat we are.
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u/wildalexx 3d ago
The alliteration
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u/AggravatingCricket61 3d ago
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u/Ok-Possibility-6284 2d ago
People are marginally wealthier than before. just dont look up everythings good surely we havent made a grave miscalculation.
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u/SinickalOne Recognized Contributor 3d ago
When economies test “resilience” that’s just code for massive suffering of the underclass.
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u/Terrible_Horror 3d ago edited 2d ago
If it was just a financial catastrophe then only the underclass. But if it makes the planet uninhabitable aka hothouse earth then the bunkers and private islands only delay the inevitable.
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u/BlackMassSmoker 3d ago
I wonder if people are still stuck with the belief of the 'boom and bust' cycle. That the next crash will come along and we'll complain and it'll be shit but ultimately weather it.
The next crash will be devastating, it could even be economic collapse.
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u/SomeRandomGuydotdot 3d ago
I'm in the catabolic collapse camp. It can get a lot worse before we see complete economic collapse.
I, mean, we still aren't doing directed rationing. The top marginal rate is under 90%. We haven't brought back the WPA. The government isn't seizing unused properties. There's no emergency powers dictating the production of war//disaster materials.
Like, we've seen our governments do these things before even in the modern era. We know they're going to do them again before the end. So, I'm guessing we're still quite a bit away from hitting the lights on the way out.
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u/WigginLSU 3d ago
Those are policies done by competent governments trying to maintain the system.
We currently have insane morons who are just trying to strip the copper out of the country with no plan beyond tomorrow. The rationing we'll get is when the last delivery runs out.
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u/SomeRandomGuydotdot 3d ago
I'm not sure I buy that. I, mean, like you realize how bad the dust bowl and depression were before we ever got FDR? I don't think robber barons were any more competent than the current crop of oligarchs, it's just their PR campaigns out lived the living memory of how fucking shitty they actually were. If I say Elon Musk is a modern day Henry Ford, I'm not making a positive comparison, and Ford wasn't even the worst of 'em.
The idea that governments are going to crawl in a hole and die, I think is propaganda. It's based on an fundamental misunderstanding of where resources in our society are actually spent. There's a whole working class full of actual competent people, and I've seen no evidence that the capabilities of society are so degraded that we won't even try the full playbook.
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u/WigginLSU 3d ago
Oh no, I totally agree on the robber barons being absolutely idiotic shitheels as well; but they had the self preservation sense to build libraries and public parks and things to drive those PR campaigns. What'd we get from these douche nozzles? Two day shipping and constantly falling short promises?
But where's our FDR? The systems are being purposely destroyed and these are having immediate impacts and cannot be restored with ease. And the people previously running them, with the knowledge we need, move on to put food on their table. I mean, shit dude, a podcaster is not only the head of the FBI but currently in Russia! We are in some deep shit I don't think a lot of people understand.
To your point of rationing and price controls and whatnot, how do they do that if they have no one who knows how to even set up a national gas rationing system but also would rather see everyone suffer and laugh about it? And we either keep voting them in or they've already got the system locked up so who's gonna change it?
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u/SomeRandomGuydotdot 3d ago
They had shit heel fascists in the 1920s too. They had pinkerton scum and corrupt cops. They had religious zealots preaching end of the world shit heel evangelicalism. They had to essentially develop the modern system of federal government and intervention from nothing. They thought they had the system locked up back then too. I, mean, that's what The switch in time that saved nine was all about.
Capitalist Realism, Neo-Liberal end of history: This shit is a fantasy. The only thing the fascists have right is that the status quo isn't going to last forever.
they have no one who knows how to even set up a national gas rationing system: Even and odd numbers would be a start, I mean just like the last time we did it in the 70s. It's not rocket science.
Our government isn't actually filled with idiots. It just seems that way because the political will to rein in the oligarchs isn't there yet.
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u/WigginLSU 3d ago
Welp, I do hope you're right; I miss the optimism I had 20 and 30 years ago. Not a thing I've seen the last decade has made me think that, especially the part about them figuring out the gas rationing lol. Though I still don't think they'd care enough to put in the effort.
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u/SomeRandomGuydotdot 3d ago
Don't get me wrong. I don't think it's going be great. I just think it's going be slow and miserable, rather than quick and miserable.
I don't think they actually turn anything around. Merely that they're going to at least try and run the play book. If for no other reason than some populist will realize that people will follow the plan even if it's horrible.
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u/WigginLSU 2d ago
Don't worry, someone will tell him Obama read the playbook once and he'll just toss it in the fire like the pandemic response team and the Iran nuclear agreement.
They do so many pants-shittingly stupid things for the pettiest of reasons, I can't even trust them to do the bare minimum. Hell they even sucked at building detention camps and half assed that. These are historically dumb people, if only judging by their actions.
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u/BlackMassSmoker 3d ago
Yeah I've gotten economic collapse confused with financial collapse, which according to Dmitry Orlov in The Five Stages of Collapse, can be the first one to go.
From the book:
"Financial collapse. Faith in "business as usual" is lost. The future is no longer assumed to resemble the past I any way that allows risk to be assessed and financial assets to be guaranteed. Financial institutions become insolvent; savings are wiped out and access to capitol is lost"
So yeah. I think we're on the same page. This a process, not a singular event.
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u/SomeRandomGuydotdot 3d ago
Yup. Financial collapse is a much more likely thing to happen. We know for a fact that this is going to happen in the US, and my guess is a lot sooner than people realize. It's hard to have 30yr fixed mortgages available nationwide in the era of climate change, and all the securities built on top of the existing mortgages written in pre-climate change paradigm are probably going to get fucking toasted. We're already starting to see the craziness in insurance and reinsurance markets.
But life will go on for a while. Until we've instituted martial law and passed out the ration cards, I think people are getting ahead of themselves. I do think that the fascists are enjoying a few dress rehearsals though, so I think I'll be alive to see the shitshow really get started.
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u/Ok-Possibility-6284 2d ago
the environmental collapse will make the economic collapse the final death knell and billions will die. The people in charge are ok and prepared for it, and im quite sure they desire it to cull the population. good luck finding the obfuscated bunkers and making them accountable.
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u/kokopelli73 2d ago
Of course that's what most people think. Most people are completely ignorant and oblivious (some willfully) to what's coming.
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u/Johannes_P 3d ago
Six months after the current Middle East conflict, oil stocks are running low. Rerouting oil away from Hormuz and releasing oil from strategic stores helped to weather the crisis but these buffers are becoming weaker. Risks of escalation are still present in the region.
Morever, global public debt and deficit in many countries are preventing these governments to protect customers from rising prices or to fund stimulus.
All this led the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to warn that the global economy “could soon test the limits of resilience” and that, if nothing change, we'll well see a global economic crisis.
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u/OmegaDeathspell 3d ago
Sometimes it feels worse just to play this waiting game, getting on with your life as usual, waking up to go to work every day, recycling everything and feeling this dread of a slow decline.
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u/Decent-Debate33 3d ago
It is called the liminal. The space in between. I hate it. But it is teaching me to appreciate every fracking day.
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u/rematar 3d ago
This post from a couple of weeks ago is a good explanation of what's happening in the global oil supply.
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u/DontBeAStatistic 3d ago
I’ve shared that with as many people as I can. It really opened my (already quite open) eyes to the likely near future chaos.
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u/rematar 3d ago
Cool. Maybe I'm too old to have open minded friends. There's basically two. I'm GenX with Boomer parents.
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u/DontBeAStatistic 3d ago
Don’t get me wrong. There was plenty of people who said “No thanks, Im not really into that sort of stuff, etc”
I think maybe one other person fully took it on board.1
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u/ZoteTheMitey 3d ago
If anything is going to come crashing down...please wait a couple weeks until I get my hands on the Duo
thanks.
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u/StatementBot 3d ago
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Johannes_P:
Six months after the current Middle East conflict, oil stocks are running low. Rerouting oil away from Hormuz and releasing oil from strategic stores helped to weather the crisis but these buffers are becoming weaker. Risks of escalation are still present in the region.
Morever, global public debt and deficit in many countries are preventing these governments to protect customers from rising prices or to fund stimulus.
All this led the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to warn that the global economy “could soon test the limits of resilience” and that, if nothing change, we'll well see a global economic crisis.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1x5v2yo/imf_warns_global_economy_could_soon_test_the/pgpotsc/