Posted on 06/28/2013 2:58:57 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Around the globe, this is the summer of middle-class discontent, particularly in the developing world. From Istanbul to Rio de Janeiro, from Bulgaria to Bosnia, the pent-up frustrations of an engaged citizenry are being triggered by a series of seemingly disparate events.
Thousands of protestors, including an outpouring of middle-class citizens, are expected in Cairo’s Tarhrir Square this Sunday. They return to the touchstone plaza of the Arab Spring in a nation that exchanged a dictator for what many Egyptians now see as a new government unwilling or unable to fix a corrupt bureaucracy and inefficient economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
socialism the world over is crumbling down, now that they have finally run out of other peoples money.
So glad I don’t live near a major urban center.
Protests do not topple governments. People with guns killing the members of government topple governments. These people can protest all they want. It will do no good.
Can’t speak for Turkey or Bulgaria but what I’ve seen of Brazil tells me that there’s not much of a middle class there...just poor and *really* poor.
Several recent riots in Europe; no US coverage.
Egypt too, apparently.
Preppers’ PING!!
There’s a Great Storm coming you can feel it and the great cities of Europe are on the edges of it now, soon it will consume them.
Its your choice you can prep or you can stand around on a bridge waiting for FEMA to bring you a bottle of water, a MRE, a warm blanket and a kiss for your boo-boo and maybe you can even get your picture as you stand there on the national news.
Any one with half a brain can look around and see for themselves what is happening right before their eyes.
So listen to what the bible says: A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it. NIV Proverbs 22:3
One of the things Selco covers in this article is the fact that many will not accept that a breakdown is occurring even as they watch it happening before their eyes. Why don’t they realize it? It’s caused by a condition called ‘Normalcy Bias’ a mental state people enter when facing a disaster.
It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster never has occurred then it never will occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.
A good article on ‘Normalcy Bias’ is on our own ChocChipCookies Blog The Survival Mom:
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/12/29/normalcy-bias/
You either prepare and stand on your own beholden to no one or you become dependent on others to provide your basic needs and become their ‘serf’. Me I don’t want to be beholden to anyone for providing what is needed for me and mine. I certainly don’t want to have to kiss some ‘gubberment’ third class bureaucratic to try and coax some help from them, I don’t want some ‘jack booted’ thug herding me in line and telling me where to stand, sit, eat or sleep. And last but not least I don’t want to be shut up in with a bunch of ‘zombies’ and have to worry about not only trying to get basic necessities but having to fight to keep what I manage to get.
There is a Great article in my Preparedness Manual on building your on Bug Out Bag titled: A Highly-Mobility 72 Hour Kit-by Ward Dorrity. You can download the whole manual at:
http://tomeaker.com/kart/Preparedness1j.pdf NOTE! THIS IS A FREE DOWNLOAD. I DO NOT MAKE ONE CENT OFF MY PREPAREDNESS MANUAL!
For those of you who haven’t started already it’s time to prepare almost past time maybe. You needed to be stocking up on food guns, ammo, basic household supplies like soap, papergoods, cleaning supplies, good sturdy clothes including extra socks, underwear and extra shoes and boots, cash (I myself have been putting up change for the past few years both for the metal content and the fact that using change places to make what purchases you can will move you down the the list of possible marks during shtf), tools, things you buy everyday start buying two and put one up.
As the LDS say “When the emergency is upon us the time for preparedness has past.”
Again I like to recomend FReeper’s ChocoChipCookie Blog The Survival Mom (Please Blog Police let this one slide!) Where you can get lots of useful information like:
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2011/11/20/8-morale-boosters-for-any-worst-case-scenario/
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/02/02/survival-priorities-the-rule-of-three/
And More
Also there is Ferfal’s Blog a survivor of Argentina’s first collapse:
And there is Selco’s Blog a Bosnian War survivor at:
“There is no greater disaster than to underestimate danger. Underestimation can be fatal.”
Good time to buy stock in lamp posts and piano wire.
Karl Marx HATED the middle class.
Yet the middle class keeps voting for Marxists.
What do you want me to say?
That’s why the usurper is getting it while he can.
I had an eye opening realization a couple days ago. I’ve been confident we were far enough away from the city that we wouldn’t have to worry about zombies for a while. Not so. There are many weekend rentals here so if the big whatever hit or if they were too arrogant to take a vacation in the middle of a collaspe then they’d be at my doorstep. Once their Saturday night case of beer is drunk and their one package of weiners is roasted, they’ll have nothing left.
The garden has been a total bust so I bought a couple cases of 48 cent canned veggies and worked on the pantry. It was a decision of can’t really afford it today as opposed to not having it at all tomorrow.
After getting a really strange call from the credit card company this week that send the hairs on the back of my head on end with them bullying me about my account and threatening if it’s not put *online* and paid on time (which it is paid in full every month) blah, blah, blah that they might deny it’s use?!? Yes, it was the card company because I called back on their number and blam! right off the bat they went on a spiel. I still don’t understand where they got off on all that unless they want to lose a customer and they might since all it did was cause me to become a believer in cash transactions from now on. It sounded too much like NSA snooping and usurper bullying. A 180 degrees from their past customer service. Very strange and creepy.
20 million in Sao Paolo i'd say about 10% 'upper' class, 60% 'middle', 30% poor. But the middle is being squeezed with high taxes, huge bureaucracy, and poor infrastructure. The elites and their govt cronies hire thugs to get the poor to vote to keep them in power. The govt shuttle public monies to the elites. Not sustainable and the Brazilians are so ticked-off to have been pushed past their limit.
When will we?
“Romanian Term Limits”.
Maybe that’s why “some people” are out of the country.
My garden was a bust, too. The spring temps fluctated too much.
I’m in a huge urban area and can’t go until the last minute. I hope I recognize it when I see it.
“These people can protest all they want. It will do no good.”
Especially in Egypt. Obama got his radical islamic government. You won’t see him cheering on protestors against them.
If you pay in full every month, then they are not earning interest from you. You on the other hand, have the use of their money during the “grace period”. They are likely financing that with short term very low interest rate.
So you are costing them money both from account maintenance, postage and printing statements, “float” during the grace period, and “float” during the time it takes to clear the check, along with processing fees they pay for clearing the checks.
They’re still making money on the fees they charge the merchants.
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