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There Is Hope In Understanding That A Great Economic Collapse Is Coming
Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
If you were about to take a final exam, would you have more hope or more fear if you didn’t understand any of the questions and you had not prepared for the test at all? I think that virtually all of us have had dreams where we show up for an exam that we have not studied for. Those dreams can be pretty terrifying. And of course if you were ever in such a situation in real life, you probably did very, very poorly on that test.
The reason I have brought up this hypothetical is to make a point. My point is that there is hope in understanding what is ahead of us, and there is hope in getting prepared. Since I started The Economic Collapse Blog back in 2009, there have always been a few people that have accused me of spreading fear. That frustrates me, because what I am actually doing is the exact opposite of that. When a hurricane is approaching, is it “spreading fear” to tell people to board up their windows? Of course not. In fact, you just might save someone’s life. Or if you were walking down the street one day and you saw someone that wasn’t looking and was about to step out into the road in front of a bus, what would the rational thing to do be? Anyone that has any sense of compassion would yell out and warn that other person to stay back. Yes, that other individual may be startled for a moment, but in the end you will be thanked warmly for saving that person from major injury or worse. Well, as a nation we are about to be slammed by the hardest times that any of us have ever experienced. If we care about those around us, we should be sounding the alarm.
Since 2009, I have published 1,211 articles on the coming economic collapse on my website. Some people assume that I must be filled with worry, bitterness and fear because I am constantly dealing with such deeply disturbing issues.
But that is not the case at all.
There is nothing that I lose sleep over, and I don’t spend my time worrying about anything. Yes, my analysis of the global financial system has completely convinced me that an absolutely horrific economic collapse is in our future. But understanding what is happening helps me to calmly make plans for the years ahead, and working hard to prepare for what is coming gives me hope that my family and I will be able to weather the storm.
I do not believe in living my life in a state of fear, and I do not want anything that I write to ever cause fear in my readers. The ancient Hebrew greeting “Shalom” is roughly translated as “peace” or “completeness”, and that is what we are constantly pursuing in my household. My wife and I know that incredibly challenging times are coming, but we also know who we are, what our purpose is, and where we are headed. We also believe that the greatest chapters of our lives are ahead even in the midst of all the chaos that is coming.
When times are the darkest, that is when light is needed the most. Just think about it. When you look back over history, what heroes do you admire the most? If you truly think about it, almost all of those heroes arose during times of great adversity and conflict.
The years ahead can be a time of great adventure for you, or they can seem like hell on Earth. It all depends on how you respond to your circumstances.
Do you want to know who is going to respond to the years ahead with fear, panic and depression?
The millions of people that have absolutely no idea what is coming and have made absolutely no preparations are going to be absolutely blindsided by the coming economic collapse. Just like the 1930s, we are going to see people jumping out of windows and jumping in front of trains. Others will sink into a state of despair so deep that nobody will ever be able to shake them out of it.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Over the past five years I have spent thousands of hours studying the coming economic collapse. In my articles you can find tens of thousands of facts and statistics that prove that the U.S. economy is hurtling toward oblivion.
It is not always the most pleasant thing to write about, but it is the truth. And that is what matters. If you believe that I am wrong, prove it to me. I work very hard to put out the most accurate information that I possibly can. So if you can prove that I am wrong, I will change my mind.
But of course that is not going to happen. As I have stated previously, anyone with half a brain should be able to see that we are living in the greatest debt bubble in human history. Anyone with half a brain should be able to see that the “too big to fail” banks are being extraordinarily reckless (derivatives, etc.). Anyone with half a brain should be able to see that our formerly great manufacturing cities are being transformed into crime-infested hellholes. Anyone with half a brain should be able to see that the middle class is dying. Anyone with half a brain should be able to see that the exact same patterns that led up to the great financial crisis of 2008 are happening again. Anyone with half a brain should be able to see that we simply cannot consume far more wealth than we produce as a nation indefinitely. Anyone with half a brain should be able to see that the incredibly foolish decisions that our politicians have been making for decades have placed us on a road to utter disaster.
So it doesn’t take anyone special to do what I am doing. I am just a “watchman on the wall” sounding the alarm the best that I can. And there are lots of others that are doing the same thing. We are deeply concerned about where this nation is heading, and we have been pleading with our leaders to do something about it for a long time but they have not listened to us.
Since our leaders just continue doing “business as usual”, there is not going to be a solution to our problems on the national level.
So that is why I am encouraging people to get prepared for the hard times that are coming on a family level and a community level.
Unfortunately, it seems like some people always have an excuse for not getting prepared. In fact, a few have even gone so far as to accuse me of being “anti-faith” for suggesting that people actually get off their couches and do something to help their families deal with the nightmare on the horizon. They seem to have the attitude that we should all just sit back and wait for God to do everything for us.
So I am not quite sure why those people get up in the morning and go to work, since they should just “trust God” to deposit paychecks into their banks. And I am not quite sure why they ever fill up the tanks of their vehicles with gasoline, because they should be able to “trust God” to put more gas there when they need it.
I covered all of this in much more detail in my previous article entitled “Is It ‘Anti-Faith’ To Prepare For The Coming Economic Collapse?”
For now, let me just state that what those people are suggesting is the exact opposite of what the Bible teaches. Trusting God is not about sitting back and doing nothing. In the Scriptures, we are told that faith is about stepping out and taking action on what God has revealed to us. That includes working hard, being wise and providing for our families. For example, just check out Proverbs 6:6-11…
Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise. Which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provides her bread in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest.
How long will you sleep, O sluggard? When will you arise out of your sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep— so will your poverty come upon you like a stalker, and your need as an armed man.
In the end, each one of us needs to make the decisions that we feel are best for our own families.
So that is why it is so incredibly important not to let someone else do your thinking for you.
In America today, the average person watches 153 hours of television a month. In addition to that, we also spend countless hours watching movies, playing video games, listening to music, reading books and surfing the Internet.
What most Americans don’t realize is that there are just six giant corporations that control almost all of that content, and that makes them immensely powerful.
These giant media corporations are constantly manipulating our attitudes, opinions and beliefs. And at this point most Americans seem quite content to remain “plugged into the matrix” and to allow corrupt corporate executives somewhere to do their thinking for them.
I urge you to break free from that system.
Do your own research and do your own thinking.
Don’t take what I say or what anyone else says as truth without critically examining it yourself. This can be difficult at first, because in this nation our young people are no longer trained to think critically. Instead, we are trained to just blindly accept whatever information the system feeds us.
George Orwell once said that “during times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act“.
That perfectly describes the era that we are currently living in.
The truth does not bring fear and despair.
Rather, the truth brings hope and it sets people free.
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We voted for Freedom, but got Freedumb.
We screwed some folks, and then got the hell out of Dodge!
"Always look on the bright side of life"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUhlRoBL8M
"The truth does not bring fear and despair. Rather, the truth brings hope and it sets people free."
Call me a cynic but:
If the unenlightened 99% finally awoke and realized that parasitic sociopaths, psychopaths and the 'elected' whores they own were intent on controlling/owning everything and everyone on the planet and were more than willing to risk a global nuclear holocaust in order to do so...
I believe that fear and despair would outweigh hope by at least 10 to 1.
Michael Snyder: I just sent you an email.
rather than "breaking free of the system", move to where the system wont break down. I do dread if the computer run food stamp system gets a virus. thats over 50 million people vulnerable, and then all their neighbors !
The "system" will continue to ship poisons certainly, but if you read labels and fringe literature, you can eat to live.
Preppers have the right general idea, but total collapse is not in the cards for everywhere. Just think about your second area location target, and make a plan(now) for going there when you think it is the day. Even those that have nothing really do have options if they think about it. You can go anywhere and locate a salvation army group...if you are really hurting poor, just pack earplugs!
Yeah, Zer0head, I find that more radical truth mostly makes me angrier, but since I can not do anything about that, eventually it makes me feel more depressed. (I then resort to irrational hopes, and transcendental hopes, in order to somewhat cope, while my macabre sense of humour has mostly been worn out from over use.) After endeavouring to understanding things better for several decades, the main thing I have discovered is that the more one learns, the worse it gets.
In my view, the worst problem is the degree to which the alleged "opposition" to the established systems is controlled by those established systems. Those few who "wake up" to more of the truth about the social facts then tend to promote bullshit "solutions" based on the same old-fashioned impossible ideals, that actually make the opposite happen in the real world.
The essential problem is the vicious feedback loops in the funding of the political processes, whereby not only were those processes corrupted to the point where they are completely crazy, but also the same dynamics operate inside of the controlled opposition groups. The role of money in the political processes has become like a totally metastasized cancer, or like a parasite that is killing its host.
Guys like Snyder fit the general pattern of those who are republished on Zero Hedge, in that they typically grossly understate how serious the problems really are, and therefore, are able to grossly underestimate what realistically better resolutions would require. Our civilization has developed to become almost totally dominated by systems of legalized lies backed by legalized violence, which have become globalized systems of electronic frauds backed by the threat of the force of atomic bombs. That situation is trillions of times worse than ever before in human history, and headed towards becoming quadrillions of times worse.
The coming economic collapse is due to the political economy being based on ENFORCED FRAUDS, whose excessive "success" drives them towards psychotic breakdowns of those established systems of MAD Money As Debt, backed by MAD Mutual Assured Destruction. The basic situation is that human realities are always organized lies operating robberies. Private property does not exist outside of some system of public violence, because private property is based on backing up claims with coercions. The most abstract form of that is that money is measurement backed by murder, because the debt controls are backed by the death controls.
It is NOT possible to stop human realities from being the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies. It would be theoretically possible to develop systems of creative alternatives, so that we had better integrated systems of human, industrial and natural ecologies. However, all of the established systems are based on a prolonged history of social successes based on the maximum possible deceits and frauds, while the controlled opposition groups stay within the same frame of reference.
A more genuine level of truth would require understanding human systems as general energy systems, within their environment. However, that would require a radical critique of the basic philosophy of science, which has been inverted and perverted by the almost total triumph of the biggest bullies' bullshit world view. There are many examples of the degree of radical paradigm shifts that would be necessary, before people could begin to perceive more radical truths (most of which guys like Snyder do not have the slightest clue about, and therefore, no interest in.)
During the development of the history of science, ARBITRARY MINUS SIGNS were inserted into the entropy equations of thermodynamics and information theory. Everything is being "understood" through contemporary science as energy systems, but the ways that people understand the concept of entropy is BACKWARDS. That is merely one of the most abstract manifestations of the degree to which we are living in a Bizarro Mirror World, where everything appears proportionately backwards and inverted.
Guys like Snyder partially reverse a few of those perceptions, and then call that the "truth," the understanding of which is supposed to assist people to become prepared for the future, when the ways that our society is controlled by entrenched systems of ENFORCED FRAUDS finally drives those systems through psychotic breakdowns, as they collapse into crazy chaos, because the backing up of lies by violence inside human societies never made those lies stop being false, but only drove those societies to become more criminally insane, the more socially successful the ability to back up Huge Lies with Lots of Violence became.
Those systems of enforced frauds enabled attitudes of evil deliberate ignorance towards more rational evidence and logical arguments about the relatively more objective environment, that people were actually living within, because of the degree to which their society was dominated by the runaway absurdities due to the triumphs of systems of enforced frauds, and therefore, most people were more socially successful when they agreed with the biggest bullies' bullshit social stories about everything, at least within the shorter term.
Some deeper levels of "truth" (in a situation where the lies are different at every level) apply to the proposed "solutions" promoted by the controlled opposition groups being backwards. The central core to human ecology, and therefore to the political economy that is inside that human ecology, are the death controls. There must be some systems of death controls, and there are! However, the established systems were developed by the history of warfare to become most successful by being most deceitful and treacherous. Upon that foundation was built our current political economy, which foundation drives that system towards automatically becoming increasingly psychotic, at an exponential rate ... with the series of shorter term social successes from doing that very rapidly running into the longer term consequences, in the general context where the profits were privatized, while the losses were socialized, in ways whereby the losses accumulated to become greater than the profits.
However, there are no genuine solutions which do not include better death controls at their core, which is why those problems are so extremely difficult and dangerous. That is especially the case because the controlled opposition groups which are allegedly resisting the established systems have almost all been already completely compromised and co-opted to continue to operate within the same frame of reference as was originally promoted by the the biggest bullies, as their preferred forms of bullshit about everything. Any basically valid solutions, which would be realistically addressed to the evolutionary ecologies of humans, industry and nature, must have their death controls as their central feature. Their dilemmas are that all the established systems operated through the maximum possible deceits and frauds, which included the ways that the controlled opposition to those established systems operated.
I REPEAT:
The coming economic collapse is due to the political economy being based on ENFORCED FRAUDS, whose excessive "success" drives them towards psychotic breakdowns of those established systems of MAD Money As Debt, backed by MAD Mutual Assured Destruction.
Facing more radical truths about that requires admitting and addressing those issues, that any genuine solutions require better death controls, to back up better debt controls. However, the only thing that guys like Snyder tend to do is reveal some of the levels of truths, about the degree to which the government has been the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, which currently happen to be the banksters, whose systems of enforced frauds are headed towards psychotic breakdowns, due to their paradoxical final failure from too much social success achieved by being able to back up lies with violence, in ways which directed civilization to behave in more and more overall criminally insane ways, due to the degree that their enforced frauds of making "money" out of nothing deliberately ignored the basic laws of nature as much as possible, for as long as possible.
By and large, more people are relatively "waking up" to the degree that the political economy is based on enforced frauds, which are headed towards crazy collapses into chaos. However, almost nobody is moving past those recognitions towards the more radical truths about how and why that has happened, which would be necessary to understand, in order to respond to that situation better.
At the present time, we continue to watch the established debt slavery system drive its numbers to become debt insanities, which threaten to provoke more corresponding levels of death insanities. However, it seems to me that the majority of the people continue to be mainstream morons, who do not understand that, because they have been conditioned to not want to understand. Furthermore, guys like Snyder continue to be kinds of controlled opposition, because they tend to metaphorically be Black Sheeple, who attempt to "wake up" more of the Zombie Sheeple, but then, tend to collapse back to bullshit "solutions" based on the notions that there could be improvements if only enough people would act like better Sheeple.
In my view, there is not nearly enough of a creative synthesis in the perception of the niches of the human ecology (and corresponding political economy) systems. The basic roles in those systems are metaphorically the Vicious Wolves, and their Domesticated Dogs, controlling the vast majority of Zombie Sheeple, within which are the controlled opposition groups who are Black Sheeple. There tends to be too little sympathy amongst the productive/prey people for the predator/parasite people, which reflects inadequate understanding of the system as a whole.
As often is the case when I read Zero Hedge articles, I tend to agree with almost everything that the author presents, on the level that was presented. However, I find that level to be very superficial: grossly underestimating what the problems are, and therefore, grossly overstating how possible it would be to become better prepared for those situations. It is typical for me to be able to completely agree with the view that we should understand the problems better, in order to be prepared for them. However, at the same time, I find that the level of understanding being promoted continues to be way too shallow, and therefore, the levels of "solutions" being promoted way too insufficient.
The deeper problems are all due to progress in science and technology, enabling human beings to become trillions of times more powerful and capable (and headed towards quadrillions), while there is nothing in political science that corresponds to the profound paradigm shifts in other physical sciences that made those technologies become possible.
We are stuck with electronic monkey money, backed up by apes with atomic bombs!
As you stated Zer0head, that situation can be summarized correctly as being: "parasitic sociopaths, psychopaths and the 'elected' whores they own were intent on controlling/owning everything and everyone on the planet and were more than willing to risk a global nuclear holocaust in order to do so..."
Your estimation of those real problems is better than that offered by Snyder! The fact that the vast majority of people do not want to understand that situation is the main reason for dismal despair, that the only "solutions" which have been prepared by the ruling classes, for the real problems of running into the limits of strip-mining the planet (using "money" made out of nothing to "pay" for that), are to engage in more false flag attacks, in order to start more genocidal wars, and impose democidal martial law, in order to drive conditions which will result in the mass murder of the majority of the world's population, if not worse.
However, facing that deeper level of the radical truth, as you have done Zer0Head, then ideally should be responded to by developing better death controls, to back up better debt controls, than the current ruling classes are doing. After one fully faces the facts that governments are the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, then the only genuinely better resolutions of those problems must be better organized crime, with its death controls at the center of that.
What we have needed, since the development of weapons of mass destruction, is radical paradigm shifts in militarism, in order to understand the ways that those murder systems achieved their death controls, that then backed up the debt controls, through the combined money/murder systems. However, those systems had already become ENFORCED FRAUDS, which were already far too PSYCHOTIC to be able to face more radical truths about themselves!
As is typically the case on the Zero Hedge Web site, comments like those above by Zer0head show more genuine insight into the real nature of the problems than the authors of the featured articles articulate. However, I continue to see almost nothing, in either those featured articles, or even the best of the comments, that provides enough better understanding, that could lead to genuinely better resolutions of those real problems.
Of course, given that the vast majority of people continue to act like incompetent political idiots, and most of the controlled opposition groups, that are trying to educate them, are still being similarly superficial, there appears no practical ways to prevent the established systems of debt slavery, backed by wars based on deceits, from going through substantial and severe social storms, entailing crazy collapses into chaos, where the debt insanities provoke death insanities, objectively speaking, I am probably wasting my time to also attempt to educate people regarding the what they should better understand.
I amuse myself posting comments on Zero Hedge, where there is a tiny minority of a tiny minority that may appreciate those comments. However, looking at it more objectively, that appears to be mostly pointless and quixotic, due to the degree that the majority of people continue to feel that they do not want to understand anything that I am talking about, which, of course, is understandable for precisely those reasons that Zer0Head stated in his comment above.
Founders era gave us a model.
See 2nd amendment.
Also see coinage acts of 1792.
Insightful comment/epistle :)
Yes, durablefaith. It is too bad the the American constitution could not have been written in clearer language, so that the original bimetallic standard had not been as possible to undermine by the international bankers. (*I note that the original coinage act made it punishable by death to debase the real metal money of those days, as the ancient Greeks had also done.)
The problem we are looking at now is more than a Century of the destruction of the American monetary system, systematically transforming it to become the opposite of what the original American constitution indicated that the public money supply should be ... At this point of time, the fish has already gone totally rotten from the head to the tail.
Dup
I've read a few of your comments - and I agree there seem to many articles which superficially address what the problems are, what causes them, what needs to happen to fix the problems, but even more so, how one needs to be prepared. I'm not so sure one can truly be prepared for a collapse of the magnitude which so many claim is going to happen.
And as much as people may be "waking up" to the degree that the political economy is based on enforced frauds, which are headed towards crazy collapses into chaos.
I still think that many harbor disbelief at the true level of fraud, concerted & organized complicity, and general psychosis upon which the "system" is built.
Indeed, ersatz007: "I'm not so sure one can truly be prepared for a collapse of the magnitude which so many claim is going to happen."
I believe that 99% of the people are not prepared for the centralized systems that they depend upon to be disrupted. Since that is the case, it is hard to imagine how the 1% that attempted to be prepared would be able to cope with being outnumbered 100 to 1 by desperate people that had not been prepared. Furthermore, there are good reasons to expect that one of the worst enemies of people who had prepared could become government agencies, who decided to commandeer their preparations.
It is wildly unpredictable what would happen if the centralized systems were disrupted, depending upon the severity and duration of those disruptions, since the majority are not prepared, while those few who had prepared may end up being robbed by them, or even worse by government agencies, which would likely become common events under that kind of duress.
Meanwhile, the situation continues that the people who captured control over the powers of governments, in order to create legalized monopolies and cartels, that everyone else was forced to function within, have made the vast majority of people not only physically dependent upon those systems, but also mentally dependent. As Synder pointed out, at least 90% of the information that most people receive is all presented to them through a handful of enormous corporations, that are de facto monopolies or cartels, which are effectively controlling the ways that most people think about themselves!
The problem IS the problem. The general psychosis upon which the "system" is built was presented to the mainstream morons as what sanity should be! These two quotes comment upon the underlying situation that societies based on enforced frauds require people to believe in bullshit in order to become personally successful within those systems of enforced frauds:
It is no measure of health
to be well adjusted to a
profoundly sick society.
--- Jiddu Krishnamurti
They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness.
--- Aldous Huxley
That made my day better, thank you kind sir. Love Life of Brian.
Long coffin builders and crematories. :)
What in the fuck are you talking about?
Beef prices at all time highs, food price way up, oil down. Homes are up 50 to 60% over 2008 prices...this is what ZIRP and QE have brought. Home loans will now be available with 3% down payments...go figure. Even the republicans will eventually raise taxes to keep paying our debt...the ship IS sinking, we're just not sure how long it's going to take before it slips under the water forever.
Watch TV 153 hours per month???
I don't think that I watch TV more than 3 hours per year. And most of that time spent is in amazement of the CRAP that is being transmitted.
However, I probably do spend 153 hours per month reading sites such as ZeroHedge, DollarCollapse and related. That likely means that I am on a government watch list.
< Watch list
< Kill list
same list..
Your smart IMHO. Me the same. I love my "doomer porn" throughout the day. Without which I would have gone insane 5 years ago.
Bring this Bitch on sooner rather than later so maybe my children, and their childrens children might have a chance. Debt based fiat monetary system always collapse and so why do these Keynsean Fuckheads insist on trying to keep it alive at the worlds demise? Why of course to keep their "cashcow" going. Seems to me they milked the "cows" ever faster and more frequently and now still havnt realized that they are "killing the cow". I think they do know that the end is nye. Shit is getting very real to me.
PTB must protect the 'secret' that debt is money...........and money is debt.........my guess is that they will kill the internet to help protect THEIR secret......the internet is what scares them the most
America has been reduced to FreeDumb & FreeDumber to. Time can be cruel, especially to sequels...
"We fucked some folks...in the ass"
There was never any doubt that a collapse is coming. The only relevant questions are:
How long will the collapse last for?
Are we prepared?
What will follow the collapse?
Peter -
How long will the collapse last for? - Predictions are always difficult. I would think 3-5 years.
Are we prepared? - Not at all.
What will follow the collapse? - According to Nostradamus, 700 to 800 years of paradise on Earth.
20 years minimum, and for the few left alive, you may be right about a paradise on earth.
According to a Spiritual Master who lives in the Himalayas, only half the population will survive.
Those that do survive will be the truly God fearing.
My logical guess is about 50% of welfare recipients in western nations will die prematurely. Given their current eating habits, that ain't sayin' much.
Collapses, by definition, have to last way longer than 3-5 years. Even 20 might be pushing it.
The collapse started in 2008.
Will be over when bitcoin underpin's the entire global economy , Circa 2020 - 2030 ?
If 'bitcoin' underpinned the entire 'global' economy.....
The collapse would still be ongoing.
As soon as Central Banks and private banks began to accept it and use it to extinguish balance sheet debt then the only thing that would be collapsing would be the amount of debt that existed. At that point a new wealth cycle would begin to phase in.
fab retrace> 7 billion to ...
do you feel lucky, PUNK?
Hello Bitcion meet Carrington...
Yawn ,,,,,
This guy got a webpage?
I think my Spiritual Master is a cheap Chinese knockoff.
"Spiritual Master" = fraud
from 'Marla and Me'......ZH 2010
''I'm beginning to understand why Mako always employs such a gloomy and somewhat annoyed tone. The government HAD to take on debt since consumers stopped doing so in 2007. It's part of the mathematical equation. There is really no use complaining about this. The results would have been the same had a republican president been sitting in the white house, or a zebra for that matter... In a debt-based interest-bearing fractional reserve system like ours, the minute credit creation goes negative, you have some serious problems on your hands - i.e. there isn't enough "money" around to pay the old debt... It's just a classic ponzi scheme. ''
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/surge-non-revolving-loans-and-governmen...
Mako said the collaspe would last a generation or two.....
The problem is that robotics will have made the need for workers largely obsolete by then.
When the automobile came into widespread use the reduced need for the 50,000 horses or so in places like NYC sent them all to the glue factories. Still waiting for the horses to come back btw...
I have a feeling what is coming will make robots obsolete.
Glass robots?
Peak robots.
Energy
dub
The good old days of ZH. Mako reappeared under a different alias for a bit, though I haven't seen him in months.
Yep: Forty years.
The responsible parties must die out, though I suppose that taking steps to speed up the process could work, too.
Peter Pan
Economic collapse is misleading.
Religion and our current education as guides will be proved to be a costly mistake.
We will be facing the collapse of The Industrial Age, beginning the next decade. It’s irreversible, and it will lead to WW-3.
Prepared for an exponential collapse. South America and Australia will be the least worse affected, I believe.
“It's almost worth the Great Depression to learn how little our big men know.” - Will Rogers
Here’s the list that I find compelling:
1. Financial Collapse
What Collapses: Banks, currencies, the value of savings & assets
Signs of Collapse: Bank failures/rescues, stock/housing market collapses
Cultures at this Stage: Iceland during 2008 crisis
Coping/Resilience Mechanism: Eliminating and repudiating debts, using community currencies, let the banks fail
2. Commercial Collapse
What Collapses: Credit availability, trade, businesses, tax revenues, industrial food & energy systems
Signs of Collapse: Corporations become criminal, rampant corruption, regulatory mechanisms fail, trade and supply chains seize up
Cultures at this Stage: Russia after collapse of USSR.
Coping/Resilience Mechanism: building self-sufficient communities, local self-employment and essential supplies, creating a Gift/Sharing Economy
3. Political Collapse
What Collapses: Law & order, regulatory enforcement, safety nets, power grid & other infrastructure (including health, education, water and emergency response systems and the Internet), nation states
Signs of Collapse: Citizen unrest, surveillance society, scapegoating, rise in totalitarian governments, war and despotism
Cultures at this Stage: Afghanistan & Pakistan
Coping/Resilience Mechanism: creating local, direct (non-representative) democratic or egalitarian anarchistic institutions
4.-5. Social Collapse and the Disintegration of Humanity
What Collapses: Community: social institutions, trust, social cohesion, faith, cooperation; and then Humanity, kindness and compassion
Signs of Collapse: Permanent refugee cultures, disintegration of health care and waste management, endemic diseases, alienation, anomie, inurement, fighting violence with violence, hero worship, personal disintegration
Cultures at this Stage: Ik tribe of E. Africa
Coping/Resilience Mechanism: few or none
http://howtosavetheworld.ca/2013/07/05/will-the-collapse-of-civilization-begin-with-global-corporatist-totalitarianism/
Escrava Isaura, I generally like your posts, but you lack faith in humanity. The author you quote takes his ideas from Dmitry Orlov, whose conclusions are far more optimistic and realistic than his own. Where Dave Pollard sees "few or no" coping mechanisms to social collapse, Dmitry Orlov sees a restoration of human relations.
That's because Orlov is Russian, therefore comes from a cohesive society, whereas Pollard, the son of a divisive society, is so hell-bent on individualism he can't even see that facts on the ground contradict his pessimism. Every time a catastrophe (hurricane, flood, etc) touches a community, the vast majority (mind you, even in the USA) forget their own little selves and help. For free, just out of normal human instinct. Individualism is a learned behavior. Underneath the veneer, humanity is ready to spring back in case of trouble. We are social animals, and you don't beat human nature. So, trust the people.
Orlov, who is not blinded by individualism, can see that.
Lea
I would hope your analyze prove to be right. Time will tell.
However, all current man impacts (population growth, religion explanation, education indoctrination, capitalism affluence, and technology solutions) will be proved negative. So, you are right, I have a bleak view of humanity.
And I don’t have to go very far, or make it complicated, to prove my point. Let’s use us, here, at Zero Hedge.
Save in gold, wait for reset… and Ohh la la!
Really?
Do you, in good conscious, believe that we will be able to foul our coming energy-debt (thermodynamic) the same way we did by financial-debt?
No energy, our species will go extinct by fighting over the last remnants of it.
“In times of stress, the genes assume control and reason disappears.”
The Spirit in the Gene: Humanity’s Proud Illusion – Reg Morrison (1999)
"No energy, our species will go extinct by fighting over the last remnants of it."
Escrava, even if the worst comes to the worst, there are still, first, alternatives to the energy sources we use nowadays, and I trust the research into these will go full turbo before the end of our resources. Scientists are everything but dumb, and when the time comes and they have to, they will find new resources. Second, humanity has been able to do for millenia without the energy you refer to. We had wind, sails, roads, horses and mules, and we plodded along quite well. We even built huge civilizations (Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Western Christian world that even discovered America, the ancient Chinese empire, etc)... If we came back to that, it would slow things down some and we wouldn't have Chinese imported whachamacallits, but we'd survive alright.
There would be no horrible fights over the last barrels of oil, no grisly murders for gas to fill the last lighters. By then, either we'll have gone on to the next solution or we'll go back to our old techniques. Some still know how to light woodfires without matches. Let's learn!
1800 1 billion people
1965 3.5 billion people
2014 7 billion people
Now lets take away cheap easy oil
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function" -- Albert Bartlett
Here’s an example:
In 1944, 29 reindeer were introduced to the island of Saint Matthew by the United States Coast Guard to provide an emergency food source. The coast guard abandoned the island a few years later, leaving the reindeer.
Subsequently, the reindeer population rose to about 6,000 by 1963 and then died off in the next two years to 42 animals.
A scientific study attributed the population crash to the limited food supply in interaction with climatic factors.
By the 1980s, the reindeer population had completely died out. Environmentalists see this as an issue of overpopulation.
For example, Garrett Hardin cited the "natural experiment" of St. Matthew Island of the reindeer population explosion and collapse as a paradigmatic example of the consequences of overpopulation in his essay An Ecolate View of the Human Predicament.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthew_Island#Mammals
Every time a catastrophe happens etc.... everyone isn't affected at the same time.... In a collapse as described above, who will be there to help when they're looking for a meal too?
There will be a few that are selfless.... there will be far more that are desparate, I think.
Either way, neighbors teaming up to put resources together will help, no doubt.... The secret may be to live somewhat remotely but, close enough to some people to be able to help each other..... Maybe the best of places would be to be in the midde and one of several small farms that are out of town and major population centers... small enough to defend and big enough to provide what you need.
Being too remote can be just as much trouble as not being remote enough if you can't be self sufficient.... and you're not going to be remote unless you live further than a full tank of gas from a metro area, IMHO..... I think even those on farms will need things..... Farms are not what they were 100yrs ago.... how many people do you know that make their own butter? have a milk cow? make their own cheese?... well, 100yrs ago, a lot of people did that and a full 30% lived on farms.
Not so much anymore.... even small farms will be needing neighbors to pool resources, such as food.... but, maybe even more importantly, to pool security.....
If we had a full breakdown in society, there would be a LOT.... A WHOLE LOT of hungary people leaving the cities looking for anything they could find to eat... The lobbies have made it almost impossible for small farms to exist.... only the big corporate ones exist now and, if the trucks stop, there will be no food.... no gasoline delivered... nobody going to work so, no electricity.... nobody running the water pumps... sure, the govt. would attempt to keep the power and water on but, I doubt the workers would continue to come to work with everything is falling apart.
If you want to see the future... all you have to do is look at NYC at the moment.... what was the cause for NYC and look at the response.... if you escalate the outcry up to 11 then, you have cops staying at home and there is no more law..... at that point, who knows what shuts down and what doesn't and for how long?.... Then you have the govt. response ( at least for a while )..... the further outcry.... rinse and repeat.
That was a very good article, thank you!
Good thoughts. But what about government and corporates preemptive moves to thwart organic subsistent cohesive local communities? The evidence of this rampant and global.
Consider the ukraine holodomor. They had self reliance and attempted to ignore the bestial government which came to power. They were forcefully relocated and or starved..farmers not wannabee preppers.
I think collapse would be much easier to prepare for than what is coming. A great culling Seems to be what the elite have planned. Who will resist them?
Who can make war against the beast?
What will follow is that which we make.
You do not think TPTB have the aftermath planned out?
There will always be those that scheme but, most are so arrogant that they don't get it right.
I do believe they have some of this war gamed out.... But, the rule of unintended consequences usually rule the day.
LOL... looking at this administration is a perfect example..... they are evil to the core and, their only redeeming quality is that they are completely inept.
Better have more than one.
These sheeple have been told over and over and over and over again what is going to happen. They have chosen to ignore the warnings in the belief that the Fed will keep the markets propped up.
New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina tells the tale.
Please uncle sugar....save me!!! Come to my house, pick me up, and put me on the bus headed to the Stupid Dome. I cannot walk, drive, swim or limp there all by myself.
Yeah...that about sums it up.
BLOBS with iq around 70. hmmm.
darwin, plez show your wrath, PLEZ!
I think it will begin sort of like NYC now..... just turn up the response to 11 ( pardon my spinal tap ref )..... the cops will stay home and the crowds will shut down all infrastructure.... then, the fuse is lit....
or something like that ? probably lots of reasons people still believe in the many illusions, but mostly ig-nor-ance and simple laziness
I completely agree with the article and never worry about any of it either. Better to simply be prepared for any event and have confidence in your skills, training and knowledge. No question the handwriting has been on the wall for a while for all to see.
What happens when Russia refuses to sell NG to Euro countries and NOT pay the next debt traunch in Jan 15 ? Checkmate !
Thank you, brother Michael.
Start stacking or start packing.
I prefer the first, and spreading the word about the worst. They can take or leave it before TSHTF.
We are moving from the Age of Falsehood to the Age of Righteousness.
In the Age of Righteousness, Truth will prevail. Whether it be the Snowden revelations or the release of the Torture Report or the celebrities nemad sex abuse cases, there is a pattern and a reason.
Jesus Christ did say, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
Relax folks - happy days will soon be here again.
Yeah, Jesus will save us.
Many years ago, I asked my Spiritual Master, "All the chaos in this world, who is responsible for it?"
The Master replied,"2 classes of people who live by the principle of divide and rule. One is politicians and the other preachers."
We need to find people who are neither politicians nor preachers to run this World. In other words, truly Spiritual Masters.
A Muslim lady asked my Spiritual Master, "What is the difference between Islam and the Sikh religion?"
The Master replied, "There is no difference."
The lady was astounded at this reply and asked, " Master, how can you say this"
The Master replied, "My daughter, I say this, simply because the Truth is One. It is only our form of worship which is different."
There is no difference between Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, the Sikh religion and other main stream religions.
All main stream religions preach that there is but One God. Unfortunately, some religious leaders now say that theirs is the One True God.
There is unbelievable ignorance re the true message of all the religions in the World. Religion came to the World to unite mankind.
Religion came to the world to unite mankind.
In slavery.
Your spiritual master is a preacher.
The difference between Islam and Sikhism is the colour of the boot on your throat.
Red/Blue,.. Cross/Star of David.
It's all bullshit.
We are all Earthlings. There is no God(s).
Respect each other and get over needing a master.
Go tell that to your local IS representative.
I believe in The Force.
Be the ball, Danny.
Care to prove that?
Without God you only have force.
WITHOUT GOD AND ALL THESE BELIEFS peace could have a chance...
So.. I Am God? ;)
Joking (somewhat) aside, we can also consider all humans this "God" that everyone preaches of. We all contain the God-like ability to create and destroy; we just have yet to more fully acknowledge (focus on) it. Why?
Too much attachment to..? Comfort? Fear of discomfort? Distraction? Or maybe our ignorance is due to the evil powers that be. Yah, it's all their fault.
Hey, why not.
On the religion note, Kahlil Gibran's take on it is insightful and refreshingly simple. No specific identification other than awareness of self is needed.
"Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Whenever you enter into it take with you your all." Kahlil Gibran
www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-religion/
Happy days will soon be here again, but only Post-tribulation, however one may wish to characterize the experience.
There will be much to weep over between now and then.
Pattern and reason eh...
To foment regime change, anger must be high so that tptb new moral cover story will work.
For nwo order to appear, current world leader must be dethroned, weakened, divided, and must not rise from ashes to challenge nwo.
Divide. Check. Debase currency. Check. Ruin international standing. Check. Nuclear disarm. Check. Ruin alliances. Check. Prevent energy independence. In progress.
There is the pattern and the nwo is the reason
It is theoretically possible to print until everyone but the 1% live at a level similar to the 30's. You can have tons of fiat, just not enough for a loaf of break. In fact, at some point caves become a viable option, but then again so do weapons. The question is did an economic collapse happen or did we just "deleaverage" ourselves back to the stone age?
A cave is a grave.
You get forced underground and it's only a matter of time 'till you burn.
Night follows day my friend.
Well technically it is hard to jump out of a building because most modern buildings over 3 stories do not have windows that open. And in a collapse it will be difficult to jump in front of a train because most trains won't be running. Most people in a collapse will be killed by mobs and gangs.
Something like 10-20% would die without their meds or electric power for machines like ventilators. Most of the rest will die of starvation or illness. Violence will probably be fourth on the list and you are down to about 10-20% survivors.
food and water will be the main reason to kill for. truely survival of the fitist and lucky few...
era of wolves upon us. find the right pack. stalk and kill without conscience...
Yep, information is power. And the more informed you are on the real economy, you should be less scared and more prepared for the coming collapse. Having this knowledge helps you to prioritize things for your families and yourselves. I still worry a bit, but at least I, like the author, am not hiding my head in the sand like an ostrich. Planning ahead is the thing to do.
And I'm confused, I thought the age of righteousness started in 2008 when the brown man ascended the throne?
Plan ahead? Only sure fire way to plan is get familiar with guns and ammo. CCW is the new mantra in Whitesville.
I have never seen the attraction of a CCW permit. I want to voluntarily tell the authorities that I have a specific gun and here are my fingerprints? If confiscation ever does occur, you will get a polite notice in the mail directing you how to go about turning your weapon in. You will either fight them alone or do as you are told.
Yep, totally worked in Connecticut....
Your comments are wrong. I have a CCW permit. It is invalid in the State I live in - NJ. But valid in other states. Here in NJ, it is the NJ State Police who decide if you may purchase a hand gun. The permitting process must be repeated for every handgun and takes at least 3 months. To get a gun in NJ, you have to first get a general permit to purchase long guns and/or ammo. That permit is for life and is granted by the local Chief of Police. This entire process involves finger-printing and background checks, etc. The Police will never give me a CCW valid in NJ.
There is nothing that requires you to keep a weapon in a particuar state. Where you bunker your weapons is up to you. The most important thing is to acquire your firearms and ammo legally.
I guess my base reaction is that I would not live in New Jersey, at least not now, and wonder what keeps you there when you obviously are not happy with the Garden State.
It would be far, far better if all the like-minded were to move to one state, or several neighboring ones, and then tell the nazis to go focus themselves. Diffusion leaves everyone at the mercy of the hive mind.
I always carry a throw-down. Just habit.
Don't tell them about your inherited guns...
That is only one part of the whole? Your fitness and overall health should be your first priority and all else comes after that. Just beans and bullets will not save anybody for very long. One good thing about it is all the fat guys will be gone. So fewer mouths and tonnage needed and likely an open season on politicos, car salemen and witch doctors of all flavors.
This is a great point missed by many of preppers on here and other places. See lots of incredibly fat and out of shape morons spouting off about how many guns they have, ammo, how often they shoot, how many rations they have tucked...just waiting and praying for the STHTF...which likely won't come in one instant anyway....just so they can whip out 2 or 3 AR-15s in overpriced .308.
In the meantime, they couldn't begin to run a couple hundred yards or last 10secs in any hand to hand situation, do a single pull up, etc
Personal health, vitality and physcial independence should be the first priority...then stack some REAL wealth(to a reasonable/diversified limit)....then worry about how many semi-autos in 308 you want to have to go toe to toe with a swat force of dozens of infinitely better armed, better conditioned, better protected, better organized swat team.
Take it easy ... to be slaughtered.
The US is exceptional, anointed by God ...
hehe.
Thank Bro. Michael. Great Article. Many know that Jesus is coming soon. Thanks for your post. I am a regular reader of your stories. I love your new book The Beginning of the End." I read my copy last week. I believe you are saved and sealed. Thank you. Thanks for your testimony.
Caves and weapons? Works for me!
In reference to: "Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise. Which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provides her bread in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest."
The US is a nation of incorrigible grasshoppers.
Yeah!
"Off the history, the Brazilians, of general way, have always had a very negative perception of the United States. In 1817, when Brazil was still the UK to Portugal, there was an insurrection, animated largely by American traders in order to deploy a republic in the province of Pernambuco, that is, to "introduce in Brazil the Washington plan" (1), and was not only claim, unsubstantiated and implausible. sedition really had connections with the US.
The American trader Joseph Bryan, a trader in Recife, capital of Pernambuco, attended fact of conspiracy, along with his partner, Joseph Ray, who lived in Philadelphia and shortly after the uprising, March 28, 1817, left the aboard the US ship "Gipsy", leading Antonio Gonçalves da Cruz, alias "Cabugá" with the mission of making an alliance with the United States, even without the recognition of the revolutionary government, and to buy weapons and ammunition mouth. (2) In Washington, Cabugá met with Cæsar Rodney, "confidant cabinet" with the President of the United States Bank, William Jones, and the Secretary of State, Richard Rush, who not only tacitly recognized the belligerence in Pernambuco as even admitted the possibility of sending a naval force pair the coast of Brazil, in order to protect their trade. (3) "
More here:
http://www.laondadigital.uy/archivos/4262
:-)
Shit-Storm!! Dead ahead!
"The shit-storm is coming, Ricky! You and Julian traded all your pot for rubles and oil junk bonds. Randy and I are going back to our trailer and watch things blow up!"
"Fuck you, Lehey! You too, Cheeseburger Boy!"
TPB !! Great stuff !
I dreamed there was a collapse and I had my hands full of gold eagles.
The problem was that I was naked.
I had no pockets.
I found this mildly distressing.
Might have been more than mild if Obama had his friend Emanuel with and walking toward you.
Well, if you'd put your money into naked shorts before the collapse came, you'd have a set of pockets to store your gold in.
Too much doom fatigue. I don't believe that what I do will help me that much if the vast majority of other people are in bad shape. No one is an Island and if big things collapse, they collapse for everyone.
You're not spreading fear. You're spreading bull$hit. See you at Dow 100,000 where YOU will be buying stocks at the top.
The Dow may well hit 100k. The problem will be that it won't be worth anything since the only traders will be the FR, BoJ, BoE, and so on. Enjoy your $1,000 coffee and donut in the morning.
The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange will be at 110,000. And they wil still be picking their noses.
"We also believe that the greatest chapters of our lives are ahead even in the midst of all the chaos that is coming...."
Unless their is a nuclear exchange between the US and Russia in the coming year.
Always with the optimism from you. Cheerful people suck.
Orwell was wrong about a lot of things: he made the Jews the oppressed, not the oppressors. Emmanuel Goldstein is the hero of 1984, the big proponent of Freedom. Bardèche’s vision of the future is much truer than Orwell’s, and his book was written a year earlier than Orwell’s.
Maurice Bardèche’s Nuremberg or the Promised Land is a revisionist classic. . . . That anyone in 1948 could have foreseen so accurately our modern world is to me astounding. Bardèche recognized that the judicial travesty at Nuremberg was not simply an act of vengeance by victors against the vanquished and that what was on trial there was not just the particular German defendants, nor the German nation, nor even National Socialism, but rather nationalism itself: the idea that a people own the land that they have long lived in and have the right to live in it as they wish and to exclude others from living in it if they so wish. It is nationalism in any form which was condemned at Nuremberg.
With amazing prescience Bardèche foresaw in its condemnation the coming of an international system which is first and foremost economic, not political or governmental. Its purpose is to protect an international economic élite, not ordinary persons, or peoples, or nations. It offers the latter lots of rights but no guarantees that these rights will be respected. Its laws are unclear (unlike those of a prince) and broadly unenforceable, but the system does not attempt to enforce them broadly but only selectively. For selected victims punishments are severe. Victims are selected not so much because they have broken laws but because they have offended the “universal conscience,” the conscience created and fostered in us all by the media (Bardèche’s “radio”). Bardèche clearly foresaw the system which we today call “globalism,” although he nowhere uses that term. He also foresaw at least implicitly many other aspects of our world: Third World immigration, the irrational glorification of democracy, loss of sovereignty, humanitarian wars and interference, hate crimes, affirmative action, racial miscegenation and replacement, etc.: “At the bottom of the sanctuary there sits a Negro god. You have all the rights, except to speak evil of the god.” “And, from one end of the world to the other, in perfectly similar cities . . . there will live under similar laws a bastard population, a race of indefinable and gloomy slaves, without genius, without instinct, without voice. . . But this will be the Promised Land.”
In 1949, one year after the publication of Nuremberg or the Promised Land, another prophetic book was published, George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In it Orwell describes a scary future in which there is a single party dictatorship, living conditions are drab, food is scarce, people’s thoughts are openly controlled by Big Brother, their words and actions are monitored through “telescreens” which they cannot turn off, they are given no choice over what they view on these screens, there is only one channel on the “telescreens” and one film (always a war film) in the theatres, in one such film refugees trying to escape are shot to the delight of the audience, some of these refugees are Jewish, “the Enemy of the People” is a Jew, Emmanuel Goldstein, who is condemned for “advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought,” people are openly taught to hate him and his followers during “Two Minutes Hate” and “Hate Week,” sex is discouraged through a “Junior Anti-Sex League,” the Inner Party is called the “Inner Party,” thoughtcrime is called “thoughtcrime,” Thought Police are called “Thought Police,” the media propagate obvious, self-contradictory lies such as: “War Is Peace,” “Freedom Is Slavery,” “Ignorance Is Strength,” people are told that democracy is “impossible” (although the Party is said to be its “guardian”), capitalism is viewed as a barbarity that has “vanished.”
The world described in 1984 little resembles that in the Occident today. We live in multi-party democracies. Our mainstream media tell us not only that democracy is possible and a very good thing, but that its triumph everywhere is virtually inevitable, an inevitability which we should make every effort to encourage. Living conditions are generally good, food is abundant. Capitalism is alive and well and is promoted as an economic panacea. Our politicians advocate the same things as does Emmanuel Goldstein. Our media propagate obvious lies such as: “Diversity is our strength,” but they at least avoid flagrant self-contradictions (some kinds of diversity may indeed be a source of strength, although certainly not the radical ethnic diversity that our media promote). Refugees do not flee our societies, but rather risk their lives trying to get into them. We are not taught to hate, but to tolerate. Sex is not generally discouraged, even among the young. With our multi-channel televisions and the internet we are free to see, hear, read, and discuss almost anything, if not everywhere. Freedom reigns. Yet to some that freedom seems, if not illusory, useless. It is useless because people’s thoughts and actions are monitored and controlled not by anything outside themselves but by their own warped consciences, consciences deliberately warped by our mainstream media, consciences closely resembling Bardèche’s “universal conscience.”
Orwell’s and Bardèche’s books have had quite different careers in the Occident. Orwell’s, although formerly banned in the Soviet Union, has been widely read and praised; Bardèche’s is still banned in France and is generally unknown elsewhere. 1984 has served to warn us against the dangers of Communism, and for that deserves acclaim. But one cannot help but wonder if its general acclaim today is not also an index to its irrelevance. We have escaped the dreadful future envisioned by Orwell in 1984. We have not escaped the dreadful future envisioned by Bardèche in 1948.
Bardèche says that his “only ambition, in writing this book, was to be able to read it again without shame in fifteen years.” My ambition, in translating it, was much more grandiose: I hope to hear it read some day without shame on TV by a politician. Bardèche wrote this book for the sake of the German “reprobates,” whom “the radios of all the people of the world, and the presses of all the people of the world, and millions of voices from all the horizons of the world” characterize as “monsters.” I have translated it also for the sake of “reprobates,” those nationalists throughout the Occident whom all our radios and presses and millions of voices likewise characterize as little better than “monsters.”
http://www.lulu.com/shop/maurice-bard%C3%A8che/nuremberg-or-the-promised-land/ebook/product-21666101.html
http://www.lulu.com/shop/maurice-bard%C3%A8che/nuremberg-or-the-promised-land/ebook/product-21214315.html
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2013/07/maurice-bardeches-vision-of-the-future-part-1/
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2013/07/maurice-bardeches-vision-of-the-future-part-1/
"Capitalism is alive and well and is promoted as an economic panacea."
From my view, there is very little resemblance to capitalism in our economies. Only tiny minorities promote capitalism as a good, much less a panacea.
'Bring out yer dead'...
Sorry, couldn't help it.
Derivatives are a good thing.
Mike,
you have predicted doomsday 1,211 times. Is that not enough.
There are naysayers and yeasayers. I am the former. I have prepared myself and my family as best as I can.
Anyone, who has ever experienced an unforeseen event, feels like they have been hit blidsided with a sledge hammer.
Survival is an attitude first and preparation second.
It will all go down in about 60 seconds time.
CNBC WILL ANNOUNCE ':WELL FOLKS, WE ARE ALL FUCKED', and the market is suspended till Barry says it's ok'
I believe ugliness lies ahead. I love the way it is always being kicked out a year or two and never going to happen tomorrow. It is as if we can't handle what is coming at us and need more time.
For a long time I have been trying to develop a scenario for a market "super crash" and a reasonable map that would arrive at such a situation. Below is an article looking at how it could happen sooner rather than later.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2013/01/flash-crash-on-steroids.html
Given the increasing desperation of the banksters to get Russia to invade Ukraine or to get rid of Putin, things must be coming close to tripping point.
We have been lulled into complacency by the extraordinary actions taken by central banks and governments over the last six years. Have these actions really worked or merely masked over major flaws and problems? I contend that by not demanding the right kind of growth and by throwing money at problems we have only delayed and added to festering issues that face us in the future.
Modern Monetary Theory often referred to as MMT by its many believers is to remove much of the risk ahead and guarantee that we will always be able to muddle forward. This is a economic theory that turns to newly acquired tools like derivatives and currency swaps that are suppose to allow us to print and manipulate away problems. This has created an "almost surreal" feeling of indifference towards reality. More on why debt does matter and the system is about to fail in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/01/have-we-been-lulled-into-complacency.html
unly hope if you make it that way. realize that a lot of the strategies and paths people try to take are all based on one thing, not thinking. Get your philosophy right, get a gun. After that it's all gravy.
What fun would Zero Hedge be like if the The Economic Collapse Blog didn't post Economic Collapse posts?
The Unicorns vomiting rainbows, posts titles that regularly contain 9's and other occult numbers, Saturn logo wielding blog posters and demon channeling guest posters can get old and just wouldn't fully round it out enough without ECB's visions of sunshine from the black hole sun
For a while Snyder got away from his lame top 10 list and doomer porn to post some interesting stuff but he has been back to his usual click bait of late.
A lot of people since this country began have known the big "collapse" (bigger than the U.S. civil war) is coming. I know my Grandma knew it was coming because I found the books that were former generations' expression of "economiccollapseblog.com" in her library after she passed away. And I also found about 500 lbs of long term food storage and other preparations in her home when I cleaned it out.
The real trick would be to know exactly when, and how it would start. That way I could optimize my prepping instead of working on it the boring way, a little each paycheck. I've known of people prepping since the 70's and that is just too hard.
If I knew the date I could quit my job and borrow 300k right before it goes off and go on a big vacation to see the last pre-collapse days of America and then check into my secret fort the day before the big collapse.
So enough with the endless collapse blah blah blah stuff. Tell us exactly when.
It will definitely happen by the 13th.
Snyder's a bitch!
shalom
I heard that if you have a "rapture" card from God, then you do not need to worry about any collapse because God is going to rapture those who have the "pass" and he will take them up into the sky before any tribulation. So, continue partying and watching football because you don't have to do anything to prepare. It's all taken care of for you.
When the Rapture comes, can I have your house?
I just dont see the point in these articles. The economy is not that bad, at least not nearly as bad as th guy portrays. I frequently travel for work, im literally all over the country all the time, and im just not seeing this collapse. I see houses, apartment buildings, offices, hospitals, malls all being built, with restaurants packed. This whole religion of "collapse" is getting to the point where i think alot of you know its bullshit but you have grown to enjoy this banter. Its a complete waste of time.
By the way, i do my own grocery shopping, and food prices are not way up. Milk 2.50, bread .99 cents, green peppers 3/1.00, mexican tomatoes 1.99 pd, carrots .69/pd. We are eating good and cheap in the USA.
Bread 99 cents? Huh? Bread is $3.99/loaf at Trader Joes, which is not exactly fancy. Where do you shop, the used food store? And I wouldn't call Mexican tomatoes good eating at any price. Fresh produce these days is coated with plastics to keep it fresh-seeming (what, you thought they used edible wax? no, not any more)(http://realitybloger.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/that-isn-wax-on-your-apple/). Those coatings are totally unregulated in Mexico; they can coat your produce with whatever they want to, and guess what, the country that has mass graves full of college students, is not picky about the safety of the food they export.
Enjoy your cheap Mexican green peppers.
That's OK because I get all the antibiotics I need in my meat.
Yes .99 for basic white bread, 1.99 for 100% whole wheat. As far as the mexican produce goes, it tastes great and is really nice to have summer produce in the winter. Nutrition wise im not sure if it is much different all i know is at the doctors office they dont bother drawing my blood because my blood pressure is excellent and my resting heartrate is in the 40 beats/minute, indicating a very healthy body.
THERE IS NO COLLAPSE IT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN AND THE LONGER YOU PEOPLE KEEP LISTENING TO THESE ASSHOLES AND GIVING THEM NOTORIETY THE LONGER YOU PEOPLE WILL EXIST IN GRIDLOCK!
Vegetative forms of life are not under psychological stress (they don't have to deal with much information), and so can have very low blood/sap pressure.
Green bell peppers here 2 for $4
I am surprised to find "reading books" is lumped in with the other bad behaviors.
Perhaps the author means reading contemporary books. I hope so. Though I am not quite certain if the author's own blog qualifies as "surfing the internet" and thus is one of the bad behaviors.
Articles of this nature remind me of the old man wearing two wooden signs that each read 'The End is Near' or something similar. (probably 'The End Draws Nigh', but they don't teach nigh anymore)
Though this author seems a bit confusing. One in deriding his own work, and two in using ad hominem attacks while trying to ride the moral high ground. Perhaps if the author read some books (bad behavior, I know) he would be less likely to fall into these forms of fallacious reasoning.
I like what the Boy Scouts say: "Be Prepared". Seems more concise than the author's 1100+ articles.
Now is the end coming? Probably not. Look what happened to Europe and Germany in particular during World War II. No end then.
If I wasn't a libertarian (aka anarchist (no not antichrist-ha ha)) I would be a cornucopia-ist, or maybe a constitutionalist though I hear they are now listed as terrorists.
Think about what it takes to keep the 47% happy. Food, housing and TV. Agriculture is in excess of 99% automated. And the rest will be automated shortly.
Seems like there is plenty of housing stock from what I read. I am also told that TV programming is very inexpensive to produce.
The other 53%? They like to work, so there will be no shortage of labor.
Author suffers from so called Cassandra curse. Many tens of thousands on this globe see what’s coming, not because they can predict future by because they remember the past and have courage see today as it is with all its brutal realism.
It’s true that refusal, to face however harsh reality of the moment leads to fear, panic, desperation but most of all, loss of human dignity trying to hold on to something that is already lost, not there anymore while there is nothing in the world can be done do about it. But it’s never easy getting there.
It takes years of denial, unfounded hope, turning away from facts and direct warnings. Holding onto illusions and empty promises. Holding to idealistic faith in people close to us, who we really know nothing about. Accepting false assurances from state, corporate world, religious authorities we are truly ignorant about. Believing in propaganda of better future for all of us, cause it feels good. Sweeping under rug acute cases of reality breaking in and pushing through our eyes wide shut. Behaving like sheep trusting their shepherd, because it feels safer, at the gates of slaughterhouse.
Such, unconditionally trusting, fearful people are called optimistic, and exactly such people, ironically, building foundations of the rule of usurpers who in turn are source of their misery so unbearable that can only be denied.
The realists live everyday in existential pain, being unable to connect with their kin to tell them that reality is not as horrible but it is made horrible by tacit support of people who refuse to face it.
Cassandra curse is about helplessness realists continuously tortured by seeing future coming but never able to save people on the way to their providence.
The storm is coming and only chance to survive is to wake up people from their torpor, rebuild close human, un-negotiated by power, money and propaganda, relations with them, based on love, compassion and sacrifice. It is our only insurance, when desperately in need of someone’s helping hand in our future desperate land, that we receive it for sure.
Michael Snyder: "The truth does not bring fear and despair."
Wrong. The vast majority of people live in denial because they cannot handle the truth due in part to human psychology (take path of least resistance, simply believe what TPTB say) and educational/societal brainwashing from birth which results in an inability to think/act as independent individuals. Those who do manage to become individuals despite the brainwashing soon become seen as "radicals", "extremists", "loners" and "non-conformists".
When the mindless majority choose to jump off the cliff, the minority are expected to comply with that decision or be outcast.
When unavoidably confronted with truth, the majority become scared, fearful and panic.
Michael Snyder: "Rather, the truth brings hope and it sets people free."
It should do but mostly does not for the reasons stated above..
"When the mindless majority choose to jump off the cliff, the minority are expected to comply with that decision or be outcast."
This is wrong. The truth is that there is a tether tied to the feet of the minority that activates when the majority jump of the cliff, dragging the minority over it.
WE do not go willingly with the majority.
No, my comment was not wrong. There are some situations where you are correct, especially when it comes to government and its decisions etc. In these situations, yes, WE do not go willingly.
But there are many situations where you are pressured into complying with majority "group-think" and if you decline because you believe they are wrong, you are then often seen as "arkward" and outcast etc as I said previously. The UN-IPCC (Intl Panel Climate Change) outfit is one excellent example of group-think at work. Meteorologists and climatologists who dissent from the official line are outcast and some have their funding cut etc.
I can't think of too many times that I "went along to get along". Yes, there are times when my GF felt that my appearance at a work function with her employer required me sit down, shut up and look straight ahead lest I say something that would jeopardize her position.
A failure of nerve though in the higher echelons such as Climate change, and the defense department budget still allows for freedm of will, and I have a hard time not seeing the 'silence that deafens' by 'heretics' as not exercising their free will, damn the consequences.
Lately though I have found that its vice versa, the "minority are shutting down the majority", as in the evenuality of gay 'marriage', gay anything really, and the use of torture.
"Anyone with half a brain should be able to see that.. blah.. doom.. blah.. end.."
And anyone with two halves should be able to see the solutions.
To Your guess is a...
So what is the solution? I haven't two halves- does blah..doom..blah..end mean you are forecasting nuclear warfare will end it?
I have no faith in existing superstructure and institutions. I am reconciled to the fact that I may have to eat my neighbours. I am looking for better, younger neighbours who might be amenable to feeding me when the time comes. I urge everyone to evaluate those around them and nurture them as a food source for when the day comes that hunting and gathering begin in earnest
There is no peace EXCEPT through (The Greatest MAN To Ever Live) Jesus Christ.
John 14:27
www.tltf.org
Shalom
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