Preparing for the next collapse

[mawilson 2,133]

It is now becoming clear that the fiscal crisis this country is facing

is unsolvable.

Nothing is going to change. Every entitled boomer is going to get

everything they want because today's politicians are too impotent to

do anything about it. Government will keep on spending and the debt

will keep piling up. Politicians will keep kicking the can down

the road until we run out of road. At some point in the future (when

we're 20 or 30 trillion dollars in debt), interest payments alone will

exceed our revenues, and the only way out would be to deflate the debt

away by printing more and more money.

Real wages won't keep up with inflation, food and energy prices will

skyrocket and there will be mass riots and widespread civil unrest

in response to a worsening economic picture. A potential revolution if

the government allows the situation to spiral out of their control.

All your bank accounts, IRAs, 401(k)s and trading portfolios, including

shares of precious-metal ETFs and futures contracts would become worthless

or disappear overnight in a total collapse of the financial system.

We probably have 10-15 years before this happens, but what can you do

today to protect your future wealth? Buy gold? Real estate? Firearms?

Discuss.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

None of it matters if the Dollar ceases to be the world's reserve currency.

You might as well stick with the guns, because it will be absolute hell if that happens.

[mawilson 2,133]

None of it matters if the Dollar ceases to be the world's reserve currency.

All of it matters.

The dollar will cease to be the world's reserve currency, the only question is when.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Every entitled boomer is going to get

everything they want because today's politicians are too impotent to

do anything about it. Government will keep on spending and the debt

will keep piling up. Politicians will keep kicking the can down

the road until we run out of road. At some point in the future (when

we're 20 or 30 trillion dollars in debt), interest payments alone will

exceed our revenues, and the only way out would be to deflate the debt

away by printing more and more money.

It wasn't Social Security and Medicare that got us here, so blaming two very successful programs only distracts from the real problem.....deregulation. What provisions have been put in place to prevent another real estate bubble?

[^_^ 5,021]

All your bank accounts, IRAs, 401(k)s and trading portfolios, including shares of precious-metal ETFs and futures contracts would become worthless or disappear overnight in a total collapse of the financial system.

We probably have 10-15 years before this happens, but what can you do today to protect your future wealth? Buy gold? Real estate? Firearms?

Discuss.

The elites will never allow for there to not be a currency at all. Currencies can be devalued and at some point we may even get a new one (the new dollar?). Your accounts will be worth a lot less (that is, they will buy you a lot less) but they'll never be worthless. If they're worthless then we essentially revert to a barter economy. We haven't had that situation since.. cash was freakin invented. So no, it's not happening.

But it's true that if TSHTF your currency will buy you a lot less. Real estate (especially where land is scarce and in areas of high economic activity) will always be valuable (relative to other things). Guns may be useful as a means of protecting your assets during a period of general breakdown of law and order.

Steven is right too. This can't and shouldn't be rested solely at the feet of the greedy boomer bastards. Defense costs a lot too. The military is a huge socialist jobs program for underachieving youth who otherwise would not have a prayer in this global economy.

Edited February 28, 2011 by \

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

I just watched this.

[^_^ 5,021]

Love the source of that review!

[Obama 2012 1,714]

It wasn't Social Security and Medicare that got us here, so blaming two very successful programs only distracts from the real problem.....deregulation. What provisions have been put in place to prevent another real estate bubble?

Steven will you step off of your milk box for one damn minute and realize that all of this has been going on for a very very long time.

It wasn't deregulation.

The United States has been in debt since World War II. We haven't been on solid ground since then.

deregulation of the financial markets is part of the symptom for what we have today, but it's hardly the core of it all. Never has been and never will be.

Our problem as a nation, on the government level of things, is that every dollar we get into Washington and most state coffers has to be spent. It burns that proverbial hole into our pockets and we don't know how to stop. The problem being, is we have the power to print our own damn money at will and the debt keeps getting larger and larger until we are at a point now that we have no damn clue on how to get rid of it. Really and honestly we can't.

Social Security and Medicare are a part of the problem because they have failed since their inception for the intent in which they were supposed to be. The money was never intended to be used in the general fund, however that's exactly where it has been and continues to be....

Government has TOO MUCH power and too much control over our very lives and nothing is going to change that in the near future.

[Danno 1,228]

Good topic.

I think you are right on target, we are no better than Greece in that too many people can't accepts cuts.

Even locally our budget is so far in the red yet when the idea was proposed to close some of the many libraries... we actually had an uproar of people which nixed that cut. I have 3 libraries within a five minute drive.

I have a friend who has bought many pounds of silver, It has gone up quite a bit since he bought most of it.

I am a little worried my savings will be reduced to nothing via rapid inflation or something worse, though real-estate could go lower, I am thinking of moving money in that direction.

On fri. I re-upped a C-D with the rate so low, it almost was not worth the time it took to do it.

For the last year or so I make it a habit to buy extra can goods and stuff I can store and stock up on.

If mid way through Obamas second term he has all these problems solved, I can always eat that food so I look at it as free insurance.

[mawilson 2,133]

It wasn't Social Security and Medicare that got us here, so blaming two very successful programs

Does it really matter what got us here? Regulation, deregulation, shmeregulation.

True, Social Security isn't what got us here, but the surplus in that account

has been spent - poof, gone.

We are f*cked, I hope you understand that, Steven.

[mawilson 2,133]

The elites will never allow for there to not be a currency at all. Currencies can be devalued and at some point we may even get a new one (the new dollar?). Your accounts will be worth a lot less (that is, they will buy you a lot less) but they'll never be worthless. If they're worthless then we essentially revert to a barter economy. We haven't had that situation since.. cash was freakin invented. So no, it's not happening.

You're wrong. When the Soviet Union collapsed, most people's savings became worthless overnight.

Read this, there are some lessons to be learned here.

[Dakine10 5,452]

All of it matters.

The dollar will cease to be the world's reserve currency, the only question is when.

Might be sooner than later. China is getting rid of dollars as fast as they can, other G8 countries are talking about creating an international reserve curency, OPEC wants to stop trading in dollars.

Fifteen years may be optimistic. Some are predicting this happening in months, not years.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

It is now becoming clear that the fiscal crisis this country is facing

is unsolvable.

Nothing is going to change. Every entitled boomer is going to get

everything they want because today's politicians are too impotent to

do anything about it. Government will keep on spending and the debt

will keep piling up. Politicians will keep kicking the can down

the road until we run out of road. At some point in the future (when

we're 20 or 30 trillion dollars in debt), interest payments alone will

exceed our revenues, and the only way out would be to deflate the debt

away by printing more and more money.

Real wages won't keep up with inflation, food and energy prices will

skyrocket and there will be mass riots and widespread civil unrest

in response to a worsening economic picture. A potential revolution if

the government allows the situation to spiral out of their control.

All your bank accounts, IRAs, 401(k)s and trading portfolios, including

shares of precious-metal ETFs and futures contracts would become worthless

or disappear overnight in a total collapse of the financial system.

We probably have 10-15 years before this happens, but what can you do

today to protect your future wealth? Buy gold? Real estate? Firearms?

Discuss.

Guns. I have enough to barter for years to come. If the "collapse" comes in 10-15 years, there will probably be enough guns left to pass a ferw on to each of my sons. Don't forget ammunition. Best to be able to quantify it in "tons". Wheelweights still make pretty good bullets and are cheap and/or free.

PLUS in the meantime, and even if there is no collapse, you can have fun with guns!

Edited February 28, 2011 by Gary and Alla

[lostinblue 1,989]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/peters-e/peters-e23.1.html

There’s a bad moon on the rise – in the form of upward creeping gas prices.

Unleaded regular is surging toward $4 per gallon again – the same highs that preceded – and which arguably triggered – the current economic catatonia. If it happens again, though, the effects are probably going to be even worse. A man on his feet can usually take a sucker punch, or at least recover from it. But if he’s already on the ground and you kick him in the head, he’s done-for.

$4 per gallon gas could do exactly that to the U.S. economy – what’s left of it.

This time, unlike last time, unemployment is already nearly 10 percent (closer to 20 percent, if you go by the old way of measuring that includes people who’ve stopped even trying to find work).

This time, unlike last time, our “too big to fail” industries – including the car companies – have already failed once and it’s doubtful the government (excuse me, the Fed) can print more funny money bailout bucks without triggering either a currency devaluation or runaway inflation, maybe both.

$4 per gallon gas is going to mean a lot more than just paying an extra $15 to fill-up the car. It will mean everything is going to get proportionately more expensive, from the food on your plate to the stuff down at the mall. The tag-team of rising fuel costs and increasingly worth-less Federal Reserve Notes could seal the deal this time.

People who weathered the first crisis don’t have the reserves built up to handle Round Two.

Frosting their already precarious balance sheet with another $100 per month – just for gas, not counting higher prices for everything else, too – will push many of them over the edge.

Expect unemployment to crest 10 percent – “officially” – and possibly 20 percent in the real word.

Ford is okay right now – and GM at least has a pulse. But neither can survive a repeat of the crisis of 2008, which was sparked by $4 per gallon fuel, which in turn caused millions of people to say sayonara to their V-8 SUVs, formerly the golden calf of the U.S. car industry.

The industry has come about, ditched SUVs as their profit center and worked feverishly to bring forth new economy cars and also next generation hybrids and even electric cars. But the fly in the pie is that unemployed people – or people fearful of becoming unemployed – do not buy new cars anymore than they buy new houses or new anything. If 10–20 percent of the American public is out of the game already – and the next 10–20 percent is sweating bullets about their financial situation and wondering whether they’ll still have a job next month – imagine what that’s going to do to new car sales. And what that will do to the car industry.

And what that will do to the economy.

Think about the millions of suburban communities with houses whose value has already deflated by 20–30 percent, in part because people stopped buying houses an hour’s commute from their jobs. These communities – and 1-hour commutes – were viable when it only cost $30 to fill up. But when your monthly fuel bill becomes a second mortgage and you’re also paying 10–20 percent more for everything from food to utilities, a condo in the city seems a lot more appealing.

Wave goodbye to the ‘burbs. To quote Don Corleone: They are going to sleep with the fishes.

Bottom line – I doubt the country can take $4 gas. It almost dropped the curtain last time – and last time, we had jobs, equity in our homes and 401ks, things to fall back on. Now, we’re facing a repeat with our backs already up against the wall. There’s nowhere to go and no help in sight.

If you haven’t taken some steps to prepare for what’s coming, understand that time is short.

Batten down the hatches. It could be about to get rough.

Reprinted with permission from the EricPetersAutos.com.

[Danno 1,228]

From the Posts, take it most are thinking about it, but few are "preparing"?