Through their Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) and Quantitative Easing (QE), the Federal Reserve (“The Fed’) private banking cartel and the U.S. Treasury have conspired to rig the system. They have artificially suspended the boom-bust business cycle for the past seven years, but now, with interest rates finally rising, they’ve run out of their “smoke and mirrors” tricks. We’ve just had the appearance of an economic recovery, when no genuine structural recovery has actually occurred.
Just a tiny 25 Basis Points (0.25% ) rise in the Fed Funds Rate in December 2015 caused a near full-scale collapse of the stock market. The real chronically-depressed state of the global economy is starting to show.
So where does this leave us, as we enter the second month of 2016? There is a fairly well-founded saying on Wall Street: “As goes January, so goes the rest of the year.” If that holds true for 2016, then our economy is in a heap of trouble. Because America’s economic problems are foundational and systemic– that is, created by the mountains of new debt that have been accumulated (both public and private) rather than just the basic business cycle– the magnitude of the eventual collapse that will ensue is difficult to fully predict. However, some of what could unfold can be plainly seen. What are these “worst case” outcomes? In the event that The Fed fails to re-inflate their bubble and prop up the system a little while longer, we will probably experience some or all of the following:
- Another Global Credit Crisis
- Bank and Oil Sector Bailouts
- Further Deep Stock Market Indices Declines
- Housing Market Collapse
- Bank Runs and Bank Holidays
- A Negative Interest Rate Policy (NIRP)
- A Derivatives Implosion
- Digital Dollar Replacement (with recall of all circulating paper currency and coinage)
- Bank Bail-Ins on the Holdings of Individual Depositors
- Deflation, then Transitioning to Mass Inflation
- World War 3
Rather than spell all of these out in detail (since most of them have already been described many times in SurvivalBlog), I suggest that you take the time to do a little research. Start by pasting each of the preceding bullet items into SurvivalBlog’s right hand column search box. Then corroborate what has been presented in SurvivalBlog with some outside web searches. (Don’t just take my word for it. Do the research. Then you can proceed to the stage that Idaho humorist writer Patrick McManus refers to as “Modified Stationary Panic.”)
Contingency Plans and Threat Mitigation
If you want to avoid the panic stage, then take some proactive steps to mitigate the threats posed by the aforementioned economic instability. In essence, you will need to insulate and isolate your family from these manifold threats through:
- Getting right with God and Praying Hard.
- Developing a Deep Larder approach to food storage.
- Becoming self-sufficient through large-scale gardening and raising livestock.
- Relocatingto a lightly-populated food exporting farming region that is well-removed from urban centers,
- Arming yourself with modern guns and night vision gear.
- Stocking up on compact, durable, and divisible barter goods, barterable base metals (such as Nickel coins), and small denomination silver coins.
- Safely storing fuels for transportation, heating, and cooking.
- Learning and regularly practicing self-sufficiency skills.
- Building (or converting) your home for self-sufficient heating with a wood stove or coal stove.
- Coordinating security with your neighbors (and acquiring and practicing with the requisite communications gear).
- Setting up an alternative power system. (At least buy a compact photovoltaic power system that will allow you to recharge night vision and handie-talkie batteries. Those are crucial!)
- Assembling a hard copy and electronic library of key survival and self-sufficiency references.
- Staying politically active, so that you can help push our government back to within its originally-intended Constitutional constraints of fiscal moderation and solvency.
- Getting in shape physically and staying in shape.
- Developing one or more depression-proof home-based businesses, to provide a second income stream.
After witnessing January’s stock market chaos, it now appears that time is short. So set your priorities and get started. The time for dawdling has long passed. – JWR
(Note: Permission is granted for re-posting of this entire article but only if done so in full, with proper attribution to James Wesley, Rawles and SurvivalBlog, and only if the included links are preserved.)