Recessions are a natural part of any economic cycle, but they can still result in serious financial hardship. Luckily, even during a recession, smart money habits can help you protect your finances and weather the storm.

Believe it or not, there is an upside to all of the current recession confusion.  The opportunities have never been more exciting for people to venture out of their current jobs and reclaim authority and control over their personal finances to secure financial freedom and independence.  But if you are currently concerned with how you can save money in this economy there are some great options for you to consider immediately.

Here are the Top 4 Ways to Save Money and Make Money During the Recession:

1) Stay Informed

If you want to know how to overcome the recession, you will need to keep alert as to what is happening in the financial industry.  A recession can disrupt things very quickly, causing old industries to collapse (like the housing, automobile and travel industries), new industries to be born (like the alternative energy market) and existing industries to suddenly do even better than ever (like the Online Marketing Industry).   The information you acquire could save you a significant amount of money as well as lead you to new money-making opportunities.  Make it a part of your daily routine to read a few current events articles each day and a few books each year.  Being prepared for financial opportunities may be the best defensive strategy you can have. 

2) Create a Budget and Reduce Debt

If you do not already have a budget, then now is the time to create one.  Use your budget to determine and reduce your unnecessary expenses.   Pay down your debt and build a savings account of three to six months of your living expenses.  Get out of consumer debt as fast as you can.  Your mortgage payment is likely to be your largest monthly bill.  You can reduce your mortgage with one of many options including downsizing, doubling up, renting, refinancing or even foreclosing.

3) Cut Food Costs

Reduce your food costs, by eating out less and buying more food from the grocery store.  Plant a small fresh salad and vegetable garden this summer to increase your health and save some money.  Food costs are going up for many reasons:  Ethanol, population growth, rising cost of oil (falling dollar), increase in natural disasters, etc.  A small garden investment could result in a large savings.

4) Create Another Income Stream

To do this you may consider taking a second job for a month or two or selling unneeded household items on ebay, but these options are not likely to bring in a significant enough income to really help you out.  What if you really want to be proactive and do something that won’t just be a partial fix?  Well, one of the most profitable ways to supplement and increase your income especially in our current economy may be with the Internet.  Many online businesses have low-start up cost, are convenient and you can work at home on your own schedule and still have the time to spend with your families and do the things you love.  Times like these are absolutely ideal for making the decision to start your own online business and take control of your financial future.  There is so much freedom and relief in not having to count on a paycheck as your only means of providing for your family during times of financial and economic strain.

While the recession is certainly nothing to celebrate, it may give many enterprising people the opportunity and freedom to examine other methods of earning money.  For those people, it may prove to be a blessing in disguise and the beginning of a bright and prosperous future!

Other than the obvious consequences, what might we expect from a partial economic collapse? A total collapse of the economy would throw the nation into utter chaos. But what if we endure an economic depression, or a severe and long-lasting downturn? I think that some of the effects are not so obvious.

1. The college and university system will collapse

As I explained in this previous post, the system of higher education is a house of cards. The cost of getting a college degree has risen sharply and steadily, while real income has remained relatively flat. The price rise is due to the easy availability of grants and loans for education. But with so many persons getting a college degree, its value in the marketplace has plummeted. Many college grads are out of work, or they are working in a job that does not require a degree. Eventually, this practice of paying more and more, for something that is worth less and less, will collapse the system. Colleges and universities will not have enough paying students, and professors will not agree to a drastic pay cut. Overhead expenses are far too high.

All that is needed is an economic collapse, or partial collapse, to topple this house of cards. Many universities and colleges will be forced by economics to shut down.

2. Agricultural yields will plummet

The current U.S. agricultural system is based on the expectation of high yields. But high yields are obtained by high inputs — all the things that go into growing the crop, including lots of fertilizer, perhaps irrigation, herbicides, pesticides, labor, machinery. Then those high yields are sold and the money is then used to fund the inputs for the next crop cycle.

An economic collapse will mean that farmers will not be able to afford all the inputs needed for high yields. And when yields fall, the amount of money from that crop will be less. Then the next crop cycle will have even less money for inputs, resulting in even lower yields. And the process will continue — lower yields, less money, lower inputs — until many farmers are out of business and a food crisis results.

3. Violent crime will increase

When people lack money and food, they become desperate. And desperate people do desperate things. Theft and robbery will skyrocket, and people will be afraid in their homes, and afraid to go out in the community. Even a quick trip to the market will become risky. Sales of most goods will plummet, causing the economic crisis to worsen. Protests will turn violent. Home invasion robberies will become much more common. Many people will be killed or injured as a result of this increase in violent crimes.

4. Law enforcement will be overwhelmed

The law enforcement system in the U.S. is commercial. Officers are paid. We don’t keep a large excess of officers on the payroll, just in case crime sharply increases. So it is relatively easy for the system to be overwhelmed. And that means a call to 911 might not bring the police to your door in time, if at all. Those who have firearms for home defense will be much better off than those who rely solely on the police. But many households have no firearms. And that means that robberies will increase, and so will the economic damage and the number of injuries and deaths.

5. The healthcare system will be overwhelmed

The healthcare system is also commercial, and lacks a safety margin in the form of excess doctors and nurses. Hospitals operate at close to capacity. A sudden increase in persons who are sick or injured will overwhelm the system.

The aforementioned increase in violent crime will undoubtedly increase injuries. But it is less obvious that a disruption to the food production and distribution system will increase illnesses. Plenty of good healthy food is the first line of defense against illness. Malnourished persons are much more likely to get sick. So an extended disruption to the food supply will cause an increase in illnesses.

6. Travel anywhere will become dangerous

As a result of all the above described problems, travel will be dangerous. Want to make a quick trip to the supermarket? You risk having your house robbed, if it is left unoccupied. And you risk being attacked on your way back from the market. Robbers might wait outside the market and follow anyone who looks like they purchased a lot of food.

There will be protests in many places, and violence will often break out. People who are hungry and afraid do not make the best decisions. Then there is the cultural aspect of the situation. We live in a culture that tells us to expect the government to take care of us, and to protest whenever anything doesn’t go our way. Ironically, self-sufficiency is abhorrent to our narcissistic culture.

I expect that the roadways will be dangerous, as violent criminals will see travelers as easier targets than homes.

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7. The death rate will jump higher

People will be malnourished because of the disruption in the food supply, so they will get sick more easily. Violent crimes and violent protests will result in many more injuries than usual. And yet healthcare will be much more difficult to access. There will be a shortage of hospital beds. It will be difficult to get a doctor’s appointment. There may be a shortage of prescription and OTC medications.

All of these factors will make life a riskier endeavor.

Now if you are a seasoned prepper, who has long considered the dangers inherent in an economic collapse, you may have anticipated some of the above consequences. But I hope I’ve added to your understanding of the possible problems that we may soon face.

This article was first published in 2022 and recently updated.

Each time I go to the supermarket or the gas station, I am reminded of the fact that prices for daily needs have not gone down. As I look around me, I also see more and more pan handlers, homeless, and poor people in areas where they were not seen before.

On the other hand, mainstream media keeps pointing to increased participation in the job market, rising stock values, and other indicators the US economy is booming. This, in turn, has led to an increase in interest rates in a time when people are still trying to get back on their feet. 

While there may be some promising signs that our nation is becoming more productive, there are also some very troubling signs that simply making money isn’t enough.  In fact, we may well be headed for a time just about every prepper dreads – a time when you cannot use money to buy the necessities of life simply because things like food, water, and even clean air are no longer available.   A nation’s economy is like personal finance in the sense that money counts for nothing if you don’t have something useful to buy. From that perspective, the United States, and perhaps the entire world may be close to an epic economic collapse. Have a look at these six signs and see if you can spot them in your own town or city.

1. Food Insecurity

No matter whether you are concerned about a blizzard, a hurricane, or civil unrest, the first supplies you are likely to think about revolve around food and water.  In fact, you may have a few cans of beans, pre-packaged foods, and other items on hand that you don’t even bother eating because you are saving them for a crisis. 

If you have ever gone to the supermarket just a day or so before a hurricane or other pending weather event, you already know that it becomes just about impossible to get certain items.  For example, just about all the water will be gone, including the more expensive brands that collect dust for months on end. Likewise, you are likely to find empty shelves that usually hold beer, alcohol, (I always find that one to be a surprise because commercial alcohols have very little, if any medicinal value when compared to the historical herbal wines!) canned food, tomato sauce, and just about anything that doesn’t need heat for preparation.  

During and after a relatively short-term emergency, the shelves may be restocked in as little as a day or two, or FEMA or some other organization will begin delivering foods as quickly as they can get into the area.  While these occasions may cause you to give some extra thought to having larger food supplies on hand, they can also lull you into a false sense of security.  By this I mean no matter how bad these situations may be, you will always have the hope that someone in a less damaged area will find a way to deliver food to you or rescue you from the situation.

These days, relatively few people realize a food shortage catastrophe is looming, and, of those, even fewer believe it’s serious enough to take steps towards self-sufficiency. For food and water needs.  Here are some signs that even mainstream media can’t hide when it comes to the looming food shortage:

• Catastrophic floods, droughts, and other severe weather prevent the planting of spring, fall, and other crops.  You have only to look at the weather this spring to see that there are many areas where food crops cannot be planted.  This won’t just affect produce and other plant-based foods, it also affects animal farms that rely on grains and other plant-based foods for their livestock.
• We can’t close off trade with Mexico because we import too much food.  Of all the obvious signs that our nation cannot feed itself; this is one of the worst. The fact remains years of bad trade deals and improper regulation of farms in the United States got us into this mess. Getting out of it is likely to cause food shortages and a few other problems.
• Many foods, including meat, are shipped to China for processing before being sold in the United States. If you thought losing the capacity to grow food was bad, the inability to process it is even worse.  Nevertheless, once again bad trade deals signed by other administrations make it cheaper to send our farm goods overseas instead of keeping the food, and the jobs in this country where they belong.
• The cost of staple foods is going up. While the cost of garbage, toxin filled foods like soda and junk food are constantly going down, the prices of whole meat, canned vegetables, dried grains, and other vital foods is going up steadily.  Right now, the average price of canned vegetables has risen anywhere from .10 cents to .20 cents per can. You can expect that to double or triple by the fall and go even higher in the winter months. If the prices stay the same, rest assured, the can size will be smaller, or the cans will have more liquid in them.
• The quality of fresh produce is going down.  Fresh produce doesn’t last more than a day or two, if you can get it to ripen without it rotting first. These are all signs food is being kept in cold storage, and only released in smaller quantities.

Now, let me tell you a story.  I grew up in a community where many people provided food for themselves and their family through hunting and gardening. For us, the garden wasn’t a hobby, it was a serious (albeit enjoyable) endeavour that was meant to provide enough food for both short term meals and longer-term preservation.  As a child, I could not fathom a place in which you couldn’t just go out to the garden and pick a few beans or wander off to another place and grab some wild strawberries or raspberries while they were in season. 

At the risk of sounding old, I remember well events like Live Aid and Hands Across America.  Nevertheless, I could not imagine what it meant to be in a place like Ethiopia or other nations where famine took millions of lives, and still does. In school, we had a teacher that asked us what we thought could be done about the famines. Here are some of the answers my classmates came up with, and what our teacher told us:

• Grow plants for food – that wasn’t going to work because most of the areas where the famines were hitting had a severe drought or flooding, so no crops could be planted.
• Hunt animals for food or raise them – no help there because the wild animals were either all dead or had moved on well beyond the famine zone. Likewise, the domesticated animals had all been consumed because there was no grain or other food for the last of them.
• Walk (if you had to) out of the famine zone and get to some place that had food – Right about there our teacher sighed and went silent for a moment.  He finally said, what do you not understand about starvation?  Toddlers and young children cannot simply walk miles to get to food, and adults already weakened from weeks of limited food access can’t carry them. They are trapped where they are, because there is no food nearby, and possibly not even in the entire country. 

From that day forward, I have asked myself repeatedly, what do you do when there is no food anywhere?  What happens when the supermarket shelves are permanently empty, there is no edible food left to dumpster dive, no wild plants to consume, no animals or fish to hunt, and just flat out nothing left to eat? If there is one thing, I learned at school that day, it was you must think hard about these things and figure out how to grow food in impossible situations.   Here are some things that I have tried and worked with over the years that may be of use during extended periods of food insecurity.  The sooner you try these things and develop them into fully sustainable systems, the better chance you will have of being able to feed yourself and your family. 

• Indoor and container growing – it does not matter why global weather patterns are shifting drastically. The fact is, they are happening, and if we and our families are to survive, we must have food.  Rather than try to garden outdoors, you will need to be able to grow food in an indoor setting. This will reduce the risk of loss from flooding (if your home survives, the plants will too), drought, and theft. 
• Micro gardening – chances are, you already know that MRE’s often have a much denser nutrient profile than regular foods. However, when those, and your other supplies run out, you will still need to find some way to feed yourself.  Seed sprouts can have as much as 5 – 50% more nutrients than full grown plants.  Learning how to micro garden and storing viable seeds for that purpose can offer you a tremendous advantage in times when no other food is available. Every part of a sustainable indoor garden should include at least a few plants that produce prolific seeds, that will, in turn, make edible sprouts.
• Aqua and hydroponics – You would be amazed at how small water based growing systems have become these days.  When combined with just one or two fish, you can grow a larger number of plants in a very small area.  Depending on the species of fish, you may also be able to breed them and then use them for food.  While it does take some work and effort to set up a water-based food production system, it is worth the effort.
• Insect farms – If you don’t have a lot of money, and are limited in room for growing plants, insects are some of the most nutrient dense organisms on Earth.  Grasshoppers, ants, and other small insects can be raised on garbage scraps, in shoeboxes, or even small aquariums.  As an added benefit, if someone does invade your home looking for food, they will never think to steal the insects.  Just make sure that you buy insect eggs from places where they have not been exposed to pesticides.  Unfortunately, the rampant use of these poisons is making it harder and harder to rely on wild insects as a food source.
• Don’t waste food.  Did you know that almost 1/3 of all food that people purchase in the store is thrown out?   There are many places where people waste food. Here are some places where you might be wasting food. If you can tighten up on these areas, and focus on alternatives, you will save money and have a better chance of choosing supplies that will help you get through until you can grow enough food sustainably.

2. Water Shortages

When you hear about floods, hurricanes, and rising ocean levels, it may be hard to believe that potable water is becoming a rarer commodity every day.  Here are some things that are rapidly leading up to a water shortage of epic proportions:

• Not so long ago, the Midwest was a “dust bowl” that could not be used to grow many of the foods we take for granted.  This was all changed by the discovery of aquifers lying beneath the surface that were used to irrigate the land. Today, those aquifers are being rapidly drained, and will soon fail to produce sufficient water for the crops growing above them. Because aquifers can take decades to centuries to fill up, there is simply no way to fill them back up. Given the amount of land that needs to be irrigated, it is neither feasible nor practical to pipe water into these areas.
• Major waterways are polluted beyond use.  No matter whether dumping trash, factory farm runoff, mines, pipeline leaks, or nuclear reactor leaks contaminate the waterways, the fact remains it takes a lot to make contaminated water fit to use for daily needs.   Today, every major river, and most streams, ponds, lakes, and other natural water resources are polluted. To add insult to injury, underground water sources have also been polluted by leaks from factories, fracking, and other industries.  The bottom line is when there is no clean water left to drink, none of these activities will matter to those who are left in the area and are dying of dehydration.  If you think it can’t happen in your town or city, take at the water supplies that haven’t been treated by municipal water treatment companies.  Sadly, many people that have well water near towns, cities, or major industrial projects can tell you that surface water, and even many of the deeper water wells now produce foul smelling, cloudy water. 
• Increasing number of laws making water capture and water wells illegal.  When someone else controls your access to water, they effectively control every area of your life, and your ability to survive.  The more laws aimed at preventing you from securing water, the surer you can be that some major economic crisis is coming in which those who control the water intend to do whatever they want with you and your loved ones.

As with the people dying from famines, there may be no place you can go when potable water supplies run out.  If you are to have a sustainable source of food, you must also have water.  Here are a few ways that you can ensure a steady supply of water:

• If you have a rain capture system, make sure you also have a means to purify the water as well as distil it.  In most cases, purification is enough, and will also help keep vital minerals intact in the water.
• Build or buy a system that will capture water from the air.
• Make sure you know how to use plastic and pits in the ground to pull water from the soil.
• Learn how to conserve and reuse water as much as possible.  As a place to start, consider that 20% of the average water usage in the home goes to flushing the toilet. 
• Grow some edible cactus and succulents. These plants all store water in their leaves and other areas and can do so for years on end. If you can find plants that will also store away cleaner water than they take in, you will be even better off.  For a faster growing plant that also stores a lot of water, try watermelon.

3. Fuel Insecurity

Today, many people think nothing of going 10, 20, or more miles to go shopping, seek medical care, or work.  We also live in an age where others think nothing of flying hundreds to thousands of miles to travel. Or receive products from all over the world.  This includes purchasing food online as well as many other household goods that used to be purchased primarily from local stores that were within walking or bicycle distance.  Quite frankly, even a small fuel shortage would have immense repercussions for just about every household.  Here are some signs that we may have a major fuel shortage within the next 2 to 5 years:

• Russian aid and advice are being accepted in Venezuela.  Aside from being an oil rich nation, Venezuela is also one of our closer neighbors geographically. We have already seen this chapter of the Russian play book at work in Syria.  Russia steps in easily to support dictators such as Assad and Maduro, and then goes on to decrease US power in that nation and the region.  Given how much power Russia now exerts in the Middle East via Iran and Syria, our options for obtaining foreign fuel at an affordable price are becoming dimmer by the minute. 
• When Sarah Palin and others said “drill, baby, drill”, liberals across the nation said it was a useless option because it would take at least 10 years to get oil from those new wells. Instead, they wanted to invest money in solar power, which relies heavily on Chinese manufactured solar panels and semiconductor materials.  While liberals also wanted to make use of wind technology, they never acknowledged just how tricky wind power can be to   capture, or the cost of noise pollution from the wind farms.  As sad as it is to say, if we had followed  “drill baby drill” in 2008, we would now have oil from all those new wells instead  of  having to deal with increased consequences (like water pollution) associated with trying to get more oil from older wells.  Remember, no matter how much people hate being tied to fossil fuels, the fact is most cannot live without it.  When millions of people are dependent on these fuels for transportation, home heating, and other needs, it doesn’t make sense to have an energy policy that puts at the mercy of foreign countries. 
• We have no viable community level replacements for existing fuels.  From the Solyndra scam to the fact that we no longer have the factories and technology to turn rare earth minerals into solar panels, it should be abundantly obvious that decades of insane energy policy and trade agreements have left our nation in a bad way.  A few hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico or that region, large earthquakes in Alaska, or continued severe weather patterns in the Midwest that are bad enough to disrupt oil production, refining, and transport are just three possible ways our fuel infrastructure can be crippled at any moment. 
• Increased regulations aimed at preventing home-based power generation or increased taxation on home-based power generation systems. Once again, when the government taxes or regulates a necessity of life, you can rest assured it is not a good thing. When you cannot do for yourself in good times, the loss of capacity in a crisis can easily lead to loss of life.

As you look at these grim signs of a coming fuel shortage, you may not want to think about  steadily rising gas prices as further proof that we are in for some serious problems in this sector. That being said, the window for taking control of your personal fuel needs hasn’t closed just yet. Here are some things you can do to reduce reliance on commercial fuels:

• Try to carpool or use other transportation methods. 
• Work from home as much as possible or find a job that is as close as possible to your home.
• Make sure that you can survive without buying tangible objects such as food, clothes, or other necessities online. 
• Upgrade insulation and other parts of you home so you can reduce heating and cooling costs as much as possible. 
• Use as many passive heating and cooling methods as possible to help reduce reliance on heating fuels.
• Build a solar cooker or oven and other devices that will enable you to cook without using electricity, gas, or other fuels that must be paid for.

4. The Southern Border Crisis

Anyone that thinks thousands of people demanding entry to the United States without proper processing isn’t a major crisis has no idea what it means to have to try and absorb all these people into our economy in a time when it is still struggling from endless bad foreign trade deals and other problems.  For an idea of just how bad it is, consider what happens when a major disaster like Hurricane Katrina, which displaced upwards of 770,000 people, causes a massive influx from one state to another. 

At the end of the day, the strain on the economies of the hosting states and the entire nation was enormous.  Nationally, economic growth dropped by 1%, and taxpayers had to foot the bill for an enormous part of 215 billion dollars in uninsured damages.  Consider these things:

• If we cannot take care of our own people, cannot give the best education to our own children, cannot afford ever soaring medical costs, and have veterans living on the street, how can we even think about making it easier for illegals to come into our country?  
• When our own people cannot receive help from safety net programs such as food stamps and temporary housing aide, how can we even think about making a pathway for immigration to this country? 
• Even though our economy is improving in some areas, vital high paying jobs in technology and other industries, and lower paying but stable customer service jobs are still being held by overseas outsource companies.  The bottom line is we don’t have enough good paying jobs for our own people, let alone immigrants that have the potential to take those jobs.
• Many people in favor of relaxing immigration laws point to the fact that illegals are the only ones willing to work on our farms and other places where the work is hard or dangerous.  Here again, our nation is at a horrible disadvantage because we don’t know precisely how many illegals are being killed by deadly pesticides that may ultimately be destroying our own health over time.  When we cannot rely on a documented work force of American citizens that recognize their rights and are willing to fight for them, deadly foods find their way into our society where they lead to endless damage and death.   The fact is, we need our own people working these jobs and in a position where they can reveal what is going on, because illegals and newly arrived legal immigrants aren’t likely to speak up and take a risk of being deported or ostracized.

No matter whether you are talking about healthcare costs associated with treating sick illegals, dealing with the diseases they bring in, coping with increases in rape, robberies, murder, and narcotics flow, or the sheer amount of space they occupy in housing and schools, the fact is illegal aliens cost taxpayers billions, if not trillions of dollars. 

To add insult to injury, more than a few members of various militias have gone to the border.  While these people are sincere in their efforts to back up the military and border patrol agents, they have received absolutely no thanks or acknowledgement for their efforts. Instead, border patrol, law enforcement, and other government agencies are slowly, but steadily disavowing the service of the militias. 

The current case of Larry Mitchell Hopkins precisely illustrates what I’ve been saying for years about gun grabber policies, and why we should never allow the government to judge someone unfit to have a gun; including criminals and those who are mentally unstable.  In his case, it is clear enough that impersonating a law enforcement officer is a crime.  Sadly, it will not surprise me if he has mental or emotional challenges that lead to these behaviors. 

These things, however, don’t mean that he doesn’t know when something is very wrong, and that action, possibly involving the use of firearms, must be taken to resolve the matter.  The very fact that his group captured many immigrants illegally crossing the border is proof positive that border patrol and the military assigned to these areas are overwhelmed and unable to properly do their jobs. 

The fact that his group did not kill the detainees and simply held them to await the arrival of law enforcement is also proof that they are simply trying to help in a way that is similar to the way any citizen can make an arrest in the absence of law enforcement.  Instead of discouraging the militias and prosecuting them, it remains my contention they should be integrated into the response to illegal immigrants and used to their best capacity.  This could be anything from helping with paperwork and documentation to helping to build the border wall; while those that can prove sufficient skills in capture and detainment should be integrated into various units for that purpose.

When our own citizens are arrested and prosecuted for sincerely trying to help our nation instead of redirected to a more useful response to a crisis simply because they are not “members of law enforcement, etc.”, it sets an unnecessary and dangerous elitist barrier between our people and the government.  It is also proof positive that irrational gun grabbers have set our nation on the wrong path and will lead to the rise of blood thirsty terrorist groups like Boko Haram right along with, a very likely bipartisan dictatorship that will wind up dragging our nation into a full economic collapse within the next 5 to 10 years (if not sooner) via extremist controls of the population.

The crisis at the border involves every single citizen of the United States in one way or another.  Gun rights, access to medical care, and many other aspects of our lives are impacted by this problem.  It is very important to let local, state, and federal leaders know that you do not support increasing immigration quotas, nor do you support policies that make it possible for illegal immigrants to gain citizenship.  With the notable exception of DACA recipients that can prove they were promised a path to citizenship, we, as a nation must face the difficult job of finding ways to seal off the border and send illegals back to their nation of origin as quickly as possible. 

Many of the more recent caravan members claim they are seeking asylum from drug lords and other criminals that make it impossible to live in their own nation.  I do believe these people would not leave their homeland if they could live there in peace.  The problem is their home countries became dictatorships long ago, and these people have not had guns available for many generations for the purpose of self-defense against well-armed criminals.  As with any other kind of bully, you must stand up and defend yourself, even if that may mean you will lose your life. 

I often find it somewhat amusing when I find gun grabbers that are secretly armed to the teeth even as they try to limit gun access to others. If these people are so sure that guns aren’t necessary, perhaps we should make laws that take their guns away from them and give them to the illegal immigrants that they are also likely to support a path to citizenship for. I can think of no better way to use gun grabber paid for guns than to put them in the hands of illegals seeking to enter our country.  All we have to do is train them and encourage them to have some spine when it comes to facing the bullies in their own country, and then send them home with the guns and sufficient ammo to do the necessary.

Aside from informing politicians of both parties that you want the policies mentioned above made into law, here are some other things you can do to make your voice heard:

• There are well documented cases of “sanctuary cities” that think President Trump is a criminal for saying that he will ship illegals to their cities while they wait for processing. Since they are already complaining about how much it would cost, it would be best to avoid buying anything in their cities as quickly as possible. 
• If you do live in these cities look at things that have the highest tax rates and refuse to buy them.  Since many rely on tobacco product taxes for additional revenue, now is a wonderful time to stop smoking.  In a similar fashion, many of these cities may get state money from the lottery and gambling to help pay for other things in the state.  Rather than gamble, save your money, or spend it on getting ready for a major crisis.
• When you are making vacation plans, or other travel plans, do not patronize these areas.

5. Increasing Rate of Respiratory Diseases

Most people cannot hold their breath for more than a few seconds without beginning to feel uncomfortable.  As asthma and other chronic breathing problems increase, the cost of medical care also skyrockets.  Today, in my opinion, far too many political leaders either deny the impact of pollution on lung capacity and health, while others who acknowledge it have no tangible answers when it comes to solving the problem.  Simply look at the number of people around you using breathing inhalers, oxygen, or other respiratory assistance devices.  This alone should tell you that a major crisis is looming, because when you cannot breathe, you cannot live. When you must use these kinds of devices or aides, each of which must be manufactured by someone else, prescribed by a doctor, and costs money; your life is in danger. 

Contrary to the beliefs of socialists and communists, capitalism is a glorious thing because it puts the power of the purse in everyone’s hands.  When you are not forced by government to hook up to the electric company, the water company, or purchase health insurance, those businesses must go back to old fashioned marketing and product usefulness to make money.  Likewise, there are an endless number of polluting industries that you wind up buying from simply because you must satisfy some government regulation or building code or lose your home.  It is, and remains, my belief that if people could actively choose to stop doing business with polluting industries, they would; and that it is excessive government control of the population that prevents the people from using capitalism to force changes in what these businesses produce; and how they do it.

Each time you breathe polluted air, you are one breath closer to having a chronic lung condition that will rob you of your capacity to live a normal life.  Use air filter systems in your home and vehicles, and wear activated carbon masks when you go into stores or outdoors. 

It is absolutely necessary to get rid of laws that prevent you from wearing appropriate breathing gear that will assist you in preventing polluted air from damaging your lungs.  It is also just as necessary to get rid of laws whose result forces you to patronize businesses that pollute.  Remember, every politician must eventually come up for election.  During the time they are in office, you can still make your voice heard by writing to them and sending petitions, as well as investigating their professional alliances, as well as personal, investment, and business finances.

When elected officials do not comply with your requests, make sure that you and everyone else in the area choose someone in the primaries that will meet these demands, and then carry out your wishes once elected to office.  Your power as a voter isn’t just one day of the year when you vote for a leader.  It is also focused heavily on those you choose during the primaries; and how well you get to know each leader before and while they are in office. 

6. Infrastructure Collapses

In the last few years, there have been a number of gas explosions in different cities across the country.  It should come as no surprise that cash strapped cities full of homeless people and illegal immigrants cannot afford to maintain gas lines or other important infrastructure elements.  While one or two gas explosions may not seem like much; consider that the piping and other resources were all installed around the same time decades ago. In a sense, gas explosions may well be like an infectious disease.  They may start off in small numbers but will quickly mushroom across the nation.  Here are some other signs of infrastructure collapse that can easily create a deadly economic collapse:

• Streets and bridges in disrepair.  In 2018, it was estimated that at least 10% of bridges in the United States were deficient.  At the same time, highways, thruways, and private streets are all crumbling and filled with potholes and emerging sinkholes.  We cannot survive without viable roads that enable us to go to work, shop, transport children to school, and ensure emergency personnel can get to places where they are needed. 
• Increased number of church shootings, bombings and desecrations. Even though Notre Dame was not set afire by arsonists or terrorists, it brought to light the fact that many churches have been desecrated in the United States and abroad. The terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka should be yet another warning that we are on the verge of a global economic collapse as well as a national one.  When criminals seek to destroy places of help, peace, and worship, it is a sure sign that people in our society have become incredibly sick. 
• Rising crimes against the elderly, mentally ill, and the disabled.  From nursing homes where the elderly are beaten, underfed, or abused to city streets where teens play games such as knock down, our nation has become a place where the elderly and disabled rightfully fear for their lives. 

These and other signs of infrastructure collapse can be very difficult to deal with at the individual level. Nevertheless, some of it still comes down to demanding changes in various laws, and paying attention to how money is spent at the local, state, and federal levels.  Here are some remedies that you should be pushing for at all levels of government:

• If you see roads in disrepair, call your leaders and tell them you want the money spent on the roads instead of paying for illegal immigrants, or anything that may appear in the local budget that you think is wasteful. Before you call, make it your business to find out how much your local area is spending on illegals or various budget items such as spending accounts for politicians and various officials. Remind politicians that you are a taxpayer, and you want your money to go on infrastructure needs.
• Today, some church leaders are, as the saying goes, “defending their flocks with a Glock”. If your church leaders are supportive of gun grabber policies, do not want you to carry a gun in their church, or do not have armed security guards, it is time to stop spending money and time in their establishments. Never forget that paying to pray is not praying at all. Instead, it is just others preying on your vulnerabilities, needs, and desires.  In a time of need, you may be praying on the side of a road, in a broken-down vehicle, or in a hospital bed.  You may be frightened, in pain, or have nowhere to turn.  No church, congregation members, or religious leader may be on hand, but God will hear you just the same; and He may send help via people and methods well outside of the church systems.  He may even empower you and inspire you to live through a situation unaided by others.
• Time and again, I have noted that gun grabber policies do more harm than good because they intimidate people from owning and learning how to use guns safely and effectively. The laws surrounding self-defense must be changed so that potential victims of a crime can shoot, with lethal force, if necessary, without fear of prosecution by the government.  Laws surrounding gun types and accessories must also be disposed of as quickly as possible.  It is also very important to investigate gun grabber politicians, gun grabber organizations, and gun grabber advocates to find out if they are gun owners themselves; and the kind of guns they have on hand.  For example, if you find a gun grabber politician or organization that has “assault style” guns, large capacity magazines, or security guards with those kinds of weapons, it is important to inform everyone of voting age. If the media will not help you get the word out, then use word of mouth throughout the area. It is also very important to make sure gun grabbers are recalled, or at a minimum voted out of office, and pro-gun leaders put in their place.

As you look at these six signs of looming economic collapse, you may be thinking you see them all over the place. Unfortunately, simply seeing them and knowing of their existence is not enough.  This is the time to take action to protect yourself from these problems as much as possible.  Growing food, social engagement, and taking part in government processes may seem mundane, however these are the best tools for heading off these disasters as well as ensuring you can survive them.

Preparing to survive in a post-SHTF world is challenging. More than anything, we have to realize that we’re preparing blind. We don’t know what sort of disaster we’re facing or what the post-disaster world is going to look like. With those two pieces of information missing, it’s hard to know exactly how people will react and what they will do. Therefore, we must prepare for the worst.

There is a wide-ranging assumption that public servants will abandon their posts. I would have to say that this assumption is totally unfair. We live in a hurricane zone and my wife is a city employee. She and her co-workers are required to agree that they will stay on the job, protecting the citizens of the city and keeping city services running, both during and after a hurricane. While a few might abandon their posts if things get bad enough, most seem to be people who will follow through on that requirement.

But what about a worst-case scenario? What about in the wake of an EMP or other grid-destroying event, which would result in a true breakdown of society and the banking system; a situation where they would no longer be paid to do their jobs?

That’s a difficult question. For some, like my wife, their positions probably wouldn’t exist anymore. But the real issue here is emergency workers and law enforcement officers. We would greatly need their services in the wake of such a serious disaster. Would they stay on the job or would they feel they had to abandon their posts to care for their families?

There’s really no way of knowing the answer to that question until the time comes. It is a very individual question, so I imagine that some will stay, while others leave. Whether they stay or leave will largely determine whether they are friend or foe.

The Cops Who Stay on the Job

Police officers tend to be highly disciplined individuals, much like soldiers. In fact, many start out as soldiers, then move to law enforcement when they get out of the military. As such, they are largely people with a high regard for the law. Oh, there are the few bad apples; but despite stories saying otherwise, there aren’t many of them.

Those who stay on the job will be concerned with maintaining law and order in the worst of circumstances. They will also be subject to the politicians who are still in place over them. This means that if those politicians declare martial law, they will most likely enforce martial law, unless they believe that to be an unlawful order.

This could get sticky. As we saw during Hurricane Katrina, declaring martial law would probably mean they would be confiscating guns as well. That would put the police in the position of appearing to be the enemy in the eyes of any Second Amendment supporter. Whether or not they actually became an enemy would depend on how you, I and other gun owners would react to them. If we use force to reject their orders to turn over our guns, they will use force in response. That makes them our de-facto enemies.

The Cops Who Abandon their Posts

Some police officers may choose to abandon their posts, especially if they feel that their families are in danger. In that case, the question is what they will do to protect and care for their families. While there are very few bad cops out there, there is always the possibility that a cop will turn bad in such circumstances, out of desperation to take care of their families.

These people will be dangerous, because they will be able to present themselves to the public as law-enforcement officers, when in fact they are acting like criminals. There could even be some cases in smaller communities, where the police take over, much as warlords take over in times of anarchy. Should that happen, the police in question would be extremely dangerous.

It would be our duty, in such a case, to stand up against the police. But here’s the problem. How do you tell if what they are doing is in the public interest, or just in self-interest? If they are acting in the public interest, our duty is to support them, so we need to be sure they are the enemy, before treating them as such.

The National Guard

If military forces are called out to help gain control, it will be the National Guard, not the active military. US law prohibits the use of US military forces within the borders of the United States. Even if politicians in high places wanted to use the regular Army, it is doubtful that Army officers, all of whom know that prohibition in the law, would allow it.

But state Governors can call out the National Guard to help law enforcement in maintaining law and order. It’s not unusual for this to happen in the case of natural disasters. I would say that we should expect it to happen in a true SHTF scenario.

National Guard forces are US Army reserve soldiers and formations, which are “owned” by the governors of the several states. They serve a dual role, both as state owned military forces and reserves for the federal forces. If called out in a disaster situation, they could serve either to support law-enforcement or to provide disaster relief. In either case, they would be armed.

Should martial law be declared, it is highly likely that the National Guard would be called out. If guns are confiscated, they are the ones who would most likely do the confiscation. They would probably be as polite as possible about it; but if they decided to obey that order, they would do their best to fulfill it.

However, the National Guard, like other military forces, is made up of predominantly conservatives. There’s a very good chance that they would refuse an order to disarm the population. Military officers swear an oath to uphold the Constitution and they would likely see the disarm order as a clear violation of the Second Amendment. As such, it would be their duty to refuse that order.

UN Troops

Of all these options, UN troops is the most dangerous. Any decision to use UN troops would have to be made at the federal government level. Were such a decision to be made, the troops which would be brought in to help maintain civil order would not be American troops. They would be unfamiliar with our culture (other than what they had seen in movies) and unfamiliar with our laws.

To these troops, a firearm confiscation order would seem perfectly reasonable, especially when you consider that they would probably come from a country where they don’t enjoy our Second Amendment protections. There would be no appeal to them on the grounds of our Constitution.

Should this happen, refusing an order to turn over your guns would be dangerous. The only thing that would protect any of us is the fact that there is no federal gun registration. Even so, there are states which require a permit to own guns, as well as concealed carry licenses which many of us have. That would give them a starting point for where to look.

Getting into a battle with armed troops is foolish. In such a situation, the only practical recourse is to hide all your guns where they won’t be able to find them, with the exception of a few, which you could then allow them to confiscate, making them think you’ve obeyed the order.

Regardless of the specific situation we would end up encountering, chances are that any police or military forces which were still in operation, would be there as part of whatever government managed to survive. Unless such forces decide to go rogue, we can count on them being there to help.

That doesn’t mean they’ll be our friends though. Unless you know them personally, they will look on you with suspicion, just like they will everyone else. Anyone carrying a weapon openly will be suspect. That doesn’t mean that they’ll hassle you, take away your weapons, fire upon you or arrest you; it just means that they will be watching to make sure that you aren’t a problem that they need to deal with.

The best thing you and I will be able to do in such a situation is to keep ourselves below the radar, so that we aren’t noticed. If we are not noticed, hopefully we will be left alone.

Should orders go out to confiscate any supplies that are stockpiled, it would probably be a good time to put our bug out plans into effect. Hopefully, we’ll all have a cache of supplies elsewhere, so that when we lose the supplies that we have stockpiled at home, we’ll still be okay.

As America heads towards an economic collapse due to its crazy national debt and runaway spending, we can learn some great lessons about how to prepare for the SHTF (Sewage Hits The Fan) that is to come by looking at what happened to Argentina

In 2001, Argentina plunged from being a very wealthy country with a large middle class to a country where the middle class all but disappeared. It was all due to uncontrolled government spending. Since the situation is so similar to what we have here in the United States today, the lessons learned are especially pertinent.

The first lesson to be learned from the economic collapse in Argentina is that desperate people will do desperate things. People took to the streets protesting what they saw as the robbery of the middle class by the banks and the betrayal of the politicians. Civil unrest became a common occurrence, as people who saw their bank accounts and retirement plans evaporate suddenly had nothing left to lose.

In addition, as the situation dragged on, more and more crime became commonplace. It wasn’t just robberies in bad neighborhoods, but more sophisticated burglaries in previously safe neighborhoods as well. People learned that their homes were being staked out and, when all the members of the family left and the house was vacant for a few hours, they could come home to a house that had been stripped.

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In addition, a new term “express kidnappings” was coined. Instead of just kidnapping rich people where a huge ransom could be demanded, thugs started kidnapping people of more modest means and demanding only a couple hundred dollars. They would drive the around in a cab all day until a phone call to their home produced some sort of a payoff, and then they would move on to the next victim.

Express kidnappings were very smart financially for the bad guys, as the amount of money taken would not warrant a huge investigation from the overburdened police force. And if they knew what they were doing, they could pull off a couple of these every day.

Another thing that became commonplace was that former middle class people became unlicensed “taxi drivers” using their minivans or luxury cars to drive people to work or the airport. Others tried their luck to get work as a handyman. Women did nails and cleaned houses. People worked for a fraction of what they used to make, just so that they could feed their family.

Those looking for economic opportunity in a post-economic collapse society found that the teaching (especially vocational studies where you would teach a trade) and counseling professions did well, as people needed to get new skills to work and needed counseling to cope with a world turned upside down.

Another unfortunate development was food shortages and power outages. Although there was technically enough food for everyone, in the tumultuous times where prices could jump 10% in a week for some items, no grocery stores wanted to sell out of their products. Therefore, it became common for store shelves to be empty, as a lot of stock was held in reserve.

Power outages occurred as the utilities and local governments were strained financially with so many people unable to pay their bills and taxes. So infrastructure repairs and maintenance were neglected, leading to less reliable services.

There is a lot to consider if you want to prepare for an economic collapse in the United States. The best way to begin your “preps” (that is a term that preppers use) is by first analyzing what has happened before so when history repeats itself, you will be ready instead of having regrets.

Conclusions

In the view of some observers, Argentina’s debt position would have been sustainable if only market uncertainty had not triggered a crisis. While there is some truth to this view, it does not take into account the fact that Argentina could have reduced its vulnerability to potentially destabilizing shifts in market sentiment by aggressively reducing its public and external debts. This is illustrated by the contrasting experiences of Argentina and Asian economies like South Korea. With much lower debt levels, the latter is less likely to experience adverse shifts in market sentiment and is less vulnerable to them should they occur.

Cutting Argentina’s public debt requires reductions in government spending, tax reforms designed to increase government revenues, and policies to stimulate export growth over the medium to long run. The successful adoption of such policies is the key challenge facing Argentina and a number of other emerging economies, and it is an important prerequisite for achieving stability in a globalized economy.

All over the world, there has been growing apprehension on the trend of current world events. So much has happened and continues to happen that baffle the intellectuals and drive the simple to increased search for spiritual answers. These happenings are not only limited to natural and man-made disasters, they also include the growing uneasiness towards world economic drift, which directly or indirectly result in desperate political moves both by individuals, families right up to various administrative units and countries. The world is witnessing an unprecedented struggle for power in all its bestiality. The era of the talkers, which was at its peak during the era of the cold war, where floods of books and orations threaten to deaden the human intuitive faculty, is gradually giving way to struggle for power. Even democracy, which initially places the power on the shoulders of the people regardless on whether the people’s will tallies with the will of the All Holiest, is gradually collapsing all over the world, with a few people hijacking the paraphernalia of power without the people’s consent, and making no secret of their disdain for the people’s opinion. Even our own political situation shows this clearly.

The past decades have shown an unprecedented increase in the number of earthquakes with high level of casualties. Asia and Middle East have had a good share of these earthquakes. Europe, especially France and Spain have had destructive wild fires destroying long stretches of conservation areas. The Americans have not fared less in this respect. It is estimated that the economic cost of these destruction and the reconstruction work associated with it places a heavy financial strain on international organizations and threaten the economy of weaker nations involved. This coupled with the cost of prosecuting wars. The Middle East and the imperial wars of the United States for example could further put a wage between the haves and have nots. The result is the increased agitation of the Labor Unions for more benefits to cushion inflation and government looking for more money through taxes to run the affairs of state.

Any student of history need no prophet to tell him that history is about to repeat itself in a grander scale than hitherto. Already the accompanying signs of moral decay are reaching its peak. Just watch the dressing pattern of our women and you will realize how womanhood has sunk. It happened at the pea of the Egyptian civilization; so also with the Greeks and the Romans. These were individual empires that finally collapsed, but the global scale in which these are happening raises the question: is the world system about to collapse? Are we facing the end of civilization as we know it? Or is this the end time? If it is the end time, is it the end of what?

It is strange that even in churches, temples and mosques; there has been a wide confusion as to what the end time stands for. Some call it the end of the present system of things, some refer to it as the end of the world, some see it as heralding the coming of the personage, long expected and prophesied to come. Christians expect the second coming of Christ, Islams expect the coming of the Mahdi or the guided one, and the Zoroastrians expect the coming of the Shaoshyant. Other groups have various expectations. Some even see it as the end of time. Right now, there are groups of researchers who are preoccupied with the study of ancient manuscripts, seeking to find the answer to the present day riddles. In fact there is this movement that is studying the daily calendar of the Mayans, a highly spiritual group who has recorded prophesies of every single day since 5000 years ago. It is said that the daily calendar abruptly ended on December 21 2012. All sorts of researches are being carried out to see whether that date is the terminal date of the end of the world.

Meanwhile, the growing uneasiness has been driving people out of religion in Europe and driving others into religion in Africa and America. Everywhere the human spirit is astir. Crime rate is soaring because man has been trying to draw his spiritual longings with exaggeration of physical trifles. The cause of this is the approach towards the Earth of a Star, which is more spiritual than material. The coming excites the working of the forces of the elements and the human psyche. The Star, which could be called the Star of Bethlehem, has been approaching over several decades for now. The nearer it comes the more confusion is thrown into the work of radiation researches, it will finally appear in the sky as what Mathew, one of the followers of Jesus Christ who wrote one of the gospels referred to as “The sign of the Son of man.” Other contemporary seers call it the fiery dragon” “the great Comet” etc

Already the foremost space organization in the world, NASA is worried over the growing inaccuracies in their research that they attribute to a mysterious new kind of radiations hitting the Earth plane.

Another characteristic of this age is the increase in lovelessness. With the increase in intellectual knowledge, many men’s love has grown cold. Many people are out there to exploit the confusion for their material benefits. Others pose as spiritual highwaymen who mislead their fellow travelers along the way of salvation, either because they themselves know no better or to assuage their own ego. A look around with an open mind shows lots of these impostors who make claims they cannot defend or promises they cannot fulfill. These ones cannot be classified as false prophets but as impostors because their claims sooner or later begins to haunt them until it reaches a stage where cunning and deception will appear as obvious to all who still harbor lively spirits.

From all these, it appears that the world is cascading downhill without any hope of halting, giving a promise of annihilation of this present crop of humanity. But amidst these troubles, hand in hand with these activities goes a new wave of political awareness which has been gearing into a monolithic world, an attempt at world unity. This wave has already brought down the iron curtain that separated the East from West Germany, unifying them. Since then, a wave of unification is going on. Europe created the Shengen states that share a common visa, and the list of Schengen states is growing by the day. The European Union has been expanding. Today the debate is no longer on common currency, which has been realized in the Euro, but on the common European constitution on whether it will leave out or embrace the supernatural in that the draft constitution did not mention the word, “GOD” in its preface or anywhere else.

On the spiritual level, the current explosion of Pentecostalism and the great moral crisis rocking the established and orthodox religion prevalent nowadays is a source of concern. The traditional religions of a various peoples like the Hopi Indians, the Mayans, the remnant of the Incas, the explosion of the Eastern Religions is regarded as an invasion. Such Eastern exercises like yoga and meditation is becoming a fad for the youths of the Western World and America. Suddenly there has become a level of longing for immorality, which is the impetus behind cloning. Splinter groups both violent and otherwise are breaking away on daily basis from the established temples, mosques and churches.

All these point to the fact of an end that is approaching. We are therefore, well into what is described by the East as the Khali Yoga or the age of destruction- their own way of saying what the Bible reported Jesus Christ as calling the great Tribulation of which others describe as the great Purification of mankind. It appears that all great religions copy from each other or things are all revealed through one source.” God is not partial” wrote Paul of Tarsus once to one of the churches in the early Christian era, “for anyone who comes to him from anywhere is acceptable to him.

The truth of that corroborates what one sage, a German writer and the author of the Grail Message, once wrote: “if in the course of thousands of years, man has not acted as they still do today, if they had not time and again distorted everything that was intended to help them in order to adapt it to their human way of thinking, and their earthly desires, there would now be only one uniform teaching here on earth, issuing from the will of God. There would not be so many kinds of denominations.

All the teachings that have come to earth in the past would, united, form a single flight of steps to the pedestal on which the truth is to stand as it has so often been proclaimed to mankind in various promises. There would be no difference in the interpretation much less differences in the teachings themselves. For all teachings were at one time willed by God, precisely adapted to the individual peoples and countries and formed in complete accord with their actual spiritual actuality.

The bringers of all individual teachings were forerunners of the world of truth itself.

Even in the days of the forerunners however, men have as always completely failed in every case in that soon after the passing of the prophets, who prepared the way they always distorted their words or else completely left out and withheld from posterity what they could not fully understand.

In essence, all who speak the truth must need say the same thing for the truth castle is like a pyramid and is expected to peak at the ultimate truth as the apex, the highest that the human spirit can ever be privileged to learn.

Apart from the prophets of old like those in the Bible, whose prophesies of the present time always refers to “The day of the Lord”, there are also modern prophets. High on the scale among the modern prophets is Nostradamus, the Frenchman who 500 years ago may have predicted Abacha’s killing of Ken- Saro Wiwa. Among his prophesies is the begging of the world war to be started by a man, an expert in Mohammedan Law who will be “Terror of Mankind”. The astrological signposts he gave indicated his war is to start in 1993; the year the Gulf war began. But though prophecies are meant to be fulfilled, the timing may not be exact for reasons that will be too extraneous for me to go into here.

Hence his prophesies about September 11 was not fulfilled in 1999 but in 2001. “Before and after” he wrote “war rages”. Thus we may already be in the 3rd World War, which he prophesied would last for 27 yrs. Any person who understands the concept of World War would realize that the various conflicts in different countries have the same underlying propulsion- religion and politics, which is essence in the struggle for power and supremacy no matter the name it bears. AND THIS WILL GET WORSE. So it is morning yet on purification day.

The forces are mounting that will eventually overwhelm most Americans and send their standard of living to unknown depths. Americans that have only known the post WWII prosperity are ill equipped and educated to deal with depression level living. Easy credit and instant gratification have created a nation of whining, self absorbed, entitlement minded people with no moral or mental toughness.

Doug Casey believes we are headed for what he calls a super depression created by the ending of a debt super cycle. The bigger the debt cycle the bigger the depression that follows. That’s how reality works and most people are not prepared for reality.

When this depression, which has already started, gets momentum, it will overwhelm the plans of a society that is expecting to get things like social security, pensions and payouts from retirement plans they have paid into for many years. All of those things will disappear almost overnight and leave society gasping and stupefied over what to do. Their reactions will be to yell and scream and try to identify who to blame but the only person they should blame is the one in the mirror.

Many very smart people have raised the alarm and done their best to warn the sleeping public, but those slumbering masses have ignored the warnings and hit the snooze button one more time. The masses do not understand economics, do not want to understand economics and they will pay dearly for that ignorance in the coming days.

When the real unemployment rate becomes common knowledge as it increases substantially, people will be left to survive on what resources they have saved up outside the banking system that cannot be stolen by the politicians and bankers. That is a key point here. The assets you have outside the system that cannot be stolen from you with a few key strokes on some computer.

Those hoping for some miraculous event that will send the U.S. back to the days of manufacturing might and jobs for all will never see it happen. Those days are gone. The west line theory tells us our economy will slow down and become more modest as the shipping center of the world moves west to the next powerhouse region which is Asia. This is what history teaches us.

When people suddenly wake up one morning and they have no job, their retirement is gone and they need to care for their family, what will they do? When government services have collapsed and they suddenly realize they are now living in a third world country with few government services, what will they do? When the banks are closed and only a select few connected people have any type of money or access to goods, what will they do?

This is the reality that many people will face in the future and they have no idea how bad it can get. They refuse to contemplate the harsh reality they will be living in and take steps to mitigate the effects. To do so would be to acknowledge it could happen and they are taking personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is a dirty phrase in today’s entitlement society. To see some of the effects one only has to look at the collapse of society in Venezuela today to see what awaits.

When it happens it will all fall back to you to take responsibility for your family and take care of them for the duration. To do that you need to plan now for that eventuality and build up the resources you will need to provide food, shelter, clothing and security when the system fails to do it for you. You need to be Noah on his ark not the people watching as he floated away.

Having resources stored up is a must but it may not get you all the way through if the situation lasts for many years. That is why you need some type of plan to replace those resources as time goes by and have some way to generate some type of income or at least items to trade. Usable goods are for the short term and things like gold ,silver and production equipment are for the long term to help you get through the crisis with the least amount of pain.

Even with proper planning the days ahead will not be easy as the standard of living of society will fall substantially to levels only seen in failed third world countries or old pictures. The assets actually owned by people today is very small compared to how they live. They will default on their home loan, their car loan, and their credit card debt leaving them with very few real possessions and few ways to move what they have left even if they have some place to go. Ultimately these people will become the new serfs to the wealthy class that will take possession of anything of value. Feudalism will once again rule.

The lack of planning by society will make this a reality if it is allowed. What will you do when everything you have worked a lifetime for is suddenly taken away? Do you have a plan to keep what you have? Do you have a plan to make money when you cannot find a job? Do you have a way to take care of your family until things stabilize? Do you have a home you will not lose if the whole system breaks down? What will you do if electricity or fuel is too expensive to buy or not available to the general population? These are the questions you should be asking yourself now and you better have a good answer because your family will be asking them when the greater depression sets in.

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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.

On December 6th President Trump’s words shook the world.

For the first time in over 2000 years, Jerusalem was recognized as the capital of Israel.

Whether he knows it or not, President Trump fulfilled his part in a frightening biblical prophecy exactly as the scriptures predicted.

Only the top church leaders and Bible scholars know the real meaning behind this great and terrible moment, yet no one is saying a thing about it…

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In my last article titled, “The first Global Inflationary Depression Is Possible” 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, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” 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.  

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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. 

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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.

The video below is simply shocking… Because not even Trump or Putin expect such a thing!!!

This Could Kick-Start World War 3 Fellow Patriot

Our country is headed to a Nuclear World War 3

And we are NOT prepared for it…

This coming war won’t be fought with tanks and infantry like the first two…

There’s little doubt that, once the dust settles, the post-collapse life is going to be tough. Most of the conveniences we take for granted today will be hard to acquire, regardless of whether or not money will still be worth anything. People who want them will say and do anything, people who sell them will come up with all sorts of strategies and you need to be prepared because, no matter how prepped you are, it’s still likely you’ll end up in desperate positions. That is why it is important to know how to barter.

In what follows I want to give you a few solid bartering and negotiation tactics and techniques that will help you get food, water or medicine when you’ll need them most. However, if you truly want them to work for you, you have to practice them. Reading them just isn’t enough, that’s why included a special section at the end where I suggest how you can do that.

Top 10 Barter Items To Stockpile

Item	Why It’s Great For Bartering
1. Bandages	First aid items are very valuable, especially care for larger wounds since they will require more dressing and frequent changes.
2. Batteries	AA and AAA are popular sizes for flashlights, headlamps, radios, and numerous other electronics. Batteries inevitably run out so these are a surefire need after SHTF.
3. MREs	Food. Need we say more? Keep in mind that someone desparate for food is very vulnerable and use caution when negotiating a deal.
4. Duct Tape	Infinite survival uses, including splinting a broken bone, repairing a tent, fletching an arrow, and marking a trail. An entire roll of duct tape should yield a high value in a trade.
5. Zip Ties	Versatile and strong, zip ties are great for hanging gear, securing shelter, fixing clothes and shoes, and more. It’s easy to carry a large number of them and separate into smaller bundles to trade.
6. Fish Antibiotics	Fish antibiotics can be purchased OTC and contain the same ingredients as human antibiotics. For more information on types and dosages, check out Fish Antibiotics For Humans: A Safe Option For Your Survival Kit?
7. Condoms	In addition to contraception, condoms have many survival uses such as carrying water (up to 2 gallons!), waterproofing gear, even a slingshot for hunting small game. They are also lightweight and easy to carry.
8. Water Purification Tablets	Since each tablet treats 16 oz of water, one bottle contains many bartering opportunities. Or trade the whole bottle for a larger item you need.
9. Waterproof Matches	Fire is essential to survival so waterproof matches can be a great bartering tool. You can also carry extra capsule lighters, such as the Everstryke Pro to add long-term value to your trade.
10. Button Compasses	Small and inexpensive yet very useful, especially in the absence of GPS or cell phone navigation. They can be used to find the way back to camp, locate family and friends, or to migrate to a new area.

Click the images to view on Amazon.

How To Barter After Disaster

Forget About Meeting The Other Person In The Middle

For some reason, many negotiations end before they begin. One of the parties gives a number, the other gives another and they both know they’ll agree to the sum of their offers divided by 2.

You can do better than that. The reason this happens is because they’re not taking into consideration other factors such as how bad one party needs what the other has to offer. Another thing you can do is find out as much as you can about your opponent beforehand.

The more you know about them and their situation, the more leverage you’ll have. And if you can’t find out much about them, it’s best to avoid doing any kind of post-SHTF deals. Those could be dangerous, anyway.

Start With A Lowball Offer

If you can do this and your opponent doesn’t turn around and leave, you just saved yourself a lot of money (or whatever you are using for currency). Starting really low means that the other party will eventually have to settle for a much lower price than if you’d started with something more reasonable.

Don’t Be Afraid To Walk Away From A Deal

Everything is a number’s game. Just because you need what the other person has to offer, this doesn’t mean you have to take it. You might find 5 or 10 other guys out there that will gladly take your deal and give you what you need, you just need to have the guts to end the negotiations and look for them.

Most people don’t see it this way, though. They might say:

What? You mean I have to go through the pain of finding someone else, especially since I have this guy right here who can give me what I need?

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. The reason you don’t want to do it is because it’s painful to think you have to spend more energy to find other people. But that’s the thing. If you can train yourself to do it regularly, if you allow yourself to play the numbers’ game, walking away from bad deals will become second nature.

Throw In A Bonus

People love things they can get for free. If you feel you’re close to closing a deal but still not happy with it, how about giving away a small bonus? Maybe something from your get home bag that you already have plenty of at home. You never know what the other person needs besides your money or bartering items, this is why due diligence and talking to them are a must.

Say “No” To Lowball Offers

We talked about giving really low offers but what if someone does that to you? This puts you in a weak position so the best way to counteract it is to simply say:

No, this isn’t an offer I might consider. If you can come back with a more decent offer, I’m open to negotiation.

If they like it, fine. They’ll give you a more reasonable first offer. If they don’t, like I said, there’re plenty of other guys who might be interested in the deal.

The More You Tell, The More You Sell

What I’m trying to say is, the more arguments you bring in your favor, the better you can justify the price. Particularly in the absence of money (read: bartering), it’ll be hard to put value on things. This is why thinking and then stating every possible reason that works in your favor will bring you one step closer to what you want, how you want it.

Make Small Concessions

If you started with a really low offer, there’s no better way to seal a deal than to give your opponent more than his new expectations. Of course, you shouldn’t do that if you think you can get a better deal but if you really want to wrap things up, making a small concession might bring the negotiations to a quick and happy ending.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Like any other survival skill, you shouldn’t wait for the end of the world to put into practice bartering and negotiations. You need to do it beforehand because when you’re desperate for food or water, your emotions will get in the way.

Some of ways to practice bartering and negotiations, include:

• simulations with your family,
• playing poker (it allows you to read people and develops your greed),
• going to a flea market (you’ll find plenty of cheap things that you may need for your stockpile),
• start a business (and negotiate every little thing with your supplies and partners)
• …and, provided that you have something to offer that you yourself produce (honey, veggies etc.), try bartering them for other things.

Conclusion

Just keep in mind that everything in this world is negotiable, you just need to have the right mindset. Understand the value of your own items and give a detailed explanation when trading. Know how to barter for the things you need and don’t be afraid to walk away from a bad deal. Teach it to your kids too, studies show that the sooner, the better.

If there’s anything that certain, it’s that nothing is permanent. When we look back through history, we find that many great societies succumbed to societal collapse. Some have been conquered by outside forces, while others have decayed from within. In either case, the society or civilization has ceased to exist as it was once known. To think that the same can’t or won’t happen to us, is to deny one of the most important lessons of history.

The big question for you and I to consider, is whether it will be internal or external forces that ultimately bring about the demise of the United States of America. Currently there are no nation-states with a large enough or powerful enough a military to defeat us. Even if Russia and China were to join together to attack us, it is unlikely that they could mount a big enough amphibious force to guarantee success in invading our shores. The two nations together don’t have anywhere near the amphibious capability that was required to invade Europe on D-day, during World War II.

About the only way that a foreign nation could successfully attack the United States and defeat it would be via an attack by high-altitude EMP. That’s a very real possibility, which has been discussed elsewhere; so, I’m not going to bother spending time on it here.

But it may not be necessary for any foreign power to attack the United States, as we may very well tear ourselves apart, without their help. The political divide that is so prevalent in the US today is tearing this country apart, without any other help. The big question now, is whether it will continue or whether we will find some common ground again, where we can continue functioning as a nation.

We were treated to a sample of how this country could be torn apart a couple of years ago with all the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, a fair number of which turned into riots. I have nothing against demonstrations and believe that our First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech includes the right to peacefully protest. But that’s not the same as having a riot, especially a riot that is identified by theft, destruction and arson.

Unfortunately, we have those in the political system who see it as their duty to use their position to encourage unstable people in their following to engage in these sorts of activities. Not only that, but they are protecting those followers from paying the price for their crimes, while at the same time calling the January 6th incursion in the Capital building an “insurrection,” even though it was unarmed and the only person who was killed was a veteran woman, shot by the police. Justice in this country, at least when it is connected to politics, has become a two-tiered system, with the enforcement of the law being based on one’s political affiliation.

With that being the case, there are more and more people saying that we are headed towards another civil war. Should that war break out, it will be much nastier than the previous one, simply because the battle lines won’t be as obvious. Rather than the north verses the south, it will be the political left verses the political right and while there is some territorial division between the two, it isn’t as clear as it was in the last Civil War.

That lack of clearcut battle lines is what’s going to cause the biggest problem with the next civil war. Battles will break out in random places, as the opposing sides bump up against each other. Little of it will be cohesive warfare, fought by organized troops. Rather, it will be more on the order of ongoing riots, like what we saw with Black Lives Matter.

Should such a war start, it will not only take many lives, but destroy American society as we know it today. Law and order would be largely out the window, not only from the fighting, but from bureaucrats who try and use their position to further the cause of their side. We can pretty much forget about being able to count on the government for anything.

When Might This Happen?

The truth of the matter is that we have no way of knowing when such a breakdown might happen. From what we’ve seen in the last several years, there are plenty of people on both sides of the political divide who are more than ready to turn to violence when things don’t go their party’s way. While almost all of the rioting that has happened can be attributed to one side of that divide, most of the guns belong to the other.

One likely scenario is for the riot side to start tearing things up, due to something happening in the country which they don’t believe in. Interestingly enough, they only seem to do that in cities which are controlled by politicians who are agreeable to their cause. You don’t find such riots happening in cities where law-and-order politicians are in control, because they know that the price of their rioting will be a trip to jail.

If you don’t believe me, just look at what happened in Washington, DC on January 6th and the Congressional hearings that followed. The DC city government is in the hands of Democrats, as was Congress at that time. So the same politicians who winked at the riots which sprung out of the Black Lives Matter protests, were quick to arrest those who unlawfully entered the capital, calling it an “insurrection,” and spreading stories about how dangerous it was for Congress, even though none of those who entered the capital were apparently armed.

If there’s anything in this country which could lead to mass rioting it would be former President Trump winning the 2024 general elections. There is so much hatred focused against Trump in our country today, that there’s a good chance of his winning being all that is needed to cause widespread rioting. Considering how the hate towards him continued through his presidency, I doubt that there’s much anyone can do to keep almost constant protests and rioting from happening during his second term in office.

What Should We Do?

I think it’s necessary to say that it’s not our job to keep the peace or defend our country from those who would destroy it. As tempting as it might be to get directly involved, doing so carries a lot of risk. Remember Kyle Rittenhouse? He eventually won in court, since he didn’t break any laws and only shot in what can very clearly be seen as self-defense. But it could very easily have gone the other way. The mainstream media attempted to try him in the court of public opinion and had declared him guilty even before the bodies could cool. That attempt has cost those news outlets plenty, settling with Kyle for their underhanded attempts at character assassination.

On the other hand, we all have a God-given right to defend home and family. So, regardless of where you live, you need to be ready to do just that. If you happen to live nearby potential targets areas for rioting, either due to the political leadership there or the potential targets for the rioters to go after, you want to be doubly sure that you’re ready to defend your home.

Even with being prepared, the best protection you can possibly have isn’t standing there with guns locked and cocked, it’s not letting the rioters know that you are there. If they don’t know you’re there, they’re much more likely to leave you alone.

That means being able to lock yourself in your home and not come out until the riots are over. More than that, you need to be able to make it look as if nobody is home. That requires things like blackout curtains over the windows and noise discipline to keep them from hearing your television and your kids. At the same time, you don’t want to leave anything outside where they can steal it. Even your cars should be in the garage or hidden away behind the fence, in your backyard.

It’s hard to say just how long you need to be prepared to stay hidden away like that; but figure on a couple of weeks. If there’s one thing that can be said for any mob, it’s that they lose interest just about as fast as they come together to destroy. It’s unlikely that any riot will last more than a couple of days; but as I said, be ready for a couple of weeks.

The other thing we have to realize is that it may take months for any sort of true stability to be reestablished. If the rioting starts because of Donald Trump being elected as president, then it might very well continue throughout his term in office. That will make for a very long four years for anyone living in cities controlled by his political opposition. It’s really hard to estimate just how big the price tag will be on the destruction that is wrought by those who are enraged by his success.

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