So when does "IT" hit the fan?

[Siglvr]

Im getting tired of waiting for the end of the world as we know it.

Whoh brother, don't rush the things you don' t really want to see. Relax. Take a breath and enjoy it while it's here.

I am not exactly a die hard prepper but I have taken steps and believe in trying to be self sufficient. I feel pretty confident that I have done pretty much everything I could do withing my financial means to plan for the future what ever it might hold. I have read most of the doomsayers books. Peter Shiff, Harry Dent, Eric Sprott, Wolf Richter, James Rickards, David Stockman, Mike Maloney, Chris Martenson and a host of others. I honestly think they are right. I think the next 20 years will be nothing like the last 20. I think we are in the middle of a real depression that will carry on for at least the next 5-7 years and the worst leg is yet to come. I dont know if that's the end of the world as we know it, but I think we will have some tough times and I think a lot of people will be angry when promises get broken.

Thing is I was sure 3-4 years ago that the crash was just months away, that this crazy paper money binge would never work and people would see the stock market and recovery where all a sham. Well I couldn't have been more wrong. I pulled all our retirement money out 3-4 years or so ago to "protect" it. Worse yet is I put much of it in gold and silver to "preserve" my spending power. Well the market has gone up 50-70% since then and precious metals have tanked by half. The combination has been brutal to my long term plans. The thing is I still think I was right, just early. Problem being, early is the same as wrong. Even if I am right I did the wrong thing. That is easy to say in hindsight. If I would have timed it right Id look like a genius, instead I look like a crackpot.

The stock market is crazy, there is simply no way the economy supports the current valuations. The hockey stick up swing was created with freshly minted pretend money in a crazy monetary experiment that I think is doomed to create a much bigger problem than the one it was trying to "fix"

So what do you think?

What do I think? This is what I think. You can't time it. No one in the world can. Thought that Charles Merrill said it perfectly back before we were born. In 1928 Merrill became convinced that the stock market was overpriced and advised his customers to sell their holdings. He was a brilliant man, and it choked his craw to hear every week from some or another douchbag ***cough*** customer *** cough *** that all of his clients saw their friends getting rich and they - who had followed the advice and sold out "too early", were not making a nickel while the market rose so dramatically. Really. It was horrible for his reputation and had to be super painful for him. http://biography.yourdictionary.com/charles-e-merrill
Until 1929 and redemption.

If you read Jim Rodgers, Bill Gross (ex PIMCO manger) and other savvy folks, they called the same thing you did , and were also too early. Bill Gross was managing $1.7 TRILLON dollars. He missed it, you missed it, and he's smarter than us both combined. It's timing, no one can call it.

I get tired of reading the same doom and gloom on Zerohedge and all the other pages day after day. Ever since I have been reading those pages the crash was eminent, and is still. Nothing changes. There is some fresh hell someplace in the world dang near every day yet the powers that be have managed to keep it together one more day. Thing is I keep reading them, I keep agreeing with them and they keep being wrong (or at least early)

Back up and just consider the overview. Don't read Zero hedge and Seeking Alpha unless you are looking for an opposing view, I believe they feed bullbubblegum to us to temporarily sway the market so the big guys can bail and screw the little guy. Pretty sure about that.

All you can do is try and cover your bases, and you have done that. You have Food, water, extra money and skill. Don't try and time a crash, there are way too many variables. Relax and enjoy living in a great place. Remember that Kings of old? I hear folks who would like to go back in time and be them. The richest kings of old never had what you have. None of them. A fresh Orange out of season? Out of the question. Toilet paper? Hah, they didn't even have rough single ply, let along the soft quilted 2 ply we can rub out butts with. The ability to be super mobile where you can jump in a car and be 100 miles away in less than 2 hours in bubblegum traffic: nope - they never had anything close to that. Modern medicine? Hah! The richest dudes of old were sleeping in lice and fleas and regularly dieing of all kinds of nasty things which we easily avoid. On and on.

No, let it go. Cover your bases, do the best you can, be the best person you can be to others: live a good life. This is what is important. I'd listen to Jim Rogers and Bill Gross for financial advise. Rodgers was recently advocating buying farmland for whatever reason. Gold if it drops below $1000 but not until. Mostly everyone else is trying to f-bubblegum us all in the A- bubblegum.


That's all I have, hope it helps you. I too regularly read that kind of thing. David Stockman's book for example: Page 1 Gloom. Page 2: Doom, Page 3: Gloom and doom! Goes like that for 700 pages with facts and figures. Yet the man NEVER gives a time frame for the end game. Think of that. If what he predicts occurs in 20 or 30 years, what and where are you? How about 10?

Why no time frame? If he' cannot time it, why do you think you or anyone else can? Cause it may not even occur like he say as he frames the end game. That's why. He doesn't know, I don't know, you don't know: nobody does. The Fed may have a head start. That's all.

We're left with covering our bases and living a good life. Now we both could benefit by going and hugging our wives and loved ones to jump start that feeling and relax a bit, so I'm gone for a bit

 

[IronMonster]

Stockman went on and on and on didn't he? Interesting book but hard to read at times as the guy has so much to say.

 

[erudne]

The Guns Of August, I hope Obama plays Franz Ferdinand

 

[AMProducts]

You should add the Bible to this list....believe or not.....much of the world attention is focussed on Jerusalem. For millenniums. There will be wars and rumors of wars....
Brutus Out

There's a lot more to my reading list than these books, however I would still be typing it out. In limiting it to a discussion of economics and current events.

Over-all, it's amazing how many people ignore the basic tenets of the bible when they talk about their preps, and make absolutely no room for charity and christian virtue.

 

[Sam Kinard]

View attachment 221336

My tinfoil stocks are paying out high dividends. Buy Reynolds.

edit : Victory over Fear would be a good start.

We defeated fear by being prepared for it, not by being at it's whim whenever it decides to arrive.

If having your six covered is paranoid, paranoid I am indeed.

When I started carrying an LCP as a backup gun, my mother said "You carry TWO guns? You're paranoid!". I replied "What do I have to be paranoid about, I have TWO guns?!?!".

Yes, by all means, "prepare" by investing in the stock market. It's totally legit and isn't a design to get EVERYBODY's money in before it all falls. Anyone considering stocks should look into why Joe Kennedy pulled all his dough out just prior to the '29 crash.

 

[Sam Kinard]

There's a lot more to my reading list than these books, however I would still be typing it out. In limiting it to a discussion of economics and current events.

Over-all, it's amazing how many people ignore the basic tenets of the bible when they talk about their preps, and make absolutely no room for charity and christian virtue.

The problem is that every time you bring up Christian values, folks start commenting upon your belief in magic, dragons, bigfoot, Odin, The Crusades, and all the rest.

Proverbs 27:12 tells us "A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished."
There are many other passages that state that he that does not work shall not eat. This of course does not include the disabled, elderly or small children. It DOES, however include those that were warned for thousands of years that the end would come and never had more than 2 days worth of supplies, but a month worth of cigarettes and beer.

In my list I included Scriptures that suit your beliefs. I specifically left out that ours include The King James Bible, The Book Of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants and The Pearl Of Great Price. Imagine the responses from those that view Mormons as members of a "cult"?

Still, the books that I mentioned specifically mention charity and Christian charity(and LDS charity), and that REQUIRES, not SUGGESTS being prepared to help those in need of help, not those that went on 3 Princess Cruise Ships a year and then demanded to dwindle their neighbors food supply when they were caught completely unprepared.

I absolutely agree with you on charity. I believe it is very important to differentiate "charity" with "doing it for them so that they may live in luxury while we toil for their future". For example, I don't need any potential family members from elsewhere that may show up post-disaster to be loaded down with 2,500 lbs. of guns & ammo. I need them to show up with 2,500 pounds of rice so that we may eat AND distribute charity when possible.

As always, the opinions of others do not need to match mine. This is what works for us and I hold it up as an example, not a demand for others to conform to my thought pattern and process. Once again, YMMV.

 

[Sam Kinard]

I think I can somewhat address the "hurry up and collapse" sentiment.

While I cannot speak for others, for me the reason to hasten what is surely coming is a simple one. Naturally, there are myriad ways the end/collapse/reset can happen, but there are some consistent themes.

A cataclysmic event, such as an EMP, nuclear something, asteroid, super-volcano, etc. would be devastating, but a slow crawl to Martial Law, foreign invasion, FEMA camps, etc. would be far worse in my opinion.

Should my family survive the initial whatever-given-cataclysmic-event that happened, we would be in so much better shape(Theoretically. That scenario could leave us hopeless as well.) than if MRAP's, attack choppers, bunker busting missiles and an organized armed force whose lines are disciplined enough not to break showed up to take us away or kill us.

We made our decision long ago to die free. We would rather do that working and patrolling 24 hours a day than fight a force that we cannot defeat. The ability to rely upon each other, fend off marauders and maintain OPSEC in a world sent back to the Stone Age is FAR more appealing than being forced to decide between conforming and being wiped off the Earth by a force that has the ability to follow your heat signature and the missiles, air support, howitzers and full-auto grenade launchers to finish it off.

In short, if we go back to 1776, we have a chance. If we keep slowly disarming ourselves and are left with ineffectual weapons that will not penetrate body armor and a populace that is brainwashed into believing that you need the permission of a Tyrant to fight tyranny, there won't even be a battle for good & evil, evil will have won before the first round is fired. It doesn't matter if the MRAP, chopper, missiles and armed force are The UN, Russia, China, ISIS, or the US Army gone bad. We simply won't have any choice but to accept our serial number tattoo and RFID chip or die and literally have our guns pried from our cold, dead hands.

I've made my decision and everyone else is free to make theirs. I believe it wise to look at all angles before deciding and if you choose freedom, God Bless You. Should you choose slavery, "May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." and all that.

 

[erudne]

I don't know, if I had a month's worth of beer I doubt it would last a month.
As far as 2500 pounds of rice, that is 5000 sacks, an amount that requires specialized storage and a large truck to transport. I can carry an amount of gold equal to the value of that rice in a pack. The point I'm making is that there is a point where preps become an albatross.
Obama has a plan to destroy America and turn it into a 3rd world hell-hole, an important part of that plan is to destroy American's wealth as well as the means to generate more so there is little chance that he will accelerate the time table, much to my disappointment, as an accelerated attempt may well lead to his undoing

 

[Brutus57]

IronMonster, I get your point. If Mt. Rainer blew up, I'd probably grab the gold & silver. However if the economy blew up and currencies where of no value, I'd probably grab the ammo & food. I am no different than you. I will keep investing, and push forward. If it's all gone tomorrow, I will wake up the following morning, and start over. Nobody owes me anything, the government doesn't owe me anything, I owe it to myself to do the best that I can.

Unmolested by the outside we could live where I live indefinitely by growing our own food even by preserving our own food for use during the winter. We have very little law around here so a crash or disaster would make for interesting times. I think ammo is as good as gold, especially in an area where it can be used for subsistence living.


Brutus out.

 

[CoastRange57]

Obama has a plan to destroy America and turn it into a 3rd world hell-hole, an important part of that plan is to destroy American's wealth as well as the means to generate more so there is little chance that he will accelerate the time table, much to my disappointment, as an accelerated attempt may well lead to his undoing

Obama may have a plan but unless he can get enough people to follow him on this march to hell , besides all the liberal government types in the next few years it is not going to work. A major social logically change such as that will take 20, 30 or more years. There are simply too many patriots in this country to allow that to happen.

From an economical standpoint, the only thing that can possibly turn around the obscene and unsustainable economic free fall is a complete collapse of the economic system. No amount of austerity measures, reform or anything can possible reverse the current state and decline.

I did corporate turnarounds for a while and some companies you just have to bust a cap into them, there is simply no bring them back.

 

[Sam Kinard]

I don't know, if I had a month's worth of beer I doubt it would last a month.
As far as 2500 pounds of rice, that is 5000 sacks, an amount that requires specialized storage and a large truck to transport. I can carry an amount of gold equal to the value of that rice in a pack. The point I'm making is that there is a point where preps become an albatross.
Obama has a plan to destroy America and turn it into a 3rd world hell-hole, an important part of that plan is to destroy American's wealth as well as the means to generate more so there is little chance that he will accelerate the time table, much to my disappointment, as an accelerated attempt may well lead to his undoing

Correct, and that is why stockpiles get delivered when visits happen, so that a commuter car that is desperately trying to escape a population center isn't loaded down with crap, nor the time wasted to load the car. If everyone already has their stuff at the rendezvous, logistics get cleared up a lot quicker when things need to happen 5 minutes ago. I cannot eat $500 worth of gold, but the same value in rice will keep a lot of people alive.

Preps become an albatross when you're "prepping" in a 5th story apartment and need to figure out what to do when the power goes out and the first two floors are burning. When you have acres surrounded by National Forest, family members and close friends can store their albatrosses here so that they may get out quicker and God forbid they don't get out, they can know that their food will be eaten by their people, not those that just finished doing something horrible to them just before murdering them. If that's not a realistic scenario, or is just too awful for anyone to think about, why is ANYONE preparing?

My point is that we are already down here and removed from the masses. Obama DOES have a plan to destroy America and so far, he has many willing partners and millions more that don't realize they're his partners because they haven't taken the time to get their face out of their iWhatever. They can have it. I would have as much chance de-Communizing Portland as I would de-Communizing N. Korea. If ANY disaster situation happens, especially a controlled one, and they start in very rural Klamath and Lake Counties, they did it wrong. I can provide shelter, a perimeter, food and security to those that are already here or get here. Those that don't get here are providing life for those that do by stocking up prior to the disaster. We also have one specific friend whose plan is to take his travel trailer and pickup truck from near Sandy, OR and drive it down. He could easily haul 5,000 lbs. of fill-in-the-blank. Whether or not the road would be clear is another story, that is why we stress already having stuff here.

I concede that my implication was that we are planning to have multiple families drive hundreds of miles in vehicles so loaded down that sparks fly as it travels. At the same time, if we hadn't already cleared that tiny little logistical hurdle, what in the world would I be setting up LP/OP's and digging multiple root cellars for?

We all need a realistic contingency plan and I am thankful that I may live at mine full time. I can live another 40 years of watching from afar as we destroy ourselves or I can provide safe haven and a real thing worth defending for those that are here after whatever sort of disaster. Obama and his plan had better hurry up. Whether he likes it or not, the fake economy could go on it's own or with help from Russia & Co. A nuclear Iran or Israel preventing one could be the trigger. MAybe the super-volcano or the asteroid that is to nearly miss us TODAY will do it and all my digging is for naught. Or, maybe it will go at a crawl and after they're done with the cities, MRAP's, choppers with mini-guns and missiles, tanks and Blue Helmets will march homestead by homestead, rounding us up or killing us if we refuse to comply.

Whether I die of old age or of a dastardly M855 splitting my wig, exactly ZERO of my liberties, freedoms and principles will be tossed aside for a life of slavery or any compromise. I can't stop the stuff that was sold down the river before I was born, but it cannot and will not end with me and mine shackled in the back of an APC on the way to whatever double-fenced, inward facing barbed-wire prison camp they decide to take us to.

At least there can be something romantic, ironic and just maybe even Patriotic about my bones being picked clean by the Bald Eagles that live in my area like pigeons in NYC.

BTW, I noticed a hole in your preparations. If you consume one month's worth of beer in less than one month, was it ever a "month's supply" in the first place? I can call a 50lb. sack of rice a "life-time supply". That doesn't mean I won't be starving in 2 weeks. It should also be noted that proper metric-ton purchases of rice should never be done per bag, as it will nearly double the price.

Like I said before, this is what works for us, nothing more. As usual, YMMV.

 

[Just Jim]

Yep, people choose the ground they will fight or die on. I would hate to be the guy that takes his family to the woods to hide. Nature has a lot of ways to kill people and kids in particular. Everything from bad water to cold weather is a killer and I doubt many could carry enough for an extended stay. Had Guardia from drinking bad water as a kid an nearly died, no way I would take kids into the woods.

 

[40calruler]

Im getting tired of waiting for the end of the world as we know it.

I am not exactly a die hard prepper but I have taken steps and believe in trying to be self sufficient. I feel pretty confident that I have done pretty much everything I could do withing my financial means to plan for the future what ever it might hold. I have read most of the doomsayers books. Peter Shiff, Harry Dent, Eric Sprott, Wolf Richter, James Rickards, David Stockman, Mike Maloney, Chris Martenson and a host of others. I honestly think they are right. I think the next 20 years will be nothing like the last 20. I think we are in the middle of a real depression that will carry on for at least the next 5-7 years and the worst leg is yet to come. I dont know if that's the end of the world as we know it, but I think we will have some tough times and I think a lot of people will be angry when promises get broken.

Thing is I was sure 3-4 years ago that the crash was just months away, that this crazy paper money binge would never work and people would see the stock market and recovery where all a sham. Well I couldn't have been more wrong. I pulled all our retirement money out 3-4 years or so ago to "protect" it. Worse yet is I put much of it in gold and silver to "preserve" my spending power. Well the market has gone up 50-70% since then and precious metals have tanked by half. The combination has been brutal to my long term plans. The thing is I still think I was right, just early. Problem being, early is the same as wrong. Even if I am right I did the wrong thing. That is easy to say in hindsight. If I would have timed it right Id look like a genius, instead I look like a crackpot.

The stock market is crazy, there is simply no way the economy supports the current valuations. The hockey stick up swing was created with freshly minted pretend money in a crazy monetary experiment that I think is doomed to create a much bigger problem than the one it was trying to "fix"

So what do you think? Do you think we are going to have money problems? Do you think there are other concerns that are bigger? I get tired of reading the same doom and gloom on Zerohedge and all the other pages day after day. Ever since I have been reading those pages the crash was eminent, and is still. Nothing changes. There is some fresh hell someplace in the world dang near every day yet the powers that be have managed to keep it together one more day. Thing is I keep reading them, I keep agreeing with them and they keep being wrong (or at least early)

I am sure that being early will not upset you if/when the time comes. Having a supply of guns, ammo, dried goods, silver and gold is just smart to me..Depending on the size of said supply. My mother hates guns yet has had all of the above at all times my whole life. I do as well now but even if she was way early it is a good idea to be ready for anything these days and not be one of the folks shooting people over whats left in the stores.

 

[Medic!]

I hope it hit's the fan soon!

Survival is my plan to stop smoking, drinking hard liquor, and finally get the exercise I need!

I tell ya. If the end don't come soon. I'm not gona make it!

 

[NONAME762]

Hay Medic! a lady friend of mine who quit smoking 15 years ago told me a secret she learned. While trying to wean herself off the smokes sometimes she'd take a drink or 2 to calm her nerves. Well she soon saw that getting a buzz made her really wanna smoke. Well she had to literally *go on the wagon* as it were and no drinking until she got a handle on things. It took her 9 months to cut the mustard from smoker to non smoker

 

[CoastRange57]

and not be one of the folks shooting people over whats left in the stores.

That is only going to last 24 hours at the most, since the stores will be empty after that or before, then the hordes will be looking to plunder individuals and this is when SHTF. This is when being in an urban area will suck beyond belief.

 

[forefathersrback]

Unmolested by the outside we could live where I live indefinitely by growing our own food even by preserving our own food for use during the winter. We have very little law around here so a crash or disaster would make for interesting times. I think ammo is as good as gold, especially in an area where it can be used for subsistence living.


Brutus out.

Brutus57, hey brother you got that right! let's just call it "Golden Ammo". The problem where I live, is that growing food is difficult, to much freezing going on, even in the summer time. We have a very short growing season, and the soil sucks. That has always concerned me. However, I do trap so that is a food source if it ever comes down to that. Plus I live within 500 yards of the Big Deschutes River. I've seen it snow here on the 4th of July, plenty of times. Winters can be extreme, 30 + below. Not this winter of course. Sounds like your in a sustainable area, good thinking on your part.

 

[Just Jim]

That is only going to last 24 hours at the most, since the stores will be empty after that or before, then the hordes will be looking to plunder individuals and this is when SHTF. This is when being in an urban area will suck beyond belief.

Big cities will be hardest hit, then anything close to the main roads. Once the vehicles stop people will either band together in groups or kill to get each others stuff to keep moving. People off the main drag have a good chance that most of the bad guys would die off before they start looking away from the main roads.

 

[40calruler]

That is only going to last 24 hours at the most, since the stores will be empty after that or before, then the hordes will be looking to plunder individuals and this is when SHTF. This is when being in an urban area will suck beyond belief.

Agreed but I will already be at the cabin in the woods by the time it runs out. We will load up the dry good and guns and ammo and they the eff out of the populated areas for a while.

 

[Sam Kinard]

Big cities will be hardest hit, then anything close to the main roads. Once the vehicles stop people will either band together in groups or kill to get each others stuff to keep moving. People off the main drag have a good chance that most of the bad guys would die off before they start looking away from the main roads.

I cannot agree with this more.

The closest thing to a "main drag" here is Hwy. 97 and it is far to the West. Whenever travelling that route, I become more thankful that it is a two-lane highway that is frozen and covered in snow in the winter and burning hot in the summer. For our personal situation, the ones that don't die on 97 would be taking one heck of a chance and would be incredibly coincidental for them to wander my way, as they would have to travel through miles and miles of empty mountains, valleys and tablelands to find us. I guess if someone get's their hands on a helicopter for scouting purposes, we could be in big trouble if we were viewed as a giant vault of survival for a band of marauders.

Part of being realistic about what is coming is looking at all of the angles. So many of our loved ones that aren't here, but plan to get here will never make it. They will either wait too long to be scared enough to get out or whatever "it" is will be too sudden. It is truly heart-wrenching, but I have repeatedly told my "people" that when I make the call, they need to get down here ASAP. If the phones no longer work, they are to assume that I called and get going.

That is why we have many supplies that belong to others already here. Imagine not only having your car weighted down with all your gear and food, but the time it would take to load after an emergency. Would the people in your neighborhood watch you pack up food to flee? Would they help you pack? Would they leave your body where it fell and relieve you of your goods?

There is no way to plan for everything and as set up as we are, what skill, bullet, or "prep" will stop radiation, volcanoes or comets? I like to control what I can, but since the BATFE banned the import of "comet-killer" ammo, I am at the mercy of all rocks hurtling toward Earth at 18 million MPH.