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…cause its all going down.

I have become personally so disenchanted with the way people fail to prep.  People still don’t understand how important it is to put away.  I have gotten into arguments over this and had cretins call me a fool because I put away food, water, and supplies.  I thought about this and the frustration that other preppers have with this laid back idiotic attitude that there is no need for preparation.  There are good people that just can’t/won’t start preparing. They have the money to do so, but just don’t want to.  Many have only seen what happens to non-preppers on TV, but it still doesn’t make an impact.

In this article I detail some hard core realities to show just how awful it will be for those that don’t prep. Every one of these scenarios is something that has occurred to the non-prepper throughout history.  While strong images come to mind, the purpose is to jar some people out of their inaction and into action before it is too late.

Preppers are good people and care much about those around them, and unless something does jar those around them that choose not to prep, their own survival chances could be reduced.  For every bit of food, water, ammunition, or supplies you sacrifice to the non-prepper, the fewer irreplaceable supplies are left for you and your family in a crisis situation.  It is hoped that the following can help certain people put into TRUE perspective just how horrific it will be for those that don’t prepare.

Here are the awful consequences for those refusing to prep.

As the world continues to decay at multiple facets, the common person has and continues to be lulled into a sense that everything is improving and will continue to for the distant future.  After all, to them unemployment has peaked out and will drop until everyone that wants to work will easily be able to find good paying work,  North Korea is no threat because all their long range “bottle rockets” fizz out,  sanctions will eventually make Iran give up their nuclear program, oil prices will start going down after June or so,  Europe will bail out Greece and Spain and everyone else,  and U.S. debt will eventually come under control.

After 2012 everyone that has prepared themselves will go back to more “sensible” lives.  “Good times are coming”, baseball season is here, let’s get back to watching some more crackerjack news.

It is amazing how people become good conversationalists with most others discussing all the gossip related news, while becoming mentally tranquilized into a totally deceptive state of denial of truly dangerous issues of the times.  It’s the blind leading the blind… right off the cliff.

Rather than dealing with harsh reality, people surround themsleves with easy to digest material that can be talked about without directly influencing anyone’s lives.  Meaningless chatter.  Even for those unwilling to even think to prepare for a societal catastrophic event, there is also no desire to even face the extreme possibility of a sudden loss of one’s employment.  A personal SHTF.

Look at some of the terrible personal pain experienced in America right now – and it hasn’t even hit the fan on a grand scale. Those people who have lived it up on credit, who failed to put much of anything away for a rainy day, who’ve lost their job, and who eventually lost their unemployment benefits are experiencing the first level of collapse. This is happening to millions of people in our own country, all around us, as we speak.

These Americans, who once enjoyed the luxuries that modern living had to offer, are now at their wits end, with very little hope for a return to their previous lives. They are no longer able to pay most or any of their bills. Many have to humiliatingly turn to others for help to pay for food, or worse, to obtain old, unhealthy and poor tasting food from locally funded food banks. Their credit cards are totally worthless. Many have been evicted from their homes and have uprooted their families to live either on the street, in tent cities, with relatives, or have been forced to live at homeless shelters, They’ve have had their vehicles repossessed, or simply can’t afford the gasoline anymore. Their living conditions often make it difficult, if not impossible, to look presentable for job interviews. For many, the life of stability they knew just a short while ago is gone, replaced with fear and a constant stress to the point of nervous breakdown.

A personal economic meltdown is confined to the individual or family, or at worst a few families.  The human civilization remains intact and so do society’s safety nets.

With food assistance, rental assistance, homesless shelters, and family to turn to, even the most destitute are almost always able to find some sort of help – however menial.

It is no wonder with these known assistance programs, then, that people have forgotten or never thought to consider what happens IF and WHEN human civilization goes through a strong enough SHTF event.  If that happens on a mass scale what happens to everyone that needs help that has not prepared ahead of time?  What happens when governments are in such total disarray or destroyed altogether that they can’t help even if they wanted to?

The media and others have portrayed the good people that sacrifice much if not all “luxuries” of life to prepare themselves and their family and friends for extreme times, as chicken littles.  Those who have made the choice to store up emergency food, water, and other necessities to avoid extreme life threatening risks, including suffering horribly during and after a widespread SHTF event, are laughed at and ridiculed often for “wasting” their lives on delusional paranoia.

But who is delusional? Those who see the signs around them and understand how vulnerable the system is, or those who believe that things never change, that politicians have their best interests at heart, and that if the worst happens the government will be there to provide everything they may need?

How many have considered the dire consequences of their failure to prepare in the event that the infrastructure and everything a country’s people depend on totally collapses?

The misery from long term unemployment and lack of money is like a walk in the park compared to the severe anguish and dangerous conditions that await those who have failed to prepare for the aftermath of a large scale cataclysm.  The “minor” problems of unemployment that seem extremely major and painful to most today should serve as a wake up call to what life will be like when something much, much worse happens – when those proverbial safety nets are no longer there to catch us.

Many preppers have become deeply frustrated at those around them, especially those that truly mean something to them, because they simply refuse to put away anything at all for emergencies.  The prepper is usually a person that cares a lot and it is often difficult for them to take a tough stance towards the people that they care about.  However, unless someone changes the habits of those people that fail to get ready, decisions will need to be made, and they won’t be easy.

The choice of what the prepared prepper should do will boil down to either either adding these people to their own circle or survival group and reduce the group’s safety, supplies and self sufficiency, OR, they will have to let the non-prepper fend for themselves.  This is a very personal choice, and each of us will need to decide based on our own morals, ethics and personal relationships.

As a last ditch effort, discussing the following scenarios with the non-prepper may help them understand what life will be like without what has sustained them so comfortably for so long.

This is the hard reality the non prepper needs to understand:

  • Without power the water company cannot get water to their faucets. Without water dehydration occurs within 24 hours. Dehydration causes much suffering before death.
  • Toilets in homes, unless they have an incineration toilet that still need power to work, don’t flush without water.  Where will they go to the bathroom and then where will they dispose of human waste?
  •  There will be no clean water available anywhere, especially in major cities, and they cannot live more than about three days without it.
  • Drinking dirty and polluted water will make them incredibly sick and accelerate the dehydration process.
  • Polluted water must be purified and that means having a good filter, bleach or other disinfectant, or fuel and something to boil water with.
  • Understand just how fragile the power and the infrastructure is that pumps water to the public. A breakdown in our power infrastructure or a cyber attack against utility systems will render them useless.
  • A single event can rapidly lead to a cascade of other events that would certainly collapse almost, if not, everything. This is why major snow storms, hurricanes or solar events in the past have affected millions of people in an entire region all at once.
  • A single, seemingly unimportant event may become quite terrible as its repercussions spread; this can include a far and away disaster.
  • Understand that the economies of the world are so interwoven that when one major economy falls it affects everyone.
  • Not having any food in the house means that if the stores are emptied suddenly in a bad enough situation that there will be no food available for a long period of time afterward. Recent history during disasters around the world has shown that stores can literally be emptied in minutes.
  • Think about how totally horrible the feeling of being very hungry is and what circumstances would cause one to be desperate enough to eat anything.
  • ALL stores can be closed instantly under martial law.
  • Understand that you may not be able to purchase anything after it starts, especially with any credit cards.
  • Understand the complexity of food and water distribution; breaks in these chains can stop anything from getting to the people.
  • What life will be like if no toilet paper is stored?
  • Understand that without light sources, the night will be pitch black, often with zero visibility.
  • There will be no communications, other than probably martial law type of instructions over the radio, that is if they have batteries for the radio.
  • Other than ham and shortwave radio, any information that is available will be sent out by the government as filtered propaganda that “they” want everyone to hear.
  • Without power consider what it will be like to not have any heat to stay warm, or air conditioned air to stay cooler – with no way of alleviating the situation.
  • Travelling will likely be by foot or bicycle, as their will be no fuel and roadways may be blocked.
  • Realize that ANY travel outside of the home or neighborhood will be extremely dangerous as ANYONE who moves becomes a target
  • Non preppers will be pushed way beyond their limit because of lack of supplies.
  • The non prepper must realize their government does not really care about them individually, that they are a mere number and help will likely not come from them.
  • They have to figure out somewhere to get food. This can mean wild plants which they must know how to identify as safe, or risk poisoning themselves.
  • They have to understand that when we refer to “having no food” it doesn’t mean not having the food they are used to enjoying, it means no food to eat at all.
  • They have to understand that if they are fortunate enough to have any running water, they will probably have to bathe in cold water for lack of stored fuel to heat water.
  •  They have to realize that the very strange and totally unexpected is going to be all around them, made that much worse because of lack of any reliable self defense stores or skills.
  • They might have to remain on the run constantly because of looking for water and food.
  • They must understand that bad will be magnified magnitudes to living misery because of lack of food, water, and other necessary items that they took for granted for so long.

Okay, now comes the “truly ugly and unthinkable” life that most, if not all, people that have failed and refused to prepare themselves will deal with.  Clear vivid visualization is key here for anyone that ho hums the idea of prepping.

What horrors they will likely face after a cave-in of their nation’s economy, war, geophysical upheaval, or whatever crisis is bad enough to disturb or stop their nation from working and functioning?  There are plenty of very potential SHTF events that are simply awaiting a catalyst to trigger them.

  •  The Non-Prepper (NP) has to realize right off the bat that 911 and other emergency calls in will be met with silence or some recording telling the caller not to panic.
  • The (NP) that has no reliable self defense that can stop an attacker, will not get help from public services, and will become a victim of rape, assault, torture, or murder.
  • The (NP) that has no reliable self defense and will not only be at the mercy of criminal elements, but also have to contend with many desperate animals, some with rabies.
  • The (NP) that has no food will either have to find food or be ready to beg for food or worse, like sacrificing their bodies or other horrible acts or things to get a bite of food.
  • The (NP) will have to go through the worst, most rancid conditions of garbage to just maybe find what they should have stored up.
  • The (NP) will go through panic and near if not total psychosis looking for any water source right before their bodies begin shutting down during advanced stages of dehydration.
  • The (NP) will go through unbearable trauma when their children and other people around them are crying, screaming, and suffering with intense hunger pains in their stomachs.
  •  The (NP) will have to deal with the awful stench of rotting wastes from many sources because they have not taken the effort to even store up waste disposal plastic bags.
  • The (NP) will have disease and pathogens everywhere, not only because they have no trash disposal means, but because they haven’t prepared how to deal with trash and waste.
  • The (NP) will have to live in very primitive conditions after things around them deteriorate rapidly, because they have neglected putting away anything to make life more bearable.
  • The (NP) and those around them will likely develop all sorts of infective skin rashes from the lack of insight of storing up toilet paper.  Imagine the smell for a moment.
  • The (NP) will have to handle biting insects and other vermin that will collect amoungst the filth that will pile up.  No pest control stored up along with no other supplies.
  • The (NP) will have no way of treating sickness certain to follow a SHTF event, no first aid and likely no training or knowledge about how to treat the ill on top of this.
  • The (NP) will have sick and dying people around them because of not being able to treat minor injuries.  Didn’t even stock up on disinfectives.  Unsanitary conditions lead to infection.
  • The (NP) and others around them will experience much grief as they watch helplessly as their family members literally die of starvation right in front of their eyes.
  • The (NP) won’t believe how desperate hunger drives them and those that mean everything to them to “trying” to eat food that taste so bad it gags them and comes back up.
  • The (NP) will likely have family and friends around them that have also not prepared committing suicide because they can’t take it any longer.
  • The (NP) will witness some of those people around them lose any sense of civilized humanity in them and behave like wild animals after some time from lack of necessities.
  • The (NP) and family members, maybe friends also, will at some point end up barbecuing or eating raw the family dog, cat, bird, any pet dear to everyone for food.
  • The (NP) will likely get into physical fights with other family members over any scrap of food available as rational thoughts are lost to wanton hunger.
  • The (NP) as many other (NP’s) will eventually go out of any safety of their home looking for food and or water, become disorientated and lost, and die a hard death somewhere.
  • The (NP) that is “lucky” enough to find some government help will likely have to almost sell their soul, probably all their freedom, to get tiny rations – just enough to keep them alive.
  • The (NP) will see widespread violence and barbarism that will shock them to the core and will wish that they had purchased some form of firearm and stocked up on ammunition.
  • The (NP) better get used to attempting to explain the children and other adults why they wasted all that money on junk, and didn’t buy any emergency food and other supplies.
  • The (NP), no matter how positive they are will drop quickly into depression and lose willpower as having nothing to hold on to does this, along with lack of any nutrition.
  • The (NP) will feel the worst guilt imaginable as they hear their family moaning in anguish from lack of anything to eat, knowing they could have done something to prepare.
  • The (NP) will most likely not see the rebuilding and recovery after A SHTF event. They will, like almost all NP’s, be statistics.  Some will die hours or a day before help arrives.
  • The (NP) from lack of food, drinking bad water, no light at night, the horrid smells, no good self defense, the overall horror, will often be paralyzed with fear and despair, blank stare.
  • The (NP) is totally helpless after SHTF, will have to rely totally on charity of those prepared to live.  They will take all sorts of desperate measures likely to get them shot.  They’ll attempt to eat hazardous foods like an animal trapped in a house will do, and get sick and suffer much before dying.  The (NP) will likely die (ugly and hard) as they lived, unprepared for anything.

If we were to use one single word to describe the torments that someone who “chooses” not to prepare will go through after a true you know what hits the fan it would be “PREVENTABLE”.

Almost every single person, even a very poor person, has the capacity to put away emergency food and supplies.  Even homeless people have stashes of something just in case things become so bad that the normal hand outs and thrown-away items dry up.  Many people with good sources of income don’t even have an extra can of food or any water put away at all. This is stupidity beyond words.

Every day lightweight disasters happen in all parts of the world that disturb services enough that people are confined to their homes for a certain amount of time.  While recovery is short, people are still uncomfortable during these times.  Look what happens after a power outage at night and you will be mystified at how many homes are completely dark for hours.  People have not even bought an extra couple of candles or any battery operated light sources.  Even in well-to-do neighborhoods you may hear only a lone generator going after a blackout.  This lack of preparedness is truly frightening and plays itself out again, again, and again every time services are disrupted for minor to major reasons.  It’s as if there is something wrong with storing extra food, water, and supplies.

Even after “lessons” played out to what happens to those non-prepared, most people still feel that it just cannot happen to them, or won’t ever happen to them again.  It should be proof enough to people what happens to those unprepared after disasters simply by looking at those that have gone through it firsthand.  The difference, though, comes in that these disasters have had recovery periods and help from others. Even Haiti received some help and conditions remain putrid over there.

After a TRUE SHTF, it is presumable that government help and others coming to the aid of those in need WON’T happen for long periods of time. During that time those that have chosen to not put food, water, and necessities away are going to be in life threatening positions.  Most people just don’t get that when the supermarket shelves are empty they will stay that way for an extended period.  When the utilities go down, especially water, it may be weeks, months, or longer before they come back, if ever.  Without what someone needs to survive each day, it is not going to magically appear, and depending on the goodwill of others to feed them and sacrifice their own family’s survival chances is a terrible choice.

People MUST know what life will be like after SHTF in mega fashion if they refuse to prepare.  This is NOT new. Terrible events have plunged people into the deepest levels of desperation and hopelessness, and they will happen again and again.

While the above consequences to the non-prepper are extremely abysmal for anyone to read, the simple fact of the matter is they have already happened time and time again to those that have nothing put away.  People have resorted to cannibalism and gone to levels of primitive savage behavior out of shear desperation and out of literally losing their minds to the physical depletion of food and water that keeps the physical body operating.  Sometimes showing the extreme severity and results of a person’s lack of action, such as failure of the simple act of putting away extra food, water, and supplies, can be the kick in the complacency that they need.

It’s really easy to put away food and supplies. All one has to do is add a little bit of extra food to the grocery cart for long-term storage. Over time this adds up to a well stocked pantry of supplies.

There is something that is in a can of food that everyone can eat and enjoy the taste of, so talk to family members about their nutritional preferences and start stocking up.  Toilet paper and other supplies that really don’t have any expiration date can be put away and forgotten about ’til needed.

There MUST be common sense and intelligence to see what happens IF they don’t stock up for the future.  There has to be the DESIRE to get started, and this is the real problem with so many.

Once started, however, prepping becomes a type of life saving routine or positive lifestyle habit.   It is easy and can and will save one from misery. It may save their life and the lives of their family from ruin when SHTF, which is almost inevitably going to happen someday.  Every month and year that goes by without a true SHTF event, makes it more likely that it will happen.  Basic statistical chance shows this to be the case, but people continue the same pattern of behavior that has led them to the same devastation countless time before.

For those preppers that have people around them that refuse to prepare, you can at least have some degree of solace knowing that you tried to show the non-prepping person(s) what not having anything will mean to them and their families.

All we can do is try. Once we’ve given it our best shot, all we can do is let those who have been warned about the direness of the possibilities live their lives the way that want to. They will, unfortunately, live in a world of regret and suffering if the nation and the world falls apart around them.

To every action there is an opposite equal reaction. Preppers will see their efforts have been more than worth it.  Objects that are motionless tend to remain motionless and non-preppers will find there are horrific consequences for their lack of effort and motion to put away “life insurance” preps for themselves and their families.

SHTFPlan.com

SHTFPlan.com

In the 1970′s he predicted gold’s meteoric rise and its 1980 top to the day. He published a full page advertisement in USA Today warning of the impending collapse of stock markets in the 1987 Savings & Loan crash – and nailed that one to the day. He saw the collapse of the Japanese real estate market and warned his clients that a depression was coming. In the late 1990′s he contacted Russian officials to advise them of an impending meltdown of their currency due to forces beyond their control – and he was right again.

He lives in New York today, but for the better part of the last decade he was held in federal prison. His charge? Officially, nothing. Unofficially, he was held in contempt of court for nearly ten  years for refusing to hand over his cyclical economic models to Goldman Sachs and the US Government. According to the powers that be, Armstrong was manipulating the world economy, and because he refused to share his prescient models, they locked him away without charge or trial – indefinitely.

He may sound like a fictional character out of a Hollywood blockbuster, except Martin Armstrong is the real deal, and he’s been warning of a paradigm shift unlike any we have witnessed in history.

With the US government expediently acting to restrict personal liberties, nearly incalculable amounts of national debt, Europe on the brink of a break up, and confusion in global asset markets, Armstrong’s Private/Public cyclical models are indicating that the world better get ready for a rough ride – and soon.

Via Armstrong Economics:

I have warned that the United States would be last to fall because it is the core economy being both the largest as well as the reserve currency. I have warned that this will not collapse into dust all at the same time. Each link will break one at a time cascading like dominos. This is not my OPINION – it is history.

Greece will be forced to leave for staying under the terms of Germany will bring civil war. Social unrest is erupting and what the US and German authorities FAIL to understand is we are dealing with a BELL CURVE and not a linear progression. There has to be balance between austerity and stimulation. It is like heat and cold. Both extremes will kill you. We survive in the middle

It is true that rising interest rates can attract capital. However, when capital FLEES, interest rates CONTINUE to rise due to the shortage of capital. NOTHING is ever a straight line. BIG Capital is fleeing Europe and that goes to government debt because it is liquid and can absorb vast amounts.

We have to understand what I call this Public v Private battle in confidence. This can also be called the flight-to-quality that appears during a crisis. The primary trend that is common in all economic declines is what is described as the flight-to-quality. This is at the core of capital flow for it represents the first criteria in how capital moves betweenPublic and Private Assets.

The flight-to-quality is traditionally observed by just about everyone and it is unleashed whenever confidence in the private assets collapses. Investors panic, sell private assets, and rush to government bonds driving interest rates down sharply. During the 2007-2009 crises, interest rates in the USA virtually went to zero. In other words, people were willing to accept no interest just to park their cash in a safe place they saw as government assets when they feared even banks would not survive.

The shift in this flight-to-quality attitude is always at the core of capital movement. During a generational Private Wave, investment and speculation become common place. During a Public Wave, private assets are looked upon as risky and the safer bet is to invest and trust government.

So understanding what we are facing right now is critical to our survival. We must understand that forecasting a single market in isolation is asking for disaster. To comprehend the true global implication of how capital moves, we must embrace a global correlation approach. We are headed for BIG volatility come September/October. Reality should start to make its way known going into year-end. So hold on tight. This will be a rough ride. 

Source: Manipulating the World Economy Or Just Understanding How It Really Functions?

In 2012 Predictions of a Mad Tin Foilist we opined that if a collapse of the stock market was to take place in 2012, that it would originate in Europe, with investors fleeing risky assets there to the relative “safety” of none other than the US Dollar – much like they did in 2008. This flight-to-quality will be the driving force behind crashing stocks and commodities (perhaps even gold), as well as potentially devastating losses in the debt markets of Europe and Japan.

The subsequent result of this fleeing of capital from perceived and actual risk will have the effect of strengthening the US dollar, which means a potentially powerful rebound in US Treasuries as investors rush to preserve their wealth in what they believe to be the safest asset available. Yes, it sounds counter-intuitive to rush to safety in the US dollar given the state of affairs in America, but despite the constant criticism from international financial experts we remain the largest economy in the world and just so happen to control the printing presses of the world’s reserve currency.

According to Armstrong, we’re not far off from such an event, and we may very well see it take place this Fall, as uncertainty and panic grips international markets and forces the hand of governments, big banks, and individual investors.

Given his expertise in history, economics, mathematics and cyclical theory, if there is one person who may have a handle on what information to gather, how to analyze it, and what it means, it’s Martin Armstrong. He’s proven it time and again, and it looks as if his alarms are blaring.

As noted above, while panic and capital flight may significantly and negatively impact some asset classes in the very near future, we don’t have to worry about  a total economic doomsday for America just yet. First, all of the money will flow here for safety. But this flight-to-quality will be short-lived, as the ever expanding national debt and government run amok will ultimately lead to a loss of confidence in the US dollar itself.

The scale of this event – this loss in confidence of the reserve currency of the richest nation that has ever existed on Earth – will be unprecedented in human history.

Also Watch: The Oracle – Martin Armstrong (Trailer):


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The EPA is now blocking US mining and manufacturing before proposals are even submitted.


The proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska (Yahoo)

The EPA Is Annexing Alaska

The EPA released a scientific study of the Bristol Bay watershed and its natural resources on Friday. The report is an attempt by the EPA to preemptively veto the Pebble Mine in Alaska because it could potentially affect the local water.
The AP reported:

The possible failure of a dam holding waste from a large-scale mine near the headwaters of one of the world’s premier salmon fisheries in Alaska could wipe out or degrade rivers and streams in the region for decades, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a draft watershed assessment released Friday.

EPA regional administrator Dennis McLerran said there was a fairly low risk of that occurring, however, and the more likely impact would be direct loss of habitat from the mining activity itself.

The report responded to concerns about a large copper-and-gold prospect near the headwaters of Bristol Bay. It is a draft, with a final report that could affect permitting decisions perhaps due by the end of the year after public comment and peer review.

Kevin at Wizbang added this on the EPA’s job-killing agenda.

The groundwork they’re laying implies that any building or project that could potentially impact water can be killed by the EPA without the project ever going through the permitting process, and without input from state, local, or other federal agencies. This in itself is a jobs and economy killer.

They want us all in mud huts.

Related… The Pebble Mine, which is not even proposed yet, will require permits from at least 67 state and federal agencies according to the site owners, yet Democrats wants the project spiked before any environmental review is even done.

With the way that things are heading in this country, it is not surprising that there are approximately 3 million preppers in the United States today.  What is surprising is that there are not more people prepping. The economy is rapidly falling to pieces, the national debt is absolutely soaring, the earth is becoming increasingly unstable, a major war could erupt in the Middle East at any time and the fabric of our society is coming apart right in front of our eyes.  We have become incredibly dependent on technology and we have become incredibly dependent on our economic system.  If a major natural disaster, a killer pandemic, an EMP attack or the imposition of martial law caused a significant transportation disruption, America would literally change overnight.  We live during a time of tremendous global instability, and yet most people still see no need to start prepping at all.  Most people just continue to have blind faith in our leaders and in our system.  But what happens if our leaders fail us?  What happens if our system collapses?  What are they going to do then?

The number of preppers in the United States today is steadily increasing, but the vast majority of people out there still see no reason to start getting ready for “the end of the world as we know it”.  Most people just assume that things will always somehow get better or that they will somehow be immune to whatever calamities are heading our way.  Most people always seem to have a “good excuse” for why they do not need to prepare.

The following are the top 50 excuses for not prepping….

1. “The U.S. Economy Is The Greatest Economy On The Planet – There Is No Way That It Could Ever Collapse”

2. “Once Barack Obama Wins The Election Everything Will Be Better”

3. “Once Mitt Romney Wins The Election Everything Will Be Better”

4. “When Things Get Really Bad The Government Will Take Care Of Us”

5. “When Disaster Strikes I Will Just Steal From Everyone Else That Has Been Busy Preparing”

6. “The Rapture Will Be At Any Moment So I Don’t Have To Worry About Prepping”

7. “The Economy Has Always Recovered After Every Recession In The Past And This Time Will Be No Different”

8. “The People That Are Running Things Are Very Highly Educated And They Know Exactly What They Are Doing”

9. “Wal-Mart Will Always Be There”

10. “Our Politicians Are Watching Out For Our Best Interests”

11. “The 2012 Apocalypse Is Almost Here And We Are All Doomed Anyway – So Why Even Try?”

12. “Preppers Do Not Have A Positive Mental Attitude”

13. “If An Economic Collapse Comes I Will Just Go On Welfare”

14. “There Are Some Things You Just Can’t Prepare For”

15. “Prepping Is Too Expensive”

16. “We Are Not Like Other Countries – U.S. Cities Are Designed To Withstand Major Earthquakes”

17. “I Need To Save Up For Retirement Instead”

18. “The Stock Market Has Been Soaring So Why Worry?”

19. “I Don’t Have Room To Store Anything”

20. “Prepping Is For Crazy People”

21. “I Don’t Believe In Conspiracy Theories”

22. “All The Food I Store Is Going To Go Bad”

23. “I Would Rather Spend My Time Watching American Idol”

24. “All The People Who Freaked Out About Y2K Look Really Foolish Now, Don’t They?”

25. “I Don’t Want To Look Like Those Idiots On ‘Doomsday Preppers’”

26. “An EMP Attack Could Never Happen”

27. “There Will Never Be A Nationwide Transportation Disruption In The United States”

28. “Instead Of Being So Paranoid, I Would Rather Just Enjoy Life”

29. “If Society Falls Apart I Wouldn’t Want To Continue To Live Anyway”

30. “There Will Never Be Another World War”

31. “I’m Too Lazy To Grow A Garden”

32. “If You Assume The Worst Is Going To Happen Then You Don’t Believe In America”

33. “Deficits Don’t Matter”

34. “I’ll Always Be Able To Get A Job In My Field”

35. “If There Is A Financial Collapse All Of My Debts Will Be Wiped Out So I Might As Well Live It Up Now”

36. “If Things Hit The Fan I Will Just Go Move In With My Relatives Who Have Been Busy Prepping”

37. “Those That Believe That There Will Be Massive Riots In American Cities Someday Are Just Being Delusional”

38. “My Spouse Would Think That I Have Finally Lost It”

39. “I Don’t Know Where To Start”

40. “I’ll Just Deal With Problems As They Arrive”

41. “I Don’t Have To Prepare For A Natural Disaster – That Is What FEMA Is For”

42. “We’ll Never See Martial Law In The United States”

43. “I Don’t Want To Scare My Children”

44. “Once I Get Rid Of All My Debt Then I Will Start Thinking About Prepping”

45. “My Relatives Already Think That I Am A Nut Job – I Don’t Need To Make It Any Worse”

46. “If People At Work Find Out That I Am Prepping It Could Hurt My Career”

47. “If There Really Was A Good Reason To Prepare They Would Tell Us About It On The News”

48. “People Have Been Predicting Doom And Gloom For Years And It Hasn’t Happened Yet”

49. “The United States Is The Greatest Nation On Earth – There Is No Way That It Could Collapse”

50. “I Don’t Plan On Becoming A Card Carrying Member Of The Tin Foil Hat Brigade”


Ankara security services search bee-eater’s nostrils for Mossad surveillance equipment

Turkish authorities are examining the carcass of a European bee-eater on suspicion that the bird was spying for Israel, Turkish websites and media have reported in the past couple of days.

The story, which hit Israel’s Yediot Ahronoth on Tuesday, has apparently been reported seriously in Turkey — an indication of the dire state of Turkish-Israeli relations, and an apparent readiness to give credibility to even the most outlandish assertions of Israeli iniquity.

Of particular interest to the authorities, the media reports say, were the dead bird’s nostrils, one of which is larger than the other, leading to suspicions that Mossad surveillance equipment was implanted in the beak.

The big-nosed spy-bird saga began when a farmer found the dead Merops Apiaster, or European bee-eater, on his land and alerted authorities after noticing a band inscribed with the word “Israel” on the bird’s leg.

Ornithologist often attach tracking bands to the legs of birds in order to learn about their flight paths and migratory travels.

The Turkish Agriculture Ministry handed over the small corpse to Ankara’s security services for further investigation.

Note: We have received reports, there are Black Crows or Ravens that have been spotted with camera equipment attached to their chests.

In the first verdict of its kind since former President George W. Bush left office, he and several members of his administration have been successfully convicted in absentia of war crimes in Malaysia.

Yes, this is a BFD.

This past Friday, a five panel tribunal delivered a unanimous guilty verdict after a week long trial that, unsurprisingly, was not covered by American media. The witnesses included several ex-Guantanamo detainees that gave testimony on the conditions and human rights violations that were systematically carried out under orders of the Bush administration.

Former President Bush, Former Vice-President Dick Cheney, Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo that crafted the legal ‘justification’ for torture that basically said, ‘we can if we want to even if it’s illegal’ were the defendants. None were present, of course, but international war crime trials do not require the presence of the accused. The trial was run according to the standards set by the Nuremberg Trials to convict war criminals after World War II.

Professor Gurdial Singh Nijar, who headed the prosecution said, “The tribunal was very careful to adhere scrupulously to the regulations drawn up by the Nuremberg courts and the International Criminal Courts”.

The United States is subject to international law which makes this trial significant beyond the borders of Malaysia. Foreign Policy Journal reports:

President Lamin told a packed courtroom: “As a tribunal of conscience, the tribunal is fully aware that its verdict is merely declaratory in nature. The tribunal has no power of enforcement, no power to impose any custodial sentence on any one or more of the 8 convicted persons. What we can do, under Article 31 of Chapter VI of Part 2 of the Charter is to recommend to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission to submit this finding of conviction by the tribunal, together with a record of these proceedings, to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council.

“The Tribunal also recommends to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission that the names of all the 8 convicted persons be entered and included in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals and be publicized accordingly.

“The Tribunal recommends to the War Crimes Commission to give the widest international publicity to this conviction and grant of reparations, as these are universal crimes for which there is a responsibility upon nations to institute prosecutions if any of these Accused persons may enter their jurisdictions.”

The hope is that other countries will hold trials of their own and the guilty verdicts will mount up. This is not that outlandish an idea as Bush and Cheney have not only brazenly admitted they authorized torture in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention, but bragged about it. Nothing more helpful than having a criminal do all the heavy lifting for the prosecution. If enough of these verdicts are passed on to the international courts, they will have no choice but to hold a trial of their own. While Bush won’t be arrested on American soil, he’ll have a very difficult time leaving the country. Already he’s canceled a trip to Switzerland, due to possible charges of war crimes.

The best possible outcome is that the world court delivers a guilty verdict that sends a clear message to President Obama and his successors that the United States is not above the law, American Exceptional-ism be damned. It’s a lesson we’ve forgotten and need to relearn.

There is nothing wrong with being optimistic, but there is something wrong with having blind faith that things are going to get better when all of the evidence is screaming at you that things are going to get worse.  According to a brand new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, 71 percent of all Americans consider economic conditions  in the United States to be poor right now, but an astounding 58 percent of them believe that economic conditions in the United States will be good a year from now.  So what can account for this?  Are they insane?  Are they hopelessly optimistic?  Do they not want to believe the facts that are staring them right in the face?  Well, a lot of it probably has to do with the upcoming election.  Most Republicans are convinced that things will be “better” somehow if Romney wins in November.  Most Democrats are convinced that things will “continue to improve” if Obama wins in November.  But the truth is that the economy has been declining steadily in recent years no matter which party has been in power.  Today, the American Dream is out of reach for huge numbers of formerly middle class families.  Millions of jobs continue to leave the United States, poverty is absolutely exploding and our nation is absolutely drowning in debt.  Sadly, nothing is being done to reverse the long-term economic trends that are destroying us.  So, a year from now things are not going to be any better.  In fact, many analysts are absolutely convinced that things are going to be a whole lot worse by then.

For example, just check out the following excerpt from a report that was just released by LEAP/E2020….

Thus, according to LEAP/E2020, the 2012 election year, which opens against the backdrop of economic and social depression, complete paralysis of the federal system (3), strong rejection of the traditional two-party system and a growing questioning of the relevance of the Constitution, inaugurates a crucial period in the history of the United States. Over the next four years, the country will be subjected to political, economic, financial and social upheaval such as it has not known since the end of the Civil War which, by an accident of history, started exactly 150 years ago in 1861. During this period, the US will be simultaneously insolvent and ungovernable, turning that which was the “flagship” of the world in recent decades into a “drunken boat”.

Wow, that paints a far different picture of the future than most Americans are imagining, eh?

The U.S. “will be simultaneously insolvent and ungovernable”?

That doesn’t sound very optimistic.

Gerald Celente, the head of the Trends Research Institute, is also very pessimistic about the rest of 2012.  Just consider the following quotes from a recent USA Today article….

“2012 is when many of the long-simmering socioeconomic and political trends that we have been forecasting and tracking will climax,” Celente noted in his Top 12 Trends 2012 newsletter. In an interview he added: “When money stops flowing to the man on the street, blood starts flowing in the street.”

So who is right and who is wrong?

Only time will tell.

But I think it will be very interesting to pull this article back up a year from now.

At the moment, things do not look promising for the U.S. economy….

-The percentage of Americans planning to buy a home within the next six months continues to hover near a record low.

-The U.S. trade deficit with China continues to get even larger.

-Jobs for blue collar workers continue to disappear.  In 1962, 28 percent of all jobs in America were manufacturing jobs.  In 2011, only 9 percent of all jobs in America were manufacturing jobs.  Overall, America has lost a total of more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities since 2001.

-There are not nearly enough white collar jobs for the hordes of fresh college graduates entering the marketplace.  At this point, 53 percent of all U.S. college graduates under the age of 25 are either unemployed or underemployed.

-The percentage of working age Americans that are employed continues to go down.  The following are the figures for the past three months….

February 2012: 58.6%

March 2012: 58.5%

April 2012: 58.4%

-Due to the lack of jobs, the middle class in the United States continues to shrink rapidly.

-A shocking number of Americans cannot even pay their bills at this point.  According to one recent survey, approximately one-third of all Americans are not paying their bills on time right now.

-Incomes for middle class families continue to shrink.  After adjusting for inflation, median household income in America has declined by 7.8 percent since December 2007.

-Meanwhile, the prices of the things we all buy month after month continue to go up.  In fact, if inflation was measured the exact same way that it was back in 1980, the annual rate of inflation would be more than 10 percent right now.

-Millions of American families are experiencing a massive amount of pain at the pump.  Since Barack Obama entered the White House, the price of gasoline has risen by more than 100 percent.

-As the middle class shrinks, the number of Americans on welfare continues to explode.  Back in November 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps.  Today, more than 46 million Americans are on food stamps.

-But this is not just a short-term trend.  The truth is that dependence on the federal government has been rising for decades.  But in recent years it has accelerated dramatically.  In a previous article, I detailed the incredible growth of social welfare benefits that we have seen under both Republicans and Democrats….

Back in 1960, social welfare benefits made up approximately 10 percent of all salaries and wages.  In the year 2000, social welfare benefits made up approximately 21 percent of all salaries and wages.  Today, social welfare benefits make up approximately 35 percent of all salaries and wages.

-The federal government is propping up the economy with unprecedented amounts of government debt.  Sadly, the U.S. national debt has risen by more than 5 trillion dollars since the day that Barack Obama first took office.  In a little more than 3 years Obama has added more to the national debt than the first 41 presidents combined.

-In many ways, the U.S. is already in worse shape than Europe is.  At this point, the United States has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain.

So remind me again why things are going to get better?

The only reason why the economy has not collapsed already is because of unprecedented borrowing by the federal government and unprecedented money printing by the Federal Reserve.  But those emergency measures cannot last indefinitely.

So it is absolutely insane to expect economic conditions in the United States to improve.

The truth is that they are a lot better right now than they should be.  Once the federal government quits injecting more than a trillion borrowed dollars into the economy every single year things are going to look a lot different.

Instead of preparing for things to get better, the American people should be preparing for things to get worse.

So what do you think?

Do you think that economic conditions will be better a year from now or worse?

Thai police show the remains of six foetuses wrapped in gold leaf
REUTERS

A British citizen in Bangkok has been arrested after Thai police found six roasted human foetuses packed in his luggage.

Chow Hok Kuen, who is 28 and of Taiwanese origin, was held by police after the grisly discovery was made in Bangkok’s Chinatown district yesterday.

Reports says the six foetuses had been covered in gold leaf after being roasted as part of a black magic ritual.

It is not clear where the bodies came from, but Chow Hok Kuen is believed to have been attempting to smuggle them into Taiwan.

The bodies were reportedly found in a different hotel from the one Chow Hok Kuen was staying at, but were in his luggage.

Police made the arrest after responding to information they’d received saying that infant corpses were being offered to wealthy clients via a black magic services website.

“The bodies are of children between the ages of two and seven months. Some were found covered in gold leaf,” Wiwat Kumchumnan, sub-division chief of the police’s Children and Women Protection unit, said.

For being in possession of the foetuses Chow Hok Kuen could now face a 2,000 baht fine and a year in prison.

It is thought the corpses were bought from a Taiwanese national for 200,000 baht ($6,40 but could have been sold for six times that amount in Taiwan.

Why does the state of California seem to be so incredibly hopeless?  These days California can’t seem to do anything right, and if you live in California things just got a whole lot worse.  Governor Brown has announced that the state budget deficit for this year is going to be much larger than projected, that more government services are going to be cut and that voters are going to vote on another round of tax increases in November.  Meanwhile, unemployment is sitting at 11 percent and extended federal unemployment benefits for workers in the state are ending.  Because California is one of the worst places in the nation to conduct business, there has been a steady flow of companies leaving the state.  Those companies have taken a whole lot of good jobs with them.  Due to the lack of jobs and a steady stream of impoverished immigrants coming in from Mexico and other countries, poverty in the state has exploded and crime is rapidly increasing.  California may be the land of “endless sunshine”, but for the California economy there are only dark clouds on the horizon.  The state is coming apart at the seams and there is not much hope that things are going to turn around any time soon.

These days, California is very similar to Greece in many ways.

Just like Greece, California has had round after round of “austerity” and yet still cannot seem to balance the budget.

Even after all of the cuts that have been implemented in recent years, the California budget deficit is still going to be far larger than originally projected this year.  The following is from the Los Angeles Times….

Gov. Jerry Brown announced on Saturday that the state’s deficit has ballooned to $16 billion, a huge increase over his $9.2-billion estimate in January.

The bigger deficit is a significant setback for California, which has struggled to turn the page on a devastating budget crisis. Brown, who announced the deficit on YouTube, is expected to outline his full budget proposal on Monday in Sacramento.

“This means we will have to go much further, and make cuts far greater, than I asked for at the beginning of the year,” Brown said in the video.

During his remarks on YouTube, Governor Brown stated that California is “still recovering from the worst recession since the 1930s” and he stressed that hard choices are ahead.

But the California state government has already cut back in so many places.  For example, back in the late 1970s the state of California was number one in per-pupil spending on education, but now California has fallen to 48th place.

Unfortunately, Governor Brown does not believe that budget cuts alone will solve the problem.

So you know what that means.

Tax increases!

The tax increases that California voters will be voting on in November were outlined in a recent Bloomberg article….

Brown this week submitted more than 1.5 million signatures to place the tax measure on the ballot. It would temporarily raise the state sales tax, already the highest in the U.S., to 7.5 percent from 7.25 percent. It would also boost rates on income starting at $250,000. The 10.3 percent levy on those making $1 million or more would rise to 13.3 percent, the most of any state.

Get ready to fire up the moving vans.

The rest of the California economy may be falling apart, but moving companies will continue to do very well.

As I have written about previously, California has already experienced a net loss of approximately four million residents to other states over the past 20 years.

If the top rate on those making a million dollars or more a year hits 13.3 percent you will see a lot more wealthy people leave.

And thousands of businesses have left California in recent years as well.  Sadly, one survey found that CEOs ranked California as the worst place in the United States to do business for seven years in a row.

You would think that the state legislature would get the message.

Unfortunately they have not.

California absolutely suffocates businesses with rules and regulations and it gets worse with each passing year.

So lots of good jobs continue to leave the state.

As mentioned earlier, the official rate of unemployment in California is sitting at 11 percent.  That is almost 3 points higher than for the nation as a whole.

Of course the “official” numbers greatly understate the true scope of the unemployment problem, but for more on that you can check out this article.

However you want to look at it, the reality is that California has a massive unemployment problem.

Sadly, a whole bunch of unemployed workers in California are about to lose their unemployment benefits.

On Saturday, more than 200,000 unemployed Americans were dumped off the unemployment rolls.  Close to half of them live in California.

Instead of 99 weeks, unemployed workers in California will now only be able to collect unemployment benefits for a maximum of 79 weeks.

It is estimated that a total of 93,000 people in California have suddenly lost their benefits as a result of this change.

Unfortunately, the truth is that the employment picture in California is not really getting any better.  It is still incredibly difficult to find a decent job.

Unless you are “connected”, it can be a horribly frustrating experience trying to find a new job in this economic environment.

But if you are truly desperate, there are some folks out there who are always hiring.

These days, “national security” is quite a growth industry.  For example, if you are currently unemployed you can always apply to work as an Internment/Resettlement Specialist for the national guard.

While the economy is going to pot, you can get paid to lock up other Americans that are protesting about the state of our country.

Doesn’t that sound fun?

But seriously, if you live in California right now you probably don’t need anyone else to tell you how bad things are.

You probably already know that the number of children living in poverty in the state of California has increased by 30 percent since 2007.

California is rapidly changing, and not for the better.

But it is not just the economy that is falling apart in California.  The truth is that there are a whole host of good reasons to move away from California.  The traffic is nightmarish, crime is on the rise, the gangs are bigger and more active than ever before, millions of illegal immigrants have poured into the state, and the control freak politicians become more insane with each passing year.

Plus there is the constant threat that your home will be destroyed by a mudslide, a wildfire or an earthquake.

One of these days the “big onewill hit California.

You do not want to be there when that happens.

But if you decide that you do want to move from California, what is the best state to move to?

That is a very good question.

The truth is that economic conditions are horrible in most of the country and are rapidly getting a whole lot worse.

According to one poll, 30 percent of all Americans described the condition of the economy as “good” back in February but only 20 percent do now.

When we enter the next major economic downturn, unemployment is going to go higher everywhere in the nation.

There will be small pockets where jobs are still plentiful (where the oil industry is strong for example) but almost everywhere else will be really hurting.

So what do all of you think?

For people looking to move away from California, where should they go?

Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below….