Posted on 06/03/2012 6:25:59 PM PDT by Kartographer
When the political and economic systems of entire nations collapse the consequences are devastating.
Earlier this year pharmacies and hospitals in Greece were unable to provide life saving medicines due to a shortages caused by a freeze in the flow of credit from manufacturers to distributors to patients. A collapse in the countrys economy has forced many Greeks to turn to black market barter economies and has left millions financially devastated, with no hope of finding an income stream for the foreseeable future.
The credit system of the entire country is in shambles. So much so that reports are emerging about food shortages and hunger within the Greek prison system, suggesting that serious problems in the food delivery chain have begun to materialize.
As Nigel Farage warned recently, we are beginning to see the rise of extreme political parties as a consequence of the total and utter desperation of the populace.
Today the news gets even worse. Greeces Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE) announced an emergency meeting to deal with what can only be construed as a tell-tale sign that this crisis is very rapidly reaching critical mass and may spiral out of control in the very near future:
(Excerpt) Read more at shtfplan.com ...
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/06/01/uk-greece-power-idUKBRE8500QA20120601
What is the Ann Rand quote about not being done until the lights blinked out in NYC?
To put this in the right prospective for people to understand...when you are a diabetic and need insulin from the pharmacy....you need to cough up cash because the national health care plan won’t put the stuff at the drug store on a dependable basis. The pharmacy doesn’t keep the stuff in the store....they have to order it from France, so you wait three days for it to be flown in. Cash is the only way...to make drugs flow to the people who need them.
So you come to natural gas. In the old days, you ordered a delivery of tank, and paid two weeks after the fact. Now? You have to have cash...to get the delivery guy to fill your tank.
Then you come to electrical power. If you get the bill, I would imagine that you have five work-days to pay it in full, or they cut you off.
The key to this whole mess....is that you need to carry around a wad of money for just about everything. Your mechanic won’t talk to you about the transmission job unless you put down cash when you drive the car in. Your Dentist won’t work on you...unless you put the cash on the table. Your lawyer won’t talk divorce paperwork, unless the cash is on the table.
So put yourself and America into the Greek scenario, where your life is ever dependent on cash in your pocket and how quickly you can pay every bill as fast as possible. This is what you really have to worry about.
My impression of this emergency meeting is that the same issue is playing at the supplier level. Power plants, power transmission grids, and gas lines need fuel and maintenance in order to operate. And fuel and maintenance take money. No coal? No gas? Then the power plant has to shut down. Equipment breakdown, need a repair? Show me the cash.
Instead of the fine-grained, personal impact, now we get into coarser-grained effects, where large geographical areas find utility availability to be spotty.
Exactly... Greece meets Atlas Shrugged.
....with no hope of finding an income stream for the foreseeable future.
Does that mean they will die of financial dehydration?
I don't worry about paying in cash - prefer it actually--
So far.....
What is the advantage of cash over a prepaid debit card?
When the socialist government controls everything and the people are totally dependent on the government for survival and have no inclination to prepare, people die when the socialist government runs out of other people’s money.
A lot of Americans would be up the creek. But the whole nation is not totally dependent in mentality - yet.
What if there’s no money in the ATM? What if the stores say “Cash only”? What if the electricity is off? Debit cards won’t work.
The person or business receiving a debit card payment must have the ability to process the payment in order to get paid. In the present day, that would require either a merchant account or a Paypal account. Those accounts also require electricity to fully process. If the power starts to get intermittent, processing electronic payments gets more difficult. That is why cash will be King for awhile. And when electricity gets unreliable, many present day businesses will have to fold or at least experience numerous complications. For example, Facebook is useless without power.
“He stepped to the window and pointed to the skyscrapers of the city. He said that we had to extinguish the lights of the world, and when we would see the lights of New York go out, we would know that our job was done.
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