Posted on 05/14/2011 9:23:12 AM PDT by OwenKellogg
The situation in the United States has deteriorated and will continue to do so unless drastic action on our federal, state and local government deficits is taken. We need to trace what happens during an economic collapse. In preparation for a collapse here is what you can do personally to avoid being swept away by the tidal wave of fear, anxiety and trepidation.
During the early stages of a nation collapsing economically, the debt of the nation swells almost uncontrollably. We, in the United States are already there.
From the burgeoning debt loads come the setting for collapse.
While the disaster can unfold in many ways, the course for the United States is already set in motion.
Inflation will increase. When inflation hits, citizens with limited financial resources become economic casualties first. These citizens are part of the beginnings of the downward spiral which ultimately leads to a depression.
In a misguided attempt to kick start the economy, our government will attempt another stimulus program which will fail. The parameters under which Fiscal Policy might work if you are so inclined to believe that it does have long been broken. Consequences of government actions are becoming unpredictable and are having unintended consequences.
The United States began the first phase of the stimulus program with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as well as the significant expansion of the unemployment compensation to pull us out of the recession. Both actions were the wrong actions at the wrong time.
When stimulus programs fail, our government will try to increase taxes or fees, often in deceptive ways such as fuel taxes, oil drilling taxes, user fees or increased regulatory burdens. This demand to increase taxes is to help support the citizens who were the first economic casualties of the recession as well as to pay for the deficit.
Next the bond rating agencies will downgrade our debt. At that point, our interest rates will increase and further prolong the recession. It is this downgrading of the debt and potential inability to sell our debt on the open markets that will be our undoing.
Our deficits will skyrocket because of the increased interest costs and creditor-forced reductions in spending will be enforced against us. The U. S. Congress will no longer establish our budget priorities. Our creditors will, as is done is Greece today.
The depression follows.
What then should the individual do?
Personally we have many options and they are extremely straightforward. The actions to be taken are exactly the same action that government needs to take but will not.
First, know where you are financially. Know your income and expenses and balance your own budget.
Second, you must start to build your funds if you are able. By establishing some cash reserves, you are reducing the risk of you becoming one of the first casualties of the collapse.
Third, you should consider paying off all short term credit card debt and minimize the use of credit cards unless you have the financial resources to pay for your spending.
Fourth, I would recommend refinancing your home with a 30 year long term mortgage considering how low rates look now. If your home is "underwater" with debt already that may not be possible.
Fifth, build up credit availability if you have the discipline not to use it. If you do not have that discipline, adding credit availability is one of the worst things you can do.
Sixth, make certain you are valuable to your employer. Stay current and productive. Many countries in Europe have 15% unemployment or more. Try not to become part of the "expendable" because you have let yourself stagnate.
Finally, help your family.
Surviving an economic collapse is possible. It will take 2 or more years for the U. S. to be in a full collapse. In interim get active politically, vote, and make government accountable, responsible and efficient to help prevent the disaster. I doubt Washington has gotten the message though! I hope you do. Your family is depending on it.
Frank Ryan, CPA specializes in corporate restructuring and lectures on ethics for the state CPA societies. Frank is a retired Colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve and served in Iraq and briefly in Afghanistan. He is on numerous boards of publicly traded and non-profit organizations.
I have a different take.
I don’t doubt that we are already on the path of no return, but my prediction is we will get a Pinochet style dictator before all this unfolds....IMO
Bump.
It does appear that the citizens of this country don’t know enough history to know that is what is coming next.
A Police state and a Dictator is part of the economic down fall of those who don’t heed history.
So all we’ve gotta do is sit around and have faith and pray and manna will fall from the heavens for us?
I am going to create a bubble universe to live in for a while. lol.
Remember...
nobama hates you, hates your family, hates Free America, hates Americans, hates the Constitution and hates the Bill of Rights. nobama is a hate crime foisted upon America. nobama is the Destroyer.
Everything nobama (and his minions) does is intentional.
God help us all.
just attended an auction for 70 acres of farm ground, central ohio area, $6500/acre. How soon til farm ground crashes?
It’s not fixable. And people like Ryan who are touted as the conservatives who will fix stuff - and castigated by Dems as extremists - are actually part of the problem.
There is now no way out of this mess, only through it, and that’s going to be like running through a fire.
Your date is premature, dude... QE2 ends on June 30th.
So what’s it going to be - depression or hyper inflation? Buiding up cash won’t help if it is the latter.
“The best and only approach is to start exercising faith in The Lord Jesus Christ. Make the decision now to surrender to his will for you! He is more than capable of being responsible for you.”
Even in biblical times people stored food for the lean times.
Yes we must have faith in the Lord. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t provide for our families.
There's a reason most of the inland south was lightly populated from the very beginnings of this nation. Year-round growing conditions exist in subtropical to tropical areas. Disease. To help paint the picture, as a college student I worked summers at a gorgeous old mountain lodge and resort that had it's beginnings as a summer retreat for the well-to-do of Charleston and Savannah. It belonged to a former Confederate of note, Wade Hampton. They fled the "foul miasmas," yellow fever, mosquito borne diseases. The old money set from those locales still summer there, despite the eradication of the disease that set their ancestors fleeing. Tradition and all that, southerners are big on it.
Further inland, there is no year-round growing season. Winter is much shorter and less severe, true. The soil tends toward red clay. You can grow a great garden in it if you know what you're doing, but it takes work and soil enrichment. Without that, red clay makes excellent brick and that is exactly what it seems like after baking in the hot summer sun. I've actually had a pickaxe bounce off of it before, when I was trying to install a dry laid fieldstone wall one July. I ended up waiting until October, lol.
A mild temperate climate with enough rain or surface water to avoid drought conditions would be best, and soil type matters. Silt loam, brown to black. Hard to find that in mild temperate zones. Riverbottoms in the far southern Appalachians, especially in the "thermal belt" that rarely gets snow on the ground would work. The cities there have gone way left for the most part, see Asheville, NC. The more remote areas are either foo-foo resort or very clannish mountain people who would view you with suspicion.
There is a video on youtube of a guy trying to give away a gold coin. First he tried to sell it for $20 and there were no takers. He couldn’t even give it away.
Most people don’t know what gold looks like.
And what about the people who invest in gold/silver certificates?! Do you think when the crap hits the fan they’ll just be able to walk up and say, “Can I have my gold now please?” I wonder if they think they’ll ever be able to walk into the grocery store and buy bread with gold? When the dollar ceases to have fiat value and you walk into a grocery store with gold you’re dead - you’ll be far out numbered. Gold is beautiful, but it only has value in a stable economy.
TOO TRUE.
Amazingly—which is shocking give such a bright bunch of conservatives and most of them Christians to boot.
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