If I recall from books like The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck, the conditions during the Great Depression of the 30′s don’t appear to be too different from what I’ve been reading recently in the news.

I read this article from MSNBC about U.S. Water Supplies drying up claiming that 36 states will be suffering shortages within 5 years.

From AP,

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – An epic drought in Georgia threatens the water supply for millions. Florida doesn’t have nearly enough water for its expected population boom. The Great Lakes are shrinking. Upstate New York’s reservoirs have dropped to record lows. And in the West, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is melting faster each year.

Across America, the picture is critically clear — the nation’s freshwater supplies can no longer quench its thirst.

The government projects that at least 36 states will face water shortages within five years because of a combination of rising temperatures, drought, population growth, urban sprawl, waste and excess.

During the Great Depression, crop failures led to farm failure which in turn led to foreclosures and today we suffer from over zealous bank lending that is leading to an estimated 2 million foreclosures over the next few years as written about here.

By Bloomberg | October 26, 2007

WASHINGTON – About 2 million subprime borrowers will lose their homes to foreclosure through 2009, costing them $71 billion in housing wealth, a congressional report said.

Sub prime foreclosure rates will increase as housing prices stagnate or decline, and the effects of the sub prime crisis may spill over to the broader economy, according to a report by the Joint Economic Committee released yesterday.

During the Great Depression, the country suffered from massive deflation caused by the inability of the common man to secure lines of credit to purchase anything and with oil at $90/barrel, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that massive inflation begins to sap consumer spending into a deflationary spiral.

It doesn’t help that we have 80 million boomers expecting entitlements (Medicaid, social security, Medicare, etc) over the next few years and the overall productivity in the US will DROP as people LEAVE the workforce.

Edgar Cayce, the Mayans, the Hopi, Nostradamus all predicted a great change to society during the great galactic solstice so we’ll see what happens.  One thing for sure is the next 10 years are going to be very interesting.