The truth is dark, but it’s something everyone needs to hear.
“Collapse” requires definition. Here it means rapid, large-scale loss of central government control, major state institutions failing, or descent into widespread civil war and state disintegration within ~2–3 years. Predicting exact collapse is impossible; instead, identify countries where credible risk of severe state failure by 2027 is meaningful based on current trajectories of political fragmentation, economic shock, elite fracture, external intervention, and insurgency. Factors considered: weak state capacity, severe economic crisis (inflation, currency collapse, debt default), active or escalating armed insurgencies, elite splits, loss of monopoly on violence, humanitarian breakdown, and major external interference.
High-risk cases (elevated probability of collapse or severe state failure by 2027)
Libya: Persistent fragmentation between rival governments, powerful militias, foreign backers, and a stagnant political process. Renewed fighting or collapse of a fragile power-sharing balance could produce rapid state failure.
Yemen: Ongoing multi-sided war, collapsing institutions, and chronic humanitarian catastrophe. A political or military shock—renewed large-scale offensives, foreign withdrawal, or fragmentation—could accelerate collapse in the near term.
Somalia: Longstanding governance gaps, fragile federal-local relations, and an active al-Shabaab insurgency. Setbacks in international support, internal elite splits, or major military defeats could tip parts of the country into broader loss of state control.
South Sudan: Deep elite polarization, recurring localized conflict, weak institutions, and economic distress. Renewed large-scale ethnic fighting or breakdown of power-sharing arrangements can lead to rapid unraveling.
Haiti: Severe political vacuum, gang rule in Port-au-Prince, economic collapse, and limited state capacity. Continued inability to restore security or credible governance creates a substantial near-term risk of de facto collapse in major population centers.
Significant risk (not imminent collapse but materially elevated chance of serious state failure)
Sudan: Though a major collapse occurred after the 2023 military–militia war, the country remains at high risk of further breakdown, wider fragmentation, or long-term partition depending on conflict dynamics and foreign intervention patterns.
Afghanistan: Taliban controls territory but faces economic collapse, governance legitimacy deficits, insurgent pockets, and humanitarian crisis. Renewed insurgency, external shock, or loss of central cohesion could produce deeper state failure in certain regions.
Lebanon: Economic collapse, dysfunctional politics, and Hezbollah’s armed autonomy create risk of institutional paralysis, local state-within-state dynamics, and potential escalation into broader collapse under a severe shock.
Burkina Faso / Mali / Niger (Sahel states): Military regimes, insurgencies, economic strain, and eroding public services increase the chance of deeper state failure or de facto fragmentation if insurgent gains accelerate or coups produce prolonged delegitimization.
Ethiopia: Tigray war and other internal conflicts undermined national cohesion. Broader spread of ethnic violence or renewed large-scale interstate war could precipitate severe loss of central control in regions.
Moderate risk or conditional vulnerability (vulnerable to collapse given severe shocks)
Pakistan: Economic crisis, political instability, and tensions between civilian elites and the military create vulnerability; outright collapse remains less likely absent a catastrophic chain of events, but regional destabilization could produce severe governance failures.
Venezuela: Deep economic collapse and institutional erosion have created de facto state dysfunction already; full institutional breakdown or fragmentation is possible if supply chains, security structures, or elite bargains break down further.
Myanmar: Military junta controls much territory but faces an increasingly effective armed resistance and economic collapse; prolonged insurgency and loss of control in border regions could produce de facto partition or collapse in parts of the country.
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): Chronic localized violence, weak state capacity, and resource-driven armed groups make certain provinces liable to state failure if conflict intensifies or international response weakens.
Argentina / Sri Lanka cases: severe economic crisis combined with weak institutions increases risk of deep instability, though collapse into total state failure is less probable within this timeframe.
Key caveats and framing
“Collapse” is a spectrum: full territorial collapse is rarer than regional state failure, institutional paralysis, or prolonged civil war. Many countries slip into de facto fragmentation without formal dissolution.
Time horizon matters: 2027 is near-term; most state collapses result from multi-year deterioration plus triggering shocks (civil war spark, elite split, economic default, major external intervention, natural disaster).
External actors and international responses matter: foreign military support, sanctions, peacekeeping, or emergency assistance can prevent collapse or, conversely, exacerbate it.
Prognostic uncertainty: forecasting political violence is inherently probabilistic. The listed countries are those where existing evidence—ongoing conflict, governance failure, economic collapse, elite fragmentation, and foreign entanglements—produces a meaningful near-term risk profile.
Practical indicators to watch through 2026–2027
Loss of government revenue or hyperinflation/currency collapse.
Major defections in security forces or breakdown in command-and-control.
Large-scale internal displacement and humanitarian access collapse.
Significant territorial gains by non-state armed groups.
Public elite fragmentation (competing governments, rival capitals).
Withdrawal or escalation of foreign backers and peacekeepers.
Examples of typical collapse pathways (illustrative)
Rapid military defeat of central forces by insurgents combined with elite flight and international disengagement (e.g., scenarios similar to 1990s state failures).
Fragmentation of the capital into gang-controlled enclaves, paralysis of national institutions, and humanitarian breakdown (Haiti-like trajectory).
Prolonged siege/war between rival factions with foreign proxies turning the conflict into de facto partition (Libya-like).
Summary judgment By 2027 the countries with the most credible near-term risk of collapse or severe state failure are Libya, Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan, and Haiti, with Sudan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Sahel states, and Myanmar carrying significant conditional risk. Many other fragile states remain vulnerable to collapse if compounded by major shocks. Continuous monitoring of the indicators above will give the best short-term signal of accelerating failure.
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You have to define “economic collapse”. The Bush Recession of 2008 was a serious economic collapse and came close to being a major catastrophe. The Trump Recession of 2020 was also quite bad and we experienced economic hardships not seen since the Depression.
So, what would be an economic collapse to you? Could those things happen again? Sure. As bad as those times were, it could be worse. I think the economic collapse of 1929 was much worse because we didn’t even have the tools or the knowledge we now have. At the time, Herbert Hoover’s solution was to raise taxes. No one would ever raise taxes in a collapse now.
The US has, through it’s history, suffered many major economic collapses. If not for the war of 1812 it’s possible the US would have dissolved as the result of economic crisis.
In the old days there were absolutely no mechanisms to ease the pain of collapse – no unemployment insurance, no CCC, no food stamps or welfare, no tax breaks or rebates – nothing. When the economy collapsed it stayed broken until it fixed itself, something that took a long time and a great deal of hardship requiring enormous sacrifices.
The first big collapse in 1819 changed the fabric of the nation. It was caused by land speculation, lack of any banking regulation and the crazy inflationary practices of banks that printed their own money. When the crash occurred, they refused to honor their obligation to trade gold for their worthless currency. In addition, the US government defaulted on 19 million dollars of war bonds it issued to pay for the War of 1812. The crash was precipitated by world economic woes after the Napoleonic wars and exacerbated by poor government polices and inaction by President Monroe. The impact was major migrations of people who lost everything, notably to what later became “Texas”. Without the collapse, there would be no Texas. It also created the understanding that the country needed a national school system and began the policy of the “One Room Schoolhouses” as an organized, metered and supervised government activity.
Other huge collapses happened in 1837 and 1857. In 1837 the lack of a central bank and any bank regulation led once again to runaway inflation and the lack of real gold and silver to back the money. The major banks in the US refused to honor the gold commitments again and there was no regulation of bank of last recourse. The panic was started by a worldwide collapse in the price of cotton, America’s biggest export and resulted in a domino effect of unemployment, stagnation and deflation. In those days, the US was a resource exporter dependent largely on Europe to consume our resources and when a recession hit Europe, it crippled the US. Once the deflation set in, the collapse fed on itself. There were food and flour riots by people who had no money for food and no jobs. However, at the time, the US was undergoing a technological transformation and railroads, steam power, industry, and so on began an explosion that suddenly employed people at good wages and literally saved the United States. At the same time, the Gold Rush began which caused migration and forced a lot of specie into the system that was starved for gold and silver. The sudden need for lumber, coal, steel and so on outstripped the power of cotton on the economy and great fortunes were made. However, no banking regulations or central bank was created to help solve future problems.
In 1857, the first worldwide Depression occurred. The US had rapidly over expanded to meet the needs of local and international needs and when Europe fell onto hard times, the newly invented telegraph sent the news around the world which caused rash financial decisions the were bad for the economy. The telegraph was the main cause for the rapid and massive collapse as all over the US people became immediately aware of the crisis, which allowed it to feed on itself. It was exacerbated by the loss of the SS Central America caused great panic because New York, the financial controller of America, was depending on that gold to pay off its debts and back its specie. The US still had no monetary controls, central bank and all the banks printed their own money, as much as they wanted, resulting in local inflation. The Panic of 1857 was remarkably similar to the crash of 2008. The nations biggest food supplier collapsed, precipitating the collapse of the insurance companies backing it resulting in the collapse of credit and the bankruptcy of many railroads. Midwestern farm communities collapsed as commodity prices fell to pennies. Entire towns went bankrupt, but compared to the North, which was dependent on railroads and supplies coming from the South and Midwest, the Depression was much less felt and helped lead to the Civil War by making southern politicians realize the power of their products and the weakness of the Northern financial system. Some banking regulations were put into place and all paper money 20 dollars and over was ordered destroyed to help quell inflation. There were also limits put on fractional lending. It became among the first time the Federal Government exerted its authority over the banking system, something Lincoln would expand during the Civil War.
One thing we have learned is that nations need strong central banks; there needs to be tight monetary control and that we are all interconnected across the world, moreso than ever now. The US has 3 trillion dollars in exports – 1/8th of the economy. Should exports fail due to world crisis, America would fall into a self-perpetuating collapse of all its interlocked systems. Unemployment would skyrocket. The other thing we’ve learned is that no matter how bad things get, they always seem to recover. People have to eat, they have to live somewhere and they have to move around. This means some minimum level of economic activity will always be supported.
One need only look at Russia in its current circumstances to see how resilient nations are economically. The US could sustain its economy through government intervention alone. There would be hardship but it would be cushioned. So a total collapse of the US is highly unlikely. The US can grow all the food it needs and can produce all the oil it requires. Based on those two factors alone, the US can survive any major economic cataclysm albeit at some seriously reduced circumstances and with enormous hardship, homelessness, migration and pain. In a major economic collapse it would take enormous national will to prevent a dictator from seizing power – will we probably don’t have. A dictator could command the economy with all the pitfalls that entails, but it would also feed the people and in the end, bread and circuses have always served dictators.
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According to- abcnews.go.com: Beyond the banking world, a parallel universe of shadow banks has grown in the form of hedge funds and money market funds. They’re outside the reach of conventional financial regulation, prompting authorities to plan introducing new rules to prevent the obscure sector from triggering a new financial crisis. But in doing so they risk drying up an important source of funding to banks and firms.
In the financial world, there is a narrow divide between heaven and hell. Frenchman Loïc Féry realized this when he was 33. He was a rising star in the banking world, managing the trade in complex loan packages for an investment bank. According to his business card, he was the bank’s “global head of credit markets.” But then one of his employees gambled away about €250 million ($317 million), and suddenly Féry was without a job.
In any alternative media space, you are sure to find much talk about US dollar dominance, as well as optimistic forecasts of its imminent decline. This is also true in the radical right, where nationalists pine after an end to US imperial hegemony and the rise of a more multipolar world.
Often though, this hope is little more than wishful thinking, with unlikely challengers to US power much overhyped. This is especially true concerning US dollar hegemony, a topic that is ripe for misunderstanding at the best of times.
It’s important to keep in mind that people have been forecasting the decline of the dollar ever since it attained its status as global reserve currency. As far back as 1960, the economist Robert Triffin was warning of an “imminent threat to the once-mighty US dollar”. Understanding the reason for Triffin’s pessimism, and why it turned out to be misguided, is crucial to understanding today’s global monetary system and the enduring dominance of the dollar.
Triffin’s concerns were more informed than most: his “Triffin dilemma”, as it came to be known, highlighted an inherent problem with a country’s national currency also serving as the reserve currency of choice for the international system. The country supplying the world with the reserve currency has to produce a surplus of money, thereby creating a trade deficit. In other words, the supplier country needs to be continually losing money to fill up the reserves of other countries and make the currency a low-risk option to hold as a reserve. But if the supplier country becomes too indebted to the rest of the world in this scenario, then its currency ceases to be such a low-risk asset, and that’s the dilemma.
After World War II, the US sent lots of dollars abroad through the Marshall Plan, military spending, and the American middle-class importing lots of foreign goods. So how did the domestic US dollar get around Triffin’s dilemma? It didn’t.
Enter the Eurodollar
Triffin’s dilemma was especially a problem for the US dollar because it was backed by gold. After all, what would happen when the world needed more dollars than US gold reserves could back? Much like the kind of collapse that would happen if everyone tried to withdraw their money from banks at the same time, the whole system faced implosion if the US could not keep its foreign dollars backed up with gold.
The standard story is that this problem was resolved in 1971, when Richard Nixon ended the Bretton Woods international system and finally decoupled the US dollar from gold. But by this point, private banks had already long replaced gold exchange and quietly adopted a new form of exchange, extricated from any reserves or real currency, this was a truly global, offshore economic system outside the purview of central banks. This was the Eurodollar system. In this context, “Euro” is used as a synonym for “offshore” rather than referring to actual euros. So, the Eurodollar system is the shadow, offshore money system denominated in US dollars.
No one is really sure of how the Eurodollar system emerged (more on that later), but by the late 1950s there had been a huge growth in US dollar deposits in European banks, mostly in the City of London. With pre-war practices, these deposits would have been remitted to the central bank or deposited to the banks’ accounts in the U.S., but gradually, banks began to use these dollar deposits to issue loans denominated in US dollars. By 1959, the economist Paul Einzig reported that
The Eurodollar market was for years hidden from economists and other readers of the financial press by a remarkable conspiracy of silence. I stumbled on its existence by sheer accident in October 1959, and when I embarked on an enquiry about it in London banking circles several bankers emphatically asked me not to write about the new practice.
Britain’s economic goal of making London a center for international financial capital manifested in deregulation and comprehensive secrecy protections; this gave the city a competitive edge against other European countries, and put it and its web of British offshore territories at the very centre of this emerging system.
Since the election of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in 1979, Britain has undergone a great experiment. Economically, the UK became the exemplar of neoliberalism in Europe. Politically, the UK has quietly transitioned to a postnational state, undergoing one of the greatest demographic transformations in the West.
As the Eurodollar market exploded, it became the lifeblood of the global economy, quickly fulfilling a need banks had for an international currency system. Banks could now transact rapidly and efficiently across countries and continents without the need of a physical currency, an innovation that helped unleash economic activity. The Eurodollar system functioned like an early cryptocurrency, existing as a digital ledger and communications network rather than a traditional currency.
Driving the global economy is a kind of bankers virtual currency, created by and used to satisfy the demands of banks, a series of claims and liabilities exchanged between banks to meet their monetary needs. How can you travel to Indonesia and make an instant withdrawal from an ATM, withdrawing from your local bank back home? Only with a vastly complex and efficient communications network connecting the global banking system.
The Eurodollar was the emergence of this system, and central banks have little control over it. For all the scare-mongering from libertarians about “Fed money-printing”, it is international bankers — outside the regulations of the US Federal Reserve — who are the ones in control of creating the US dollar supply on international markets. Big commercial banks create Eurodollars using the offshore system without the backing of the Federal Reserve. This is done through fractional lending, where dollar deposits are used as collateral to loan out a higher amount of dollars.
Again: private banks create money out of thin air by creating debt
Discovering money creation rests with private banks is a revelation that tends to shock people and send them into a state of denial — surely the state would not outsource something this fundamental to private actors.
But don’t take my word for it, a source as good as the Bank of England wrote in a report titled “Money creation in the modern economy” that:
Most of the money in circulation is created, not by the printing presses of the Bank of England, but by the commercial banks themselves: banks create money whenever they lend to someone in the economy or buy an asset from consumers. And, in contrast to descriptions found in some textbooks, the Bank of England does not directly control the quantity of either base, or broad money. Of the two types of broad money, bank deposits make up the vast majority – 97% of the amount currently in circulation. And in the modern economy, those bank deposits are mostly created by commercial banks themselves.
So international bankers have created a shadow money system, with the Eurodollar system functioning as a kind of “dark energy” of the global economy, ever-present but unseen, something which the US Federal Reserve or any other central bank can do little to control. In fact, no one even knows how much money exists in the Eurodollar system, with estimates measuring it in anything from tens to hundreds of trillions. As the economist Fritz Machlup once told a meeting of his colleagues:
We don’t even know enough about the Eurodollar market to say that it should be controlled.
If you want to visualise what this shadow money system looks like, this is an attempt at illustrating all the instruments involved in the supply of the US dollar:
Still confused? You’re not alone. If this illustrates anything, it’s that the federal reserve and central banking is just a small part of the story. This enormously complex web developed over decades through private institutions, satisfying the need for a truly global money system unconstrained by national barriers.
But in the process of decoupling the dollar from Federal Reserve reserve control, bankers have given themselves the power to create unsanctioned and unregulated money. This translates to enormous power to override national government’s monetary policy and fulfill many of the roles most people assume central banks and their governments are handling:
Because Eurocurrencies give private financial institutions the unrestricted ability to expand the availability of a particular currency, the country whose currency is the target of the Euroinstrument no longer has exclusive control over its money supply.
…
Furthermore, the lack of reserve requirements on Eurodollars creates a potentially infinite money multiplier, potentially leading to an infinite degree of inflation, all without the input of the Federal Reserve or the U.S. Treasury. Thus, the power to control the number of dollars (or dollar-equivalent instruments) in the market has been taken out of the exclusive control of U.S. authority and diffused among foreign banking institutions.
Discussion around economics is still heavily focused on central bank monetary policy and government programs like Quantitative Easing, which helps maintain the illusion that it’s still accountable, elected representatives with the final say.
It’s understandable we are biased to focus on government institutions: it has always been understood that monetary sovereignty is a prerequisite for political sovereignty. But it is now clear that governments have quietly surrendered a great degree of monetary sovereignty to the private interests running the international banking system — one of the most significant and revolutionary political changes ever, yet one hardly discussed.
It’s shocking to discover the scope and influence of this system, and to discover everything presented here has been out in the open for years, strangely ignored or overlooked by popular economists, financial analysts and politicians alike. Yet some esteemed economists like Paul Einzig and Milton Friedmandid identify and study this system, and both also wrote of a grand “conspiracy of silence” by the global banking cartel to hide its existence. Since most economic analysis still ignores it, we are left with an always partial view of how the economy functions.
Why the dollar isn’t going away
There is another important realisation that comes with understanding the shadow money system: the Eurodollar is the real global reserve currency. The emergence of the Eurodollar system was an emergent innovation, coming from the many players involved in the global financial system seeking the maximally efficient form of money to handle their business. Understanding this helps us understand why it will be so hard to dethrone the dollar from its dominant position.
Imagine a world without the dollar. Suppose a German manufacturer needs to import raw materials from Brazil. The Brazilian exporter prefers to be paid in Brazilian reals, while the German importer has funds in euro. Only, there isn’t much from Europe the Brazilian company is interested in spending its new euro on, and constantly exchanging currencies can be costly and time-consuming.
However, with the Eurodollar system, the German importer can use its euro deposits to create a Eurodollar deposit in a German bank. This Eurodollar deposit can then be transferred to a Brazilian bank, which converts it to Brazilian reals and pays the exporter. The Brazilian bank can hold the Eurodollar deposit or use it to fund its own Eurodollar lending activities. Everybody wins! (Or so it must have seemed to the people inventing this system.)
Now imagine a government or governments trying to replace this. There are decades worth of highly complex and interwoven technological arrangements that have made this system function seamlessly. The dollar retains its strength because there is a constant demand for US Treasury securities backing this system.
Looking at how financiers are treating these securities, the dollar looks more secure than ever: US Treasury data reveals the foreign demand for these securities has massively increased in recent years. Holdings of long-term US Treasuries by private foreign investors jumped about 52% over the past three years to $3.4 trillion, for the first time overtaking the holdings of central banks.
Notice that the story here is not about US aircraft carriers or puppet regimes, but the private interests of the bankers that make up this system. A lot of dollar-doomers make a case that is all about geopolitics. The US is an ailing empire they say; it has a large and growing list of enemies, as well as potential challengers on the world stage like China, and we are entering a multipolar age where the US cannot dominate the world’s affairs like it did in the 20th Century. That may all be true, but it doesn’t make the Eurodollar system any less efficient for the global banking cartel.
China has put much effort trying to make its yuan a viable alternative to the dollar, and for all that, less than 3% of the world’s foreign-exchange reserves are denominated in yuan. By one estimate, the dollar is a part of 88% of all international transactions, the euro 31%, while the yuan is involved in just 7% (more than one currency can be involved in a transaction.)
If China wanted to make the yuan a true global reserve currency, they would need to embrace massive financial deregulation and abolish their currently strict capital controls, in order to allow massive inflows of foreign held currency and yuan into China. But China needs to maintain its strict financial regulation for domestic economic success, and political stability. China is unlikely to ever decide to abandon the statist model it has followed for decades just to make itself a better hub for the international financial system.
Some have touted BRICS, of which China is a member, as potentially leading the way in establishing an alternative monetary system. On paper, this looks more promising: BRICS countries have 42% of the world’s population, and an estimated 37% of the world’s GDP.
Could BRICS go about establishing a currency? Presumably, it would need a central bank, and presumably that would be centered in China, representing an unacceptable loss of sovereignty to other countries in the alliance, especially India, with whom it has ongoing territorial conflicts. The idea of a “BRICS coin” has been floated a lot over the years, either backed by gold or fully digital. But just last year, the head of BRICS’ New Development Bank made it clear there are no immediate plans for the group to create a common currency.
Even if BRICS were willing to put aside their disagreements and commit to a BRICS coin, it’s hard to see what competitive advantage it would have over the current system. A gold-backed currency? Bankers abandoned gold and embraced the Eurodollar system in the first place because gold-backed currency was a hindrance to their activities.
What about the “R” in BRICS? Perhaps Russia’s fortunes point to a potential alternative to dollar dominance. After all, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US government has weaponised the financial system in ways previously unseen. Is this not a display to the world of the precarity of relying on the good graces of America to sustain your financial system? Many reasoned that if the United States overplayed its hand sanctioning Russia, this is the lesson the rest of the world would take, and then it would only be a matter of time before enough interested parties conspired to take down the mighty dollar.
The most headline grabbing sanction against Russia came when the US and its Western allies invoked what some analysts called “the nuclear option”, and colluded to take Russia off of SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication). This was highly significant, as SWIFT is used by banks worldwide as a kind of instant messaging service. President Biden promised that this would “ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally.”
With the basic understanding of the US dollar as something strictly under the control of the US government, many assumed they could just deny Russia access to the dollar by cutting them off from the SWIFT system. But despite the high-profile deplatforming, Russian banks suffered little more than an inconvenience from being denied access to SWIFT, because of how effective the Eurodollar system is.
Eurodollar economist Jeffrey Snider summarised the problem with this attempt at deplatforming the Russian economy:
SWIFT constitutes very little insofar as the inner workings of the offshore banking network is concerned.
…
Deprive some of Russia’s institutions their ability to message to correspondents using SWIFT and they’ll simply communicate (how’s that for more irony!) with them some other way (including just picking up the phone) because the offshore correspondents are still there. They will continue to conduct their monetary business regardless of the method payments requests are sent and received.
Ironically, the very fact the US government could do so little to hinder Russian banks’ access to the Eurodollar market shows why it is so effective, and why the dollar will keep its position for the foreseeable future.
This takes us back to the start of this story, when the Eurodollar market emerged under shady and secretive circumstances in the city of London. I wrote no one is really sure how the Eurodollar emerged, but the most likely theory is that the real origin actually lies with the Soviet Union.
In 1956, the Soviets were also in the position of fearing international sanction for invading a smaller neighbour. After they crushed the 1956 rebellion in Hungary, Soviet officials feared the US would target their holdings of dollar deposits in American banks.
In response, the Soviets withdrew their dollars and moved them to two Russian banks based in Europe: Commercial pour L’Europe du Nord (BCEN) in Paris, and the Moscow Narodny Bank in London. Using those dollar deposits, these Russian banks may have become the first lenders in the global Eurodollar market.
On February 28, 1957, the Moscow Narodny Bank in London lent out $800,000. This modest sum was borrowed and repaid entirely outside the American banking system — or any centralised banking system. Bankers had just discovered an amazing innovation. BCEN in Paris also took some Narodny dollars and lent them out. The Paris bank was known by its telex name EUROBANK, and that, supposedly, is how dollars deposited in banks outside the US came to be known as “Eurodollars”.
And so, in one of the great ironies of history, the 20th Century’s great communist regime sparked an innovation on the financial markets that greatly expanded the power of capital and moved the activities of bankers beyond the scope of governments.
The Eurodollar system became so dominant because of innovations from people trying to avoid US government control of their dollars, and that’s precisely why the system is so resilient — to alternate currencies, to geopolitical shocks, and to the US government itself.
Nothing lasts forever, but for now, global dollar dominance is on pretty solid ground.
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For those professing a preference for one type of government over another, anugly reality is they all cut from the same cloth. Whether we are talking about Democracy,Communism, Socialism, or Fascism the strong link they share is one of dominance and a desire to control. While seen as vastly different systems with distinct goals, each is rooted in the promise people should sacrifice as needed for “the greater good.” The main flaw in a democracy is that it allows a simple majority to force their desires upon others. This is why our forefathers set checks and balances in the Constitution, however, even these do not guarantee freedom will remain.
Today, the burden of risk and the amount of “skin in the game” is not equally shared by all of society. Over time our financial system and institutions have been corrupted by crony capitalism and a political system that panders to the masses by exchanging favors for baubles. It could be argued that those in power don’t have to take away our freedom by force if we are willing to surrender it or trade it for a few paid weeks off work. Nor do they have to be fair in how they go about this if they simply get a majority of the populace to go along with their plan.
The suspicion governments are self-serving creatures is apparent in the old school British imperial definition of “commerce” which used free trade as a cover for the military dominance of weak nations. Those put in a position of being exploited often saw this as simply a ruse promoted by those wishing to abuse them. In short, opening borders and turning off protectionism simply makes it easier to rob countries of their wealth. America, a wayward child of England, has been accused of following this same path.
In a 2020 article a case was made that the world was headed towards an economic crisis due to several factors. The problem is that such a scenario encompasses all aspects of life, from food and energy, to supply chains, geopolitics, and possibly even war. This article is an effort to offer up some ideas on how governments might respond to such an event based on current trends and some of the events that have occurred during the covid-19 pandemic. If we accept the idea that governments are self-serving and that a huge majority of the people suffer during an economic depression, we should expect frictions to develop as the populace seeks solutions to ease their pain.
Sadly, governments across the world have overreached and crushed the rights of individuals during the pandemic. People have been denied the ability to travel, locked in their homes, followed by drones, and even been jailed. This may have been just a taste of what we might expect if governments are put under pressure to perform. Many people have pointed to the fact that in the past “war has been the go-to answer” often used to take our eyes off of problems. Hopefully, that will not be the case, however, many of the other options possible in the age of almost total surveillance do not seem much better.
It is wise to remember that when all is said and done, those in power will not be kind to us but they will rapidly throw us under the bus without a thought. Silencing dissidents or those that protest or disagree by limiting free speech is only a start. Lock-downs and curfews take on a whole new meaning when harshly enforced. They can include things like house arrest, cutting power, links to the internet and communication, and even water to areas where unrest gets out of hand. You can expect governments to remove anything that gives us the power to control our fate.
The topic of our future and culture always circles back to and is directly linked to the issue of jobs vanishing as automation and an army of robots march into our workplace. This can result in a future that takes on a very grim dystopian appearance. The fear of being replaced by a robot or seeing your job being outsourced or eliminated is on the rise. Do not be surprised if in the end those displaced from the job market are only given enough to ensure they remain docile and behave. If and when this becomes an issue conflict and violence will arise.
While some people credit Rahm Emanuel with the saying, Winston Churchill was the first to say, “Neverletagoodcrisisgotowaste.” He said it in the mid-1940s as we were approaching the end of World War II, and history indicates those in government have taken heed. The one thing we can count on is that when things crumble, the old, “we should have done more” or the “it would have been far worse” lines always flow forth from those in charge. Under this logic, we should be prepared to be subjected to massive abuse by those with strong agendas.
Possibly, one of the most dire threats we face flows from the combination of big tech and those in pursuit of the highly touted one-world agenda. This brings together a slew of organizations, governments, companies, wealthy, individuals, and bankers with the goal of expanding their power. The gathering in Davos of the World Economic Forum is not for our benefit but more for plutocrats like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos that desire to “break the world” with their ruthless agendas to bring more political power into their hands. Recently a great deal of attention has been given to some of the ideas and vision the WEF has floated. One of the most powerful became visible when WEF public relations released a video entitled: “8 Predictions for the World in 2030. Its 2030 agenda offers a telling glimpse into what the technocratic elite has in store for the rest of us. It promotes the idea that by 2030 “You will own nothing. And you’ll be happy.
How do you begin to fight or turn back a force that has even incorporated and leveraged the ever-present smartphone as an ultra-powerful surveillance device? By developing programs to organize phone data so that it provides real-time intelligence on every citizen, and using it to guide and influence our actions the power of the state has been deeply enhanced. The digital age has made it far easier for government to seize our computers and records to shape a case against anyone by massaging the data as they see fit. The reason we hear so little criticism of these actions from our government may be that we are next in line to have our freedom culled. Governments are not the friend of the average man. Orwell wrote about how governments could take on a life of their own and criticized totalitarianism throughout his writings.
Totalitarianism, the most extreme and complete form of authoritarianism is a political concept that defines a mode of government, which prohibits opposition parties, restricts individual opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life. Political power in totalitarian states is generally pushed by those on the far left or right with strong agendas and an all-encompassing propaganda campaign, which is disseminated through mass media. Signs of its growth are often marked by political repression, growing control over the economy, restriction of speech, and mass surveillance.
Of course, a huge step in individuals losing control over their lives would be the adoption of a single world currency.Those in charge of our financial machinery have indicated to the public their desire for more power. This means creating a truly global centralized economic system and a highly controlled world currency framework dominated by a select cult of banking oligarchs. This would, in effect makes the rest of the human race their slaves. The banking elites are positioning themselves to avoid blame for a disaster in which all fiat currencies fall in value by selling us on an elaborate recovery con-game which includes converting to a new worldwide currency. Remember, this is conceived and perpetuated by those with the most to gain.
For years the IMF has been discussing replacing the dollar with the SDR as the world reserve currency. It would require governments to borrow from the world central banking authority, rather than printing currency to finance their infrastructure programs. With governments floating the idea of going cashless and to digital currencies, this would give them even greater control over our lives. To be clear, the elites are positioned and merely waiting for a geopolitical disaster or catastrophe so overwhelming that when the time arrives they can portray themselves as our saviors by carrying out this plan.
This is all part of the New World Order and globalization idea pushed by many of the rich elite and world leaders. It contends that larger, more cooperative governments under one financial unit will benefit us all. The fact is Americans have a great deal to lose if the dollar is dethroned and declines in value. Those who will be crucified are the middle-class Americans whose wealth is locked into or are holding long-term USD bonds thinking they are a safe investment. To Americans, the fate of dollar-dominated assets and their value when the dust finally settles should be a huge concern but most Americans fail to grasp the implications.
The transition to a world currency would take a far greater toll on paper assets than tangible goods. While recognizing the flaws of the dollar and our current system I have come to believe the other fiat currencies such as the euro and yen hold even less merit. This includes cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. Regardless, in the end, we should expect to be told and not given an option as to what is coming. If events unfold in the way those promoting a one-world currency hope, they will be able to portray cleaning up a financial mess as a blessing. The truth is, they will benefit greatly from putting a dagger in the heart of freedom. This is not written to frighten or as a prediction of doom but to dampen any illusions those at the top value those below them.
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Let’s make one thing clear. Lenders were never required by government programs to lend out more than the house was worth. That’s a myth that keeps being perpetuated.
In fact, by 2006, banks, mortage brokers and investment firms made more money from making sub-prime loans than they did from making traditional loans. That’s where our problem starts.
The modern mortgage bond was developed in the 1980s to take advantage of a market for such securities that was created by the U.S. government but was by 2000 largely operated as a private enterprise. Among these was the Federal Home Mortgage Corporation or “Freddie Mac”. Investment banks like Solomon Brothers would buy bundles of mortgages from a bank for cash, then turn them into a series of securities with various interest rates and risk possibilities and then sell them to pension funds and hedge funds. Mortgage bonds paid slightly higher returns than government bonds but, because they were backed by Freddie Mac, they were seen as the equivalent of government bonds from a risk perspective.
However, by the early 2000s the mortgage bond market was pretty saturated – just about everyone who wanted a mortgage had one. Mortgage bonds were very lucrative for investment banks and they made a lot of money off of them, more than they did from corporate bonds or underwriting stock issues. The question was how to grow the market.
Sub-prime lending was the answer, but this posed some problems. Sub-prime loans had a higher default rate and, as such, mortgage bonds based on this type of mortgage was seen as riskier, which made them harder to sell. They did offer higher interest rates, but they were not attractive to institutional investors, which was the big market.
Now, I spoke before about breaking the bonds up into different series of securities, so the investments banks dialed up this practice to 11. Each bundle of mortages would be turned into a series of (usually) three sets of securities called “tranches”. The first tranch would pay the lowest interest rate, but the holders of this tranch got first crack at the cash flow. The second tranch would pay a higher rate, but only after the first tranch was paid. The third tranch would pay the highest rate, but only after the first two were paid out.
The next step was to get the bonds “rated”. There are two “ratings agencies”, Standard & Poors and Moody’s. Long story short, the rating agencies earned fees from the brokers selling the bonds, not the buyers buying them, they would work with brokers to earn the investment grade rating (“A”) and they used a model for risk that assumed each individual mortgage would perform independently of every other mortgage. “A” grade was sold to institutional investors, “B” grade to hedge funds and the investment banks generally kept the “C” grade – no one would buy those.
In order to create more mortgage bonds, investment banks would encourage lenders to just get people to sign on the dotted line. These sub-prime mortgages were sold aggresively to people who didn’t have mortgages, either new buyers, investment buyers, or even people who had no mortgage on their existing home and needed some cash. Even if you came in with a request for a regular mortgage, a broker might push you over to a sub-prime product. Say you came in trying to buy a $200,000 house with a 10% down payment. You would instead be sold a $220,000 mortgage with a low “teaser” rate that reset in 2 years but had a lower monthly payment up front. You were told that (1) your property would go up and (2) there would be no problem re-financing your mortgage when the payments went up.
Next, some bond holders knew mortgage bonds were a bit risky so investment banks sold them insurance in case the bonds defaulted, a “credit default swap”. You paid a premium and, if the bond defaulted, you would swap the bond for the insurance amount. These had to be “underwritten” as the investment banks didn’t have the capital to pay off possible losses, so they went to big insurance companies and offered them a large share of the premium income if they would just agree to pay off any bonds that defaulted. As the insurance company saw these bonds as “A” rated, they figured they would never have to pay off.
By 2006, pretty much every possible mortgage had been sold and the market for new mortgages dried up. No problem. The investment banks just sold more credit default swaps and used that cash flow to create new bonds.
But in the second quarter of 2007, many of those mortgages with teaser rates came due. People started defaulting on the loans. The credit rating model figured defaults would be scattered, but instead on most bonds they tended to be concentrated – everyone defaulting at once.
With bonds defaulting, investors became wary of new bonds, so lenders couldn’t sell their mortgages to investment banks. They had used that money to lend out even more money and those loans started defaulting too, only this time the lenders were on the hook.
When the bonds defaulted, the credit default swaps started to be redeemed. Even before this, as the values fell, the insurance companies had to start selling assets at fire sale prices to provide collateral.
Investment banks that had heavily invested in the “C” tranches and had sold more credit default swaps were soon running out of money. Lehman Brothers defaulted on short term loans on money markets, which put money markets into a rare negative equity situation.
So:
People defaulting on mortgages they can’t afford and not being able to refinance. Thousands of properties in default.
Mortgage bonds defaulting because people aren’t making payment. This means mutual funds are going down and pension funds are in a cash crunch.
Bonds being redeemed for credit default swaps and, because banks sold more default swaps than there were mortgage bonds, the insurance companies are now holding more defaulted mortgage bonds than there were mortgages.
Property values, which were inflated by easy loans and high liquidity, start to collapse, putting many home owners (even ones with conventional loans) under water.
Because of the uncertainty in the money markets due to the bad paper there, legitimate companies like auto makers and credit card companies that borrowed heavily on money markets can’t borrow new money and instead are being asked for cash to cover their existing notes.
As such, the government had to step in and provide money to keep things orderly. They provided money to insurance companies. They took an equity share of auto companies. They set up funds to refinance mortgages in default.
Famed French Microbiologist Louis Pasteur once said that “fortune favors the prepared mind”. When the topic of the apocalypse comes up, this quote definitely holds water. If you’re truly wise, you’ll endeavor to build self-sufficient homes, stock up on necessary supplies, and research on potential scenarios to find out what else you may need | 404. One of these scenarios often touches the topic of economics and finances. A common enough question that comes up for a lot of preppers is, what value will money hold when the world, as you know it, comes to an end?
The Present Value of Money
The value of the money or currency that you carry largely affects what you can purchase like groceries or gas. It affects what sort of preparations you can do to your homestead as well. In the world’s present state, money is both goods and a method of exchange that is heavily determined by economic demand. This economical demand is greatly determined by society as a whole on what we deem is valuable like goods and services. The money will only retain its value as long as we collectively decide it is worth what we get for it.
So as of present-day standards, society puts a lot of stock in things that have a high monetary value like oil, valuable currencies (Kuwait Dinar and Bahraini Dinar), and even intangible things like intellectual property and patents. It’s not surprising that the idea that a single moment would render all of these irrelevant terrifies the masses. If you want to prepare for doomsday scenario being able to discern the difference between what’s valuable now and what’s valuable in an SHTF event is crucial.
After a Collapse
In an SHTF scenario, the value of tradable forms like coins, paper, gold, and others will suddenly come into question. Everyone who’s ever laid eyes on a movie like Mad Max or Waterworld will know that everyday things that a taken for granted end up the most valuable. When people are scrambling to grab whatever supplies they can get, no one really stops to think about the current exchange rate, how much they’ve got stowed away in banks | 410, or even the value of any stocks they’ve invested. An end of the world scenario flips the switch on what people will consider valuable and what is acceptable currency.
People who make it a point to review and practice end game scenarios should have a good idea of what things go first. After a collapse of polite society, there are certain items that will disappear in the blink of an eye like bottled water, cooking oil, charcoal, and even the contents of the frozen meat section in groceries. It is during this chaotic time that people tend to panic and grab the things that they think will help them survive.
The New Currency
65.5% of Americans have begun to stockpile what they think they need in the event of a natural or political collapse. If you are one of them, the earlier you realize that money can become completely useless the better. It is generally understood that those who do not have their own supplies will have to consider a trade or barter to obtain goods. So what exactly do you use to trade?
Popular belief would put stock in things that people take for granted like spices, sugar, salt, and even tissue paper. Entertainment will remain to be in demand so things like books, paper, pencils, and even crayons increases in value. Necessities like shoes, gas, and clean water will heighten in value as these can be difficult to come by in an emergency situation. It also stands to reason that certain items that are considered vices, like alcohol or cigarettes, will be highly valuable as well. Other basic things that will skyrocket in value will be candles, sewing kits, socks, and blankets. Things can help build fires like matches and lighters can be viable options for currency–especially if you are able to start fires naturally because of your survival skills.
Items like lumber will be an effective bartering tool as it will be used for staying warm, cooking, and even building shelter. An end of the world scenario will still see certain things maintain their value like livestock. These will continue to be tradable goods–especially ones which breed quickly and are edible like rabbits. The basics are generally considered the best forms of new currency after the endgame event. Methods and items to protect yourself with will also be extremely valuable when the time comes. While guns and ammo are good forms of currency, they’re not exactly something you’ll want to trade. Always remember that while you’re thinking of new forms of currency, there are certain things that should never be let go.
Things you Shouldn’t Treat as Currency
While there is a drive up of things that can be considered new currency, there will be things that are much too important to trade or be used as currency. Things like medicine should be guarded well. In the end days, there is no telling if more pharmaceutical drugs will be produced. Items that can help you obtain intelligence on the developing situation like radios should not be up for trade or sale. Your source of food and clean water should be guarded because your life will quite literally depend on it. When you’re assessing what are non-negotiable and which are acceptable forms of currency, it will all boil down to what you can feasibly survive without. If trading a few pounds of salt or certain pieces of livestock will not affect your survival as a whole, only then will it be considered good forms of currency on your end.
In preparation for the end times, it is important to note that economics will continue to play an integral part in society. When you have what you need, this saves you from being in the position of bartering something truly precious in exchange for basic necessities. Continuously re-evaluating the supposed value of money is always good practice when you want to shore up your survival in difficult times.
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For years, I lived with a weight in my chest that I couldn’t quite name. It was an innate feeling—a frequency—that the structures we rely on in the U.S. were far more fragile than we were told. When I first started prepping, I didn’t have a spreadsheet or a real strategy. I was moving on pure instinct.
Because I was acting before the “proof” was on the evening news, people thought I was overreacting. Some even used the “C” word—crazy. Looking back, I realize I wasted a lot of time, energy, and money on the wrong things because I was reactive rather than strategic. But I’ve learned that most people won’t see the failure until it hits their own kitchen table. By then, the window for calm preparation has already slammed shut.
You might hear people talking about a “K-shaped” economy. Think of the letter “K” and the way its two arms point in opposite directions.
The top arm: Wealthy families and big tech companies are doing great. On paper, the stock market looks “fine.”
The bottom arm: The average American family is struggling with record-high debt and the rising cost of essentials like groceries and rent.
When you see “growth” in the headlines but feel the squeeze at the register, you aren’t imagining things. The system is splitting, and the foundation most of us stand on is thinning out.
The “Glitches” are Getting Louder
We are also seeing a rise in “systemic glitches.” Take the Amazon (AWS) server outages that have become more frequent. When those servers go down, it doesn’t just stop people from ordering packages. It paralyzes entire industries—banks can’t process payments, hospital systems lag, and even “smart” home security stops working.
We are becoming way too comfortable with “technical difficulties.” These aren’t just one-off accidents; they are signs that our digital infrastructure is overloaded and vulnerable.
The AI Shift and the Job Market
At the same time, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the job market. While we have a shortage of people in physical trades—like plumbers and nurses—the “office” world is being turned upside down. AI is already replacing roles in data entry, research, and basic accounting. This leaves hard-working people wondering where they fit in a world that is automating their paychecks away.
Summary: What This Means For You
If you feel like something is wrong, you aren’t “crazy”—you’re just picking up on the signals before the noise becomes a roar.
The Safety Net is Thinning: You cannot rely on “the system” to be your only backup.
Knowledge is Your Best Asset: Understanding these signs now gives you the “lead time” to prepare without panic.
Confidence is the Goal: Prepping isn’t about hiding; it’s about having the supplies and the plan so you can keep “creating magic” even when things get rocky.
From Intuition to Action
The feeling you have in your gut isn’t a glitch—it’s your early warning system. For too long, we’ve been conditioned to ignore our instincts and wait for an official announcement before we take action. But by the time the “official” word comes down, the shelves are usually empty and the prices have already spiked.
I’ve been where you are. I spent years feeling like I was “overreacting” while watching the foundation of our society shift. I learned the hard way that prepping without a plan leads to wasted resources and unnecessary stress. But I also learned that the moment you take that first step toward self-sufficiency, the fear starts to fade.
You don’t need to have every answer today. You just need to stop ignoring the signals. By shifting your mindset from “victim of circumstance” to “strategic protector,” you reclaim your peace of mind. We are living through a period of massive transition, but you don’t have to go through it empty-handed. Let’s get serious, get organized, and build the confidence you need to handle whatever comes next.
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One of the oldest forms of commerce in human society is the barter system, and it was considered the norm for a majority of human existence before the advent of currency. While it is not used as our primary method of obtaining goods and services in today’s modern society it is still alive and well in small ways through smaller groups of people, small towns, and in less developed areas of the world.
For those of us living in developed areas we rely on the supply chain to get us the goods we need, and in exchange for the currency we make while working we have access to everything we need. What happens if there is a failure in that supply chain? How do people and communities ensure they have the resources they need? The answer lies in reviving the barter systems of old and working together for the benefit of not only ourselves, but the community around us.
Before we get into how the barter system can help us, let’s take a look at how our modern supply chain works, how fragile it really is, and the many events that can lead to the collapse of the system that ensures we have access to our resources.
A supply chain is defined as the network of all individuals, organizations, resources, activities, and technology involved in the creation and sale of a product. It encompasses everything from the delivery of source materials from the supplier to the manufacturer to its eventual delivery to the end user. As you can imagine, there are a lot of moving parts to make any one final product available for purchase. The steps go something like this:
Planning the inventory and manufacturing processes to ensure that supply and demand are adequately balanced.
Manufacturing or sourcing the materials needed to create the final product.
Assembling parts and testing the product.
Packaging the product for shipment or holding it in inventory until a later date.
Transporting and delivering the finished product to the distributor, retailer, or consumer.
Take any one step or resource out of this chain, and the chain breaks. Supply chains are complex and deeply rooted in the very existence of our society. The more we evolve into a society that relies on same- or next-day delivery, the more important the supply chain becomes. Unfortunately, that also makes us almost completely dependent on supply chains to function correctly.
The Fragile Nature of the Supply Chain
The problem is that our supply chain is extremely fragile. The United States has learned to run on a “just-in-time” delivery system. We see it at home with our daily Amazon deliveries, sometimes arriving the same day we order them. What some might not realize is that most big-box stores operate the same way. When you walk into a Walmart around 8 p.m. on a Tuesday night and see aisles full of pallets of assorted goods waiting to be stocked, it’s because those items were ordered the night before and are ready to go on the shelves 24 hours later.
The problem with a just-in-time system is that the smallest crack in the system can instantly start to create issues. Let’s look at that from the first point in the supply chains. Raw materials. If a farmer has a drought and can’t grow wheat, how many different products does that impact the back end of our supply chain?
Above: Empty shelves during a supply chain collapse.
Supply Chain Failures
So, what can cause a failure in the supply chain? Just about anything. Some of the more common causes in recent years are natural disasters. We’ve been seeing a lot of weather anomalies in regions not typically known for them, such as wildfires in Canada or massive flooding from hurricanes like Katrina in 2005 or Helene in 2024.
What about snowstorms producing so much snow that travel becomes impossible? Remember the storms in the early ‘90s that pummeled the East Coast? Or the “snowpocalypse” in Texas in 2022 that essentially shut down the state because they weren’t equipped to handle such weather? What about the time an Evergreen ship got stuck in the Suez Canal in March of 2021? On March 28, at least 369 ships were queuing to pass through the canal, stranding an estimated US$9.6 billion worth of trade.
Those numbers affected the global supply chain. These are some of the more extreme examples, but this trickles all the way down to the most local level. What happens if your local pharmacy doesn’t get their delivery on time because for any number of reasons like the transport truck broke down or the warehouse lost power and now you can’t get a medication that is vital to your survival?
In some situations, roads can become impassable, infrastructure can be damaged, personnel can be impacted and the supply chain quickly decays. It’s important to note that when weather impacts a specific region, it can sometimes take months or even years for things to return to normal.
What about issues with the workforce? A large union strike like we saw with the UPS drivers in 2023 or the International Longshoremen’s Association in 2024 or a global pandemic like we saw in 2020 can quickly cripple the people who keep the supply chain moving. Any adult today lived through the pandemic. That was unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, and we hope never to see again, but it can’t be ruled out.
It was the worst shock our supply chain has ever faced. The global economy essentially stopped, and our day-to-day lives changed drastically. Some aspects will never go back to the way they were before. Then there’s the possibility of cyberattacks or interference from a foreign country. Remember the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline in 2021? These are just a few examples of what can cripple our supply chain and economy.
How a Barter System Could Fill the Gaps
So how do we stay ahead of these issues? What can we do to combat the vulnerabilities of a just-in-time delivery system? One answer might be to take a deeper look at a barter system. A barter system uses direct trade for goods, a practice that dates back to around 6000 BC with Mesopotamian tribes. Ancient people traded food, spices, and weapons.
In the Middle Ages, Europeans traveled across the globe to barter crafts and furs in exchange for silks and perfumes. By the time Colonial America emerged, people exchanged musket balls, deer skins, and wheat. While money eventually replaced the barter system, bartering has never truly disappeared and remains a viable system today. It may be worth revisiting more seriously.
Benefits of Barter in Times of Crisis
In the collapse of regular society and supply chains, it seems natural to revert to this tried-and-true system. Whether it’s a long-term or short-term problem, it’s in your interest to prepare for this before you need it. What do you have to offer? Skills, resources, or goods—what can you trade for the things you and your family need? Here are some ideas:
Food and Water: Trading food products for essential services. Do you grow anything? Can you produce clean, safe drinking water? Do you have a stockpile of preserved goods?
Skills and Labor: Offering skilled services (carpentry, plumbing, medical care) in exchange for tangible goods or other services.
Craftsmanship and Homemade Goods: Woodworkers, tailors, and artisans exchanging handmade items for other necessities.
Energy and Utilities: Trading energy resources like firewood, solar-powered batteries, or fuel for essential goods.
Bartering also offers flexibility in situations where currency loses its value. For example, in the Weimar Republic in post-World War I Germany, hyperinflation rendered money practically worthless, and citizens turned to barter for everyday needs.
Similarly, Venezuela’s currency collapse has prompted the use of bartering for food and medical supplies. This highlights the adaptability and sustainability of barter when money itself becomes unstable.
It is also important to consider your location. While rural areas may have more access to resources like land and firewood, urban communities might adapt differently to bartering, especially with limited space.
For example, specialized skills like repair services, urban farming, or water filtration might be highly valuable in city environments. Consider building a library of skills rather than relying solely on stockpiling physical items you might not have space to store.
Bartering isn’t just a historical relic, it’s alive and well today. In Greece, which faced a severe economic crisis in the 2010s, bartering networks popped up across the country, allowing people to exchange services like teaching or home repairs for food and clothing. Similarly, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, some communities turned to online barter platforms where users exchanged goods like household items or skills such as tutoring in return for essential supplies.
As I maintain and add to my preps, I’m starting to look at things more specifically from a barter standpoint. I need to stockpile what my family needs, but also items others may find valuable. For example, I’ve invested in a still. A still can be used for a variety of purposes: making distilled beverages, essential oils, clean drinking water, and even certain medicines.
All these products can be useful to me and valuable to others for barter. I’ve also been investing in my skills. Welding, mechanics, and construction are areas that come easily to me but might be foreign to others. These skills could be valuable in a barter system.
Challenges and Risks of Bartering
Does currency have a place in a barter system? Absolutely, but it might not look the same. Currency could be made up of precious metals, similar to our first coins, or even bullets—how many .22L rounds would equal a “dollar”? Establishing value is one of the challenges of a barter system. Determining equal value between goods and services can be difficult.
Would you stitch up a leg wound for a loaf of bread? How many chickens is a running motorcycle worth? Perishability is another factor to consider, as some goods like food can spoil and may not be suitable for long-term bartering.
If you are proficient in food preservation maybe you can take tomatoes that would normally only last a few weeks and jar them, so they are shelf stable almost indefinitely. Additionally, bartering tends to work best in tight-knit or local communities where trust and mutual understanding are high.
Modern technology offers digital and modern adaptations to bartering. Peer-to-peer barter apps and digital platforms like social media groups or local online forums facilitate trade in real-time. Facebook Marketplace already serves as a place where people can network and barter. However, in a grid-down situation, these digital options may not be available.
Taking Action to Build Barter Systems Now
What steps can you take to implement a barter system in your community? First, identify your resources and skills. Encourage individuals and families to assess what they can offer. Next, set up physical or digital places where people can meet and discuss potential trades. Barter markets or swap events can foster community participation.
Establishing barter meetups now would allow your community to get used to the system and feel comfortable with the concepts. It may also be important to develop a loose set of guidelines to ensure fairness, safety, and efficiency. Doing this now, before a crisis occurs, can be hugely beneficial to you, your family, and your community. It’s always easier to have a system in place before disaster strikes than to implement it afterward.
Bartering might not be the be-all and end-all of survival strategies, but it fits into a larger strategy for self-reliance and resilience. Bartering alone may not solve all problems, so complementing it with other preparedness measures like learning how to grow food, purify water, or generate energy independently can help you become more self-reliant overall.
I’m a firm believer that a rising tide raises all ships, and while it’s important to build a strong community of like-minded and capable people, that journey starts in your own home. Making you and your family as prepared as possible is just the beginning.
The goal should be to create a network of self-reliant individuals, each with something valuable to offer. Bartering can be a key part of that larger picture of resilience, but it’s the combination of preparation, skill-building, and resource management that ultimately sustains communities when the unexpected occurs.
Final Thoughts
In the end, having a system like barter in place doesn’t just help ensure access to vital goods and services during a crisis—it fosters a sense of connection and cooperation. When the grid goes down or supply chains collapse, people will naturally turn to one another for support. Being prepared for that moment, both individually and as a community, could make all the difference.
The sooner we begin these conversations and take action, the better equipped we will be to face whatever challenges the future might hold. Whether through learning new skills, gathering valuable resources, or building trust in local networks, we have the opportunity to strengthen our communities and enhance our overall resilience, starting right now.
Quick Reference to Common Barter Goods
Stockpiling goods, the ability to grow or raise your own food, and having some basic skills can put you in a great position during any emergency situation that results in a collapse of the supply chain. Having some extra stock and the willingness to lend your skills to others can enable you to barter with others in the community and not only survive but thrive!
Here are some commonly barterable goods and services with some examples in each category. This far from an exhaustive list, but should be enough to get your wheels turning:
Canned Food: Vegetables, Meat, and Tuna Fish.
Dried Food: Rice, beans, and pasta.
Clean Water: Bottled water and filtration systems.
Baby Supplies: Diapers, clothing, and shelf stable formula.
Weather Related Gear: Raincoats, winter clothing, and umbrellas.
Building Materials: Plaster, Paint, and lumber.
Hygiene Items: Toothpaste, soap, and deodorant.
Batteries: AA, AAA, C, and D cell.
Precious Metals: Silver and gold coins.
Footwear: Sneakers, work boots, and weather specific footwear
Fresh Produce and Meat: Grow produce and Raise Livestock.
Tools: Hammers, saw blades, screw drivers, and cutting tools.
Hardware: Screws, nails, and washers.
Comfort Items: Blankets, pillows, games, books, and liquor.
Common Medication: Tylenol, Advil, cold medication, and allergy relief.
First Aid Supplies: Bandages, Sutures, disinfectants, and gauze.
Barter Skills
Automotive Repair Skills
Cooking Skills
Sewing and Tailoring
“Handyman” and Maintenance Skills
Plumbing, Construction, and Building Skills
Medical and First Aid Skills
Teaching and Education Skills
Crafting Skills
Foraging Skills
Farming and Livestock Skills
Pest animal and Wildlife Management Skills
Electronic Device Repair Skills
Home Cleaning Skills
Child Rearing and Supervision Skills
Landscaping Skills
Gunsmithing Skills
Metalworking Skills
Featured Barter Items: Ammunition and Firearms Parts
Ammunition is a vital resource that is often overlooked when it comes to bartering. Firearms give us the ability to defend our homes and loved ones, as well as allow us to put food on the table if we live in a rural area and have hunting skills. Unfortunately, they are pretty ineffective without ammunition or if common wear and tear parts deteriorate due to lack of maintenance or heavy use.
Keeping a good stock of commonly used ammunition can not only ensure you will not run out, it can also provide you a very in demand commodity that less prepared individuals will be seeking to provide them with a sense of security and a means of feeding themselves and their loved ones. Companies like Black Hills Ammunition can keep you well-stocked on high-quality handgun ammo and top of the line self defense and hunting rifle rounds.
When it comes to Firearms, parts will wear out through time and use. This is especially prevalent with one of the most commonly owned platforms, the AR. one of the primary advantages of the AR platform is the ability to easily maintain, repair, and replace nearly every part with just a few simple tools.
It is expected that parts like buffers, springs, firing pins, bolt carrier groups, charging handles, optics, and even barrels will need to be replaced with extended use. Having a good stock of high quality parts like the ones found at Bravo Company Manufacturing will keep your AR platform operating at peak performance for years, and provide you with ultra high value bartering items during an extended supply chain crisis.
American society isn’t going to “collapse” in the sense of bad zombie movies. But it is going to decline in world power and influence if it keeps on spending money that it doesn’t have on wars that it can’t win. Right now the United States puts a ridiculous amount of its discretionary spending into the military, while allowing its infrastructure and education systems to continue to decline.
Prosperity comes from the middle class buying things. They can only buy things if they have jobs. They can only have jobs if American corporations use their profits to create jobs. But if they are allowed to continue sending jobs overseas, then there won’t be enough employed people to do the buying that sustains the economy. So one cause of American decline will be the continued exporting of jobs, especially blue-collar manufacturing jobs. Once Detroit was a capital of industry and now it’s a ghost town.
So pay chose attention because this video will change your life forever for the good!
The seizure of the legislatures by the neo-liberals, and the resulting efforts to “run universities like a business” are crushing the life out of higher education. Only departments that “make money” will be funded, meaning those that do basic research — the source of future jobs — are not. We’ll have way too many business administration majors, bean-counters who make nothing, and nowhere near enough teachers and engineers and scientists.
The clamps on childhood education are even worse. America soared when it dumped money into education after Sputnik. Then came Reaganomics, deregulation of the markets, and persistent efforts to close down the Department of Education by the Right, and now we have schools advertising junk food to children on their cafeteria trays in order to make up the shortfall. They’re overwhelmed with inspections and league tables and No Child Left Behind, but they’re chronically underfunded.
Undereducated people don’t get good jobs, and they require more in social services than they pay in taxes. Well-educated people ensure that their children are well-educated also, and they use fewer social services. Education is really cheap compared to a cruise missile, and it’s an investment that saves money in the long run. The cruise missile just blows up and has to be replaced by another one.
It is also imperative that we get big money out of politics. Citizens United was a disaster. Lobbyists write the laws in such a way that they ensure the people they represent don’t pay their fair share. The wealthy squirrel it away offshore. Google pretends to be an Irish company even though we all know it’s located in California.
In short, I think the long decline of the United States will be caused by:
Ruinously expensive foreign wars.
Failure to invest in the people and institutions of America, especially education.
Companies that are allowed to hide their profits overseas and export jobs overseas, evading both their civic duty to employ people and to pay their taxes.
A corrupt electoral process that ensures that our representatives are more beholden to their donors than to the electorate, of which the Citizens United ruling is by far the most egregious example.
If a major U.S. bank were to collapse tomorrow, the economic and societal impact would be swift and dramatic. Understanding what to expect and how to prepare can help you stay ahead of the chaos.
Immediate Fallout: The First Few Hours
When a bank collapses, the news often breaks outside regular business hours. Regulators tend to close banks late Friday to avoid a weekend panic. But in the age of smartphones and social media, word spreads fast. As soon as rumors hit the internet, customers may rush to withdraw their funds. These are not just traditional bank runs with long lines at branches. Today’s digital bank runs happen instantly through apps. In the 2023 failure of Silicon Valley Bank, $42 billion was withdrawn in a single day.
Within hours, online banking systems may crash or be frozen. ATMs could be emptied. People will still show up in person, lining up outside branches. Think back to the 2008 IndyMac collapse when police had to control crowds outside the bank.
Bank officials and regulators will issue public reassurances, but that will not stop the rush. Even people with accounts at different banks may panic and start pulling cash, triggering a chain reaction.
First Few Days: Government Moves to Contain Panic
Once the collapse is official, the FDIC steps in. Its job is to make sure insured depositors get their money, typically up to $250,000 per account. In most cases, that happens within a few business days. Regulators may transfer accounts to a new bank or issue checks.
But if you had more than the insured limit, the rest of your funds will be frozen. You will receive a certificate for the uninsured portion and might recover some of it later through asset liquidation. This process can take months or even years.
To calm the public, federal agencies might expand deposit guarantees or raise insurance limits temporarily. The Federal Reserve will likely provide emergency liquidity to banks, trying to keep ATMs stocked and credit cards working. Despite these efforts, expect service outages, delayed transactions, and restricted access to accounts.
Other banks might react by tightening credit. Your available credit lines could shrink, and new loans may be harder to get. The stock market may dive, affecting retirement accounts. In the background, politicians and financial leaders will scramble to contain the crisis.
Week Two and Beyond: Ripple Effects
If the failure is contained, confidence might return within a few weeks. But if it triggers other failures, the situation can spiral. Customers might rush to pull money from multiple banks, even healthy ones. In the 2008 crisis, a single failure quickly led to others.
Businesses could struggle to pay employees if their accounts are frozen. Individuals may face issues paying bills or accessing their savings. Some banks might restrict daily withdrawals or limit online transfers. Economic slowdown is likely if lending dries up.
Credit unions, backed by the NCUA, might see an influx of new customers. Gold and silver dealers could sell out quickly. Those already prepared with diversified assets and cash on hand will be far more resilient.
This is where a carefully managed supply stash becomes priceless.
What We Learned from 2008
The 2008 financial meltdown offers valuable lessons. Back then, regulators bailed out banks and reassured the public by temporarily raising deposit insurance limits. Swift intervention was key.
But 2023 showed how much faster things can move now. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank happened in just two days, accelerated by online rumors. Washington Mutual’s failure in 2008 took eight months. Speed is the new danger. Social media and digital banking mean trouble spreads faster than regulators can react.
Another change since 2008 is the concept of “bail-ins.” Instead of using taxpayer money to bail out banks, regulators might force large depositors and investors to absorb losses. This means if you have more than $250,000 in one bank, you might see some of your funds converted into bank stock or frozen entirely.
But one thing remains constant: deposits under the insured limit have always been protected. The surrounding economy, however, may not be so lucky. Jobs, credit, and prices can all be affected.
How to Protect Your Savings Now
Spread Funds Across Institutions Do not keep more than $250,000 in any one bank. Diversify across multiple banks or account types to ensure all your money is covered. Credit unions offer similar protection.
Mix Large and Small Institutions Keep money in a mix of large and local banks. Big banks may get bailed out due to their size. Smaller banks may be more conservative. Use both for coverage and flexibility.
Keep Cash at Home Store enough cash to cover several weeks of expenses. Use small bills. Store it safely and discreetly. This protects you if ATMs are down or banks freeze accounts.
Own Precious Metals Gold and silver do not rely on any banking system. They hold value even in a crisis. Silver coins are especially practical for barter. Store them securely.
Invest in Tangible Assets Hard assets like land, tools, and durable goods can be used or traded. Avoid tying all your wealth to digital accounts. If the grid goes down, paper statements and physical items still matter.
Monitor Your Bank’s Health Watch for red flags like stock price drops or news of losses. These may signal trouble. Act early if you see warning signs.
Cash Cash still works when the digital system fails. Keep small bills for easy transactions. Do not depend solely on cards.
Peer-to-Peer Apps Apps like PayPal or Cash App may still function if the internet is up. Keep small balances in multiple platforms. Set up accounts in advance.
Precious Metals Use silver or gold for trade, especially within prepper communities. Learn their value now so you can barter confidently.
Barter Networks Form relationships in your community. Trade goods or services directly. Local trust becomes currency when banks are down. For practical barter items, books such as Lost Ways highlight traditional goods that carried communities through hardship.
Gift Cards Prepaid cards to major retailers can act as temporary currency. Use cautiously. They are not immune to failure but can bridge gaps.
Build a Barter-Ready Stockpile
Focus on items that are always in demand:
Food and water: canned goods, rice, coffee, and water filters
Medical supplies: OTC meds, bandages, antiseptics, and knowledge
Ammunition: especially common calibers, trade carefully
Fuel and light: propane, gas, batteries, candles, and solar lights
Hygiene items: toilet paper, soap, feminine products, and cleaning supplies
Tools and skills: hand tools, duct tape, fishing gear, and practical skills
Comfort goods: alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and books can ease morale and become trade items
Only trade what you can spare. Never give away your last essentials. Build trust in your local barter network now to avoid desperation later.
If a major bank collapsed tomorrow, the fallout would be fast and severe. But with preparation, you do not have to be caught off guard. Diversify your savings, store cash and trade goods, and develop alternate payment options. Learn from the past. Build your stockpile. Join or form a barter network.
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