We’ve all heard that we’re moving towards cashless societies, but we’ve all probably brushed it off as doomsaying or too-far-into-the-future technology.
Except now we’re getting closer to that reality.
According to an article from January 2024, some banking experts are predicting that Sweden will eliminate cash as a payment method by the year 2027 and that all of their transactions will use a digital payment method, such as credit and debit cards, RFID signals, digital wallets, and so on.
Should this happen, this would make Sweden the first cashless country in the world.
In this article, we are going to take look at the various countries that are aiming towards cashless societies in the near future as well as what this means for merchants moving forward.
Merchants need to have a greater understanding of what payment solutions are going to look like in the future.
It is important to note, that while some predictions indicate the United States will go cashless, it still remains a distant reality.
Let’s take a look at what a cashless society and cashless countries would entail for merchants, as well as for individuals.
What Is A Cashless Society?
A cashless society in its simplest terms is a society in which purchases of services and or goods are made by credit cards/electronic funds rather than cash or check.
You might be thinking, “well aren’t a vast majority of purchases made electronically already?” You would be correct, as it is impossible to deny the convenience of electronic transfers and purchases.
This being said, just because countries are taking tremendous steps to go cashless, that doesn’t mean that it will be enforced by the government.
It is also important to remember that there are individuals who still prefer cash, as they feel there is less government control.
A cashless society doesn’t mean just a major shift from cash to electronic payments, it means a complete shift in that cash is no longer used for anything.
To better understand what going cashless means, let’s take a look at the pros and cons below.
Pros
There are many benefits to going cashless. Those who are able to take advantage of ever-growing technology will find that one of the main benefits is convenience.
With apps like Venmo, Paypal, and Zelle, it is hard to deny the convenience that technology has provided us with.
Should countries decide to go cashless, this would greatly decrease illegal activity such as money laundering, illegal transactions, illegal gambling, and drug operations.
Here are the main benefits that you could expect from a cashless country.
Convenience: Far more convenient for consumers and for merchants, especially when those are traveling and dealing with currency exchange.
Lower Crime Rates: Going cashless would mean there would be no tangible money to steal, reducing crime.
Decreased Money Laundering: It is harder for people to launder money without cash as it is much easier to track electronic payments/spending with digital paper trails.
Time: A lot of time will be saved from not managing cash for both businesses and consumers.
Health Benefits: In general, cash is dirty. The spread of viruses and other illnesses can be greatly halted when germs aren’t being spread through cash.
While a lot of these points may seem like common sense, they are extremely valid points of discussion.
In general, many individuals probably would agree that all of these things are positives.
This being said, let’s take a look at some of the cons with a cashless society.
Cons
From what we’ve gathered, the main downfalls of going totally cashless are security breaches and personal spending habits. To combat this, over the years, the banking and credit card processing industries have seen drastic increases in security.
While hacking can certainly be a concern, digital paper trails could end up being the reason why you’re able to get back $2,000 that was stolen from you. If this was cash, it would be much harder to prove it wasn’t you who spent the funds or that you were robbed.
Security: Should your bank account get hacked, you wouldn’t have any additional funds until it’s cleared up.
Spending Habits: Some may have trouble saving money when physical cash isn’t leaving their wallets.
Tech Problems/Glitches: Should there be glitches or outages, merchants may have trouble accepting payments, leaving you without the ability to purchase goods when needed.
Digital Paper Trails: All transactions would be easy to track and this could be something that frequent cash users won’t like.
Overview Of A Cashless Society
So, what would a cashless society look like? In a way, similar to what we’re seeing today with electronic transfers, and more and more businesses accepting different forms of electronic payments.
This is one of the major reasons why merchants need to make sure they are working with reliable and up-to-date payment processing companies.
Without cash and coins, all payments would be handled electronically. Rather than using cash to exchange value, you would be authorizing transfers of funds from one bank account to the next.
While credit cards and debit cards are definitely seeing a heavy uptick in overall users, they may not be the only thing to contribute to a totally cashless society.
In addition to the traditional Visa, MasterCard, and American Express cards, as well as Discover, JCB (Japan Credit Bank), there are other options you need to be prepared for.
There are apps like PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, and Cash apps. There’s WeChat Pay and AliPay mobile chat and payment apps, which have 800 million users around the world.
And lastly, there’s Brazil’s Boleto Bancário, which is organized by the Brazilian Federation of Banks, which makes up 25% of the country’s total payments with 3.7 billion transactions per year.
Mobile wallets would also likely be heavily prevalent with services like Apple Pay. Countries that are starting to stray from cash and have seen a steady rise in mobile payments.
The last thing to touch on is cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies are already being used for transfers and they also bring new technology and innovation.
This being said, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are still considered to be extremely high-risk for merchants and consumers.
To sum this all up, we would likely see an increase in security and an increase in mobile apps focusing on convenience for consumers and merchants.
Cashless Cities
Smarter Travel predicts that cities like Stockholm, Reykjavik, Seoul, Singapore, and several cities in China will go cashless. So what does this mean for retail and online merchants, and their merchant service providers?
While these cities going cashless will only affect a fraction of the globe, merchants who accept all forms of payment may need to get used to more and more alternative forms of payment to crop up.
Cashless Countries
There are currently no cashless countries. This being said, there’s a growing number of countries seeking to go cashless in the coming years.
Let’s take a look below at some of the countries that are closest to going cashless:
Sweden
Finland
China
South Korea
United Kingdom
Australia
Netherlands
Canada
Sweden
With a date set in 2025 to go completely cashless, Sweden is arguably the closest country to achieve this. It is currently not uncommon to see signs that say “No Cash Accepted” in various shops in Sweden.
A recent study from the European Payments Council showed that cash transactions accounted for only 1% of Sweden’s GDP in 2019 with cash withdrawals steadily declining by about 10% a year.
While consumers are generally happy, those struggling financially or technologically still continue to rely on cash.
Recent reports show that mobile payments are accelerating very sharply in Sweden. One of the main reasons for this is that Swedes are tech-savvy.
For example, Swish, which is a mobile app, had over 7.8 million users in July of 2020 and also performs close to 50 million transactions a month.
Should Sweden achieve a truly cashless economy, visitors will want to be sure that they have forms of electronic payments.
Finland
Finland has a smaller population of around 5.5 million. This being said, cash in Finland is becoming irrelevant through rural and urban areas.
So, what is Finland doing differently than Sweden? Finland is not taking as aggressive measures as Sweden in going towards a fully digital economy, however, it is reported that Finland is currently more capable of going fully cashless this moment.
Finland currently ranks second to just Ireland in terms of frequency of use of cards, and fifth in e-commerce spending, and second in smartphone penetration.
China
While China is a bit behind both Finland and Sweden, the growth in electronic payments is far more significant, given its massive population size.
Like other countries that have been aiming towards going cashless, China has shown a rapid adoption of mobile payments. Currently, one of the most popular ways to pay by phone is through QR code scanning.
China is leading the charge in eCommerce and is the biggest eCommerce market in the world. With annual online sales of $672 billion and an annual growth rate of 27.3%, China doesn’t show signs of slowing.
South Korea
South Korea is currently more cashless than China, however, there are far fewer people.
More and more South Koreans are starting to rely on credit cards and various digital payment tools. South Korea already has most of the infrastructure in place nationwide to go cashless.
It was reported that roughly 6% of South Korea’s GDP being eCommerce spending and more than 100 transactions on every credit card per year.
This should keep South Korea in the conversation in the coming years when it comes to the idea of going cashless or even just relying more on electronic solutions.
United Kingdom
The UK has embraced technology, including the digitization of money. London, specifically, has done so the most so far and continues down this path.
The UK has a strong presence in online banking and it is currently in second place to just the United States when it comes to financial tech areas. There has also been a strong increase in merchants accepting more card and mobile payments.
In 2020, the UK was 3rd to just the United States and China in eCommerce GDP, and they sit well above 4th place, Japan.
Australia
Australia is a bit behind the other countries mentioned in this list, however, it is definitely worth the mention. We are currently seeing Australia start to digitize most of its economy. It is predicted that most individuals in Australia will own a smartphone by 2020.
This is a major advancement as a lot of payments are done via mobile transactions nowadays.
On top of this, internet banking penetration is now over 75% of the total population.
Over the last 5 years, the use of debit cards has increased by over 90% and online banking transactions have increased by over 43%.
Netherlands
The Netherlands is one of the leaders in Europe when it comes to electronic transactions. A striking statistic is that 99% of the population currently owns a debit card.
Over half of payment transactions in 2020 were contactless and via debit card. This is a huge step towards the potentiality of going cashless.
With this being said, cash still remains to be an important payment type.
Canada
While Canada is nowhere near going cashless, they have some very interesting statistics regarding electronic transactions.
83% of Canadians no have a smartphone. This is huge as consumers use smartphones to pay bills, shop online, and transfer funds. A study even suggested that nearly 80% of Canadians wouldn’t leave home without their phones.
We’re also seeing that over 70% of personal purchases in Canada are now card-based. While it’s hard to deny this boom, going completely cashless in Canada seems to still be far away.
Will The U.S. Become A Cashless Country?
With a disparate level of technology and a wide span between rich and poor people, it is hard to see the United States going completely cashless in the near future.
When a significant number of our population are poor, refuse to use smartphones, or are severely unbanked/underbanked, one could guess that cash will be around for a long time.
Not to mention the various laws that require that anyone who sells something must accept cash as a form of payment, as well as several cities that have also passed ordinances to prevent businesses from going completely cashless.
While many believe the United States won’t be going cashless anytime soon, countries with lower levels of economic inequality and greater trust in government seem to be pushing the envelope.
This being said, the United States, like most countries, is making some major moves when it comes to electronic payments and transactions.
What Can Merchants Do?
Now, more than ever, merchants should be doubling down and making sure that they are able to accept various payment methods.
As certain cities and countries around the world continue pushing electronic transactions, it will be more important than ever that your business is able to process various payments.
Even if countries don’t go completely cashless, tourists may be reluctant to travel with cash and may resort to different forms of payment.
Wrapping Up
While we still have a few years before Sweden goes totally cashless and the other countries begin to follow suit, take this opportunity to look at accepting different payment methods and forms of currency.
Should you be a merchant, it is extremely important to make sure that you are working with a merchant services provider that is ready to adapt to an ever-changing industry. Not only does Corepay do this, but we also offer solutions to all types of industries including high-risk.
If things go sideways in a really bad way and I’m talking about the kind of bad that a region or country doesn’t quickly or ever bounce back from, more than likely you and your family will die if you’re not prepared. Are you prepared enough to ensure your family can weather a major catastrophe?
fires-so-cal
I tend to try and be as optimistic as I can when I consider possibilities involving an SHTF scenario. I consider myself a practical, pragmatic prepper of sorts and I tend to focus on the most probable of disaster scenarios that I’ll probably face in my area, like fires or earthquakes. I’d like to believe that most catastrophic problems in my region can be resolved within 2 to 4 weeks assuming help comes. But I know as a prepper it’d be foolish to not consider the possibility that things may not bounce back or help may not arrive. If this were to happen, would I be ready to take care of myself and my family? Many experts predict that if our power grid were to go down in the U.S., by the end of the first month, ½ of all Americans would die. Can you live 30 days without power, water or food being available to you?
In this article, we’ll discuss the 10 most common ways people will die in the first month if there were an extended catastrophe. While this topic could be perceived as discouraging, the good news is we’ll present solutions to ensure you and your family will be prepared to face these challenges.
By the way, if you haven’t read the book “1 Second After”, I encourage you to purchase it today…after reading this article of course. While it’s fiction, it’s a great read and covers many of these items we’ll be discussing in this article.
So let’s jump in discussing the top 10 things that will likely kill you or your family in the first 30 days after a catastrophe in which help doesn’t come.
1. The lack of water or even safe water to drink.
prepping-clean-water
I put this intentionally first as you can only live 3 days without water. The biggest killer at the beginning of a catastrophe will be people dying from either a lack of water or the inability to gain access to sanitary water. If you’ve ever watched the news after a major catastrophe hits an area, you’ll see that lethal diseases will quickly run rampant through individuals that have been displaced. The lack of sanitary water leads to diarrhea and other problems that can quickly kill people due to pathogens contaminating the water supply due to unsanitary conditions.
How do you protect against this? Easy. Having gravity fed water filtration or other water filtration systems that do not require power to operate will allow you to make your water safe. In my family’s bug out bags, I have a few different water filters: a sawyer water filter, a life straw, and a pure sip personal water filter. While these small filters are good for handling bacteria, they’re not really equipped to handle contaminants in water. In our home, we have a Berkey water filter as well which we use on a daily basis. These filters can make contaminated water safe to drink. If you do not have water stored and a way to filter water, you need to focus on this first. In addition, have bleach, iodine tablets, or pool shock to kill viruses if your filter doesn’t filter at this level.
2. Starving to death
prepping-starving
The average person can only last 21 days without food. Most Americans only have enough food for a few days as they’re used to visiting the grocery store every few days. If a catastrophe prevents food deliveries to your local grocery store which typically carries enough supplies for 3 days, then what? Malnutrition, food poisoning, and starvation will wipe out a large percentage of individuals in the first 30 days.
This problem can be easily remedied by building a short-term food plan. In my home, I have stocked up on foods that we already use on a daily basis. We pull the food from this inventory as we need it…things like spaghetti, rice, honey, beans, coffee, canned meats, canned food, etc. This setup is by no means a long term food storage plan which we’ll cover in a future article, but rather this is food that is already used in our daily life. Here’s what I did. We started setting aside a little extra money in our budget each month to grab additional food we already used and added it to our inventory. When we pull the food from our extra inventory supply we built up, we have a clipboard in our storage area where we write down what was taken and on our next trip we simply replace that food. Many people focus on storing canned foods which are fine for short term, but having a balance of other foods that can easily sit on the shelf is a good idea as well. Remember: begin stocking staple foods that are easy to store and prepare and have a balance of fat, carbs and proteins.
3. Your medication runs out
prepping-medicine-runs-out
This one is a bit of a challenge as you can’t necessarily stock up on medications if your doctor only gives you enough of a supply until your next appointment. After many catastrophes hit an area, apart from people making a run on their local grocery store to grab as much food and water as they can, you can expect people will make a run on their local pharmacy to secure the drugs they need to survive. In addition, you need to consider the effect it will have in your local area when people come off meds. Many people rely upon medications to not only deal with health issues but to keep them mentally stable. Without their meds, there could severe side effects. People will get desperate and potentially dangerous. There will be those that need their meds to survive. Without the meds, they won’t last long. If your health condition can be managed with changes in your lifestyle (for example getting in shape and losing weight), you need to give serious consideration to this which leads us to our next point.
4. People will die because they’re out of shape
prepping-out-of-shape
A few months ago I had a tree in my backyard which began dying and it was time to cut it down. I don’t own a chainsaw and so I used an ax to cut it down. Growing up we cut trees down all the time on our property and split wood…that was back when I was 18 years old. Now that I’m over 40, that same task is more difficult. Cutting down that tree was a bit of a challenge. While I spend 3 days in the gym and try to do cardio activities on the other days, when cutting the tree down I began to realize I was no longer a spring chicken. I was winded quickly and found myself wishing I had a chainsaw. I got sloppy as well due to getting tired and nearly injured myself when I tried to cut the tree at an angle and nearly caused the ax blade to bounce into my leg (which I’ll talk about in the next point). But the fact that I had been keeping myself in decent shape made the job possible. In a grid down situation where things are not bouncing back, you’ll probably be required to perform physical activities to survive.
If you’re used to sitting in an office chair all day and not performing daily activities which push your body, you might be surprised how little your body will be up for strenuous labor. Please don’t underestimate this point as something you can put off. You have the opportunity to get your body in shape. If you don’t push yourself, your body will naturally atrophy. Also, consider things like how much extra weight you are currently carrying on your body. Being obese can be a huge liability in a grid down situation. With a modification to your diet, getting off your behind and begin moving on a daily basis, you can steer yourself in the right direction. The older I get, the more I realize the limitations of my body and the less I want to exert myself. There may come a time when my family relies on me to have to work physically hard for them in order to survive and I don’t want to be unable because I had simply allowed my body to atrophy.
5. Individuals will die due to trauma, small injuries or simply get sick
prepping-small-injury
As I mentioned earlier while chopping down the tree, I nearly had the ax blade slam into my leg. While it’s easy to laugh this off as someone not being safe, think about how many people will get injured performing a lot of physical activities that carry the risk of injury. Not only will major trauma potentially injure individuals, but think about how many have a minor injury that could lead to a severe infection. If you’ve ever had a small cut that has turned into an infection that needed attention, you could simply visit your physician to get the proper medications to treat the problem. But now imagine individuals getting small cuts and nicks that they neglect only have it turn into something worse and no one can help. Not only do injuries carry a large risk of death, but getting sick can as well.
So what can you do? Begin gaining medical knowledge and the proper medical supplies now. In addition, make sure you don’t neglect basic sanitation. Not that a long ago I took training through my local fire department named C.E.R.T. Part of the training taught us how to stabilize individuals with major trauma. I encourage you to begin researching courses like this in your local area. My degree in college was Microbiology and during this time I spent a lot of time volunteering in hospitals. While I am by no means a physician, while being in this environment I learned the basics in sanitation and treating minor injuries. I have been working on stocking medical supplies and am working on expanding that out at this time. There’s a lot of great channels on Youtube like the Patriot Nurse or Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy which are great for someone looking for help getting up to speed on the basics of medicine. At a minimum have a book in your inventory like The Survival Medicine Handbook.
In addition, do yourself a favor and pick up a good pair of work gloves and safety goggles.
6. Lack of sanitation
prepping-sanitation
In the previous point, I pointed out that individuals getting sick can result in death without medical attention. If things go bad in your area, proper sanitation will be critical. Have you considered how you will dispose of the waste your family produces? By waste I am referring to your urine and excrement, in addition, leftover food or dirty dishes. We’re so used to simply flushing our toilets and taking the trash out to the curb and the problem is gone. But what happens when the sewage stops running and the trash man doesn’t come to pick up your trash. Then what?
A lack of sanitation can lead to illness which can spread through your home and kill your family. Began researching options to dispose of your waste. Essential things like washing your hands thoroughly will be more important than ever. Having a decent supply of hand sanitizer will be helpful as well. When I lived in Afghanistan in 2003, I was fortunate that I never really got sick even though sanitation was a foreign concept in the general population. I was OCD about sanitation and during my time working with an NGO and living with 24 other people in our house, fortunately, I didn’t have many of the health issues that our team members had. I attribute my good fortune to staying on top of being careful to make sure I kept my hands clean, I sterilized my water bottle daily and made sure the dishes I used had been properly cleaned. Not only can getting sick be a problem in your family, but consider the damage it can do to morale having sick family members or being sick yourself.
7. You die when looters come for your stuff
prepping-looters
Many people envision the looters they’ll have to face will be gangs or some group of people displaced coming to take their supplies. While marauders like this can potentially be a big threat, the reality is you may have neighbors or other family members which can turn on you if you’ve prepared and they haven’t.
When I first got serious about prepping, I thought sharing my excitement about prepping with friends and family would excite them to get serious about prepping. It pretty much had the opposite effect: they looked at me strangely and later they brought up that if things were to go bad, they’d come to my house immediately to seek help. Remember earlier we mentioned that only about 1% of Americans are “Preppers”? Well, what do you think the other 99% of Americans are going to do when they can’t find water or food? Thinking about this does concern me greatly because I’d never want to harm someone if they were hungry and coming for my stuff, especially if they were someone I knew and loved. And by “coming for my stuff”, I don’t mean just asking or pleading. When people get desperate, they will do anything it takes to survive. And by “anything”, I mean “a-ny-thing”. If you only have enough supplies to keep your family alive, what will do if that neighbor that hasn’t prepared goes past demanding help and decides they will take from you even if they have to hurt you or your family?
So what are you to do? If gangs or looters are bent on hurting you for what you have then the answer is obvious, but what are we to do regarding friends or family? This is a moral dilemma that goes through my head a lot and I see it often discussed in this community as well. If you want to open your supplies to help others, remember you are lessening the probability your family will live that much longer and the probability those people you helped with keep coming back. In my mind, there’s only 3 answers which I’ll run through quickly (and if you have other views please share them in the comment section below): 1. Keep your mouth shut. The less information you provide to others about what you have, the better. 2. Help others now and educate them. While this might seem to be the exact opposite piece of advice from my point #1, you don’t have to disclose all your preps and show off everything you have to them. Just help educate them that they should prepare. I need to create a separate video for this, but I’ve slowly been introducing neighbors to prepping and they’ve begun taking steps to prepare. Remember, the less desperate they are, the less of a threat they are to you. 3. Arm yourself. If it comes down to it, you may have to be forced to protect your family. While I have no desire to harm someone, if it comes down to me and my family and a person bent on hurting us, I’ll do what I have to do. Side note: I don’t advocate violence and I greatly value human life. Remember, if you harm or kill someone, you will ultimately be held accountable for your actions. But when the social niceties that we enjoy in our society go out the window when people get desperate and they pose a threat to me or my family, I won’t hesitate for a moment to do whatever it takes to stop them.
8. You aren’t prepared for reality
prepping-reality
So your plan is if things hit the fan is to grab that awesome bug out bag and run to the mountains and live off the land. In your mind, you dream of picking berries, drinking from streams, trapping rabbits and hunting deer. You’ll live in a tent with your family and survive in that national forest near you. OK, so I don’t have time in this article to break this entire fantasy down, but good luck with that.
The reality is that all that cool tactical gear you bought with the molle, the 5000 rounds of ammo you’re storing up, those seeds you purchased online to build a big crop that you’ve never planted won’t save you. If you’ve got a family, think you can run them into the mountains to live off the land? If you’re not practicing this lifestyle now, you’re probably not going to suddenly transition overnight to this and suddenly thrive or even survive. What am I saying here? Live in reality on this issue. The fantasy of becoming some amazing survivalist with several family members in tow isn’t going to last long. I live in a suburban environment and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my 7000 square foot suburban home will not support my family long-term unless I prepare and think ahead now. I know we can definitely survive for an extended period of time if we’re able to bug-in and don’t have any major conflicts as mentioned in the previous point.
So what can you do? Network. Build relationships with other like-minded preppers. I’ve been fortunate to find a solid network in my area. In the past, I have used the website meetup.com to find a local prepper group in my area. You’ll definitely meet some oddballs but overall I’ve been able to meet some solid people. While it’s beyond the scope of this article, the lone wolf mentality will only get you so far. Live in reality and take an honest assessment of what you and your family can do and do yourself a favor and connect with other preppers that can help where you are deficient.
9. You freeze to death
prepping-freeze-to-death
I’m fortunate to live in a part of the U.S. that doesn’t get terribly cold during the winter. But in many parts of the US, temperatures can drop to very dangerous levels that can kill. So what will you do? Gonna start that fireplace you have never used before? OK, do you have firewood already cut and prepared? If not do you have the tools to do so and do you have places around you to cut down firewood? For many that can not get a fuel source in time before the temperature drops to dangerous levels, they’ll try burning things that they shouldn’t and stand the possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning or possibly burning their home down.
If you have a fireplace, start by making sure the chimney is cleaned out and have firewood on hand that is already cut up. Find methods that others use in your area to heat their home that is not dependent on the electrical grid functioning. Each region is unique and different in how they handle heating homes and be sure to have a backup plan.
10. You give up
prepping-do-not-give-up
Last but not least, many people will simply give up. Even those that have prepared to cover the points above, some will simply lose the will to move forward or to keep fighting. Things may not go according to plans. Bad things may happen. Your supplies may get looted, someone in your home may die. The list of what could happen could go on and on. The key is this: do not give up. Especially if you have a family or others depending on you. You may have to dig deep inside to find the strength and fortitude that come hell or high water, you will not back down and you will not give up. If you have dependents, giving up is not an option. Remember this: a negative, defeated attitude can be like cancer and spread to others around you. As we discussed earlier, morale in times like this is critical. If you’ve ever read accounts from those that have had to survive extended periods of time in impossible situations, the will to survive and the morale required to do so was the only thing that enabled them to continue living when others around them gave up and simply died. This goes beyond having the right tools or supplies. If you are prepping now for yourself and your family, remember, they will be looking to you to lead not only in your preps but in those dark moments when all hope seems lost. Don’t give up. Determine now that will dig in your heels and align your mind to that end. You may be the only beacon of hope others have.
While writing this article, it challenged me to reconsider a few things I need to focus on a little more and I hope it will do the same for you. Again, please feel free to provide your feedback in the comment section below.
When you engage in bartering, you directly trade your goods, services, or skills with another person who has goods, services, or skills that you want to own or make use of. There are bartering structures you can use now, as well as in a time of economic collapse.
Disadvantage – Bartering often involves haggling because there is no centralized value for goods and services pegged to a medium of exchange. If you are good at haggling and negotiating, then you will do well with bartering. If you don’t have these skills, then you might lose out even if what you have is of greater value than what you get in return.
Disadvantage – Bartering is considered inefficient when compared to using a medium of exchange. Let’s say you want to obtain a dozen eggs. If you don’t have anything of interest to the owner of the eggs, you won’t be able to make the deal. In order to obtain the eggs, you may have to go through several transactions to obtain something of use to the owner of the eggs.
Advantage – When you rely on a centralized medium of exchange, the value can change in harmful ways without you having any say in the matter. Inflation and currency devaluation are examples of things that impact currencies and cryptocurrencies, but not bartering.
Advantage – No third person or other agency can step in and enforce a ration or other mechanism to limit or prevent you from trading one or more items.
Consider how merchant category codes and other tools are now being used to prevent you from buying certain items or in various quantities. Even though you have the money in your bank account, or available through your credit cards, you won’t be able to make the deal because there is a hold marker preventing the exchange.
By contrast, with bartering, if you approach a farmer and want to trade 8 dozen eggs for a harness, the deal will go through as long as both parties have the items in question and are willing to make the deal.
Bartering Methods to Consider
Person to Person bartering
Historically speaking, trading person to person is the oldest method. These deals are usually carried out quickly unless haggling is a cultural point that demands more lengthy negotiations.
Depending on the items exchanged, repeat transactions may occur over time. For example, if a baker requires eggs for certain pastries, he might routinely trade several rolls of bread per dozen eggs.
Group Bartering
You can also barter as a group. This usually works best for large-scale or bulk items. Let’s say someone has 100 loaves of bread to barter. One person won’t need all of that bread, but several families getting together to trade would. In this case, each group member might offer something as part of the trade to make up the full value of the exchange.
As in one-to-one bartering, some haggling might go on as individuals try to get the most from their offerings. The pressure of the group interest, however, can limit this as the owner of the large-scale item will be more eager to make the deal and not waste time or effort looking for more people.
Barter Banks and Clubs
The third method involves the use of bartering banks and clubs. Bartering banks were especially popular during the Great Depression when money was scarce. One of the most important things about barter banks is they can make trade more efficient without the use of money or debt.
Bartering banks bring buyers and sellers together in a single market. If you have a good, service, or skill to trade, the barter bank adds it to the list of items available to others. Next, the bank owner matches up traders. Once both sides agree on the deal, the bank owner charges a small fee for bringing the traders together. Depending on the bank owner’s interest, this fee can also be paid in the form of a barter.
From soaring interest rates to outright monetary depreciation, bartering banks and clubs can offer relief when purchasing many consumer items.
There are two tricks to optimizing how a barter bank or club works:
Local Diversification – Let’s say you want to reduce the cost of fresh foods such as fruits, vegetables, eggs, and meat. If you live in a small town surrounded by farms, a bartering club will be fairly easy to set up. As long as each bank member has something of interest to offer the farmers, the club and members will do fine.
Optimizing Travel – People that live in a city will always have a harder time reducing food costs. This situation is likely to be even worse with bartering because the tangible goods and services required in each area are different.
A barter bank can still generate multiple transactions, enabling people and groups to trade effectively. The key to this is the trade needs in the areas between the farms and cities. Co-ops and other group structures can still work within the bank to trade in bulk with the farms, and then generate another trade at the city level with individual bank members.
5 Things to Keep in Mind When Founding a Bartering Club
# 1 Research who has tangible goods and services that will be of interest in a time of need. Talk to them now and see if you can get them to take advantage of a free membership or other incentive even if they don’t immediately start using the service.
# 2 Cultivate people that wouldn’t usually look for bartering opportunities. This includes medical professionals and others who may not know what to do during a major economic crash but still need things like food, clothing, and other tangible goods.
# 3 Form a business structure, such as a corporation, that shields you and your personal assets from liability. Keep a competent accountant and lawyer on hand for advice.
# 4 Get a professional marketing plan. Few things in business are worse than having a great idea, people with valuable products, and no way to expand the network to critical mass. Professional marketers can help you reach a wider audience and ensure you adhere to your theme.
# 5 Pay attention to business infrastructure. You will most likely use cloud hosting services that enable transactions to occur securely in real-time.
Economic crashes have happened overnight, leaving people with no place to turn. Your barter club will be what they are looking for. That may mean upgrading at a moment’s notice to take on all the new activity. Make sure you know exactly how long the upgrades will take and the up-front cost.
You should also be able to run the barter club without using computers. Ham radios for you and club members and paper ledgers are tedious but valuable backups.
Fair Market Value – What it is and How it Works
Even though you aren’t using money or credit to purchase goods and services, the government still looks at your labor and everything you own from a monetary perspective – or “Fair Market Value”. Therefore, when you make a trade, the value of the transaction is considered in terms of monetary profit or loss for tax purposes.
Arriving at fair market value can be complicated, however the government uses a range of metrics to determine the value. This includes consumer price indexes based on past performance of any given item and assessments of current trends.
These pricing indexes and forecasts are available from national to locality levels. To get started, look to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls.gov) for information at the national level. Some of it is free, while you will need to pay a subscription for other items. If you have a library nearby, they may have subscriptions to this information that they allow patrons to access for free.
Even with all of this data, arriving at fair market value of goods or services can be difficult. Adding to the challenge, if both parties have agreed ahead of time on the value of the goods or services, this value will be accepted as a fair market value unless you can prove another value is more accurate.
Bartering and Your Tax Burden
When you barter in a club or group, you may wind up with an accumulation of credits until you find something you want to use them on. These credits are taxable, just like any other asset, and are considered income.
Any income or profit that you make as a result of bartering must be reported on your tax returns. Bartering clubs, like any other business, must file a 1099-B that shows all of your transactions, plus the Fair Market Value profit or loss.
If you make a business out of bartering, then the forms you file will be different from those used for individuals. In addition to federal filings, you will need to know what forms to use for the state and the city if it levies taxes independently of the state.
Most people don’t think about bartering as something to engage in before a major social collapse. There are different kinds of bartering you can make use of, even in these times. Bartering clubs, in particular, can be an ideal business opportunity that will be of use to you and others in a time of need.
The Great Depression was caused by much more than Black Tuesday, the day the stock market crashed. From what I understand, the biggest thing that caused the depression was the loss of confidence in the banking system. There was a run on the banks, destroying their financial base, which in turn forced them to liquify assets. That had the net result of turning what had been good investments into bad, putting the banks in worse conditions.
There are a number of very serious differences between the economy of the 1920s and the economy today. I could talk about a lot of different things that fall into this, but the main point is that the government is meddling in the economy much more today, than they were back then. Giving Congress the benefit of the doubt, that meddling has largely been done with the intent of making things better; but Congress seems incapable of learning the lesson that there are always unintended consequences to their actions. Some of those actions include:
Not allowing banks to fail. While nobody wants to see banks fail, buying up their debt and/or assets to prevent failure or to pass those assets on to other banks at a reduced cost, merely puts off the financial impact, while increasing the national debt.
Not allowing major corporations to fail. Instead, the government props them up with taxpayer dollars.
The trillion-plus-dollar spending packages due to COVID relief and the “infrastructure bill” have jacked up the national debt to previously unheard of levels.
Increased dependence on the protection provided by Welfare and other related programs adds to the national debt, while training people to depend on the government to take care of them, rather than taking care of themselves. In the case of a recession or depression, more people would be receiving that aid, driving the national debt rise even faster.
The FDIC, which exists to guarantee depositor’s funds, was in its infancy, with only the largest banks as members, before the Great Depression. Today, pretty much every bank is a member of FDIC, which is backed by the US government. Should the FDIC be unable to pay, the government would be forced to, increasing the national debt.
Each of these things has been done to help protect our economy, “cushioning” any impact from a negative turn in the economy. But the unintended consequence is that they all have the net effect of increasing the national debt, one of the major things that is driving us closer to a financial collapse. In other words, what they are really doing is kicking the collapse down the road, hoping that in doing so, they can make it disappear. That just means that when the collapse does finally come, it will be worse.
There’s another hidden consequence of these actions. That is, as the Federal Reserve keeps “printing” more money to meet all these government “obligations,” the value of our money on the international stage keeps going down. In other words, we get inflation. Eventually, Chinese products won’t be cheaper, but we’ll still be forced to pay for them, because we won’t be manufacturing competitive products here at home.
The ultra-wealthy are planning your future right now. They’ll call it ‘utopia’ and sell it to you as such, but it’s actually the opposite. Welcome to the first of a two-part series.
Utopia is a place of “ideal perfection, especially in laws, government, and social conditions.” At least, that’s the dictionary definition.
The thing is, despite humans having tried for thousands of years to attain Eden-esque perfection, it’s impossible. Worse, the irony of such efforts is literally baked into the word ‘utopia:’
In 1516, English humanist Sir Thomas More published a book titled Utopia, which compared social and economic conditions in Europe with those of an ideal society on an imaginary island located off the coast of the Americas. More wanted to imply that the perfect conditions on his fictional island could never really exist, so he called it “Utopia,” a name he created by combining the Greek words ou (“not, no”) and topos (“place”).
Still, that doesn’t stop people from trying to create fictional paradise. The latest attempts are — unsurprisingly — conceived of, funded by, and built by our billionaire overlords, who aim to own everything and define how our lives will be lived in the future.
At the same time, a paradox is unfolding. While several attempts at billionaire-initiated paradises are currently in the works, some efforts are failing, some are falling apart, and some are simply struggling to get off the ground.
What we know about Silicon Valley elites, bitcoin bros, and AI billionaires is that they dream big and have virtually limitless finances. So even failed attempts at utopia — or whatever their version of it is — gets the entire cohort a step closer to decoding a formula that might stick. It’s like unlimited funding to indulge a God complex.
In part one of this series, we’re looking at four concepts for creating paradise on earth crafted by the freedom loving, libertarian, optimized-living-through-technology crowd. What exactly do these communities promise? Who’s behind them? And most importantly, could they just be 15-minute dystopian wolves in utopian sheep’s clothing? Let’s dive in.
1. Próspera (Honduras)
Próspera began as a bold libertarian experiment on the tropical island of Roatán, off the northern coast of Honduras. It’s the brainchild of Erick Brimen, a Venezuelan-born wealth fund manager who imagined a city run not by politicians, but by market forces and blockchain logic. He’s aiming to create a low-tax, deregulated tech haven where businesses can make their own laws, or choose to implement existing national laws from a menu of 36 countries. Residents pay low taxes (payable in Bitcoin), and biotech startups push the limits of radical life extension with experimental, as yet unproven treatments disallowed in other countries.
With venture capital backing from Coinbase and Sam Altman–linked projects, plus support from figures like Peter Thiel, Próspera has quickly become a magnet for crypto evangelists, longevity obsessives, and deregulation devotees. It hosts conferences with themes like: “Make death optional.” It’s creating a walled city with private arbitration courts, judges who adjudicate online from Arizona (no idea why Arizona — our research was not explicit), and QR-code entry checkpoints.
But like all utopias, this charter city dream has clashed with reality. One critic called it a “libertarian fantasy… that’s not going to turn out well.” The Honduran government that initially supported the project and allowed for the zoning laws making it possible has since collapsed in scandal — with the former president serving time in US prison for conspiring to import and distribute over 400 tons of cocaine. That’s a lot of blow.
Locals in the nearby village of Crawfish Rock have not taken kindly to the idea of the gated city and have accused Próspera of land grabs, environmental damage, and trying to push them out. When the current democratic socialist President, Xiomara Castro, declared the former administration’s zoning laws unconstitutional, Próspera fought back in international court, demanding nearly $11 billion USD in damages — about a third of the country’s GDP — an amount that would bankrupt the country if they lose the case.
Brimen is doubling down, lobbying American politicians to argue in his favor and launching a spin-off project aimed at Africa.
This all plays out as an ironic twist of history: a 21st-century version of the banana republic, complete with foreign investors, private courts, and corporate control over land, law, and labor. The term ‘banana republic’ was coined by author O. Henry to describe Honduras — a place where US fruit companies ran the economy. Now, crypto-capitalists and Silicon Valley VCs are picking up where the plantations left off, except this time, they’re promising immortality instead of bananas.
2. NEOM (Saudi Arabia)
NEOM was supposed to be Saudi Arabia’s leap into the future: a $500 billion high-tech oasis in the desert that would make even Silicon Valley blush. Conceived in 2017 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the crown jewel of his Vision 2030 plan, NEOM promised flying taxis, robot dinosaurs, artificial moons, a desert ski resort with fake snow, and a 170-kilometer mirrored city called The Line.
This mirrored city was meant to stretch 170 kilometers across the desert with no cars, no roads, and no emissions — just smart infrastructure, biometric surveillance, and those previously mentioned flying taxis.
But like many utopias, the fantasy is already buckling under the weight of reality. The goal was for The Line to eventually be home to 9 million people, with 1.5 million residents by 2030. Middle East Eye reports that Saudi officials now predict fewer than 300,000 in that time frame. Only 2.4 kilometers of The Line may actually be completed by 2030. Oil revenues — the main funding source — have declined sharply, and insiders say the kingdom is facing an “environment of limited resources.” Budget reviews are underway, and other NEOM projects (like the year-round ski resort) have been shelved, delayed, or drastically scaled back.
Behind the glossy renderings lies a construction project with a dystopian work culture. NEOM’s former CEO, Nadhmi al-Nasr, developed a reputation for abusive management. “I drive everybody like a slave,” he said, celebrating “[w]hen they drop down dead… That’s how I do my projects.” In one case, he told an employee to “walk into the desert and die” so he could urinate on their grave. As a result, there has been a mass exodus of foreign executives, many of whom forfeited six-figure contracts just to escape the toxic environment.
Meanwhile, members of the Howeitat tribe, native to the land NEOM occupies, have resisted the development. Many have been forcibly removed, at least one activist was killed, and others have been imprisoned for resisting eviction. Human rights groups have condemned the project, while NEOM’s own consultants warned that the mega-structure could actually change the weather and decimate bird populations due to its massive mirrored walls.
None of this matters; Saudi officials press on. Promotional videos still promise a gleaming future where “Neomians” live in harmony with nature, technology, and robot dinosaurs. But those on the ground tell a different story — of constant surveillance, sexual harassment allegations ignored by leadership, and Orwellian control over employee life. Promises of a liberalized social zone — with alcohol, gender mixing, freedom — have quietly been walked back by a government known for its public stonings and other extreme punishment for ‘immorality.’
NEOM may, in fact, never turn out to be the future of urban life. But it may just be the world’s most expensive monument to authoritarian delusion: a dystopian nightmare of a city built on sand, surveillance, and slogans.
3. Telosa (Somewhere, USA)
Telosa is what happens when a billionaire tries to build a utopian city without using the word ‘utopia.’ Marc Lore, former Walmart executive and founder of Jet.com and Diapers.com, envisions a new city rising from scratch somewhere in the American desert (or possibly Appalachia), designed to be sustainable, walkable, tech-forward, and just equitable enough to keep you from asking too many questions.
According to Telosa’s website, this categorically, definitely, 100 percent isn’t a utopia.
Is the goal to create a utopia?
No, we are absolutely not attempting to create a utopia. Utopian projects are focused on creating a perfect, idealistic state — we are not. We are firmly grounded in reality and what is possible.
We are focused on the best, most sustainable solutions for infrastructure, urban design, economic vibrancy and city services, but we fully recognize that no solution is perfect and all human systems have flaws. Therefore, we are committed to new ideas, finding the best way to solve difficult problems and constant improvement.
And yet the renderings and promo videos suggest otherwise: gleaming towers, shaded plazas, handicap-accessible courtyards, and monorails slicing silently through eco-optimized zones. If it looks like utopia, smells like utopia, and plans to engineer human behavior like utopia — well, you do the math.
The project is called “Telosa,” from the Greek word telos — meaning “highest purpose.” Hey — stop calling it utopia!
The big idea is for 50,000 people to move to this yet-to-be-determined place by 2030 and have the population eventually grow to 5 million. Everyone lives within a short walk (15 minutes maybe?) of everything they need — a school, a park, a job (lolz!), and probably an AI wellness coach. Cars, of course, are banned. There will be solar-powered towers and vertical farms and an economy based on “equitism,” a remix of a 19th-century idea where the city itself owns the land and uses rising property values to fund social services.
But for all its lofty ideas, Telosa has yet to put a single shovel in the ground. There’s no final site, no government approval, and no clear funding beyond Lore’s initial push. It’s still just a shimmering concept, a mirage sketched by a star architect (Bjarke Ingels) and floated in interviews, TED talks, and design expos.
Critics argue that if Lore really wanted to help people, he could invest in solving infrastructure problems in existing cities. Others point out that “15-minute cities” — the model Telosa clearly mirrors — have become a global flashpoint, praised by urban planners but derided by skeptics as a way to centralize control, limit movement, and monitor citizens.
So far, Telosa’s biggest achievement is that it’s really good at marketing a city that doesn’t exist. If it ever does gets built, we may finally get to ask: does a billionaire-designed city really offer freedom — or just the illusion of choice in a world where the architecture has already made the decisions for you?
4. Seasteading & Arkpad (Southeast Asia)
If you’ve ever dreamed of escaping taxes, regulations, and society itself, there’s a billionaire-funded plan for that: Seasteading — the floating libertarian fantasy that just won’t sink, no matter how many times it fails.
First floated (literally and ideologically) by the Seasteading Institute in 2008, the project was originally funded by… wait for it… Peter Thiel. He envisioned self-governing cities bobbing peacefully in international waters until backing away from the idea and stating they were “not quite feasible from an engineering perspective.”
The concept was a nation without a nation, where entrepreneurs could escape pesky things like labor laws, zoning, and democracy. In short: Silicon Valley meets Waterworld, minus the humility.
An initial prototype near Thailand ended with Thai authorities raiding the floating platform and accusing the residents of endangering national sovereignty, an offense punishable by life imprisonment or death. The couple that lived on the house boat went into hiding and the Thai navy eventually hauled away what was essentially a raft with Wi-Fi.
The broader Seasteading movement has since splintered, evolved, and — most recently — mutated into a newer project with fresher branding: Arkpad. “By building a community in the ocean, you’re not just creating a home; you’re crafting a legacy of innovation, freedom, and sustainability,” reads the marketing copy.
Arkpad bills itself as a “sovereign lifestyle project” and a “network state” — crypto-native language for the same old dream: private governance, no taxes, total control. Based in the Philippines, Arkpad is aiming to build on ocean-based platforms and create a floating community, complete with decentralized ID systems, underwater real estate, and NFTs for residency. Because, of course.
Their YouTube channel mixes crypto sermons with dreamy renderings of sleek structures rising from the sea — modern-day Noah’s Arks, minus the animals or flood, but heavy on Bitcoin and barnacles. Watch the videos carefully and you’ll see the architects’ sleek computer-generated renderings blur into the reality of what an Arkpad really is: a concrete block floating in the middle of absolutely nowhere. No word on whether they supply residents with free Dramamine.
Check out that roof deck — no Jimmy Buffett vibes here.
Just like Seasteading before it, Arkpad suffers from a chronic case of reality avoidance. Engineering constraints, rising ocean temperatures, maritime law, international sovereignty, and basic logistical challenges all still exist. What’s more, these projects have always been less about freedom for all and more about escape for the few. Not everyone is invited to these floating utopias. They’re luxury lifeboats for a digital elite preparing to sail away from the consequences of the world they helped wreck.
Until further notice, Seasteading and Arkpad remain what they’ve always been: libertarian lighthouses in the fog — glowing ideals with no mooring in the real world.
Final thought: utopias always fail
Whether real or imagined, all these utopian concepts promise clean slates and high-tech harmony in their own way, plugged into the seductive guarantee of a new way to live. Blockchain ruled and perfect in efficiency, there remains only one slight problem: Reality.
History shows that when elites indulge in the fantasy of utopias, reality always gets in the way. Wealthy eccentricity is tolerable for a small group of like-minded disciples, but humans are not robots. Therefore, it’s unlikely that a utopia cooked up by some micro-dosing, immortality-seeking tech bro could ever be scaled up except through heavy reliance on surveillance, coercion, and control — where things eventually devolve into socially engineered, privacy-erasing digital prisons, wrapped in glossy marketing brochures and eco-communal delusion.
There’s also the problem of governments — they’re not into the whole competition thing. But hey, that’s not going to stop these billionaires from trying. So in part two of this series, we’ll look at some of the other ways billionaires are planning to control the future of urban living and how it might affect you.
The evolution of economies from agriculture to an industrialized system has prominently shaped modern society. However, what if the economy had only been based on agriculture?
In that case, the unemployment rates would not have varied as wildly as it does today. It would have affected various sectors such as the participation of men and women in the workforce, demand for nutrition based on population, and child labor. I will tell you why – and we don’t need to look far beyond. In pre-industrial Europe, male unemployment was estimated to be as low as 2-3% compared to the 8-12% seen during industrial downturns in the 19th and 20th centuries.
I know, you are probably wondering why we don’t have such great unemployment figures now, but that’s how the world has changed. And it’s interesting to think how things would have been otherwise. Sure, we may not have had an iPhone in our hands – but what was the trade-off?
Even today, smallholder farms do better when it comes to job creation than industrialized farms. Interesting, right?
We Would Have Had Lower Unemployment Rates for Men
If an economy is entirely based on agriculture, the role of men in the workforce will become limited due to the seasonal cycles of vegetation. I am emphasizing ‘men’ here since the agricultural economy was dependant on men.
The traditional way of working in agriculture was male-dominated and labor roles for men were sufficient that they could lead to consistent employment opportunities throughout the year. It is not the same in the industrial sector where downturns in the economy or technology can lead to huge mass layoffs that contribute to certain unemployment rates.
The constant need for labor for planting, tending, and harvesting is a way to provide consistent employment throughout the year. So, stability in agricultural work can lower unemployment rates for men.
Lesser Demand for Women in the Working Sector
Not everything would have been as rosy though.
In the olden times, agriculture was majorly handled by the family labors and women played a crucial role in that. Women were engaged in planting, hoeing seeds, weeding seeds, sorting, and harvesting. However, it can supposed that the demand for working in the industrialized sector for women was less as their roles were quite limited to home.
This all changed with the Industrial Revolution, which increased employment rates for women as well in the factories due to which women looking for financial independence and better wages were attracted.
Let’s know a bit about it in this context.
In pre-industrial America, the role of women and men was almost equal as their center of production was the household. Most families lived on farms and worked together throughout the year from sowing seeds to harvesting. Within this scene, where the men were the heads of households, women were also equally involved as caretakers and goods producers. The roles of men and women were equally important.
From the first stage of industrialization, men started to work outside the home in the factories, where they had to work under other owners. However, this created a men-dominated industrial environment, due to which the roles of women became limited to the household.
As a matter of fact, if the economy was solely based on agriculture, the demand for women in the industrial workforce would have been lesser and their roles would be domestic.
Improved Growth of Nutrition and Population
Technological growth in the agriculture sector has always improved the ways of crop production. Without the Industrial Revolution, the focus would have been mainly on improving farming methods. The technological advancement in farming methods would have led to increased crop productivity. This way fewer people would need to migrate to urban areas for employment and access to fresh food and grains would be higher for people living in agricultural areas. Industrialization has played a significant role in improving farming methods, which led to more and enough crop production for the population.
However, where the role of industrialization helped to improve agriculture technologies to provide better nutrition for the increasing population, it has brought several disadvantages as well. In modern times, the role of industrialization is vigorously affecting agriculture resulting in deforestation, which is a serious issue to resolve worldwide.
Child Labor Would Have been Different
One of the main issues with industrialization is child labor, where children are provided with work based on their abilities in factories for long hours at lower wages. The amount of child labor could have been lower if the industry was solely based on agriculture as the children’s work would have been limited to their family units and they did not have to work for long hours in factories. This way children could get more time to focus on their education.
This impact was so harsh that it still goes on today. Even in a developed country like the U.S., which stands among the largest economies in the world, child labor is a critical issue to resolve. From the first to the fourth industrial revolution, where the role of women drastically improved, which is good for gender equality, child labor increased as well.
Back then in the agriculture-based system, it was good for kids when they could work with their families as a helping hand and could make time for their education as well. Now, it’s different – children have to focus on working for minimum wages and have to do hazardous work in factories or agriculture sites for long hours.
While industrialization has led to significant economic and technological growth rapidly, the economy based on the agricultural sector has its distinct advantages on stability in employment rates, gender roles, nutrition, child labor, and education.
This scenario is supposed to deliver an understanding of the potential outcomes on the economy due to the agriculture-based sector and industrialization. There are two aspects to this. When we move away from an agrarian economy, like the U.S. has, it is more dependent on other nations on food. But it has made its gains as it has focused on being a leader in the industrialized economy.
In short, both have their advantages in different aspects and come with various potential challenges for everyone to face. However, in modern times, it can be ensured that both are equally necessary for the economic growth of a country.
The thought of an economic collapse is not just unsettling, it’s terrifying. The reality is that economic collapses can hit suddenly and with devastating force, leaving those unprepared in dire circumstances. The warning signs are there, but most people ignore them until it’s too late. Rising debt levels, stock market instability, and growing social unrest are all flashing red signals that an economic meltdown is looming closer than we’d like to think. We will break down these key indicators so you can recognize the danger and take action before it’s too late.
Getting back to the main point, let’s see what signs to look out for that an economic collapse is right around the corner.
1. Skyrocketing Debt Levels
One of the clearest indicators that an economic collapse may be impending is the rise in both public and private debt. When debt levels rise beyond sustainable limits, the entire financial system becomes fragile, like a house of cards. Governments borrow excessively to fund programs, private citizens max out their credit cards, and corporations take on huge loans to fuel expansion—all signs of an economy living on borrowed time.
Currently, global debt levels have reached unprecedented heights, with the United States national debt exceeding $33.1 trillion and many other countries facing similarly unsustainable debt loads. Household debt in the U.S. has also surged, with consumer debt (including credit cards, auto loans, and student loans) surpassing $17 trillion. These staggering figures are a clear warning that the financial system is under immense strain. Rising interest rates make it harder for both individuals and governments to service their debts, which could lead to defaults and a potential financial crisis.
Government debt, in particular, is a significant red flag. When countries take on more debt than they can realistically pay back, they often resort to printing more money, leading to inflation. We’ve seen this happen in places like Argentina and Zimbabwe, where hyperinflation eroded the value of currency to almost nothing. When debt reaches critical levels, investors lose confidence, interest rates spike, and the government may default, pushing the economy into a tailspin.
On a personal level, rising household debt means that people are living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to cover their expenses. This fragile balance means that even a small shock—like rising interest rates or job losses—can lead to widespread financial ruin, contributing to the larger economic collapse.
Protect yourself from this by learning how to grow your own crops, to become self-sufficient. Buying a medicinal garden kit now can help you have a lower reliance on big pharma medication. Building a root cellar will help you feed your family, and so on.
2. Stock Market Instability
The stock market is often viewed as a barometer of economic health, and significant instability can be a key indicator that trouble is brewing. When stock prices swing wildly, it’s usually a sign that investors are losing confidence in the economy. These fluctuations often reflect underlying economic weaknesses that aren’t immediately visible to the average person.
Recent market volatility has been driven by various factors, including rising interest rates, fears of a recession, and geopolitical tensions. The U.S. stock market experienced significant sell-offs in 2022, and 2023 has seen continued instability with fears of a potential bubble in the tech sector. High valuations, particularly in sectors like technology, have led to concerns that we are in yet another speculative bubble similar to the dot-com era.
A major warning sign is when stock prices are inflated well beyond what the companies are actually worth. This creates a bubble, and we all know what happens to bubbles—they eventually burst. Remember the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s or the housing bubble of 2008? In both cases, stock prices reached unsustainable levels before crashing down, taking the economy with them.
Market instability can also be sparked by geopolitical events, changes in government policy, or sudden economic shifts, creating a ripple effect that eventually reaches everyone. When you start seeing stock market crashes, mass sell-offs, or emergency measures taken by financial institutions, it’s time to pay attention—these are the tremors that come before the earthquake.
3. Social Unrest and Political Instability
Another key signal of an impending economic collapse is rising social unrest and political instability. When people are struggling financially, they tend to lose faith in the government’s ability to lead, and this can lead to protests, strikes, and even riots. Social unrest is often fueled by high unemployment rates, inequality, and rising living costs—all of which can be exacerbated by poor economic conditions.
In 2023, we have seen significant protests in countries like France over pension reforms and rising living costs. Similarly, unrest in countries like Sri Lanka and Lebanon, driven by economic mismanagement and shortages of basic goods, has led to widespread demonstrations and political turmoil. These events highlight how economic hardship can quickly lead to a breakdown in social order.
The situation can quickly spiral out of control. When people can no longer afford basic necessities, frustration turns to anger, and that anger is often directed toward those in power. This leads to political instability, and in some cases, governments may be overthrown or forced to implement drastic measures to maintain control. We’ve seen this pattern play out in countries like Venezuela, where economic mismanagement led to severe shortages of food and medicine, and widespread social unrest followed.
When social cohesion begins to fray, it’s a strong indicator that an economic collapse is near. Social unrest doesn’t just reflect dissatisfaction—it also disrupts businesses, decreases productivity, and scares off investors, further weakening the economy. A society on edge is a society on the brink of economic failure.
Protecting your family becomes vital. That is why we so often talk about the Bug-In Guide by Navy Seal Joel Lambert. It teaches you vital things like:
What hiding places looters never check
Violence-free ways to keep looters off your property
How to hide that you still have power left in a blackout
How to use a car battery to power up your radios
What vital medical supplies you need to always keep in your house
Preserving food without a fridge
And much more
Joel Lambert did a great job and creating a comprehensive resource that saves lives. We have to recommend it for anyone looking for lost or overlooked knowledge that actually works.
4. Bank Instability and Financial Crises
Banks are the lifeblood of any economy, and when they start to fail, it’s a clear sign that an economic collapse may be imminent. Banks take in deposits and lend money to individuals and businesses, keeping the gears of the economy turning. But when banks start running into trouble—whether due to bad loans, risky investments, or a lack of liquidity—the consequences can be dire.
The sudden failure of SVB (2023) and other regional banks sparked fears of a broader banking crisis, highlighting the fragility of the financial system. Banks limiting withdrawals or imposing stricter regulations are also warning signs that confidence in the system is wavering.
One of the most obvious warning signs is when banks begin limiting withdrawals or imposing capital controls. If people start losing faith in the banking system, it can lead to a bank run—where everyone rushes to withdraw their money at the same time, draining the bank of its reserves. We saw this during the 2008 financial crisis when banks like Lehman Brothers collapsed, sparking panic and chaos in financial markets around the world.
Banks are also heavily interconnected, meaning that the failure of one major institution can trigger a domino effect, leading to a broader financial crisis. If you hear news of large banks struggling or requiring government bailouts, it’s a major red flag that economic collapse might be closer than you think.
You cannot do anything when the banks collapse. You will basically not have access to your money anymore. And money might even be worthless in a huge economic collapse.
5. Currency Devaluation and Inflation
Another telltale sign that an economic collapse is on the way is the rapid devaluation of currency. When a nation’s currency begins to lose value quickly, it’s often because the government has been printing too much money or because confidence in the economy is waning. This leads to inflation, where the purchasing power of money declines, and everyday items become more expensive.
In 2023, inflation has remained a significant concern in many parts of the world. 2024 was not much better. The U.S. has seen inflation rates hovering above historical averages, while countries like Argentina are dealing with inflation rates exceeding 100%. Currency devaluation and rising costs are eroding purchasing power, making it harder for people to afford basic necessities.
Hyperinflation is the extreme end of this spectrum, where prices skyrocket at an uncontrollable rate. People in countries like Venezuela and Zimbabwe have experienced hyperinflation so severe that their currency became virtually worthless. When inflation gets out of control, it’s often too late for corrective measures, and an economic collapse follows shortly thereafter.
Currency devaluation also affects imports, making them more expensive and leading to further inflation. For nations that rely on imports for food, fuel, or other essentials, this creates a vicious cycle that can lead to widespread shortages and economic instability.
Final Thoughts
Economic collapse is a frightening prospect, but it rarely comes without warning. Skyrocketing debt levels, stock market instability, social unrest, bank failures, and currency devaluation are all indicators that the economy is in trouble. By paying attention to these warning signs, you can take steps to prepare yourself and your family for what might come next.
Preparation is key. Stockpile essentials, diversify your income, reduce your debts, and stay informed. The more you understand these warning signs, the better equipped you’ll be to weather the storm when the economic collapse begins. Remember, the key to survival isn’t just having the right supplies—it’s knowing when to act, staying calm, and adapting to the changing landscape.
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INTRODUCTION – My hope is that greater numbers of readers will be exposed to this important piece of research and citizen journalism.
Today, I’m publishing a long, but abridged, version of Part 2 of Michael Bryant’s “Timeline to Covid Tyranny.” I’m publishing these excerpts because I believe this document deserves much larger readership levels than it’s probably received to date.
While a lengthy read, Mr. Bryant has identified almost all of the key events that ultimately produced the most significant and ominous event of my lifetime.
From the events Bryant has identified, it’s possible to better connect many of the key dots that produced what Bryant argues is a faux pandemic, one that resulted in myriad crimes against humanity – crimes that the perpetrators got away with.
From reading all of Parts 1 – 3, one gets a much-better sense of the roster of Deep State members. (Bryant provides names of key organizations and and brief bios of many of the key actors).
Also, Bryant’s formidable research strongly suggests that the end game or reason for the “Pandemic of the Century” may have been an effort to cover-up a possible seismic economic/financial implosion or explosion.
Readers will also see the importance of censorship initiatives and how “narrative control” efforts were utilized to create mass fear in the public and to suppress any significant push-back against “vaccine hesitancy.”
One of my take-aways is that the “public health establishment” long ago morphed into the “Vaccine Promotion Establishment.” (In Part 2, I was struck by the fact Bryant highlighted several events that suggest that a “new” mRNA flu vaccine seems to have been very important to the Powers that Be, as well as the effort to roll-out numerous other mRNA “vaccines” in the future.)
Like myself, most readers will be struck by the massive and long-term levels of coordination that was clearly required to stage the Covid event.
Like Bryant and many other chroniclers of non-authorized narratives, I’m convinced Covid had to be planned and had to be planned for reasons that, almost certainly, had little to do with protecting the public from contagious respiratory viruses.
Notes:
What follows are excerpts from a longer document. For those interested in a deeper dive, I enthusiastically recommend reading or skimming all three installments. According to Bryant:
In Timeline to Covid Tyranny – Part One: Constructing the Biosecurity Empire (1999–2018), “we examined how the political apparatus for a rolling, worldwide state of emergency was assembled, piece by piece, and how the infrastructure for the biosecurity state was constructed.”
Note: I previously published a piece where I expounded on many of Bryant’s key timeline events.
Part 3 (to be summarized in a similar piece I will publish tomorrow) covers “The Year 2020 and How the World was Smashed to Pieces.”
Today’s piece is headlined:
Timeline to Covid Tyranny – Part Two: The Year 2019 and The Coming Storm – This piece “reviews the events leading up to the ‘shock and awe’ campaign of 2020.”
Emphasis, via boldfaced text, was added by myself and not by the author, Mr. Bryant. The sub-headlines were also added by Bill Rice, Jr and I added three photos/memes.
All three of Bryant’s articles (with future installments to come) are published at the website of the non-profit organization “Health Freedom Defense Fund,” which was founded by Leslie Manoonkian.
2019 Timeline of Key Events …
By Michael Bryant
January 16, 2019 — The World Health Organization (WHO) publishes Ten Threats to Global Health in 2019. Climate change and a looming influenza pandemic are some of the significant global health threats the world can expect in 2019, according to the WHO. The organization also names vaccine hesitancy as one of the world’s top ten global health threats.
January 23, 2019 — CNBC’s Becky Quick interviews Bill Gates at the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Echoing what he wrote in his Wall Street Journal essay, “The Best Investment I’ve Ever Made,” Gates cites his investments in global health organizations aimed at increasing access to vaccines as his most lucrative to date, earning him a 20-to-1 ($200 billion made on $20 billion) return.
January 24, 2019 — “Imperial College scientists present vaccine revolution to world leaders at the WEF in Davos,” reads a headline in that London university’s campus newspaper.
The article contains this breaking news: “Professor Robin Shattock, Head of Mucosal Infection and Immunity within the Department of Medicine, is working on the manufacturing of RNA vaccines to create quicker and more accessible responsiveness to outbreaks of known pathogens — such as flu, and unknown pathogens, called Disease X. His team is improving the production system of vaccines to quickly provide tens of thousands of new vaccine doses within weeks of a new threat being identified. Currently, vaccines can take 10 years or more to develop.”
Adam Schiff leads effort to fight ‘vaccine misinformation’
February 14, 2019 — Then-US Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) sends a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressing his concerns about “medically inaccurate information on vaccines” that might “violate Facebook’s terms of service.”
Schiff (who has since been elected to the US Senate) also sends a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wanting to know what Amazon has been doing to fight anti-vaccine “misinformation” and to ask if Amazon plans to take such misinformed books and movies out of its search results.
The California congressman’s campaign to remove “anti-vaccination content”sets the stage for censorship of anyone who questions vaccines. It is also a precursor to his 2021 US House campaign and to his ongoing legislative efforts to stop “the spread of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation” on respective platforms. In a September 9, 2021, letter, Schiff asks both Facebook and Amazon to give “a more thorough explanation” of their efforts to “mitigate the dangerous spread of vaccine misinformation.”
Bill Gates’ influential speech put into action …
February 14, 2019 — In Munich, on the eve of the 2019 Munich Security Conference, the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and its partners from Georgetown University and the Center for Global Development convene a tabletop exercise with senior leaders from around the world with the goal of making recommendations to improve the global system for responding to deliberate, high-consequence biological events.
Also notable is the fact that the Munich exercise was inspired by a speech Bill Gates gave two years earlier—at the 2017 Munich Security Conference (MSC), during which he said:
“The good news is that with advances in biotechnology, new vaccines and drugs can help prevent epidemics from spreading out of control. First and most importantly, we have to build an arsenal of new weapons—vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics. Vaccines can be especially important in containing epidemics. But today, it typically takes up to ten years to develop and license a new vaccine. To significantly curb deaths from a fast-moving airborne pathogen, we would have to get that down considerably—to 90 days or less. The really big breakthrough potential is in emerging technology platforms that leverage recent advances in genomics to dramatically reduce the time needed to develop vaccines.”
Another point of special interest: The NTI’s final report on the 2019 tabletop drill, titled “A Spreading Plague: Lessons and Recommendations for Responding to a Deliberate Biological Event,” quotes Gates’ speech verbatim: “We ignore the link between health security and international security at our own peril.”
February 27, 2019 — The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) announces that it has awarded a $34 million contract to CureVac to advance The RNA Printer™,” which it calls “a mRNA vaccine platform that can rapidly combat multiple diseases.”
CEPI CEO Dr. Richard Hatchett is quoted in the announcement as saying: “CureVac’s vaccine platform could be a game-changer, radically improving our ability to respond to the emergence of Disease X. Disease X could emerge suddenly and have deadly consequences—we’ve seen this happen with Ebola, MERS coronavirus, Zika, and countless other diseases. That’s why we’re striving to develop rapid-response vaccine platforms—like CureVac’s mRNA technology—to defend against these unknown pathogens.”
CEPI regards itself as “an influential entity coordinating global vaccine investment in close collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry.” It is a brainchild of the WEF and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
CEPI was serious about getting vaccine contents into everyone’s veins.
March 11, 2019 — The United Nations unveils a global influenza strategy to prevent the “real” threat of pandemic. Meanwhile, the WHO announces a revised Global Influenza Strategy for 2019–2030. WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus warns, “The threat of pandemic influenza is ever-present. The on-going risk of a new influenza virus transmitting from animals to humans and potentially causing a pandemic is real. The question is not if we will have another pandemic, but when.”
March 13, 2019 — Moderna submits its Form 10-K Annual Report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). (In the document), Moderna notes:
“Currently, mRNA is considered a gene therapy product by the FDA.“
“In addition, because no product in which mRNA is the primary active ingredient has been approved, the regulatory pathway for approval is uncertain.
Directly after these statements, Moderna confesses:
“We have incurred significant losses since our inception and anticipate that we will continue to incur significant losses for the foreseeable future.“
“We have incurred net losses in each year since our inception in 2009, including net losses of $384.7 million, $255.9 million and $216.2 million for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017 and 2016, respectively. As of December 31, 2018, we had an accumulated deficit of $1.0 billion.”
NOTE: In 2020, due to “emergency measures,” mRNA products would be excluded from gene therapy regulations (GTP). In the US and the EU, mRNA products fighting infectious diseases would be considered a new class of vaccine and would thus slip into the established regulatory pathway of a “biologic.”
May 8, 2019 — Germany convenes the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag to discuss the topic “Strengthening global health — implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals.”
Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn says Germany must also do its part to strengthen global health. Recalling that the WHO counts anti-vaccination campaigners among the ten greatest risks to global health, he cites vaccination fatigue in Germany in relation to a resurgence of measles and voices his support for compulsory vaccination.
BACKGROUND: The One Health concept was developed in September 2004 by leading health experts during a World Conservation Society symposium held at Rockefeller University. The symposium slogan was “One World, One Health” and its final product was The Manhattan Principles, which contained twelve recommendations for “a more holistic approach” to preventing epidemics.
The symposium’s keynote speaker was William H. Foege, MD, MPH, and Emeritus Presidential Distinguished Professor at Emory University. Between 1984 and 2000, he and colleagues from the WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank, and UN Development Program, and the Rockefeller Foundation formed and ran a working group called the Task Force for Child Survival and Development, whose primary goal was to accelerate childhood immunization.Later, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) would establish the William H. Foege Fellowship in Global Health to honor the career and achievements of “one of the world’s leading figures in public health.”
May 13, 2019 — At the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, WEF founder Klaus Schwab (whose title later became executive chairman) proclaims that the Fourth Industrial Revolution has begun. To quote Schwab: “As new technologies disrupt our political, economic, and personal lives, the notion that we can revert to the booming manufacturing towns of yesteryear is wishful thinking. A successful global future will require states, individuals, and organizations to innovate and cooperate in entirely new ways.”
May 15, 2019 — The WHO and the Wellcome Trust join forces to combat epidemics and drug-resistant infections.
NOTE: In 2020, the UK’s Wellcome Trust will have a financial endowment of £29.1 billion, making it the fourth wealthiest charitable foundation in the world and one of the world’s top funders of biomedical and pharmaceutical research.
June 13, 2019 — New York State ends the religious exemption to vaccine mandates. The Democrat-led Senate and Assembly both vote to repeal the exemption, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo signs the measure minutes after the final vote.
July 2019 — The European Union publishes its 2019–2022 “Roadmap On Vaccination,” which includes a series of “timelines and deliverables” that are designed to reach the EU’s goal of combining an EU vaccine card with a passport for EU citizens. This roadmap explores the feasibility of developing a common EU vaccination card.
Trusted News Initiative created six months before official Covid ….
July 11, 2019 — The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) is created by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) with the “specific aims of flagging disinformation during elections” and censoring what it deems misinformation. Besides the BBC, partners of the initiative include the Associated Press, CBC/Radio-Canada, the European Broadcasting Union, Meta (parent of Facebook), Microsoft, Thomson Reuters,Google, Twitter, and The Washington Post.
NOTE: In 2020, TNI will change its focus from elections to “combating the spread of harmful vaccine disinformation” during the pandemic.
August 5, 2019 — The first draft of the WHO’s Immunisation Agenda 2030: Towards a Vision and Strategy for Vaccines and Immunization for the Decade Ahead is released. The document outlines the WHO’s global vision and strategy for a new decade (2021–2030) of vaccines and immunization.
August 7, 2019 — Kary Mullis, the 1993 Nobel Prize-winning inventor of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) device, dies. Mullis has stated on numerous occasions that the PCR is not a tool for diagnosing the presence of a disease but is only a research tool.
“PCR testing has been erroneously chosen as the gold standard for diagnosing COVID-19 infection and disease, even if it has never been validated, nor standardized. The symptoms of COVID-19 disease cannot be specified, because they can be anything, everything, and nothing at all according to the authorities. They range from clinically observable symptoms likely to lead to death to no symptoms at all — from near death to complete health. All the foregoing shows the entire scope of COVID-19 diagnostic science is flawed.” — Fabio Franchi, MD, and Jerneja Tomsic, PhD, Comments on Kämmerer, et al. (2023) regarding RT-PCR Testing
August 9, 2019 — The BIS issues a working paper called “(Un)conventional policy and the effective lower bound” that describes “unconventional monetary policy measures” that would “insulate the real economy from further deterioration in financial conditions.” The paper indicates that, by offering “direct credit to the economy” during a crisis, central bank lending “can replace commercial banks in providing loans to firms.” As described by famed historian Carroll Quigley in one of his influential books, the BIS was the apex of efforts by elite bankers “to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole” (Tragedy and Hope, Chapter 20).
August 9, 2019 — Remdesivir is dropped from the Ebola trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after increased risk of death and kidney failure are reported. The independent Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) recommends the early termination of an Ebola Therapeutics Trial in the DRC, explaining: “The mortality rate in the remdesivir treatment group, 53% (93/175), was similar to ZMapp.”
NOTE: Three years later, emergency room physician Paul Maric would testify in the Covid-19 hearings held by US Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) that remdesivir’s use during the “pandemic” had provably increased the risk of death and caused renal failure.
August 12–19, 2019 — US Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) takes part in the Aspen Institute’s week-long conference in Rwanda, East Africa, which is underwritten by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. While attending the event, Rush meets with Gates Foundation representatives to discuss which companies a future government contact tracing program will award contracts to. This is before any mention of a pandemic.
NOTE: Nine months after these meetings, on May 1, 2020, Rush would introduce in Congress HR 6666, the $100 billion COVID-19 Testing, Reaching and Contacting Everyone (TRACE) Act. Then, thirteen days later, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi slides $75 billion for “Covid-19 testing, tracing and isolation efforts” into the $3 trillion Covid relief package.
August 15, 2019 — BlackRock, the world’s most powerful investment fund (managing around $7 trillion in stock and bond funds), issues a white paper, “Dealing with the Next Downturn,” which points to a pending financial cataclysm. The paper suggests the US Federal Reserve may need to inject liquidity directly into the financial system to prevent this “dramatic downturn.” It notes: “Unprecedented policies will be needed to respond to the next economic downturn. Monetary policy is almost exhausted as global interest rates plunge towards zero or below. An unprecedented response is needed when monetary policy is exhausted and fiscal policy alone is not enough. That response will likely involve ‘going direct‘ — that is, finding ways to get central bank money directly in the hands of public and private sector spenders.”
August 22–24, 2019 — The central bankers of the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations meet in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to discuss BlackRock’s “going direct” paper and to weigh in on emergency measures that can be taken to prevent the looming financial meltdown. At that meeting, James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, famously states: “We just have to stop thinking that next year things are going to be normal.”
NOTE: In 2020, BlackRock will be hired by the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada, and Sweden’s central bank to implement a bailout plan.
August 29, 2019 — The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and fellow philanthropy Flu Lab announce they have awarded grants to eight researchers in the field of vaccinology. The hope is that the recipients’ research will pave the way for a universal flu vaccine:
Data Modernization System launched – Surveillance emphasized …
September 1, 2019 — The CDC’s Data Modernization Initiative (DMI) is launched, including its Public Health 21st Century Surveillance Superhighway plan. The DMI is designed to harmonize state, tribal, local, and territorial public health jurisdictions and private and public sector partners to create modern, interoperable, and real-time public health data and surveillance systems.
September 12, 2019 — The European Commission (EC) and the WHO jointly launch the first Global Vaccination Summit. The event, held in Brussels, includes 400 invited political leaders and stakeholders from scientific, medical, philanthropic and civil society organizations and from the pharmaceutical industry. They discuss the problem of vaccine shortages, the growing issue of misinformation, and the diminishing public confidence in the value of vaccines. Their stated goal is to propel global action against vaccine-preventable diseases and against the spread of vaccine misinformation. At the end of the summit, the EC and WHO release a report, “Ten Actions Towards Vaccination For All.” Among their recommendations:
Tackle the root causes of vaccine hesitancy;
Continue efforts and investments in novel models of funding and incentives, in research, and in development and innovation of new or improved vaccine[s] and [vaccine] delivery devices;
Empower healthcare professionals at all levels as well as the media to provide effective, transparent and objective information to the public and to fight false and misleading information;
Align and integrate vaccination in global health and development agendas through a renewed Immunization Agenda 2030.
In Round Table 1, titled “In Vaccines We Trust: Stepping up action to increase vaccine confidence,” the panel explored strategies for increasing vaccine confidence and improving vaccination coverage rates. The role of the media, including search engines and social networks, was highlighted. A call was made to create a coalition of vaccine champions: The United Forces for Vaccination. Also, a call was issued for a “social movement for vaccination,” which would include positive messages about immunization to be incorporated into television shows to reinforce vaccination as a social norm.
September 17, 2019 — The repo market explodes, causing panic in the financial markets, writes Georg Erber, author of “The Repo-Crisis of September 2019.”
A sudden and unexpected spike, mirroring the financial panic of 2007–2008, saw secured overnight financing rates increase from 2.43% on September 16 to 5.25% on September 17 and reach as high as 10% during the trading day.
The Fed was forced to supply a $53.2 billion liquidity injection on Tuesday the 17th and again immediately to inject an additional $75 billion on Wednesday the 18th. The New York Fed continued to lend a daily amount of $75 billion overnight to market participants every morning of the week, through Friday, September 20. Also, the New York Fed continued to offer liquidity to market participants for several months in an effort to control and limit volatility.
September 19, 2019 — An article in Biometric Update announces that ID2020 has launched a program to establisha vaccine digital passport. ID2020, also known as the Digital Identity Alliance, is an electronic identification program that uses vaccination as a platform for digital identity. Among the founding partners of ID2020 are Microsoft (founded by Bill Gates), GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance (funded by Gates), the Rockefeller Foundation, and IDEO, an international design and consulting firm that works for transnational pharmaceutical corporations and technology firms.
September 19, 2019 — The White House announces that Donald Trump has signed Executive Order 13887 to modernize influenza vaccines in the US for the purpose of promoting national security and public health. The modernization is intended to:
Reduce reliance on more time-consuming, egg-based vaccine production;
Improve the speed of vaccine production; and
Advance the development of new, more effective vaccines.
EO 13887 establishes a National Influenza Vaccine Task Force, whose aim is to develop “a five-year national plan to promote the use of more agile and scalable vaccine manufacturing technologies and to accelerate development of vaccines that protect against many or all influenza viruses.”
September 19, 2019 — The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), a monitoring and advocacy body that was co-convened by the World Bank Group and the WHO in May 2018, today announces it has released its first annual report, “A World at Risk: Accelerating Global Preparedness for Health Emergencies.” The report (whose cover features an enlarged photo of a coronavirus cell) warns that the world is not prepared for a “fast-moving airborne pandemic that could kill up to 80 million people, disrupt economies and create social chaos.”
Its key messages include:
Our world is at acute risk from potentially devastating epidemics/pandemics that would not only cause tremendous loss of life, but significantly disrupt economies and create social chaos;
Leaders are responsible for protecting the security of their people, including health security, yet time and again, world leaders have failed to follow through on commitments around preparedness;
The world has many of the collective tools to prevent and prepare for an outbreak, but current efforts are grossly insufficient and THE NEED FOR NEW VACCINES AND DRUGS IS CRITICAL.I now call Public Health Agencies “Vaccine Promotion Agencies.”
The illustrious members of the GPMB board are: Gro Harlem Brundtland, co-chair and former WHO Director-General; Dr. Chris Elias, president of the Global Development Program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF); Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the UK’s Wellcome Trust; Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID); Dr. George Gao, director-general of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the People’s Republic of China; and Henrietta Fore, the executive director of UNICEF.
September 20, 2019 — The Council on Foreign Relations’ Foreign Policy magazine publishes “The World Knows An Apocalyptic Pandemic Is Coming. But nobody is interested in doing anything about it” by Laurie Garrett. Garrett, who joined the CFR in 2004 as a senior fellow of the Global Health Program, has worked on a variety of public health issues, including SARS, avian flu, and the intersection of HIV and AIDS with national security.
NOTE: Another significant Garrett article, “The Next Pandemic?,” would be published in the July/August 2005 issue of the same magazine.
October 2019 — A so-called “Coordinating Draft” of the Crimson Contagion 2019 Functional Exercise Key Findings After-Action Report is distributed “for official use only” by the HHS’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), headed by Dr. Robert Kadlec. For details on the report, click on the above link. For information on the exercise itself, see January 24, 2019, in this timeline. And for more facts on this secretive exercise, read Jeffrey A. Tucker’s December 22, 2022, article, What Is Crimson Contagion?, at the Brownstone Institute website.
Event 201 Pandemic Exercise …
October 18, 2019 — The Event 201 Pandemic Exercise—the fifth of five tabletop exercises sponsored by the John Hopkins Center for Heath Security between 2001 and 2019—is conducted in New York City. Co-sponsors include the WEF and the BMGF. Its main financier is George Soros’ Open Philanthropy Foundation.
NOTE: This simulation of a coronavirus pandemic accurately—and, looking back on it, eerily—portrays many of the events that would happen during the real-world coronavirus “pandemic” a full six weeks later. The scenario simulates an outbreak of a novel zoonotic coronavirus that eventually becomes transmissible from person to person, leading to a severe pandemic. The pathogen and the disease it causes are modeled on SARS.
The “exercise players” draw these conclusions (paraphrased below):
Industry, national governments, and international organizations must work together to build up international stockpiles of medical countermeasures (MCMs), which will enable rapid and equitable distribution during a severe pandemic;
The ability to rapidly develop, manufacture, distribute, and dispense large quantities of MCMs will be needed to contain and control a global outbreak. Coordinating with the WHO, CEPI, GAVI, and other relevant multilateral and domestic mechanisms, investments should be made in new technologies and industrial approaches, which will require addressing legal and regulatory barriers;
There is a need to identify critical nodes of the banking system and the global and national economies considered too essential to fail (some will likely need emergency international financial support);
Governments and the private sector (particularly traditional and social media companies) should give greater priority to developing methods to combat misinformation and disinformation prior to the next pandemic response. This will require flooding the media with fast, accurate, and consistent information. Media companies should commit to ensuring that authoritative messages are prioritized and that false messages are suppressed, including through the use of technology;
Accomplishing the above goals will require collaboration among governments, international organizations and global business.
Event 201 is introduced by Anita Cicero, Deputy Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and chaired by Tom Inglesby, MD, director of the John Hopkins Center for Health Security. The high-ranking participants who simulate the worldwide coronavirus pandemic include:
Sofia Borges, Senior Vice President at the United Nations Foundation
Brad Connett, President of the U.S. Medical Group, owned by Henry Schein, Inc.
Christopher Elias, President of the Global Development division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Tim Evans, former Senior Director of Health at the World Bank Group
George Gao, Director-General of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Avril Haines, former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and former Deputy National Security Advisor
Jane Halton, Senior Board Member of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and appointed to the Australian National COVID-19 Coordination Commission
Matthew Harrington, Global Chief Operations Officer of Edelman (the largest public relations firm in the world by revenue)
Martin Knuchel, Senior Director and Head of Crisis, Emergency & Business Continuity Management for Lufthansa Group Airlines
Eduardo Martinez, President of the UPS Foundation, formerly Chairperson of the WEF’s Global Agenda Council on Humanitarian Response, and currently (in 2019) serving on the WEF’s Managing the Risk and Impact of Future Epidemics Steering Committee
Rear Admiral Stephen C. Redd, Director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Hasti Taghi, Vice President and Executive Advisor of NBCUniversal Media
Adrian Thomas, Vice President of Johnson & Johnson
Lavan Thiru, Chief Representative of the Monetary Authority of Singapore
October 28–30, 2019 — The Milken Institute’s Future of Health Summit is held in Washington, D.C. The annual summit bills itself as an event that brings together “thought leaders and decision-makers to confront some of the world’s most significant health challenges by matching human, financial, and educational resources with the most innovative and impactful ideas.”
At this year’s summit, the most notable discussion occurs on the 29th at the workshop “Making Influenza History: The Quest for a Universal Vaccine.” Key speakers at this plenary session include Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIAID; Margaret Hamburg, former FDA commissioner; Bruce Gellin, President of Global Immunization at the Sabin Vaccine Institute; and Rick Bright, former director of HHS Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).
The primary theme of the discussion is “the need for more funding for research, better collaboration between the private and government sectors, advances in technology in flu research and the goal of a universal flu vaccine.” Moderator Michael Specter kicks off the workshop by making the strong point that the current system of vaccine development and procurement needs to be “blown up” and replaced with a new way of producing vaccines that would reduce time and costs of vaccine production and commercialization.
Rick Bright, for his part, suggests problems of lengthy clinical trials and regulations could be sidestepped if “there were an urgent call for an entity of excitement that is completely disruptive and is not beholden to bureaucratic strings and processes.”
Another theme of the discussion was the “need” for a newer and more frightening disease to emerge,as the flu no longer creates enough fear in the population to warrant a “universal vaccine.” [Emphasis added.]
Foreshadowing the about-to-be-released corona event, Bright ominously said: “[I]t is not too crazy to think that an outbreak of a novel avian virus could occur in China somewhere.”
November 7, 2019 — Netflix features billionaire Bill Gates in Episode 7 of Season 2 of “The Next Pandemic” documentary. In it, Gates predicts that a killer virus could originate in China’s wet markets and would rapidly infect the world.
December 4, 2019 — The House’s Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations holds a hearing on “Flu Season: U.S. Public Health Preparedness and Response.
In that meeting, Susan Brooks (R-IN) brought up the White House Executive Order “Modernizing Influenza Vaccines in the United States to Promote National Security and Public Health” (see September 19th) and the need to “speed up” vaccine production as well as the need for more funding. She asked:
“The EO recommended a range of government actions to improve the 80-year-old egg-based technology used in today’s vaccines and speed the vaccine manufacturing process …
(Bill Rice, Jr. comment: The traditional flu vaccine was apparently changed. I wonder if this change created more ILI cases, many of which might have been re-labeled “Covid cases.” Question: Did a new type of flu “vaccine” create many illnesses and hospitalizations, which led to many people then dying in hospitals due to the Covid protocols?)
Big News from Wuhan …
December 12–29, 2019 — This eighteen-day period is said to be the range of dates of the original onset of a pneumonia of unknown etiology (PUE) in Wuhan, China. A few days later, in early January 2020, the CDC would issue a report titled “Outbreak of Pneumonia of Unknown Etiology (PUE) in Wuhan, China.” The CDC report, which came from the World Health Organization, is about the Wuhan patients who, according to the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission (WMHC), came down with the PUE between December 12 and 29, 2019 — said to be the earliest symptom onset dates of the “unexplained viral pneumonia.”
The report notes: “Patients involved in the cluster reportedly have had fever, dyspnea, and bilateral lung infiltrates on chest radiograph. Of the 59 cases, seven are critically ill, and the remaining patients are in stable condition. No deaths have been reported and no health care providers have been reported to be ill. The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission has not reported human-to-human transmission.”
December 17, 2019 — The European Investment Bank (EIB) and BioNTech announce the signing of a contract that provides financing of €50 million to BioNTech. The German company’s CFO, Dr. Sierk Poetting, said of the financing: “We see the funding of the European Investment Bank as a token of trust in BioNTech as a innovative, and fast-growing company. We aim to build a global biotechnology leader. Our focus is to develop and commercialize the next generation of immunotherapies, as we aspire to individualize cancer medicine. The EIB’s funding will increase the production capacities for our mRNA-based product candidates and also create new jobs.”
December 18, 2019 — Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) report the development of a “novel way to record a patient’s vaccination history,” using smartphone-readable nanocrystals called “quantum dots” that are embedded in the skin using micro-needles. The research is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Koch Institute Support Grant from the National Cancer Institute.
December 31, 2019 — The last day of 2019 marks the first official day that Covid-19 attracts the attention of the WHO and the CDC. The WHO is informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan, China. “A total of 44 cases have been reported: 11 patients are severely ill, while the remaining 33 are in stable condition. The cause has not yet been identified or confirmed.” Meanwhile, the CDC says it first learned of a “cluster of 27 cases of pneumonia” of unexplained origin in Wuhan.
Süddeutsche Zeitung, one of the largest and most influential daily newspapers in Germany, reports this news with the headline: “Mysterious lung disease breaks out in central China.” The newspaper article states:
“A mysterious lung disease has broken out in the central Chinese metropolis of Wuhan. So far, 27 patients have been identified, the city’s health commission reported. The People’s Daily countered online rumors that this could be a new outbreak of the SARS lung disease. The health commission reported that many of the infections could be traced back to visits to Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Market.”
This question must be asked: How is it that a “mysterious lung disease” that caused a mere 27 cases of illness in a Chinese city of 11 million people receives such extensive attention in the Western media on the other side of the world?
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The last few years have been interesting at best. Starting with the pandemic, we’ve seen disaster after disaster strike not only our country, but the world. We’ve also seen a constant string of shortages in everything from baby food to eggs. There have been enough of these shortages that some people are wondering whether there are nefarious forces working behind the scenes to bring them about. The large number of food processing plant fires in the last year has merely added to this speculation.
As preppers, we are in better shape to deal with these shortages than anyone else is. Most of us have extensive stockpiles, allowing us to work out of them, just as we did during the pandemic. But as many of us experienced during that time, it is possible for the shortages to outlast our stockpiles. The obvious answer to that is to expand our stockpiles, but that’s not always possible. As we all know, stockpiling is expensive.
Many preppers are moving more and more towards self-sufficiency, especially the more experienced ones. This is always beneficial and may be even more so during these times of shortages. I’m sure that anyone who had chickens was content during the recent egg shortage and hope that nobody lost any hens in the middle of the night.
This illustrates fairly well where we need to be as preppers. The less we need to depend on society around us, the better. While there are many conveniences that society at large can provide, they all come at a price. Part of that price is dependency. When we become accustomed to using all the conveniences that the world provides us with, we become dependent on those products and services.
One of the problems that we all face, in becoming self-sufficient, is that there are so many things that we need. Yet our ancestors got by without many of those things. Perhaps part of our problem as preppers who are trying to become self-sufficient, is that we are trying to maintain the commercialized American lifestyle we’ve all become accustomed to, rather than simplifying our lifestyle, so that we don’t need so many things. if we were able to simplify, then it would become easier to become self-sufficient.
That may sound easier than it actually is, as we’re accustomed to having all those conveniences. But when we look at those who have gone off grid or who are homesteading, we find that a large part of what they have done, in order to live the lifestyle they are living, is that they have simplified their lives. They are able to grow or make most of what they need, because they need less.
This is not to say that those people don’t buy anything or that they don’t need anything that comes out of a factory. But you can be pretty sure that they aren’t buying the latest iPhone as soon as it comes out. Some of those people might even still be using the indestructible Nokia 3310.
As preppers, one of our criteria for any purchase needs to be how long our purchases will last. If we assume that we’re going to face a TEOTWAWKI event sometime in our life, and most of us act as if that’s what we believe, then we should make all our purchases with that in mind. The clothes that we buy, our shoes, the cars that we drive and yes, even our cell phones, must be bought with the idea that we will use them for the next 20 or 30 years.
Taking that a step further, we shouldn’t throw away our old one, unless it is unusable. I still have an old tablet, which I used before getting an iPad back in 2012. I’m still using the same iPad, but that older tablet still works. Although I don’t use it, I keep it charged and available as my backup, should I ever need it.
We can do the same with many other things. Are you buying a new car? Then there’s nothing that says you need to get rid of the old one. If it’s paid off and it still runs, put it up on blocks in the backyard. It may not be an attractive addition to the landscaping, but it gives you a backup, should something happen to your new ride, any time that cars are scarce (new cars still are, the chip shortage isn’t over).
Back in 1949 the world was still recovering from World War II. The Korean War wouldn’t start for another year, but George Orwell was already focused on the dangers of communism and the totalitarianist government it builds. World War II was started by totalitarian governments; but worse than that was how such governments treat the citizens living under their control.
In his book 1984, the government, encapsulated in the persona of “Big Brother,” knew everything about everyone; where they were, what they were doing and even what they were thinking much of the time. This was used to keep control of people to an extreme that even the now defunct Soviet Union couldn’t reach. Yet with modern technology, the reality of such a government could very well be forming around us and we don’t even see it happening.
As we know, the government is actively spying on every one of us. That’s the essence of Edward Snowden’s message, since he left the employ of the NSA. While that spying is intended to help prevent terrorism, we’ve seen some in government be awfully free in their use of that term. One can quickly find themselves labeled as a terrorist if the political winds blow the wrong way.
On top of the NSA, big tech is in cahoots with government in a number of ways, most especially with providing information to law enforcement officers, as they seek to solve crimes. But that same information which is being used for the good of tracking down and convicting criminals can very well be used against the rest of us. After all, any of us can become an instant felon, simply by Congress passing a law making something that has been legal, suddenly illegal.
An excellent case in point is the current push by Democrats to restrict our Second Amendment rights. Should they do that, then millions of law-abiding citizens will suddenly be faced with the option of turning in valuable firearms or hiding them from the government. Will the government hunt down those who haven’t turned in their guns, using the same tools they are currently using to track down criminals? Only time will tell.
So, what can we do to keep the government from having an idea where we are and what we are doing? To start with, we need to understand that the government has multiple means of tracking us, not just one or two. That means we’re going to have to defeat them all, if we expect to protect ourselves from electronic spying.
Here are a few places to start.
Use a Burner Phone
The easiest way for the government to track any of us is through our smartphone. We really don’t have a handle on everything that our phones are doing in the background, while we’re not looking.
Yet there’s nearly constant communication between our phones and the local cell phone tower.
It’s clear that the communications we have through our phones is readily available to the NSA and others.
You can even pay online services to do a little spying on family members, seeing their text messages, who they’ve talked to, what they’ve looked at online and where they’ve been. If you and I can do this, then you can be sure the government can do more.
Shut Off GPS Tracking
One of the most common ways our phones help the government keep track of us is through the phone’s GPS. Google and Apple keep track of our every move through that part of the phone.
If you go to Google Maps and click on your timeline in the menu, it will show you everywhere you’ve been, for the last several years.
This feature alone could put you in danger if you just happen to be in the same place that a crime was committed. While that alone wouldn’t be enough to convict you; it would be enough to make you a suspect.
And that’s just one example of how the GPs could be used against you. What if they want to track you down because it has been reported that you said something against the government; they’d have no trouble tracking you down.
Clean Out Internet Browsing Activity and Cookies
One of the big ways that companies use the internet to keep tabs on us is through our browsing history and the cookies downloaded to our computers by the various websites we visit.
A lot can be learned about who we are and what we do by looking at that. That’s why major corporations invest so much in data mining, looking for people to buy their products.
Haven’t you seen how you can look at something online, then find advertisements for the same sort of product showing up in your Facebook feed and just about any online article you read?
That information is also admissible in court as a means of defining your character. Government prosecutors could build a totally false narrative about you as a terrorist or planning mass murder, backed up by no more than the websites you have visited. Simple curiosity can and will be used against you, perhaps even in a court of law.
Get Rid of Alexa, Siri, and other Voice-recognition Assistants
One of the key elements of Orwell’s imaginary society in 1984 was that the government was tracking what everyone was doing through their television sets.
Yet today, rather than the government having to hide that capability in our TV sets, we buy devices and use them in our homes.
Those devices track everything we do, listening in on our conversations, so that they can “serve us” better.
Employees of those companies have come forth, confessing how employees at big tech companies listen in on people’s private lives.
If they’re doing it, then the government has access to it too. Remember, everything that device does goes over the internet and the NSA is tapped into that thoroughly.
Create Alternative e-Mail Accounts for Memberships
Our online identity is largely tied into our e-mail account.
Pretty much everything you sign up for, from buying dog food to looking at different sites, involves creating an account using that e-mail address. That online presence can lead government agents to look into all areas of your online existence.
The solution is to create multiple ‘personas,’ utilizing them for different things.
In order to do this, you’re going to have to provide false information at some point, as pretty much all e-mail services try to verify that you’re a real person and that you’re who you say you are.
Create Site-specific Passwords
Passwords are the bane of modern existence, with more and more websites requiring a membership and password for access. Even those that don’t are likely to require you setting up an account to buy anything.
The information attached to that account Is just one more source for the government to look at.
Most of us pick a password and use it for as much as we can. The problem with that is that once someone figures out your password, they can try it on a variety of different platforms, trying to access your account and see what you’ve been doing.
Four different products, bought from different vendors, could easily become the parts of a bomb in some investigator’s imagination.
Avoid JavaScript
JavaScript abounds throughout the internet, having been created to make it possible for web pages to be interactive.
Unfortunately, it’s full of security holes, having been created many of the more modern modes of hacking were invented. Today, breaking into JavaScript is considered small potatoes by hackers.
Keep in mind that the government employs hackers too; they’re called “white hat hackers,” and while that term was originally coined in regards to people who were trained in hacking in order to play the “red team” in online security simulations, it’s used for any hacker who does their work as part of “legitimate” business.
Of course, as far as the government is concerned, anything they do is legitimate, regardless of what the law says.
Encrypt e-Mail
We’ve already discussed how the NSA is recording and reading every bit of communications that flows across the internet. That includes your e-mail. They know if you’re making an inquiry about buying a new home, having an online affair or discussing business secrets.
According to Snowden, some of those government employees are looking over people’s shoulders, watching their lives as if it were a live soap opera.
The world’s best code breakers work for the NSA and the majority of the world’s supercomputers are housed in their facilities. So the idea that they can’t break into an encrypted e-mail is ridiculous. Nevertheless, encrypting still makes it harder, meaning that they’d have to have a pretty good reason to bother.
While not perfect, encrypting your e-mail at least protects you from casual view.
Avoid Online, Credit Card and Debit Card Purchases
Probably one of the earliest ways that law enforcement used the benefits of the internet to solve crimes is through tracking credit card use. We’ve all seen cop shows where they tracked a suspect by looking at where they were using their credit card. That’s child’s play for the government today.
Of course, the government isn’t the only one tracking our online purchases, although I don’t think that companies have the ability to get into the records of our credit and debit card usage like the government can.
Either way, it can provide the government with a lot of information that you might not want them to know. Better to use cash and keep your transactions anonymous.
If you’ve got to buy things online, then use prepaid Visa and MasterCard gift cards, not associated with any bank account you have.
You can buy these easily at the checkout in many major stores, in denominations up to $500. That makes it possible to make a lot of purchase anonymously.
Then have the item shipped to an address that can’t be readily traced to you, like a PO box that you rented using a false address.
Don’t Fill Out Profile Data
One of the easiest ways for the government, criminals, companies and just about anyone else has of getting information about any of us is through our online profiles.
Social media has encourages people to live an open life, with everything about them becoming common knowledge. But that information can become dangerous if it gets into the wrong hands.
Save that information, so that you can give it to who you want to, rather than whoever wants it.
While it might not be quite as “neighborly” in the online community, holding that information back could help protect you from the government or from criminals.
One Final Thought
Doing the things I’ve mentioned in this article are likely to have unintended consequences. That is, they’re likely to make you look suspicious to anyone investigating you.
But then, if you haven’t done anything wrong, it really doesn’t matter how suspicious they think you look. They still have to find evidence, not suspicion, in order to take any action against you.
Your ready answer to this suspicion should be that you are protecting yourself from criminals. Even government agencies recommend taking precautions for that reason, so by stating that, you’re throwing the onus back on them. If they don’t like that, it’s just too bad.
Preppgroup 