Danny Schechter, author of the Cosimo book Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal, has been quoted in an extensive article at Amped Status about the potential for the economic crisis to provoke massive unrest in the U.S… as it has around the globe. “Economic Crisis = USA Riots” opens with this chilling reminder:

As the global economy continues its downward spiral, rioting due to this Wall Street led meltdown is spreading through the globe like wildfire. The list of countries experiencing civil unrest is growing by the day, to name some recent hotspots: Bolivia, Bosnia, Brazil, Britain, Bulgaria, Cameroon, China, Egypt, France, Greece, Germany, Haiti, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Ivory Coast, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Philippines, Russia, Senegal, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and Yemen.

Schechter is one of the many experts quoted who warn that we would be foolish not to be prepared for the same thing to happen in the United States:

Things have obviously been bad for the past year, but things are just beginning to get much worse. As economic forecasters predict another two years of decline, the Associated Press reports: “The economy’s downhill slide at the end of last year was likely much steeper than the government initially thought and it is probably doing just as poorly now — if not worse — as a relentless slew of negative forces feed on each other, pushing the country deeper into recession.” Danny Schechter, a journalist who was one of the first to sound the economic alarm and author of Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity, explains: “It seems endless, and we are not even touching the surface of the real economic time bombs on the horizon from credit default swaps, derivatives and credit cards.”

Read the introduction to Plunder here. (Alert: PDF.)

Plunder is available at Amazon.com and from other online booksellers.