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Other • Cities Will Collapse Even Sooner Than We Fear
Cities Will Collapse Even Sooner Than We Fear
David Spero
May 24th, 2013
This article has been generously contributed by David Spero of Code Green Prep and was originally linked via Prepper Website.
We have written several times about how major population groupings (ie cities) will collapse ‘shortly’ after the essential elements of life cease to smoothly flow in to them as needed. When there’s no water, no sewage, no food, no gas and no electricity, things will unavoidably get very nasty.
In an earlier post we suggested that cities will decay into violent anarchistic morasses within a week or two. In that article we were deliberately trying to look at a ‘best case scenario’ (don’t laugh – the collapse of cities taking a week or two is, alas, a best case scenario!). Our projection was based on the ‘best case’ hope that people would remain passive for a few days and it would only be when people realized no help was coming and they were starting to starve that things would turn truly nasty.
One of our readers, ‘Lt. Dan’, wrote in to share his perspective of what might go down, and alas, it is not nearly as sunny and optimistic as our earlier best case hope. His point is that violence will break outimmediately. There will not be days of ambiguity before things start to fail.
He says that in known ‘hot spots’ in larger cities, the violence will start at once, and as soon as the violent offenders realize that the police response is inadequate (or totally missing) it will skyrocket in scope and extent.
This is a key issue for us, because it impacts on our decision about when to ‘Get Out Of Dodge’ (GOOD) and hightail it to our remote retreat. How much time do we have to decide what to do between when a massive problem occurs and when the city becomes lawless?
Lt. Dan writes :
As a retired LEO with over 30 yrs dealing with “society” I have a number of thoughts on this topic. I grew up on a working farm not close to any major metro center but in adulthood joined a sizable metro PD. So I have perspective from various angles.
The speed and spread of lawlessness with be much faster than most will think. Even now in “quiet” times LE staffing is usually based on the lowest number of officers to reasonably handle a “normal” day. Any event(s) beyond “normal” immediately overwhelm on-duty forces. Planned events like anarchists protesting the latest capitalist conference allow time to plan for enough ON-DUTY personnel (plus resources from other agencies) to be available when violence breaks out.
In most major metro areas there are areas the police routinely avoid because they’re too hazardous. The violent elements in these areas are constantly looking to explode their violence at a moment’s notice when the opportunity happens. And when it happens it will spread like a ruptured gasoline storage tank afire. LE forces will be quickly overwhelmed and retreat to a safe place/bunker for self-preservation.
Most LEO’s have families and a desire for self-preservation. If the collapse involves monetary problems (like no paychecks) the officers will not be reporting to duty, they’ll be protecting their own. When this happens the initial violent outbreaks will mushroom like a nuclear reaction. If the officers are being paid yet, they’ll set up a “containment perimeter” IF they have enough manpower…. which is highly unlikely in a regional or national SHTF scenario.
On other really scary thought I never see mentioned is…. what happens to the tens of thousands of violent criminals in prisons??
In a farming community where religion/moral values are generally much higher than urban dwellers, the problems of violence will be much reduced. Plus everyone usually knows each other so its harder to want to take advantage of them. One tip for urbanites…..farmers are not working their butts off to feed the city slickers (who’ve been ridiculing them for years as hicks, etc) and they certainly will not welcome the urbanites showing up during a crisis.
We asked Dan about his comments and background, and he told us a bit more about how he has formed the views he has – and, let’s face it, thirty years in a major metro police department and retiring as a lieutenant gives him a lot of credibility, particularly on police related operational issues and on matters to do with how people will (mis)behave when given half a chance to do so.
Now that he can ‘tell it like it is’ we asked him in particular about something that opinions widely vary on – will the police bravely ‘man the battlements’ and fight to the last man in a failing and doomed effort to save civilization, or will they adopt – as he suggests above – a ‘my family first, everyone else second’ approach when they see the inevitability of a city’s collapse.
Dan replied :
When I first started on the PD in the 70?s I was stuck in the Comm room and on boring nights I’d actually read the Civil Defense binders (HUGE things) full of detail, much theoretical. For example, upon receiving alert of a nuke attack we were supposed to call a long list of elected officials and city unit directors etc. We all knew it’d be a total waste of time to call these clueless government people because all they’d do is panic and babble on the phone asking US what to do!
We (cops) talked openly in the Comm Room about what we’d do and we decided we’d immediately leave our posts and spend our remaining time with family. The point being alerting totally clueless and incompetent “leaders” would do nothing except add to the panic and confusion over which we (cops) would have ZERO control over.
It is important to understand how much we can learn from past ‘lessons’ with breakdowns in cities (in the case of the US, the L.A. riots being a prime example) and how much we have to adjust for a future breakdown of society.
We suggest that the big difference is that in past events, the problem has been successfully contained to a restricted region, and the police have had, in effect, virtually unlimited reinforcements and resupply, and there has never been any question of what the ultimate outcome would be – of course law and order would triumph.
But in a future society-destroying event, none of this applies. The police will have no resupply or reinforcement, and problems will break out in multiple locations.
We agree with Lt. Dan that very quickly, the police will see the unwinnable nature of the contest and will switch from attempting to defend a disintegrating society from itself, and will focus instead on attempting to ensure the safe survival of themselves and their immediate family and friends.
Summary
Lt. Dan puts it very vividly when he writes
[Violence] will spread like a ruptured gasoline storage tank afire
This means that if you have a GOOD plan and a retreat to go to, you need to be ready to activate this sooner than you might have otherwise hoped for. As soon as you hear the first word of lawlessness, rioting, looting, and general disorder breaking out, you should accept that this will spread like wildfire across the entire city, and leave as quickly as you can.
Oh – one more unsettling thought. How will you learn that violence has broken out in another part of the city if the internet is down, and radio and television stations are also down? Even if some broadcasters remain in service, they’ll probably have limited sources of information and it might take a while for them to become appraised of events and to then broadcast them.
It is also reasonable to guess that broadcasters will be asked ‘not to spread panic’ and so initial reports of violence breaking out might be downplayed or omitted entirely.
Choosing when to bug-out is a difficult but essential issue. You need to be willing to leave before it becomes too late, and with inertia and resistance to change and desperate hope all encouraging you to delay your decision, you need to fight these tendencies. Better to leave ‘too soon’ and return back again some time later, safely; than to leave it too late and suffer the consequences.
We talk about the issues to do with making your bug-out decision here.
David Spero has been prepping since before it was ever an issue. He remembers how his father would store vast quantities of food and supplies at home, and both of them thought it to be normal prudent actions – as, of course, they are. He has a masters degree in business, has worked internationally, speaks several languages, is a nationally accredited firearms instructor, a licensed ham radio operator, and through this website is becoming increasingly a respected authority on matters to do with prepping.
You can visit David’s web site at Code Green Prep and learn more about the Code Green Community, a self-contained, self-supporting and self-sustaining retreat community in the western United States.
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/c … r_05242013
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Sat May 25, 2013 12:20 am
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
10 Scenes From The Economic Collapse That Is Sweeping Across The Planet
When is the economic collapse going to happen? Just open up your eyes and take a look around the globe. The next wave of the economic collapse may not have reached Wall Street yet, but it is already deeply affecting billions of lives all over the planet. Much of Europe has already descended into a deep economic depression, very disturbing economic data is coming out of the second and third largest economies on the globe (China and Japan), and in most of the world economic inequality is growing even though 80 percent of the global population already lives on less than $10 a day. Just because the Dow has been setting brand new all-time records lately does not mean that everything is okay. Remember, a bubble is always the biggest right before it bursts. The next major wave of the economic collapse is already sweeping across Europe and Asia and it is going to devastate the United States as well. I hope that you are ready.
The following are 10 scenes from the economic collapse that is sweeping across the planet…
#1 27 Percent Unemployment/60 Percent Youth Unemployment In Greece
The economic depression in Europe just continues to get worse with each passing month. According to the Daily Mail, the unemployment rate in Greece has nearly tripled since 2009…
Greek youth unemployment rose above 60 per cent for the first time in February, reflecting the pain caused by the country’s crippling recession after years of austerity under its international bailout.
Greece’s jobless rate has almost tripled since the country’s debt crisis emerged in 2009 and was more than twice the euro zone’s average unemployment reading of 12.1 percent in March.
While the overall unemployment rate rose to 27 per cent, according to statistics service data released on Thursday, joblessness among those aged between 15 and 24 jumped to 64.2 percent in February from 59.3 percent in January.
#2 Detroit, Michigan Is Insolvent And Is Rapidly Running Out Of Cash
I love to write about Detroit because it is a perfect example of where the rest of the country is headed. They have just gotten there first. At this point, Detroit is essentially bankrupt, and the new emergency financial manager is saying that Detroit may totally run out of cash next month…
Detroit may run out of cash next month and must cut long-term debt and retiree obligations, according to emergency financial manager Kevyn Orr’s preliminary plan to save Michigan’s largest city from bankruptcy.
Orr’s report says the cost of $9.4 billion in bond, pension and other long-term liabilities is sapping the ability to provide public safety and transportation. He listed cutting debt principal, retiree benefits and jobs among his options.
“No one should underestimate the severity of the financial crisis,” Orr said yesterday in a statement. He called his report “a sobering wake-up call about the dire financial straits the city of Detroit faces.”
#3 Economic Despair In France
France is going down the same path that Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy have gone. The following is an excerpt from a recent article in the Economist…
HELDER PEREIRA is a young man with no work and few prospects: a 21-year-old who failed to graduate from high school and lost his job on a building site four months ago. With his savings about to run out, he has come to his local employment centre in the Paris suburb of Sevran to sign on for benefits and to get help finding something to do. He’ll get the cash. Work is another matter. Youth unemployment in Sevran is over 40%.
#4 7,000 Abandoned Buildings In Dayton, Ohio
All over the upper Midwest, there are formerly great cities that are dealing with thousands of abandoned buildings. Dayton, Ohio is one example…
Like many urban cities in recent years, Dayton still finds itself knee-deep in abandoned, dilapidated properties as the result of the foreclosure crisis and economic downturn five years ago.
Boarded up buildings that appear to be on their last legs litter the city as it attempts to recover.
Kevin Powell, the city’s acting manager of housing inspection, says officials plan to use $5.2 million — half from the state’s Moving Ohio Forward program and a matching grant from the city’s general fund — to raze 475 abandoned properties by the end of September.
That will scratch the surface of an estimated 7,000 abandoned property problem that is growing.
#5 Overwhelmed By Squatters In Spain
In Spain, unemployment is rampant and people have become incredibly desperate. In fact, in some Spanish cities you can now find entire apartment buildings that are being overwhelmed by squatters…
A 285-unit apartment complex in Parla, less than half an hour’s drive from Madrid, should be an ideal target for investors seeking cheap property in Spain. Unfortunately, two thirds of the building generates zero revenue because it’s overrun by squatters.
“This is happening all over the country,” said Jose Maria Fraile, the town’s mayor, who estimates only 100 apartments in the block built for the council have rental contracts, and not all of those tenants are paying either. “People lost their jobs, they can’t pay mortgages or rent so they lost their homes and this has produced a tide of squatters.”
#6 The Collapse Of Chinese Power Consumption
Energy consumption tends to closely mirror economic activity. That is why the recent collapse of Chinese power consumption is so alarming. The following is from Zero Hedge…
According to CLSA’s Chris Wood using NEA data, China’s monthly power consumption (the most accurate proxy for underlying economic strength according to the current premier) growth slowed from 5.5% YoY in Jan-Feb 2013 to 1.9% YoY in March, the slowest growth rate since May 2009 (as discussed in-depth here).
#7 Horrible Economic Data Coming Out Of The Second Largest Economy On The Planet
The economic data that has been coming out of the second largest economy on the globe has been quite alarming recently…
For starters, China’s recent economic data, as massaged as it is to the upside, is downright awful. China’s PMI numbers were the worst in two years. Staffing levels in the Chinese service sector decreased for the first time since January 2009 (remember that year).
China’s LEI also shows no sign of recovery. If anything, it indicates China is heading towards an economic slowdown on par with that of 2008. And if you account for the rampant debt fueling China’s economy you could easily argue that China is posting 0% GDP growth today.
#8 One Out Of Every Five U.S. Households On Food Stamps
Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps. Today, even though we are supposedly in the midst of an “economic recovery”, food stamp enrollment continues to soar to new highs. The following is from CNS News…
The most recent Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP) statistics of the number of households receiving food stamps shows that 23,087,886 households participated in January 2013 – an increase of 889,154 families from January 2012 when the number of households totaled 22,188,732.
The most recent statistics from the United States Census Bureau– from December 2012– puts the number of households in the United States at 115,310,000. If you divide 115,310,000 by 23,087,866, that equals one out of every five households now receiving food stamps.
#9 Child Hunger In America
Those that work for the big banks on Wall Street may have no problems feeding their children, but overall there is a rapidly growing child hunger crisis in America today. Just check out the following statistics from one of my previous articles…
*For the first time ever, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless. That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.
*In Miami, 45 percent of all children are living in poverty.
*In Cleveland, more than 50 percent of all children are living in poverty.
*According to a recently released report, 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.
#10 The Tremendous Suffering Of Hundreds Of Millions Of Desperately Poor People That We Never Hear About
There are billions of people around the globe that are deeply suffering but that do not have a voice. We usually never hear about the desperate poverty that these people are living in, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. The following statistics that Stephen Lendman recently compiled should shock and alarm you…
At least 80% live on less than $10 a day. Over three billion people live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 80% live in countries where income disparity is increasing.
The poorest 40% of world population has 5% of global income. The bottom fifth has $1.5%. The top 20% has 75%.
According to UNICEF, 22,000 impoverished children die daily. They “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”
An estimated 28% of children in developing countries are underweight, malnourished and/or stunted.
How can so many people be living like that in a world with such wealth?
Sadly, things are going to get much worse. The economic and financial systems of the world are rapidly breaking down, and in a few years these are going to look like “the good old days”.
And a growing number of people are starting to realize the direction that things are headed. For example, according to a survey that has just been released, 48 percent of all Americans believe that the best days of America are now behind us.
So what do you think?
Are our best days behind us, or are they still ahead of us?
Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below…
View full post on The Economic Collapse
Other • 10 Scenes From The Economic Collapse That Is Sweeping Acros
10 Scenes From The Economic Collapse That Is Sweeping Across The Planet
By Michael, on May 13th, 2013
When is the economic collapse going to happen? Just open up your eyes and take a look around the globe. The next wave of the economic collapse may not have reached Wall Street yet, but it is already deeply affecting billions of lives all over the planet. Much of Europe has already descended into a deep economic depression, very disturbing economic data is coming out of the second and third largest economies on the globe (China and Japan), and in most of the world economic inequality is growing even though 80 percent of the global population already lives on less than $10 a day. Just because the Dow has been setting brand new all-time records lately does not mean that everything is okay. Remember, a bubble is always the biggest right before it bursts. The next major wave of the economic collapse is already sweeping across Europe and Asia and it is going to devastate the United States as well. I hope that you are ready.
The following are 10 scenes from the economic collapse that is sweeping across the planet…
#1 27 Percent Unemployment/60 Percent Youth Unemployment In Greece
The economic depression in Europe just continues to get worse with each passing month. According to the Daily Mail, the unemployment rate in Greece has nearly tripled since 2009…
Greek youth unemployment rose above 60 per cent for the first time in February, reflecting the pain caused by the country’s crippling recession after years of austerity under its international bailout.
Greece’s jobless rate has almost tripled since the country’s debt crisis emerged in 2009 and was more than twice the euro zone’s average unemployment reading of 12.1 percent in March.
While the overall unemployment rate rose to 27 per cent, according to statistics service data released on Thursday, joblessness among those aged between 15 and 24 jumped to 64.2 percent in February from 59.3 percent in January.
#2 Detroit, Michigan Is Insolvent And Is Rapidly Running Out Of Cash
I love to write about Detroit because it is a perfect example of where the rest of the country is headed. They have just gotten there first. At this point, Detroit is essentially bankrupt, and the new emergency financial manager is saying that Detroit may totally run out of cash next month…
Detroit may run out of cash next month and must cut long-term debt and retiree obligations, according to emergency financial manager Kevyn Orr’s preliminary plan to save Michigan’s largest city from bankruptcy.
Orr’s report says the cost of $9.4 billion in bond, pension and other long-term liabilities is sapping the ability to provide public safety and transportation. He listed cutting debt principal, retiree benefits and jobs among his options.
“No one should underestimate the severity of the financial crisis,” Orr said yesterday in a statement. He called his report “a sobering wake-up call about the dire financial straits the city of Detroit faces.”
#3 Economic Despair In France
France is going down the same path that Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy have gone. The following is an excerpt from a recent article in the Economist…
HELDER PEREIRA is a young man with no work and few prospects: a 21-year-old who failed to graduate from high school and lost his job on a building site four months ago. With his savings about to run out, he has come to his local employment centre in the Paris suburb of Sevran to sign on for benefits and to get help finding something to do. He’ll get the cash. Work is another matter. Youth unemployment in Sevran is over 40%.
#4 7,000 Abandoned Buildings In Dayton, Ohio
All over the upper Midwest, there are formerly great cities that are dealing with thousands of abandoned buildings. Dayton, Ohio is one example…
Like many urban cities in recent years, Dayton still finds itself knee-deep in abandoned, dilapidated properties as the result of the foreclosure crisis and economic downturn five years ago.
Boarded up buildings that appear to be on their last legs litter the city as it attempts to recover.
Kevin Powell, the city’s acting manager of housing inspection, says officials plan to use $5.2 million — half from the state’s Moving Ohio Forward program and a matching grant from the city’s general fund — to raze 475 abandoned properties by the end of September.
That will scratch the surface of an estimated 7,000 abandoned property problem that is growing.
#5 Overwhelmed By Squatters In Spain
In Spain, unemployment is rampant and people have become incredibly desperate. In fact, in some Spanish cities you can now find entire apartment buildings that are being overwhelmed by squatters…
A 285-unit apartment complex in Parla, less than half an hour’s drive from Madrid, should be an ideal target for investors seeking cheap property in Spain. Unfortunately, two thirds of the building generates zero revenue because it’s overrun by squatters.
“This is happening all over the country,” said Jose Maria Fraile, the town’s mayor, who estimates only 100 apartments in the block built for the council have rental contracts, and not all of those tenants are paying either. “People lost their jobs, they can’t pay mortgages or rent so they lost their homes and this has produced a tide of squatters.”
#6 The Collapse Of Chinese Power Consumption
Energy consumption tends to closely mirror economic activity. That is why the recent collapse of Chinese power consumption is so alarming. The following is from Zero Hedge…
According to CLSA’s Chris Wood using NEA data, China’s monthly power consumption (the most accurate proxy for underlying economic strength according to the current premier) growth slowed from 5.5% YoY in Jan-Feb 2013 to 1.9% YoY in March, the slowest growth rate since May 2009 (as discussed in-depth here).
#7 Horrible Economic Data Coming Out Of The Second Largest Economy On The Planet
The economic data that has been coming out of the second largest economy on the globe has been quite alarming recently…
For starters, China’s recent economic data, as massaged as it is to the upside, is downright awful. China’s PMI numbers were the worst in two years. Staffing levels in the Chinese service sector decreased for the first time since January 2009 (remember that year).
China’s LEI also shows no sign of recovery. If anything, it indicates China is heading towards an economic slowdown on par with that of 2008. And if you account for the rampant debt fueling China’s economy you could easily argue that China is posting 0% GDP growth today.
#8 One Out Of Every Five U.S. Households On Food Stamps
Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps. Today, even though we are supposedly in the midst of an "economic recovery", food stamp enrollment continues to soar to new highs. The following is from CNS News…
The most recent Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP) statistics of the number of households receiving food stamps shows that 23,087,886 households participated in January 2013 – an increase of 889,154 families from January 2012 when the number of households totaled 22,188,732.
The most recent statistics from the United States Census Bureau– from December 2012– puts the number of households in the United States at 115,310,000. If you divide 115,310,000 by 23,087,866, that equals one out of every five households now receiving food stamps.
#9 Child Hunger In America
Those that work for the big banks on Wall Street may have no problems feeding their children, but overall there is a rapidly growing child hunger crisis in America today. Just check out the following statistics from one of my previous articles…
*For the first time ever, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless. That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.
*In Miami, 45 percent of all children are living in poverty.
*In Cleveland, more than 50 percent of all children are living in poverty.
*According to a recently released report, 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.
#10 The Tremendous Suffering Of Hundreds Of Millions Of Desperately Poor People That We Never Hear About
There are billions of people around the globe that are deeply suffering but that do not have a voice. We usually never hear about the desperate poverty that these people are living in, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. The following statistics that Stephen Lendman recently compiled should shock and alarm you…
At least 80% live on less than $10 a day. Over three billion people live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 80% live in countries where income disparity is increasing.
The poorest 40% of world population has 5% of global income. The bottom fifth has $1.5%. The top 20% has 75%.
According to UNICEF, 22,000 impoverished children die daily. They "die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death."
An estimated 28% of children in developing countries are underweight, malnourished and/or stunted.
How can so many people be living like that in a world with such wealth?
Sadly, things are going to get much worse. The economic and financial systems of the world are rapidly breaking down, and in a few years these are going to look like "the good old days".
And a growing number of people are starting to realize the direction that things are headed. For example, according to a survey that has just been released, 48 percent of all Americans believe that the best days of America are now behind us.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch … the-planet
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Mon May 13, 2013 3:53 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Gold and Silver • Gold & Silver Smashdown=Mining Industry Collapse!
Gold & Silver Smashdown=Mining Industry Collapse!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HREWH-vi … e=youtu.be
Statistics: Posted by DIGGER DAN — Sun May 12, 2013 8:05 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Gold and Silver • Re: Banking giant predicts gold price collapse
I wonder how much that clown got paid to make those statements. Most of what is in this article is total B.S.I wonder if they think they can lead people back down the garden path with press releases like this since I don’t think the big selloff they engineered 10 -14 days ago never really panned out.Pepole flocked to gold and were buying physical hand over fist as the paper market dropped like a rock.I’ve heard several rumors now that the CRIMEX is bankrupt. If gold does go to $800.00 like the forecast where are they going to find the physical to fill the demand? The paper price maybe $800.00 but the really price wont be ,not in today’s dollars.
Statistics: Posted by DIGGER DAN — Mon Apr 29, 2013 10:42 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Gold and Silver • Comex Gold Inventories Collapse By Largest Amount Ever On Re
http://bullmarketthinking.com/comex-gol … on-record/
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Tue Apr 09, 2013 12:18 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
25 Things That You Should Do To Get Prepared For The Coming Economic Collapse
Do you think that you know how to prepare for the collapse of the economy? If so, are you putting that knowledge into action? In America today, people are more concerned about the possibility of an economic collapse than ever before. It has been estimated that there are now three million preppers in the United States. But the truth that nobody really knows the actual number, because a lot of preppers keep their “prepping” to themselves. So what are all of those people preparing for exactly? Well, survey after survey has shown that “economic collapse” is the number one potential disaster that preppers are most concerned about. Of course that shouldn’t be surprising because we truly are facing economic problems that are absolutely unprecedented. We are living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, the global banking system has been transformed into a high-risk pyramid scheme of debt, risk and leverage that could collapse at any time, and wealthy countries such as the United States have been living way above their means for decades. Meanwhile, the United States is being deindustrialized at a blinding pace and poverty in this country is absolutely exploding. Anyone that is not concerned about the economy should have their head examined. Fortunately, I have found that an increasing number of Americans are becoming convinced that we are heading for a horrific economic crisis. Once they come to that realization, they want to know what they should do.
And the reality is that “getting prepared” is going to look different for each family based on their own unique circumstances. Some people have a lot of resources, while others have very little. Some people are very independent of the system and can move wherever they want, while others are totally dependent on their jobs and must stay near the cities at least for now.
In addition, it is important to distinguish between the “short-term” and the “long-term” when talking about economic collapse. As I have written about previously, our economic collapse is not going to happen all at once. It is going to unfold over time. In the “short-term”, many are moving money around and are building up “emergency funds” to prepare for the next recession. For the “long-term”, many are storing up food and huge stockpiles of survival supplies in order to be prepared for the total collapse of society. Both approaches are wise, but it is important to keep in mind that different approaches will be needed at different times.
The strategies posted below are a mix of both short-term and long-term strategies. Some will be important for our immediate future, while others may not be needed for a number of years. But in the end, you will be very thankful for the time and the effort that you spent getting prepared while you still could.
The following are 25 things that you should do to get prepared for the coming economic collapse…
#1 An Emergency Fund
Do you remember what happened when the financial system almost collapsed back in 2008? Millions of Americans suddenly lost their jobs, and because many of them were living paycheck to paycheck, many of them also got behind on their mortgages and lost their homes. You don’t want to lose everything that you have worked for during this next major economic downturn. It is imperative that you have an emergency fund. It should be enough to cover all of your expenses for at least six months, but I would encourage you to have an emergency fund that is even larger than that.
#2 Don’t Put All Of Your Eggs Into One Basket
If the wealth confiscation in Cyprus has taught us anything, it is that we should not put all of our eggs in one basket. If all of your money is in one single bank account, it would be easy to wipe out. But if you have your money scattered around a number of different places it will give you a little bit more security.
#3 Keep Some Cash At Home
This goes along with the previous point. While it is not wise to keep all of your money at home, you do want to keep some cash on hand. If there is an extended bank holiday or if a giant burst from the sun causes the ATM machines to go down, you want to be able to have enough cash to buy the things that your family needs. Just ask the people of Cyprus how crippling a bank holiday can be. One way to keep your cash secure at home is by storing it in a concealed safe.
#4 Get Out Of Debt
A lot of people seem to assume that an economic collapse would wipe out all debts, but that will probably not be the case. In fact, if you are in a tremendous amount of debt you will be very vulnerable if the economy collapses and you are not able to find a job. Just ask the people who were overextended and lost their jobs during the last recession. So please get out of debt. Many debt collectors are becoming increasingly ruthless. In many areas of the country they are now routinely putting debtors into prison. You do not want to be a slave to debt when the next wave of the economic collapse strikes.
#5 Gold And Silver
In the long-term, the U.S. dollar is going to lose a tremendous amount of value and inflation is going to absolutely skyrocket. That is one reason why so many people are investing very heavily in gold, silver and other precious metals. All over the globe, the central banks of the world are recklessly printing money. Everyone knows that this is going to end very badly. In fact, there is already a push in more than a dozen U.S. states to allow gold and silver coins to be used as legal tender. Someday you will be glad that you invested in gold and silver now while their prices were still low.
#6 Reduce Your Expenses
A lot of people claim that they can’t put any money toward prepping, but the truth is that we all have room to reduce our expenses. We all spend money on things that we do not really need. Those that are “lean and mean” will tend to do much better during the times that are coming.
#7 Start A Side Business
If you do not have much money, a great way to increase your income is by starting a side business. And it does not take a lot of money – there are many side businesses that you can start for next to nothing. And starting a side business will allow you to become less dependent on your job. In this economic environment, a job could disappear at literally any time.
#8 Move Away From The Big Cities If Possible
For many people, this is simply not possible. Many Americans are still completely and totally dependent on their jobs. But if you are able, now is a good time to move away from the big cities. When the next major economic downturn strikes, there will be rioting and a dramatic rise in crime in the major cities. If you are able to move to a more rural area you will probably be in much better shape.
#9 Store Food
Global food reserves have reached their lowest level in nearly 40 years. As the economy gets even worse and global weather patterns become even more unstable, the price of food will go much higher and global food supplies will become much tighter. In the long run, you will be glad for the money that you put into long-term food storage now.
#10 Learn To Grow Your Own Food
This is a skill that most Americans possessed in the past, but that most Americans today have forgotten. Growing your own food is a way to become more independent of the system, and it is a way to get prepared for what is ahead.
#11 Nobody Can Survive Without Water
Without water, you would not even make it a few days in an emergency situation. It is imperative that you have a plan to provide clean drinking water for your family when disaster strikes.
#12 Have A Plan For When The Grid Goes Down
What would you do if the grid went down and you suddenly did not have power for an extended period of time? Anyone that has spent more than a few hours without power knows how frustrating this can be. You need to have a plan for how you are going to provide power to your home that is independent of the power company.
#13 Have Blankets And Warm Clothing On Hand
This is more for emergency situations or for a complete meltdown of society. During any major crisis, blankets and warm clothing are in great demand. They also could potentially make great barter items.
#14 Store Personal Hygiene Supplies
A lot of preppers store up huge amounts of food, but they forget all about personal hygiene supplies. During a long crisis, these are items that you would greatly miss if you do not have them stored up. These types of supplies would also be great for barter.
#15 Store Medicine And Medical Supplies
You will also want to store up medical supplies and any medicine that you may need. In an emergency situation, you definitely would not want to be without bandages and a first-aid kit. Over the course of a long crisis, you do not want to run out of any medicines that are critical for your health.
#16 Stock Up On Vitamins
A lot of preppers do not think about this either, but it is very important. These days, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get adequate nutrition from the foods that we eat. That is why it is very important to have an adequate store of vitamins and other supplements.
#17 Make A List Of Other Supplies That You Will Need
During any crisis, there will be a lot of other things that you will need in addition to food and water. The following are just a few basic things that it would be wise to have on hand…
- an axe
- a can opener
- flashlights
- battery-powered radio
- extra batteries
- lighters or matches
- fire extinguisher
- sewing kit
- tools
This list could be much, much longer, but hopefully this will get you started.
#18 Don’t Forget The Special Needs Of Your Babies And Your Pets
Young children and pets have special needs. As you store supplies, don’t forget about the things that they will need as well.
#19 Entertainment
This may sound trivial, but the truth is that our entertainment-addicted society would become very bored and very frustrated if the grid suddenly went down for an extended period of time. Card games and other basic forms of entertainment can make enduring a crisis much easier.
#20 Self-Defense
In the years ahead, being able to defend your home and your family is going to become increasingly important. When the economy crashes, people are going to start to become very desperate. And desperate people do desperate things.
#21 Get Your Ammunition While You Still Can
Your firearms will not do you much good if you do not have ammunition for them. Already there are widespread reports of huge ammunition shortages. The following is from a recent CNS News article…
“The run on ammunition has manufacturers scrambling to accommodate demand and reassure customers, as many new and seasoned gun owners stock up over fears of new firearms regulations at both the state and federal levels.”
Don’t just assume that you will always be able to purchase large amounts of ammunition whenever you want. Get it now while you still can.
#22 If You Have To Go…
Have a plan for what you and your family will do if you are forced to leave your home. If you do have to go, the following are some items that you will want to have on hand…
- a map of the area
- a compass
- backpacks for every member of the family
- sleeping bags
- warm clothing
- comfortable shoes or hiking boots
#23 Community
One of the most important assets in any crisis situation is community. If you have friends or neighbors that you can depend upon, that is invaluable. The time spent building those bonds now will pay off greatly during a major crisis.
#24 Have A Back-Up Plan And Be Flexible
Mike Tyson once said the following…
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
No plan ever unfolds perfectly. When your plan is disrupted, what will you do?
It will be imperative for all of us to have a back-up plan and to be flexible during the years ahead.
#25 Keep Your Prepping To Yourself
Do not go around and tell everyone in the area where you live about your prepping. If you do, then you may find yourself overwhelmed with “visitors” when everything falls apart.
And please do not go on television and brag about your prepping to a national audience.
Prepping is something that you want to keep to yourself, unless you want hordes of desperate people banging on your door in the future.
For much more on prepping, please check out some of my previous articles…
- “14 Questions People Ask About How To Prepare For The Collapse Of The Economy“
- “Rise Of The Preppers: 50 Of The Best Prepper Websites And Blogs On The Internet“
- “120 Powerful Pieces Of Advice For Preppers“
Sadly, most Americans still have blind faith that our “leaders” actually know what they are doing and will be able to fix things.
Most Americans still are convinced that everything is going to be just fine.
And of course the mainstream media does all they can to reinforce faith in the system. Day after day, we see mindless news headlines such as this: “Californians Champing at the Bit Over Powerball Debut“.
But if you are reading this article that means that you are probably much more awake than the average American is.
Please get prepared while you still can.
A great storm is coming, and time is quickly running out.
So do you have any points that you would add to the list above? Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below…
View full post on The Economic Collapse
The Big Banks Are Recklessly Gambling With Our Money, And It Will Cause The Global Financial System To Collapse
Have you ever wondered how the big banks make such enormous mountains of money? Well, the truth is that much of it is made by gambling recklessly. If they win on their bets, they become fabulously wealthy. If they lose on their bets, they know that the government will come in and arrange for the banks to be bailed out because they are “too big to fail”. Either they will be bailed out by the government using our tax dollars, or as we just witnessed in Cyprus, they will be allowed to “recapitalize” themselves by stealing money directly from our bank accounts. So if they win, they win big. If they lose, someone else will come in and clean up the mess. This creates a tremendous incentive for the bankers to “go for it”, because there is simply not enough pain in this equation for those that are taking the risks. If the big Wall Street banks had been allowed to collapse back in 2008, that would have caused a massive change of behavior on Wall Street. But instead, the big banks are still recklessly gambling with our money as if the last financial crisis never even happened. In the end, the reckless behavior of these big banks is going to cause the entire global financial system to collapse.
Have you noticed how most news reports about Cyprus don’t even get into the reasons why the big banks in Cyprus collapsed?
Well, the truth is that they collapsed because they were making incredibly reckless bets with the money that had been entrusted to them. In a recent article, Ron Paul explained how the situation played out once the bets started to go bad…
The dramatic recent events in Cyprus have highlighted the fundamental weakness in the European banking system and the extreme fragility of fractional reserve banking. Cypriot banks invested heavily in Greek sovereign debt, and last summer’s Greek debt restructuring resulted in losses equivalent to more than 25 percent of Cyprus’ GDP. These banks then took their bad investments to the government, demanding a bailout from an already beleaguered Cypriot treasury. The government of Cyprus then turned to the European Union (EU) for a bailout.
If those bets had turned out to be profitable, the bankers would have kept all of the profits. But those bets turned out to be big losers, and private bank accounts in Cyprus are now being raided to pay the bill. Unfortunately, as Ron Paul noted, what just happened in Cyprus is already being touted as a “template” for future bank bailouts all over the globe…
The elites in the EU and IMF failed to learn their lesson from the popular backlash to these tax proposals, and have openly talked about using Cyprus as a template for future bank bailouts. This raises the prospect of raids on bank accounts, pension funds, and any investments the government can get its hands on. In other words, no one’s money is safe in any financial institution in Europe. Bank runs are now a certainty in future crises, as the people realize that they do not really own the money in their accounts. How long before bureaucrat and banker try that here?
Unfortunately, all of this is the predictable result of a fiat paper money system combined with fractional reserve banking. When governments and banks collude to monopolize the monetary system so that they can create money out of thin air, the result is a business cycle that wreaks havoc on the economy. Pyramiding more and more loans on top of a tiny base of money will create an economic house of cards just waiting to collapse. The situation in Cyprus should be both a lesson and a warning to the United States.
This is an example of what can happen when the dominoes start to fall. The banks of Cyprus failed because Greek debt went bad. And the Greeks were using derivatives to try to hide the true scope of their debt problems. The following is what Jim Sinclair recently told King World News…
When people say that the Cypriot banks lost because of being in Greek debt, what was one of the Greeks’ greatest sins? They used over-the-counter derivatives in order to hide the real condition of their balance sheet.
Depositor money, brokerage money, and clearing house money have been tangled up in the mountain of derivatives as the banks have used this cash to speculate in an attempt to make huge bonuses for bank executives.
As I have written about so many times, the global quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble is one of the greatest threats that the global financial system is facing. As Sinclair explained to King World News, when this derivatives bubble bursts and the losses start soaring, the big banks are going to want to raid private bank accounts just like the banks in Cyprus were able to…
What do you think happens when Buffett reports that he made $10 billion in derivatives? Somebody else lost $10 billion and it was most likely one financial institution. There is no question that what we are seeing right now is not isolated to Cyprus. It has happened everywhere, but is has been camouflaged by making the depositors and the banks whole. What Cyprus will reveal is that losses do not stop with the bank’s capital. Losses roar right through bank capital and take depositors’ money.
This could have all been avoided if we had allowed the big Wall Street banks to collapse back in 2008. Reckless behavior would have been greatly punished and banks would have chosen to do business differently in the future.
David Stockman, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, says that because we bailed out the big banks it was a signal to them that they could go back and freely engage in the same kind of reckless behavior that they were involved in previously…
Essentially there was a cleansing run on the wholesale funding market in the canyons of Wall Street going on. It would have worked its will, just like JP Morgan allowed it to happen in 1907 when we did not have the Fed getting in the way. Because they stopped it in its tracks after the AIG bailout and then all the alphabet soup of different lines that the Fed threw out, and then the enactment of TARP, the last two investment banks standing were rescued, Goldman and Morgan [Stanley], and they should not have been. As a result of being rescued and having the cleansing liquidation of rotten balance sheets stopped, within a few weeks and certainly months they were back to the same old games, such that Goldman Sachs got $10 billion dollars for the fiscal year that started three months later after that check went out, which was October 2008. For the fiscal 2009 year, Goldman Sachs generated what I call a $29 billion surplus – $13 billion of net income after tax, and on top of that $16 billion of salaries and bonuses, 95% of it which was bonuses.
Therefore, the idea that they were on death’s door does not stack up. Even if they had been, it would not make any difference to the health of the financial system. These firms are supposed to come and go, and if people make really bad bets, if they have a trillion dollar balance sheet with six, seven, eight hundred billion dollars worth of hot-money short-term funding, then they ought to take their just reward, because it would create lessons, it would create discipline. So all the new firms that would have been formed out of the remnants of Goldman Sachs where everybody lost their stock values – which for most of these partners is tens of millions, hundreds of millions – when they formed a new firm, I doubt whether they would have gone back to the old game. What happened was the Fed stopped everything in its tracks, kept Goldman Sachs intact, the reckless Goldman Sachs and the reckless Morgan Stanley, everyone quickly recovered their stock value and the game continues. This is one of the evils that comes from this kind of deep intervention in the capital and money markets.
The lessons that we were supposed to learn from the crisis of 2008 have not been learned.
Instead, the lure of huge returns and big bonuses has caused a return to the exact same behavior that caused the crisis of 2008 in the first place. The following is one example of this phenomenon from a recent article by Wolf Richter…
The craziness on Wall Street, the reckless for-the-moment-only behavior that led to the Financial Crisis, is back.
This time it’s Citigroup that is once again concocting “synthetic” securities, like those that had wreaked havoc five years ago. And once again, it’s using them to shuffle off risks through the filters of Wall Street to people who might never know.
What bubbled to the surface is that Citigroup is selling synthetic securities that yield 13% to 15% annually—synthetic because they’re based on credit derivatives. Apparently, Citi has a bunch of shipping loans on its books, and it’s trying to protect itself against default. In return for succulent interest payments, investors will take on some of the risks of these loans.
Yes, the Dow hit another new all-time high today. But the derivatives bubble that hangs over the global economy like a sword of Damocles could burst at literally any moment. When it does, the damage is going to be incalculable.
In a previous article entitled “Why Is The World Economy Doomed? The Global Financial Pyramid Scheme By The Numbers“, I noted a couple of statistics that show why derivatives are such an enormous problem…
-$212,525,587,000,000 – According to the U.S. government, this is the notional value of the derivatives that are being held by the top 25 banks in the United States. But those banks only have total assets of about 8.9 trillion dollars combined. In other words, the exposure of our largest banks to derivatives outweighs their total assets by a ratio of about 24 to 1.
-$600,000,000,000,000 to $1,500,000,000,000,000 – The estimates of the total notional value of all global derivatives generally fall within this range. At the high end of the range, the ratio of derivatives to global GDP is more than 21 to 1.
When the derivatives bubble finally bursts, where are we going to get the trillions upon trillions of dollars that will be needed to “fix” things this time?
And sadly, the reality is that we are quickly running out of time.
It is important to keep watching Europe. As I noted the other day, the European banking system as a whole is leveraged about 26 to 1 at this point. When Lehman Brothers finally collapsed, it was leveraged about 30 to 1.
And the economic crisis over in Europe just continues to get worse. It was announced on Tuesday that the unemployment rate in the eurozone is at an all-time record high of 12 percent, and the latest manufacturing numbers show that manufacturing activity over in Europe is in the process of collapsing.
So don’t be fooled by the fact that the Dow keeps setting new all-time record highs. This bubble of false hope will be very short-lived.
The unfortunate truth is that the global financial system is a complete and total mess, and at this point a collapse appears to be inevitable.
View full post on The Economic Collapse
Other • ..It Will Cause The Global Financial System To Collapse
The Big Banks Are Recklessly Gambling With Our Money, And It Will Cause The Global Financial System To Collapse
By Michael, on April 2nd, 2013
Have you ever wondered how the big banks make such enormous mountains of money? Well, the truth is that much of it is made by gambling recklessly. If they win on their bets, they become fabulously wealthy. If they lose on their bets, they know that the government will come in and arrange for the banks to be bailed out because they are "too big to fail". Either they will be bailed out by the government using our tax dollars, or as we just witnessed in Cyprus, they will be allowed to "recapitalize" themselves by stealing money directly from our bank accounts. So if they win, they win big. If they lose, someone else will come in and clean up the mess. This creates a tremendous incentive for the bankers to "go for it", because there is simply not enough pain in this equation for those that are taking the risks. If the big Wall Street banks had been allowed to collapse back in 2008, that would have caused a massive change of behavior on Wall Street. But instead, the big banks are still recklessly gambling with our money as if the last financial crisis never even happened. In the end, the reckless behavior of these big banks is going to cause the entire global financial system to collapse.
Have you noticed how most news reports about Cyprus don’t even get into the reasons why the big banks in Cyprus collapsed?
Well, the truth is that they collapsed because they were making incredibly reckless bets with the money that had been entrusted to them. In a recent article, Ron Paul explained how the situation played out once the bets started to go bad…
The dramatic recent events in Cyprus have highlighted the fundamental weakness in the European banking system and the extreme fragility of fractional reserve banking. Cypriot banks invested heavily in Greek sovereign debt, and last summer’s Greek debt restructuring resulted in losses equivalent to more than 25 percent of Cyprus’ GDP. These banks then took their bad investments to the government, demanding a bailout from an already beleaguered Cypriot treasury. The government of Cyprus then turned to the European Union (EU) for a bailout.
If those bets had turned out to be profitable, the bankers would have kept all of the profits. But those bets turned out to be big losers, and private bank accounts in Cyprus are now being raided to pay the bill. Unfortunately, as Ron Paul noted, what just happened in Cyprus is already being touted as a "template" for future bank bailouts all over the globe…
The elites in the EU and IMF failed to learn their lesson from the popular backlash to these tax proposals, and have openly talked about using Cyprus as a template for future bank bailouts. This raises the prospect of raids on bank accounts, pension funds, and any investments the government can get its hands on. In other words, no one’s money is safe in any financial institution in Europe. Bank runs are now a certainty in future crises, as the people realize that they do not really own the money in their accounts. How long before bureaucrat and banker try that here?
Unfortunately, all of this is the predictable result of a fiat paper money system combined with fractional reserve banking. When governments and banks collude to monopolize the monetary system so that they can create money out of thin air, the result is a business cycle that wreaks havoc on the economy. Pyramiding more and more loans on top of a tiny base of money will create an economic house of cards just waiting to collapse. The situation in Cyprus should be both a lesson and a warning to the United States.
This is an example of what can happen when the dominoes start to fall. The banks of Cyprus failed because Greek debt went bad. And the Greeks were using derivatives to try to hide the true scope of their debt problems. The following is what Jim Sinclair recently told King World News…
When people say that the Cypriot banks lost because of being in Greek debt, what was one of the Greeks’ greatest sins? They used over-the-counter derivatives in order to hide the real condition of their balance sheet.
Depositor money, brokerage money, and clearing house money have been tangled up in the mountain of derivatives as the banks have used this cash to speculate in an attempt to make huge bonuses for bank executives.
As I have written about so many times, the global quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble is one of the greatest threats that the global financial system is facing. As Sinclair explained to King World News, when this derivatives bubble bursts and the losses start soaring, the big banks are going to want to raid private bank accounts just like the banks in Cyprus were able to…
What do you think happens when Buffett reports that he made $10 billion in derivatives? Somebody else lost $10 billion and it was most likely one financial institution. There is no question that what we are seeing right now is not isolated to Cyprus. It has happened everywhere, but is has been camouflaged by making the depositors and the banks whole. What Cyprus will reveal is that losses do not stop with the bank’s capital. Losses roar right through bank capital and take depositors’ money.
This could have all been avoided if we had allowed the big Wall Street banks to collapse back in 2008. Reckless behavior would have been greatly punished and banks would have chosen to do business differently in the future.
David Stockman, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, says that because we bailed out the big banks it was a signal to them that they could go back and freely engage in the same kind of reckless behavior that they were involved in previously…
Essentially there was a cleansing run on the wholesale funding market in the canyons of Wall Street going on. It would have worked its will, just like JP Morgan allowed it to happen in 1907 when we did not have the Fed getting in the way. Because they stopped it in its tracks after the AIG bailout and then all the alphabet soup of different lines that the Fed threw out, and then the enactment of TARP, the last two investment banks standing were rescued, Goldman and Morgan [Stanley], and they should not have been. As a result of being rescued and having the cleansing liquidation of rotten balance sheets stopped, within a few weeks and certainly months they were back to the same old games, such that Goldman Sachs got $10 billion dollars for the fiscal year that started three months later after that check went out, which was October 2008. For the fiscal 2009 year, Goldman Sachs generated what I call a $29 billion surplus – $13 billion of net income after tax, and on top of that $16 billion of salaries and bonuses, 95% of it which was bonuses.
Therefore, the idea that they were on death’s door does not stack up. Even if they had been, it would not make any difference to the health of the financial system. These firms are supposed to come and go, and if people make really bad bets, if they have a trillion dollar balance sheet with six, seven, eight hundred billion dollars worth of hot-money short-term funding, then they ought to take their just reward, because it would create lessons, it would create discipline. So all the new firms that would have been formed out of the remnants of Goldman Sachs where everybody lost their stock values – which for most of these partners is tens of millions, hundreds of millions – when they formed a new firm, I doubt whether they would have gone back to the old game. What happened was the Fed stopped everything in its tracks, kept Goldman Sachs intact, the reckless Goldman Sachs and the reckless Morgan Stanley, everyone quickly recovered their stock value and the game continues. This is one of the evils that comes from this kind of deep intervention in the capital and money markets.
The lessons that we were supposed to learn from the crisis of 2008 have not been learned.
Instead, the lure of huge returns and big bonuses has caused a return to the exact same behavior that caused the crisis of 2008 in the first place. The following is one example of this phenomenon from a recent article by Wolf Richter…
The craziness on Wall Street, the reckless for-the-moment-only behavior that led to the Financial Crisis, is back.
This time it’s Citigroup that is once again concocting “synthetic” securities, like those that had wreaked havoc five years ago. And once again, it’s using them to shuffle off risks through the filters of Wall Street to people who might never know.
What bubbled to the surface is that Citigroup is selling synthetic securities that yield 13% to 15% annually—synthetic because they’re based on credit derivatives. Apparently, Citi has a bunch of shipping loans on its books, and it’s trying to protect itself against default. In return for succulent interest payments, investors will take on some of the risks of these loans.
Yes, the Dow hit another new all-time high today. But the derivatives bubble that hangs over the global economy like a sword of Damocles could burst at literally any moment. When it does, the damage is going to be incalculable.
In a previous article entitled "Why Is The World Economy Doomed? The Global Financial Pyramid Scheme By The Numbers", I noted a couple of statistics that show why derivatives are such an enormous problem…
-$212,525,587,000,000 – According to the U.S. government, this is the notional value of the derivatives that are being held by the top 25 banks in the United States. But those banks only have total assets of about 8.9 trillion dollars combined. In other words, the exposure of our largest banks to derivatives outweighs their total assets by a ratio of about 24 to 1.
-$600,000,000,000,000 to $1,500,000,000,000,000 – The estimates of the total notional value of all global derivatives generally fall within this range. At the high end of the range, the ratio of derivatives to global GDP is more than 21 to 1.
When the derivatives bubble finally bursts, where are we going to get the trillions upon trillions of dollars that will be needed to "fix" things this time?
And sadly, the reality is that we are quickly running out of time.
It is important to keep watching Europe. As I noted the other day, the European banking system as a whole is leveraged about 26 to 1 at this point. When Lehman Brothers finally collapsed, it was leveraged about 30 to 1.
And the economic crisis over in Europe just continues to get worse. It was announced on Tuesday that the unemployment rate in the eurozone is at an all-time record high of 12 percent, and the latest manufacturing numbers show that manufacturing activity over in Europe is in the process of collapsing.
So don’t be fooled by the fact that the Dow keeps setting new all-time record highs. This bubble of false hope will be very short-lived.
The unfortunate truth is that the global financial system is a complete and total mess, and at this point a collapse appears to be inevitable.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch … o-collapse
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Tue Apr 02, 2013 3:40 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Gold and Silver • Silver Prices Before the Monetary Collapse
Silver Prices Before the Monetary Collapse
Has the silver market been pricing in the coming collapse?In a word, no!
Markets dominated by the impulses of real people largely no longer exist. The machines have taken over, as bots read the news and respond rapidly with large transactions.
No matter how volatile world markets will get, remember that there will be more Cyprus-type events, more Quantitative Easing programs, more denials of the importance of inflation, more threats from Central Banks to remove liquidity, more mining sector failures and more bubble callers designed to influence mainstream investor opinion.
COMEX Dominates Metals Pricing
Prices for physical precious metals still move based on the COMEX futures price action. If silver futures rise, physical prices go up, and if futures fall, physical prices drop. Furthermore, just like always, silver’s price action typically depends on the monthly event cycle.
For example, trading in silver is always heavy around the COMEX options expiration dates, as professional option traders actively rebalance their portfolios to remain delta neutral.
Furthermore, several key events tend to provide intuitively positive news for the precious metals. These include the release of the FOMC Minutes, speeches or testimony by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Presidential press conferences, and the various jobs reports that are dominated by theNon-Farm Payrolls data release.
Hedge funds have reduced long silver exposures and seem to be maintaining a short bias.Commercial shorts have reduced their net positions.
Overall, it seems that the silver market has reached a likely bottom for now. This has nothing to do with deflation, inflation, bond markets or currencies. It is instead all about the paper trade.
Deflationary Fears and Silver Demand
Economies tend to naturally go through periods of deflation and inflation as they weaken and then strengthen. Long term silver investors should beware of the futility of focusing on this cycle to forecast demand for silver.
U.S. government budget deficits are running $1.2 trillion per year, and unfunded liabilities are increasing at rate of $6.9 trillion a year. In just a few years, the Medicare system will be bankrupt, thereby adding another $1 trillion per year to this deficit. Budget deficits will only grow from here.
The deflationist’s theory has always been that when pushed into a corner, the politicians will make the tough choices and implement the necessary budgetary cuts, but they will not.
The deflation argument might seem correct until the day that the inflationists are proven right, and the whole thing spirals out of control in the blink of an eye. This traumatic event will most likely take the form of a currency crisis and an international crash in the U.S. Treasury market.
How Silver Looks Now
Industrial demand for silver might well decrease in future as cheaper replacements like Graphene are found.Nevertheless, if that happens, the chronically undervalued silver market would probably go right back to focusing on the unresolved problem of this mountain of outstanding sovereign debt.
In a weak economy, people start questioning the creditworthiness of those who have taken out existing loans that they may not be able to repay.
The global economy will eventually experience the same sort of severe financial crisis that the United States experienced in 2008, in which manyfinancial institutions would have failed had the U.S. government not stepped in with truckloads of just printed bailout money. Government intervention in businesses seems to have now become a regular occurrence.
Remember, silver is just a commodity until the day that the increasingly tenuous paper currency based financial system finally unravels. Then it will once again becomehard money, and investors who want to preserve at least some of their wealth through such a crisis will wish they owned it.
http://www.silver-coin-investor.com/Sil … lapse.html
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Fri Mar 22, 2013 10:17 am
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com