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Guest Post: How To Find Shelter From The Coming Storms?
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
A Reader Asks: How to Find Shelter from the Coming Storms?
Some basic suggestions for those who are seeking shelter from the coming storms of global financial crisis and recession.
Reader Andy recently wrote: "I look forward to your blog each day but am still waiting for your ideas for surviving the coming crisis." Andy reports that he and his wife have small government and private pensions, are debt-free and have simplified their lifestyle to survive the eventual depreciation of their pensions. They currently split their time between a low-cost site in North America and Mexico. They are considering moving with the goal of establishing roots in a small community of life-minded people.
Though I have covered my own ideas in detail in my various books (Survival+: Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation, An Unconventional Guide to Investing in Troubled Times, Why Things Are Falling Apart and What We Can Do About It and Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy, I am happy to toss a few basic strategies into the ring for your consideration.
Let's start by applauding Andy for getting so much right.
1. Don't count on pensions maintaining their current purchasing power as the promises issued in previous eras are not sustainable going forward. I've addressed the reasons for this ad nauseam, but we can summarize the whole mess in four basic points:
A. Demographics. Two workers cannot support one retiree's pensions and healthcare costs (skyrocketing everywhere as costly treatments expand along with the cohort of Baby Boomer retirees). The U.S. is already at a ratio of two full-time workers to one retiree, and this is during a "recovery." the ratio in some European nations is heading toward 1.5-to-1 and the next global financial meltdown hasn't even begun.
B. The exhaustion of the debt-based consumption model. The only way you can sustain a debt-based model of ever-expanding consumption is to drop interest rates to zero. But alas, lenders go broke at 0%, so either the system implodes as debtors default or lenders go bankrupt. Take your pick, the end-game of financial crisis and collapse is the same in either case.
C. Printing money out of thin air does not increase wealth, it only increases claims on existing wealth. An honest government will eventually default on its unsustainable promises; a dishonest government (the default setting everywhere) will print money to fund the promises until its currency loses purchasing power as a result of either inflation or some other flavor of currency crisis.
In other words, the dishonest government will still issue pension checks for $2,000 a month but a cup of coffee will cost $500--if anyone will take the currency at all.
D. Pensions funds are assuming absurdly unrealistic returns on their investments. Many large public pension plans are assuming long-term yields of 7.5% even as the yield on "safe" government bonds has declined to 3% or 4%. As a result, the pension fund managers have taken on staggering amounts of systemic risk as they reach for higher yields.
When the whole rotten house of cards (shadow banking, subprime everything, etc.) collapses in a stinking heap, the yields will be negative. As John Hussman has noted, asset bubbles simply bring forward all the returns from future years. Once the bubble pops, yields are substandard/negative for years or even decades.
Pension funds that earn negative yields for a few years will soon burn through their remaining capital paying out unrealistic pensions.
2. Lowering the cost of one's lifestyle. It's much easier to cut expenses than it is to earn more money or squeeze more yield out of capital.
3. Establishing roots in a community of like-minded people. Though it's rarely mentioned in a culture obsessed with financial security, day-to-day security is based more on community than on central-state-issued cash--though this is often lost on those who have surrendered all sense of community in their dependency on the state.
The core of community is reciprocity: before you take, you first have to give or share. Free-riders are soon identified and shunned.
My suggestions are derived from this week's entries on the inevitable popping of credit bubbles, the unenviable role of tax donkeys in funding corrupt state Castes and the Great Game of Elites acquiring essential resources with unlimited credit issued by central banks, leaving the 99% debt-serfs and/or tax donkeys with neither the income nor the credit to compete with Elites for real resources.
4. Lessen your dependence on anything that requires debt and assets bubbles for its survival. Whatever depends on expanding debt and asset bubbles for its survival will go away when credit/asset bubbles pop, which they always do, despite adamant claims that "this time it's different." It never is.
5. Control as many real resources as you can. These include water rights, energy-producing or conserving assets (solar arrays, geothermal heating/cooling systems, etc.), farmland, orchards and gardens, rental housing, and tools that you know how to use to make/repair essential assets such as transport, housing, equipment, etc.
6. It's easier to conserve/not use something than it is to acquire it or pay for it. As resources rise in price, those who consume little will be far less impacted than those whose lifestyles requires massive consumption of gasoline, heating oil, electricity, water, etc. It's as simple as this: don't waste food, or anything else.
7. The easiest way to conserve energy and time is to live close to your work and to essential services/transport hubs. Those who reside in liveable city neighborhoods and towns with public transport and multiple modes of transport who can walk/bike to work, farmers markets, cafes, etc. will need far less fossil fuel than those commuting to everything via vehicle.
8. If you can't find work/establish a livelihood, move to a locale with a better infrastructure of opportunity. I explain this in Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy, but John Kenneth Galbraith made much the same point in his 1979 book The Nature of Mass Poverty.
9. If you buy property, do so in a state with Prop 13-type limits on property tax increases. We have no choice about being tax donkeys, but choose a state where income and consumption (i.e. sales tax) are taxed rather than property tax. You can choose to earn less and buy less, but you can't choose not to pay rising property taxes.
10. Be useful to others. That way, they'll want you around and will welcome your presence. There are unlimited ways to be helpful/useful.
11. Trust the network, not the state or corporation. Centralized systems such as the government and global corporations are either bankrupt and don't yet know it or are bankrupt and are well aware of it but loathe to let the rest of the world catch on.
12. Be trustworthy. Don't be morally corrupt or work for corrupt/self-serving institutions. Many initially idealistic people think they can retain their integrity while working for morally bankrupt, self-serving bureaucracies, agencies and corporations; they are all eventually brought down to the level of the institution.
Lagniappe suggestion: lead by example. "Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means." Albert Einstein
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Speaking of which
I heard TSA has "Stood Down" in addition to DHS bosses, HHS bosses, DOJ bosses, and ICE/Border Patrol.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/07/11/Exclusive-TSA-Allowi...
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But why not throw this in for the string
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter
http://iceagenow.info/2014/07/park-service-closes-yellowstone-road-under...
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2014/07/11/border-patrol-ms13-...
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AztlAn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Raza
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Council_of_La_Raza (HQ Wash DC, Supported by Ford Foundation & Bill & Melinda Gates)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raza_Unida_Party
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Berets
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista_(Mexico)
Movements that advocate Aztlán
Mexica Movement
Brown Berets
National Council of La Raza
MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, "Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán")
Nation of Aztlán
Plan Espiritual de Aztlán
Freedom Road Socialist Organization, which calls for self-determination for the Chicano nation in Aztlan up to and including the right to secession.[7]
The Bush family purchased a large ranch in Uruguay it seems. They may be nazis, but they are not stupid. It is because land is much cheaper here in the fertile parts of South America and equal in productivity to that in North America. I would observe that the Rothschilds also have very large land holdings: including farms and vineyards here as do several other very prominent families. I highly recommend against vineyards as an investment (the wine is just too cheap to hope to make much profit), but for farmland... I can think of no better place in the world to buy right now.
thank you, AB, it sounds very inviting. plus you're in the southern hemisphere.
Is it better to be in a country used to collapse or in one about to go through collapse for the 1st time in living memory?
The Argentines are used to living without a functioning currency system. Many people do not even have bank accounts. You can always barter, especially in the countryside (you can get a lot for a digital camera in the countryside, for example... a lot... like several hand-crafted pieces of furniture)... in fact, everything is open to barter (a little known fact about living here), since most businesses are small family-owned affairs.
Sure. but people should note that all first timers have to learn the ropes and getting fleeced is often the method; by what degree you get fleeced well, thats dependant on a bit of luck, a lot of preparation and time on the ground.
You are missing something very fundamental and well hidden.
All new money is plucked from thin air at banks on the basis of loans.
Visit the positive money website quickly, otherwise you are never really going to understand anything.
The very nature of money is well hidden, until you understand it, you are wandering blindly in the dark.
When I say plucked from thin air, I mean typed in to a computer.
You go into a bank for a mortgage of £350,000 dollars with a deposit of $50,000 on a house worth $400,000.
The bank types $350,000 dollars in at a keyboard and voila $350,000 new dollars have come into existance.
One of the resons why housing booms are so dangerous, all that newly craeted money creates a positive feedback loop.
Why wasn't there hyperinflation after QE?
Most of QE was just replacing money destroyed in banks during 2008.
Banks are where money is created and destroyed.
Exactly.
See
http://www.cmi-gold-silver.com/blog/money-as-debt/
I remember Katrina in Houston. If in the future things go to exidus status, then quickly gass stations are empty, freeways freeze up, all hotels are booked out, and people live in their cars that run out of gass. A few days of that and I picutre desperate people with few choices other than national guard, homland security, fema, and maby a few kindly locals. One note: when freeways freeze up longer than a few days enough peolple abandon their cars until the freeway is blocked and frozen with enough cars without drivers or gass that it can not unfreeze. So if things appear to go bad get out early and keep your tank full.
Guy here says if you look up the US Code, 8 US Code, you can find the part about sheltering or harboring Illegal Aliens.
So he says the section states "If you shelter or harbor an Illegal Alien even with the Government's Permission" you break the US Federal Law and you can go to Jail, and your Church, Building, or whatever could be Seized and sold at Federal Auction".
Well maybe the auction part is being read into it. But sounds like the rest is True.
And weren't Syrian Hezbollah being issued Belizean passports? What could go wrong?
Start writing doomer blogs and earn some sheckels by referring viewers to online stores selling prepper schtuff
this whole sophisticated article of suggestions could be summarized as 'blessed are the meek' and 'blessed are the poor'.
I contend the primary reason that inflation has not raised its ugly head or become a major economic issue is because we are pouring such a large percentage of wealth into intangible products or goods. If faith drops in these intangible "promises" and money suddenly flows into tangible goods seeking a safe haven inflation will soar. Like many of those who study the economy I worry about the massive debt being accumulated by governments and the rate that central banks have expanded the money supply.
The timetable on which economic events unfold is often quite uneven and this supports the possibility of an inflation scenario. A key issue being one of timing. If the price of gas jumps to $8 a gallon overnight do you buy gas and not make your car payment or stop driving the twenty miles to work? Answer, it could be months before your car is repossessed so you buy gas.
It is important to remember that debts can go unpaid and promises be left unfilled. If this happens where does it leave us? Chaos and major disruption would result from such a scenario. As we have seen from the economic crisis of 2008 and following many other unsettling developments legal actions can continue to drag on for years. More in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/04/inflation-seed-of-economic-chaos....
Number 7_; "Those who reside in liveable city neighborhoods and towns with public transport and multiple modes of transport who can walk/bike to work, farmers markets, cafes, etc. will need far less fossil fuel than those commuting to everything via vehicle."
They will also be the first to go down because the entitled folks will have easier access to your resources when theirs runs out. Better get out of there quick!
High profile incidents covered by the media often reassures the public that the government stands ready to rush to our aid in case of a national disaster. Following a tornado or hurricane in the newscast we see FEMA workers spread-out and moving from door to door offering help to Americans in need.
Be prepared that in the case of a major crisis or disaster if you find yourself in an large area of devastation the government will prove largely ineffective. If and when a really large Armageddon event does occur we will quickly become acutely aware that God helps those who help themselves. More on this subject in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/07/government-pandering-in-disasters...
Save It....All you Jerk off, Hand Jobs...
You are not going anywhere...prepare to have your possesions taken and be ass raped
When times get tough a keyboard jockey just isn't
Enjoy your wad in the eye...(salty wad)
But Ur a Rapist, a Sodomist, A Misogynist,
Oh you are going to be the Provisional Government...
Carry on...
Could you please explain your avatar?
It originates from this gif...on this page...
http://theinternut.net/fistbump.html
Scroll down and you will see a lady's bouncing breasts on a man's face.
It is masturbation material and that is demonstrative that he is fixated on "Hand Jobs", "Jerking Off", "Ass Raping" and "shooting wads into his eye".
Hmmmm....curious....I see a link to the Huffington Post about this Porn Star that is going to Duke....
That is probably where he came from.
Damn dude - you know your porn!
=]
...
Repost
Yeah, I agree a single big collapse won't be the story.
Some people think there will be a big collapse and it will be solved. I don't see our Leaders solving anything. They will narrow the problem to one or two big issues and then apply one or two changes. And they will do this every time.
-Financial Links Exponentially Expand and become more complex
-Unmooring of Business Entities means they can just leave a jurisdiction and take their capital
-Lack of Borders allows proxies to come in and perform work, clean-up, military occupations, or like Drilling Right Offshore and ruining your Fisheries, Beaches, and Real Estate
-Foreign Entities with Financial Holdings can make deals just like the old Mafia days, Leverage allows they to take tax breaks, get Real Estate Deals, and probably form new government and police controls
Anyway looks like problems won't get solved.
-30% devaluation of Dollar every 8 years
-10% Inflation in many situations
-10% Federal Debt Increase Every Year
-No Interest on Savings even though Borrowing is going out of the Roof
-Reduced Food Choices
-Reduced Water choices, maybe recycled water for showers, Gray water in the house, collecting rain
-Reduced Meat & Protein Choices
-Majority switch to taking room mates and small apartments
-Trucks with big engines and big frames would become dedicated work vehicles or for those that can afford boats & horses & Quads & Snowmobiles
-We are 80% Urban living people now, that might increase, but miners, drill teams, Engineering teams would work from Rural locations still
-Reduced Consumer Goods Variety as more Income goes to Energy, Transportation, Food, Water, Taxes, Health Care, and Shelter
-Would guess Child Care would decline as luxury expense
-Jobs seem to be declining with one big household Earner
-Classes of People will become very clear
-Lowest Class would fight for unlimited number of people to live and share houses and apartments
-Lowest Class would fight for keeping small animals in the home area for food, small gardens near housing or in lawn areas
Doom & Gloom Fears
Hyper Inflation, Dollar Collapse, Martial Law, Nuclear Accidents, Loss of Power Grid, Food Distribution Collapse, Meteor Strikes, Global War, Space War, Nuclear War, US Government Treaty & Partnership Resulting in "Normalizing" to Chinese Standards.
I've been thinking of moving to a 3rd world country. But I can't decide between southern cal, or New Mexico.
Try Mississippi.
They're looking for members wealthier than they to come join the fun:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_B2aX9uo9mmM/RtNWrLUFZII/AAAAAAAAABw/9duH-JT1_n...
http://theird.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/twelve-tribes-13_5_30.jpg
I've come to the same conclusion. When the federal government falls apart (and it will) the best place to live will not be some third-world Central American or South American country, but will be a local community of like-minded people who are prepared to support and defend themselves right here in the USA.
But depending on size..........the mechanization against individuals or small groups even large ones are out gunned. The head of the Snake needs to be separated rom the body. Capital Punishment from the Masses could correct the Problem.
Long-time reader, first-time poster..
As a young and upcoming (I think?) millenial I get that the financial situation here is dire, if not downright apocalyptic. I feel like I've read enough articles on ZH and elsewhere to at least have a basic grasp on what is going on. (I learned almost everything I know about the markets from reading blogs like this.)
My question is: for a relatively younger person with only minor skin in the game, what is the best way to make a buck and/or profit from all the uncertainty out there??
I constantly read on here about how the end is near, but the fact of the matter is (barring another Clinton presidency) I'm not going anywhere. If the US goes its all over anyway. I would prefer to be in position to pick up the pieces and re-build after TSHTF.
Assuming interest rates rise within the next 5 years (or sooner, obviously), prices in the bond market should tank, right? Is there a good way to catch this falling knife? Can anyone recommend some literature on shorting the bond market and/or working on yield spreads?
Any other ideas on profiting and embracing the chaos, instead of the "duck and cover" approach?
- Yukon
>>>If the US goes its all over anyway.
You would be well served to spend some time outside the USA. If the US goes, the rest of humanity may profit from its example.
IMHO most positive aspects of the US are already gone; what remains is this weird politically-correct fascist dictatorship.
If you're looking for get-rich [quick or a little slower] advice, you're on the wrong blog.
If you consider profiting and embracing the chaos, you are a tiny step away from inducing chaos at moments most opportune to you, which puts you in the same boat as the psychopath elite we have.
If you just would accept chaos, you can as well go to any other country nowadays, if you're interested in almost anything and don't dread constant learning.
If that's not your cup of tea, stick with the old-style virtues:
- don't go into debt
- work, and save 10+% of your net income
- when you have a few thousand dollars of savings, you have the flexibility to handle things such as a car breakdown/totaling or a move to where a [better] job awaits
- in extension to "It's easier to conserve/not use something than it is to acquire it or pay for it" it's also easier to go with a cheaper alternative [6 year old used car, no iPhone] than work more to pay for those
- don't go into the military unless you want to become potential cannon-fodder in far away lands
- don't only look for the easiest way out (of a work task etc.)
- treat others as you want to be treated
etc.
Life has never been "instant gratification" and it still isn't, even if the PR drowns you in that message.
Understand that the end of this sketch has much more truth in it than humor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5QwKEwo4Bc
The next many years (8-15?) will basically be about who loses/screws up least, in contrast to the typical way we define success.
Gold, Bit-Chez!
Learn skills !!!
Carpentry, plumbing, Electrical, Learn to fix things,
Believe it or not your best bet is small free range farming. Chickens(eggs), pigs, beef. If going that root, Buy a couple books by this guy for example.
http://tinyurl.com/pmnq7xb
Small, Local, Natural farming is now where they computer industry was in 1980ish. (And I rode that wave for 30 years). But believe me being an apprentice on a small farm today is like getting an entry level job in IT was back then. Plenty of growth and latitude.
Have you price a steak or bacon lately? The big factory farms and CAFOs are going to break down and disappear in a very short time.
Read this.
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/food_and_agriculture/cafos-uncove...
Skills of some kind.
I'm a mid-level engineer in an urban area, so that might be difficult for me..but your point regarding self sufficiency is well-taken. Thanks for the info.
Look at 3rd world communities, what skills get jobs?
Those things that many often need done.
Small scale, Your own company or a small one.
Skills and knowledge.
What type of engineer? Mechanical, electrical, Process?
Your "systems" viewpoint will be valuable.
The Yukon is perfect. I think you must be in Mining? Anyways......you can prepare in the wild with a cabin, hunt, fish and learn survival skills. Hope you never need them. Make friends you can trust.....I have lots of friends in White Horse, Watson Lake and Keno................Some will give the shirt off their back but demand the same returns if required........If you live there.....YOU KNOW THE DRILL>
You should have gone to Wall Street if you wanted to profit (steal other people's money).
"Profiting and embracing the chaos," huh? Right...
I try so hard to hold out hope for Millenials, but truly they're a clueless lot.
Just as the sailor-suited little boys of the Edwardian era were destined to be cut down like straw by Maxim's belt-fed machine guns in Flanders' fields, so too our dimwit Millenials are destined to be obliterated on the nuclear battlefields of central Asia.
Easy, bra...I'm just mining for some insight/info from others on here.
Opportunity can be found just as easily in chaos and uncertainty than in times of stability, if not more so.
Just looking for a different spin on the usual gold, guns, lead approach.
What's yours?
There are a couple of basic ways to make money: you can sell good, services, or ideas/information. Services depend on your skills, ideas/information rely on you smarts/education, and goods can be either raw, or value-added. As an engineer - you're already doing the service/info angle. For resiliency, you might want to look at something you can sell easily. Check out the "Art of Manliness" blog - he's got some great advice for entrepreneurs on there.
Move to Colorado, where Marjuana is now legal for recreational purposes. Scout out the many opportunities to profit from what will only be a mushrooming increase in consumption as the Apocalypse approaches.
There has to be millions that can be made even as the other states follow suit, Washington, Maine, Nevada, Californica, and others that are de-criminalizing the innocuous weed.
You can thank me later.
Don't be morally corrupt or work for corrupt/self-serving institutions.
Now that's a good one but I'm missing a how-to overview here.
For example, I believe all NPOs above a certain tiny size to be morally corrupt in that their main objective quickly becomes to ensure their organization never gets to the point of being perceived redundant, and everything beyond that is just facade/marketing. In other words no difference to any other bureaucracy, but the do-gooders (and especially white-guilters) flock to them as they long to finally find some meaning for their life.
We're in the time of human history of which it is said, ''Don't seal up the prophecies of this book, for the time is at hand'' [not the way the book of Daniel the prophet was sealed]
"He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.
And behold, I come quickly... to give to every man according as his work shall be."
In other words, if you've made up your mind on spiritual matters (hardened your heart), it's too late for you. The time is too short, the times too fierce. The way you treat the Jewish people is what you'll receive back from God, blessing or curse.
And those corrupt of the Jewish Faith.....What about them? You know, that Bankers that don't care about anyone not of the Faith and even most of those who are of the Faith? Scare Tactics...? Those of the Jewish faith Bleed and Die just like every other Human on this planet. Morals....thats what I live by.......too bad the Goldmans, Rothschilds etc don't HAVE ANY. And you wonder why anti Semetics exist.
It's improper to use the word "Anti-semitic" as applying only to Jews. Semites are all Sons of Shem, including the Palestinians.
That the jews managed to exclude every other Tribe of Shem, and hijack "Anti-Semitic" for themselves is part of their arrogance, their sense of entitlement, and their incurably psychopathic brethern in the Money business.
Sorry I had to give you a Red. The Zionists are NOT real Jews.
The Zionists killed a lot of arabs and stole their land.
The proto-zionists, the pharisees and saducees, killed Our Lord Jesus Krishna.
Why are cows holy in India? Lord Krishna was a cow herd.
What is Lord Jesus' apt description? Shepard of His flock of sheep.
Broaden your brain.
sorry the zionists are the Jews of the bible... The bible old testament is about the jewish state.
How about how the Jews, Lord Blankfein, Dick Fuld, Al Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, J Yell, Jack Lew, Tim Geithner, Pete Orszag, Larry Fink. Bernie Madoff, Gary Gensler.......
treated us?
Guess they get off scott free.
Moshe, -- is that you?
Buy my subscription...buy my book...come to my seminar...I'll teach you how to profit.
If they are selling something, run away fast.
Don’t build your house with straw or twigs – just saying bros...
A Hogan's Heroes tunnel might be a good idea.
CHS is a very cool guy. However I can never understand what he's going on about.
In case you hadn't noticed the majority of people around the world despise America and Americans. Think of all the dictators America has put in power, think of all the drones, the wars to rob countries of resources leaving the people to fester.
There are plenty of people who would be right pleased to get an American scalp as revenge.
Choose your haven carefully.
>>>In case you hadn't noticed the majority of people around the world despise America and Americans.
That's an interesting point, and possibly correct. Still, many non-Americans seem to admire some or most aspects of American Life, if only becasue they watch US Movies and TeeVee, and think those depictions are accurate.
My conjecture is that most Europeans despise Americans more or less across-the-board, while many in the third world will make the distinction that they think individual Americans are OK, but that the US government is evil. I've been particularly surprised by how many Muslims don't voice anti-American viewpoints, even when I do; I guess that if you're an educated, multi-national Muslim (the sort that I'm likely to meet) "Americanism" looks like a decent option, as compared to Sharia.
As a general rule, educated Muslims (not the stereotyped madrassa flavor) understand the limitations and boundaries of Sharia, especially in the context of a multicultural world.
+100, the others are like the snake-handling Christians who have faith but not much education. I have a friend who is soon to be an imam, he is the most peaceful man I know. Jihad to him is only if infidels attack his people with no cause. He is a 3rd generation American. We did some unique jobs together back in the day. Read the Koran with a good Islamic commentary.
Now, say, if a country were to go about blowing up Muslims willy-nilly, you may make a lot of enemies. US Fascists have a lot in common with this type of Islamic fundamentalist.
Hmmm.
educated muslim, that is in general an oxymoron. Like snake handling christians, you are way less than 1percent.
That is not the case here.
Although one must conduct their behaviour in a non-sterotypical American way.
Tomorrow I am going to a mosque and then a Hindu gig. It is OK to be Christian here, but you must be laid back.
I have Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim workers, we all seem to get along OK.
I think it is just common sense you do not act like an asshole in another guy's country. They will open their doors for you.
Now, maybe it is because I have lived half my life outside the USSA Every time I go back there are more SS. What, you have cops with tanks now? Get outta here!
I think northern midwest would be pretty nice. people are nice not crowded. might want to show up at church regularly
Have serveral passports, live in India.
Hohoho.
Some excellent points by the author - cutting debt, reducing living expenses, etc. In a post collapse country you will not be able to rely on the buying power of any pension or Social Security. There simply is no money set aside, and there are too many people collecting versus the number who may be able to pay such benefits to others. Owning productive assets sounds attractive but you can bet those assets will be heavily taxed or confiscated - and even if they produce revenue, that revenue will be taxed. Fleeing to another country also sounds attractive but you will be fleeing as a destitute refugee unless you own PMs or have carefully planned. Looking for a freedom loving enclave that won't pay taxes - chances are it will be taken over by those with the most guns - government or otherwise. In a post collapse world the two best ideas are to have a stack of PMs, or to have a skill that is in demand.
I think the article has a few things right and a few wrong.
1) leverage everything you can at low rates and buy tangible assests, gold, silver, ammo are the obvious. Ammo is never ever comming down. Stacks of 20's in the mattress arentbad
2) Get ready for a gray market economy. with the taxes comming this is where things will head
3) If you cant touch it you dont own it. Its that simple
I'm going to live at UCLA where I never have to leave until I get my Ph.D. Then I will expat to Germany.
Good luck everyone else.
The truth is that our society is wealthier than any time in the past. Every generation since the end of the civil war and the birth of the industrial age has had more collective wealth than the prior generation.
Yes, year to year or decade to decade there can be seen slight declines but the BIG PICTURE is that the labor saving technology/automation, agriculture advances, micromanagement of key resources has given us all large dividends. But most of us have seen little of them.
We as citizens fueled and paid for these technical and practice based advances through our willingness to pay a tax for research. But the accumulation of the wealth generated by corporate entities would make you think that THEY paid for the advances. Let me assure you that they did not. You paid for them.
So rather than waste time on your personal strategy to hoard wealth for this coming apocalypse, why don't you put half that energy into taking back what should be yours?
And while I'm on it, why not regulate the mindless corporations that keep churning out CO2 so that we can blunt the disaster coming our way? Why do we need to behave like helpless monkeys and victims? We know how and why our planet is facing a water and food scarcity. We just need to stop lying to ourselves and take action.
There is no god who will step in. It is up to us.