April 13, 2023

In the spring of 1987, I walked through the abandoned city of Kotor, Montenegro (then Yugoslavia) on the Adriatic Coast.  In the devastating 6.9 magnitude earthquake on April 15, 1979, Kotor was almost completely destroyed.  Signs were posted at the entrances of the town warning of the danger of entering.  I walked carefully, avoiding the unsteady remains of buildings and debris still in the streets.

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It’s an eerie feeling to walk through a devastated city, abandoned by its residents and teetering on the brink of collapse.  The pictures of bombed out cities in Ukraine bring back that memory, though not all the bombed cities in Ukraine have been abandoned: there are residents living in the rubble with nowhere else to go and hoping, perhaps, that things will return to normal.  I see video of towns that look like a devastated Kotor but with a few souls still stirring, walking around with bags or containers seeking food, water, or fuel.  They must be desperate to remain.

Earthquake and war are similar tragedies, and they are not the only potential causes of  destruction.  In a short time, in a heartbeat, even, a comfortable and safe city can be rendered uninhabitable.  Services that one took for granted can be disrupted, and those who remain will live in fear.  There is a narrow line between the pleasant suburban lifestyle that most Americans enjoy today and deprivation on the scale of Kotor or the Ukraine.  Once that line has been crossed, life changes, and it is difficult to return to “normal.”

In reality, there is no guarantee of “normal.”  The high level of expectations that we assume is simply an illusion.  It can be taken from us, just as it was in Kotor, Ukraine, Germany, and Japan at the end of WWII; Russia during the communist era; and Venezuela today.  It can arrive like the Black Death, cloaked in illness, or in political revolution, a breakdown of policing, or economic collapse.  It’s only through constant vigilance that civilized life can be sustained, and even then only with a measure of luck.

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The Kotor earthquake killed 134, a much smaller number than the 7.0 Great Hanshin or Kobe earthquake of January 1995, which took 6,434 lives.  As in Kotor, the devastation of Kobe was great, but Japan had the resources to repair the damage and to add earthquake-proof features to new buildings.  In contrast to the several hundred dollars that the Yugoslav government sent to Kotor, the Japanese spent over $100 billion to rebuild Kobe quickly: in just one day, limited service began on the city’s subway lines; in two months, the subway service was back to normal.  The Kobe earthquake was the most expensive natural disaster in human history, and yet Kobe recovered within months.

The lesson of Kotor, Kobe, and Ukraine, and of our own experience of COVID, is not just that we must remain vigilant; it is also that we must remain affluent.  In 2021, Venezuelan average per capita GDP was $1,540, with 2023 figures perhaps lower (Venezuela stopped publishing official estimates in 2014, before the economy fell into chaos with hyperinflation, widespread corruption, and collapse of production).  According to the Financial Times, Venezuelan GDP per capita has fallen 87% between 2011 and 2021.  In 1950, Venezuela was the fourth richest country in the world; now it’s a collapsed nation of 28 million from which 6 million have fled.

The disaster in Venezuela, where there are brutal shortages of food and basic medical supplies, was brought about by socialist government policies not unlike those of the Biden administration in America.  As in Venezuela, real per capita GDP in the U.S. has been falling.  As in Venezuela, shortages of basic items are beginning to appear in the U.S.  For now, most Americans are able to purchase what they need, though at inflated prices, but what if shortages and inflation continue to increase due to Biden’s policies?

In order to remain strong, independent, and healthy, America must remain wealthy, but this is not the direction we are headed.  As of Feb. 2023, inflation-adjusted wages had dropped for 23 straight months under President Biden, and declining wealth is putting the U.S. closer to Venezuela than to the world’s most affluent societies (Qatar, Luxembourg, and Singapore, with per capita GDPs between $141,000 and $83,000).  Poor people do not survive disasters as easily as those with the capital to rebuild.  The most important thing that government can do to safeguard the U.S. against catastrophe is to build wealth.  But with calls for wealth taxes and expiration of the Trump tax cuts in 2025, this is the opposite of what Biden is doing.  Inflation-adjusted wages are falling, and this is Biden’s fault.

As I walked through Kotor, eight years after the 1979 earthquake, I found no sign of rebuilding.  There were hundreds of structures on the point of collapse, and there was no sign of human activity.  Eight years of devastation and no rebuilding, just as the Yugoslav civil war of 1987–1995 was about to begin.  Ukraine may now be facing a similar future, and Venezuela and other countries face continued suffering.  War, disease, famine, natural disasters — whatever the cause, suffering continues, and poor countries suffer more than others.

Kotor is reportedly much restored today, due in part to favorable investment policies on the part of the Montenegrin government.  Kotor Bay is one of the most beautiful places on the planet, and it has attracted wealthy yachtsmen and vacationers from around the world.  Given appropriate government action, such as Montenegro’s corporate and personal income tax rates as low as 9%, cities can be reborn.