The borders of some countries would change. The types of governments that ruled over them would change. In some cases, they would morph slowly into new entities; in others they would change suddenly.

Much of the wealth in the world would change hands. Enormous fortunes would be made by a few, whilst the life savings of countless others would be lost.

Large numbers of people would be on the move. Many would be refugees, hoping to escape poverty and/or oppressive governments. Others would be opportunists – those who look for the positives in periods of global upset.

Above all, this would be a period of change.

For most people, this would one day be looked back upon as previous generations looked back on the World Wars or the Great Depression – a time of devastation, in which many people lost all or most of what they had had.

But for some, especially those who foresaw the change, this period would one day be looked back upon as the time when their fortunes changed dramatically for the better.

Until recently, those who have predicted this dramatic change have been largely derided as "doom-and-gloomers" or "end-of-the-world crackpots."

And it has been difficult to argue against this view, as regardless of how accurately we might have described what was headed our way, it was impossible to put a date on the onset of the crisis.

I became convinced of its eventuality in 1999, due to economic and political developments that would result in collapse at some point.

But the speed at which this would occur, and what governments and others would do to delay the eventuality, could not be known in advance. The best I could do was to repeatedly advise that significant events would increase in velocity and magnitude the closer we came to the collapse.