There hasn't been any "good" US money for quite some time. It has all been worthless paper, propped up by fantasy and greed.



Local/personal assets are the only, short-term, protection you can use when a depression occurs. Not very many people want to call the inevitable outcome of financial collapse by its real name but there's no hiding from it.
You need to be out of debt as best as possible. You need to be prepared to do without a job. Convert some cash to silver, primarily because it is denominated in smaller quantities.
Have staples of food and other necessities stocked up, at least a months supply in rotation.
Get to know your neighbours better and be prepared to lend a hand. This is for self interest as well as right. Assisting those around you to forestall panic will help keep your neighbourhood stable.

You are correct, its like a lottery. Only the "survivalists" - I presume you mean those who took some precautions and don't fully rely on someone else to provide everything, are holding 10,000 tickets to the unprepared individuals 1.



-G

Only thing is that people have a tendency to band together and cooperate in order to survive. I suspect it's a really deep thing that has been with us for millions of years. Now, what's easiest? Starting to gather widely dispersed resources? Or going for the concentrated stockpiles? I would NOT like to be a mormon if the supermarket shelves turn empty...

Good call. May I add, if the Feds start handing out free train tickets to the promised land, it is probably headed for a camp.

True enough. But if you are in a small village somewhere with several like minded families then I think you would be much better off. Quite a few Mormon and Amish fall into a similar category...

And even some of us who are neither...

-G

You're catching on! The only way to meet the future is as a society. You are still into pretty small societies though. Human history seems to indicate that when it comes to societies, it's "the more the merrier" that rules the day. Latest step in that evolution was the national states that started to show up in the early 1800's.

MacG,
I've seen enough of our society to call the vast majority helpless and hopeless. As we discuss these momentous problems looming, the great herds of them are still concerned only with trivialities. Ignorance and apathy reign. Whence cometh the societal salvation?

I doubt that it will come from political leadership, if the current non-issue campaigns are any indication. Personally, I've never seen a problem so bad that the politicos couldn't make it worse.

If the top and the bottom of our society are both idiots, it looks to me like there are only those creative individuals left who gravitate to places like this forum. And, I think a lot of us see it as something we can only hedge against, not effect change on any significant scale in time to mitigate the problems at hand. Long term, yes, we can educate, teach people to provide for themselves. But in the short term? My efforts have met with incredulity, or worse.

I agree that societal change is needed, but I think the cathartic of depression is the only way to get the attention of the mis-educated masses. Kondratieff believed that, and he has been proven right so far.

Totally agree, Patience. We need to go through the darkness before we can see the Light. I think there is the potential for great things to happen when we have to pull together as a society, town, neighborhood, family.

I also agree that politicians can't make this better, especially as they continue to deal in platitudes and soundbites (if I hear "energy independence" again, I might just blow chunks).

HOWEVER, those politicians WILL be in power whether we like it or not and have control over vast resources, both material and psychological. Given the candidates, can you see a couple who would be incredibly polarizing, scapegoating-prone, and incredibly tied to the status quo? Me too. Obama isn't perfect, but at least he's building his campaign around the idea of working together to make our lives better. This is indeed a platitude, but one that we will need to hear in the pits of despair to come...

-IanC
Portland

IanC,
Yeah, Obama sounds more constructive than the rest. At least I haven't heard of him being in tight with the good ol' boyz yet, but then, how did he get this far? It looks too much like the economy is dead meat, and it makes me wonder if we are being handed a candidate who is destined to be the sacrificial goat for the mess.

I saw that happen in a corporation that decertified the UAW through a failed strike. A manager was appointed to take the heat of the turmoil, then quietly retired. A new guy was then brought on stage to give hope for the future.....

Maybe I'm an overblown cynic, but that experience cost me dearly. Once burnt, twice shy. Come to think of it, what have ANY of the candidates REALLY said? Nothing concrete that I've heard.

From what I've read, the FED is largely powerless to affect the current debacle, since most of the mess is outside the conventional banking system, and they can't do anything for insolvency. The time to fix this was with real banking regulation
before it got out of hand. Any efforts now are like police work---just cleaning up the mess, and hope that the guilty get punished. If Congress decides to do any kind of major bailout, the dollar will suffer, and us along with it.

"Hope" makes fine slogans, but I want to see the internal workin's before I'll believe it. I think we're going down like the Titanic, and the lifeboats are already launched. My "hope" in the future is that we get rid of the central banks, once and for all. It looks to me like it will be a struggle for survival between the banking cartel and the govt's, while us little creatures get trampled.

patience said:



Little creatures always get stomped on in a stampede. To differential between the banking cartel and the government is like differentiating between your mind and your brain. They are so intertwined that it is probably not possible to separate them without killing both.

Our Constitution is, however, an amazing document. We will not have to give up our constitutional concepts, just our present government. Giving that up will go along with giving up a few thousand of its biggest charlatans, thugs, thieves, and crooks.

Maybe next time we will pay a little more attention to those who pass and execute our laws. Unlike our court system, they should be deemed guilty until proven innocent.

We've been discussing this very same issue, and have come to this conclusion much earlier, in the Housing Market Collapse in Progress thread. Of course the Fed won't be able to discuss this issue in public, just like Greenspan only let the truth be known after he left the Fed. (It's clear he was out to serve his own interests, followed by the interests of the politicians he supported, and lastly the banking system).

Anyway we may well have already made the jump to hyperinflation in the US. If you don't think so, please explain why prices of oil, gold, food, are increasing much faster than the drop in the US dollar's exchange value. Once we start down this path, there probably won't be any return to normalcy - not that any regular readers of PO.com expected something different after PO has past.

No matter how bad I feel it is, this site always shows me that it could get a lot worse.

Here's an article from a fairly mainstream investment site, motley fool. I guess the subprime mess could cause some real problems. If we have a recession we could end up with 2 out of 5 mortgages going underwater.

That's a lot of people.

http://www.fool.com/investing/value/200 ... lnk0000003

Presently the municipal bond market is in a state of chaos, which is why the stock market dropped so much last Friday. No doubt that many school districts, towns, etc. will be unpleasantly surprised to find out they will be paying higher interest rates. The problem will be sure to grow when the next municipal bond rating firm fails.

Yes, Dantes. I can feel the hot breath of the recession on my neck. I wonder what the best thing to do to prepare is. It sounds like we only have a few months until the window of opportunity closes.

Our state is in real trouble, but it sounds like a lot of others are too.

I realize most people, who are paying attention, are frightened; nevertheless you all need to get use to the word "depression".
The US population has been experiencing a recession for some time now. Lost jobs, I don't count Wal_slaves; shrinking paychecks; no infrastructure improvements, reduced value of the US dollar, inflation, mammoth debts at all levels.
You are going straight to a Depression, do not stop at recession, do not expect to pay off your mortgage, be very prepared to defend against eviction.
You are bankrupt, you are morally exhausted and paralysized by timidity, greed, and your country is in the hands of cowards.