when giants fall

Businesses will find it hard to survive, let alone thrive, amid increasing violence and conflict, shortages and logistical interruptions, and a breakdown of markets and financial mechanisms. Individuals will be forced to rethink livelihoods, lifestyles, living arrangements, and locales. Political structures will be in flux. Around the globe, gangsters, maniacs, and mobs will compete with established regimes for the reins of power. Nuclear attacks, domestic terrorism, and other threats that once seemed so remote to most Americans will become an all-too-frequent reality. So, too, will breakdowns, epidemics, and other fallout stemming from economic deterioration, growing social unrest and criminality, and a forced shift toward greater self-sufficiency.
-- Michael J. Panzner, When Giants Fall (2009)