As far as 2011 goes whats really interesting is things are a bit more complicated.

Back to my squeezed egg for a bit. The surface of the egg is not smooth but beats like a drum in a sense.
One reasons complex systems can undergo overall contraction is that their "potential" surface is fluid sometimes that can lead to overall shrinkage in general its also the mechanism for growth when the pressure is internal if you will not external. Often these fluxs result in a net canceling.

For example much vaunted globalization probably resulted in net job/wage loss globally. In regions where jobs increased numerically earing power or wages where much lower. Extremely deflationary for purchasing power of course since in the end wages determine what people can buy. This deflationary event was offset by concentration of wealth and expanding debt. Overall depsite the mad flux the system itself probably did not actually grow once you do all the net accounting its close to a big fat zero. Indeed changing dynamics of oil usage illustrate this with demand doing more shifting than growth.

Now on to 2011 what really intresting is it seems economic systems have intrinsic beats or rythyms or time scales.
And obvious underpinning reason is the steady march of the seasons and key regional holidays. The pulse of life if you will imposes a steady beat on economics. On top of this are fairly constant lead times to accomplish certain tasks building home, buildings, factories etc etc. All the way through fundamental economics you have fairly invariant timescales. This of course extends up into financial flows etc.

Now for 2011 do these intrinsic frequencies in our economic system allow a sort of weak 2011 to occur ?

I actually don't think they do in other words to many parts of the system are moving at certain rates to allow another year to go by effectively similar to the recent past.

From the European crisis to oil and food and esp new events like the flooding in Pakistan and Mexico's deteriorating situation I don't think the global system can pass another year without serious events coming to a head. I'll refrain from guessing which ones are the real issues I have my top picks but more importantly way way to many situations are set to devolve rapidly over timescales of months not years.

This quickening pace of events is itself a symptom of the overall strain on the system as the eggshell gets squeezed the natural frequencies tend to increase in frequency the beat picks up exactly as it does if the system is expanding rapidly aka China. In all cases you see things speed up steadily not slow down.

Indeed if you think about it the world spun from one of benign globalization in the late 1920's to global war over a pretty short period of time. It took about 3-4 years depending on how you do your history for the world to be firmly on the path of collapse and war.

I'd argue modern times things happen faster. But even with that if we take 2005 as a starting point even using historical norm the chances for our current autumn summer to extend through 2011 are slim.

Objects in the mirror are much closer than they appear if you will. Indeed the complacency itself plays a big role in why the real situation will erode even faster.

Even if I've misjudged things it does not matter the intrinsic theme right now is everything is a lot worse than it looks like it is on the surface. Real conditions have deteriorated far worse than it seems.

As and example unemployment benefits are running out for millions right now its not a huge issue nothing seems to have changed however under the covers whats probably really happening is a pressure cooker is rapidly reaching and explosive point. Historians will if I'm correct be able to look back and see this but we don't and thats whats important its our own blindness that eventually is the critical problem be it oil or whatever does not matter.
In general we have all deluded ourselves indeed even if I get the real course of events correct it will be nothing but a lucky guess amongst and almost inifinite number of bad outcomes.

But thats my point what really happened right now even though the situation appears calm is that and infinite number of "bad" outcomes have sprung into existence. Indeed the calm is effectively the result of so many ways to crash competing with each other. Think of a sea tossed by winds that vary so rapidly in direction that the surface appears smooth.

Using my frequency analogy the pitch has increased to the point that most can no longer hear and think there is no noise.

Another example is a singer capable of very high frequencies trying to break a glass at first you hear it but eventually it goes out of range and the glass remains unbroken and you don't hear the singer then suddenly it shatters.

And back to my egg scenario right before it breaks what happens is the waves get so small on the surface that its effectively rigid the corrugated cardboard effect. Thats what actually causes it to collapse as the system crinkles if you will on such a fine scale it becomes effectively rigid and shatters. I believe without proof that for our global economy this scale is weeks and months not years.

I can of course be wrong about where/when we are but I think eventually after the fact people will find that the global economy did go from basically functioning to collapse over a matter of weeks and months.

And last but not least lots of reasons exist for why this might not be the big one. Probably one of the biggest ones is paradoxically housing despite the fall in home prices they still have a long way to go before they reach any sort of bottom if Detroit is and example. If housing prices are important and are a controlling variable then I'm wrong and the collapse is still years away. Same for that matter Government debt etc. All of these variable are critical parts of our economic system and assuming they are the drivers we are years if not decades away from collapse. I just don't think they are the controlling variables because at the end of the day how much a house costs and how much the government spends are secondary variables despite their magnitude. But I'd like to add this in because they represent a class if you will of solutions driven by very large long frequency waves that take a very long time to form a tsunami. This collapse mode is different from my cardboard collapse instead its very much like a tsunami or monster wave instead of microwaves causing collapse your focus or lens to one huge one that explodes/implodes the system at a single critical point. Exactly the same as if it had been shot with a bullet.

This is of course the collapse mode most people think of but I think in real world complex systems its rare and the cardboard mode invariably wins. What people think are collapses like this aka WWII are actually post shattering events not the actual collapse which had already shattered under cardboard mode.

Think about safety glass thats shattered completely and then falls into small pieces the cardboard collapse was real and the grand explosion/implosion was simply how the pieces fell after they where broken.

Anyway perhaps enough about cardboard eggs :)