Money

Is Moving Out Of The United States A Way To Escape The Coming Economic Collapse?

With the U.S. economy in a death spiral, many Americans have been wondering if moving out of the United States is a way to escape the coming economic collapse.  While it is true that the U.S. economy will drag down the rest of the economies around the globe at least to an extent, the reality is that someone living on an island in the middle of nowhere will be able to weather the coming economic storm a whole lot better than someone in New York or Los Angeles.  But is moving out of the United States a practical alternative?  First of all, it is very important to realize that moving some to another country can cause a massive culture shock.  Even a nation that you would think would be somewhat similar such as the U.K. can be radically different from what most Americans are accustomed to.  In addition, in some cases there can be huge taxes and fees imposed on those moving to a new country.

But if you are looking for a change and are ready for something different, moving to another country may work out for you.  In particular, moving to another country tends to work out for those who already have money and do not have to work.  The dollar is still strong in many areas of the world (especially the third world), so if you have a sufficient bankroll saved up there are areas of the world where you can literally live like a king.

However, if you still need to work, moving to another country can present a huge challenge.  The truth is that wages in many areas of the world (especially in the third world) are much lower than in the United States.  On the flip side, the cost of living is often much lower in other areas of the world.

So is moving to another country the right answer for everyone?  No, of course not.  But for some people it may be a wonderful alternative.

To give you more of a perspective on moving out of the United States, we have posted two comments from our readers below.  The first is from a reader named Chris who is very excited about moving his family to the Philippines.  The second is from a reader named John who provides an alternative viewpoint on what living in the Philippines is like….

Chris:

Well I feel the same way as Mae does. I can see what is the possible outcome; a deflationary depression, an inflationary depression, dollar devaluation, confiscation of our money, confiscation of gold, a “freeze” on our savings accounts, etc…

Well so what is our solution? Well my wife is a Filipino American. She was born here. But she has very close ties to her ancestral homeland. So we are going to move in April 2010. We are going to move to a remote town/village. We already bought some land under her father’s name who lives there now and had a beautiful 3000 square foot Spanish villa built two years ago. Plus we bought lots and lots of land where we can grow our own organic food and raise chickens.

Even though as a whole the Philippines is a poor society, they are moving forward. If you have about $150,000 or more, you can live like a king with all of the Western accommodations. If you are living in the U.S.A. then move. Our country won’t be the same in the next coming years. I will wait for this storm to pass. Then I can either choose to stay in the Philippines or come back to America.

Remember, whatever you do, prepare yourself. “Prepare for the worst and hope for the best”.

John:

I was talking to a friend here in the Philippines this afternoon who has two young adult children who are both working full time jobs. He is worried that they will NEVER be able to have a home of their own or even ever an apartment. They both work for Call centers and their jobs USED to based in the USA. They are happy to have a job but they are only earning 13,000 pesos a month. That is about $300 !!!

The same exact job in the states is paying over $400 a week! The of living is less in the Philippines BUT things are NOT so cheap that you could have a home of your own. $300 a month is NOT very much money NO MATTER where in the world you live. The cost of gasoline is MORE here, about $4.00 a gallon. Going out to eat at McDonalds appears to cost less BUT the serving sizes are less so in the long run you pay the same. The wages for a McDonalds employee is about $7 a day so the employees can not even afford to eat at McDonalds!

The employers are making MILLIONS off of the cheap labor. The jobs that used to be in the states are NOW here but the BOSS MAN is making even MORE PROFIT. The employers do not have the misc. taxes to pay like they would in the states. The wages are obviously several hundred dollars or more LESS than the same job in the states. These employers have NOT reduced the cost of their products or services so they are really raking in the bucks.

The american people have lost their jobs and they will NOT see them return. And the people here who are now doing those same jobs are not much better off. The filipino employees are wise enough to understand they are being taken advantage of but there is nothing they can do. They need a job also, so complaining about the low wages does nothing. There are thousands that will take the job you do not want.

Many areas in the Philippines are incredibly wealthy. You see housing developments that the average american could not afford to live in. I see cars that cost tens of thousands of dollars on the road everyday. They have huge shopping malls that are bursting at the seams with stores in EVERY retail location. Unlike the mall in my home town of Cedar Rapids Iowa. The mall there looks like a GHOST TOWN.

The only people that are winning are the CORPORATIONS that are raking in huge profits while the little guy suffers.

Has The United States Become A Nation With No Economic Spine?

What are hard working Americans who have scrimped and saved and have done everything “right” financially for decades supposed to think about all of these “bailouts” and of the massive financial mess in Washington?  How are people who have handled their own finances admirably supposed to feel now that the foolishness of others is leading us all towards a horrific economic collapse?  Well, a reader named “Mae” recently left a comment that I think does a good job of communicating what a lot of hard working Americans are feeling right now: My situation is this – we have lived our lives playing by the rules: never carried debt on a credit card that we couldn’t pay off by the due date. If we couldn’t afford the item, we didn’t buy it. We always had a Christmas Club which enabled us to pay cash for the holiday. We payed ourselves first after every paycheck whether it was $10 or $100, whatever we could afford. We made double payments on our mortgage when we could which helped us to pay off our modest home 10 years early. We knew that we couldn’t afford to “have it all” so we made our choices early on and stuck with it. We sacrificed the fancy vacations in order to do large home repairs (like a new roof) ourselves. We didn’t buy expensive cars and now own one outright and carry a small loan on another. That’s our only debt besides monthly bills. We chose jobs that provided health care benefits. We did everything right…we saved and saved and saved to have a decent retirement but of course last year took half the value of our 401k.

Now, I’m expected to sit back and watch Bush, Congress and Obama bail everyone out because they didn’t have the fiscal discipline to manage their money?? I’m supposed to feel bad for people who bought homes they couldn’t afford? or cars they couldn’t pay for? or $1000 cell phone bills? or $20,000 in credit card debt? HELL NO! I’m livid! If I ran my checkbook the way Washington is running the national checkbook, I’d be thrown in jail!

All we can do now is educate as many people as possible about what is happening and hopefully vote all these s.o.b.’s out of office and replace them with fiscally conservative candidates who will vote for term limits. The days of a career politician are over. I don’t know if we can turn any of this around – it will take a lot of hard work to make the tough decisions, but they have to be made if we’re to survive. How many people have the guts to work through this? Not many…we’ve become a spoiled, selfish, arrogant and hypocritical nation with no spine.

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Economic Warning! 4 Signs That U.S. Financial Authorities Plan To Reduce The Money Supply, Tighten Credit And Hoard Cash

More than ever before in U.S. history, American society absolutely relies on credit in order to function.  In fact, if you cut off all sources of credit to U.S. businesses, most of them would go out of business fairly quickly.  The truth is that when the money supply expands and credit flows freely, the U.S. economy usually hums along pretty good.  But when the money supply contracts and the financial powers tighten credit, it almost always means that an economic slowdown is coming.  That is why recent signals by the Federal Reserve and the major banks in the U.S. are so alarming.

But why would the financial authorities want to contract the money supply and tighten credit just when the U.S. economy is showing some signs of life?

Well, the truth is that nobody can read their minds.  In the long run, the massive size of the U.S. national debt is going to force a massive increase in the size of the U.S. money supply and will eventually lead to hyperinflation.

However, in the short term U.S. financial powers may see this as a chance to further consolidate their power.  There are rumors that they still desire much greater “consolidation” in the banking industry.

So how would this “consolidation” be achieved?

Well, a massive “second wave” of mortgages is scheduled to reset over the next two to three years.  If credit is tight and the U.S. economy is struggling, then another huge wave of mortgage defaults could potentially destroy hundreds of small to mid-size banks across the United States.

The big banks would be in prime position to come in and buy many of them up for a song.

You see, this is very similar to what happened during the Great Depression.

During the Great Depression, the financial powers reduced the money supply, tightened credit and hoarded cash.  The U.S. economy seized up and suddenly nobody had any money.  Those who did have money (the financial powers) were in many cases able to come in and buy assets up for pennies on the dollar.

Not that we are expecting an extended deflationary depression this time.  Instead, it is perhaps likely that they are planning a “consolidation phase” before they really blow out the dollar.

In any event, a reduction in the money supply, the tightening of credit and the hoarding of cash by banks is really bad news for the average American because there will be less jobs and less opportunity as the economy slows down.

The following are 4 signs that this is exactly what we are about to see….

#1) The Federal Reserve is in talks with money-market mutual funds on agreements to help drain as much as 1 trillion dollars from the financial system.  The Federal Reserve is reportedly seeking to “withdraw” some of the record monetary stimulus pumped into the U.S. economy to fight the recession.  But when you withdraw stimulus money from the system, what happens?  That’s right – the opposite of stimulus.

#2) There are persistent rumors that Federal Reserve policy makers are plotting a course for a series of interest rate hikes.  Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says that the Federal Reserve may raise the discount rate “before long” as part of the “normalization” of Fed lending.  By raising that rate, Bernanke says that the central bank “will be able to put significant upward pressure on all short-term interest rates”.  When the Federal Reserve raises rates, this has a ripple effect throughout the entire economy.  Higher rates mean that credit will tighten and loans will be more expensive for individuals and businesses.  In turn, this will cause the U.S. economy to slow down.

#3) Recent data suggests that there has been a substantial drop in the “real” M3 money supply, and every time that this has happened in the past it has resulted in a drop in economic activity.  In fact, this contraction in the money supply has some economic analysts now saying that it is not a matter of “if” we will have a “double-dip” recession, but of “when” it will occur.

#4) There are also signs that the major U.S. banks are now hoarding cash.  In fact, the biggest banks in the U.S. cut their collective small business lending balance by another $1 billion in November 2009.  That drop was the seventh monthly decline in a row.

So what does all of this mean?

It means that the collapse of the U.S. dollar will be put off for a little while but that the U.S. economy is in for some hard times ahead.

More people are going to lose their jobs and more people are going to lose their homes.

Eventually though, after this apparent “consolidation phase” is over, the U.S. government and the financial powers will swoop in with another round of bailouts and another round of “stimulus packages” to save the day.  Once again they will be hailed as heroes and saviors.

And this current “consolidation phase” does not change the long term forecast at all.  Eventually the U.S. dollar will collapse and the United States will experience hyperinflation in one form or another.

Just not yet.

The 2010 World Economic Forum In Davos, Switzerland – Is Our Economic Future Being Determined By A Bunch Of Elitists On The Other Side Of The World?

If you went out on the streets and asked average Americans what the “World Economic Forum” is, how many of them do you think would be able to tell you what it is?  Not very many.  But it is one of the most important international economic organizations in the world.  It is a non-profit foundation that holds a meeting for world power brokers and key executives from 1,000 of the world’s most powerful companies every year for five days in Davos, Switzerland.  You can kind of think of it as a much larger and much more public Bilderberg Group.  The meetings this year were held from January 27th to January 31st, and there was such little coverage in the American media that you would think that the meetings were of little importance.

Even though we hear very, very little about the World Economic Forum in the U.S. media, the truth is that key global economic policy decisions are made each year at Davos, and often new global initiatives are launched during the meetings.  For example, the Global Health Initiative was launched by Kofi Annan at the World Economic Forum in 2002.  This year, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation decided to announce at the World Economic Forum that the foundation will commit $10 billion over the next 10 years to help research, develop, and deliver vaccines in poor and developing countries.

The theme of this year’s meetings was “Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild”, and most of the attendees seemed to recognize that the state of the world economy is not good.  In fact, Spiegel is reporting that the message coming out of the World Economic Forum was that 2010 was going to be a “terrible” year for the world economy.

But why is there such little coverage of such an important global conference in the media?

After all, past attendees of the World Economic Forum include Ban Ki-moon, Condoleezza Rice, Gordon Brown, Hamid Karzai, Queen Rania of Jordan, Shimon Peres, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Bono, Tony Blair, Angela Merkel, Dmitry Medvedev, Henry Kissinger and Nelson Mandela.

Very big names gathering each year to make very big decisions about our economic future – shouldn’t that be newsworthy?

But the truth is that the American press mostly ignores the World Economic Forum for the same reasons why it mostly ignores the Bilderberg Group.

The reality is that the elitist global organizations that make the real decisions don’t want us to realize how important they really are.

We aren’t supposed to understand that global policies that impact us all are made on a global level by unelected global elitists who care very little about you and I.

If you do not know about the World Economic Forum, you need to find out.

After all, they are making decisions that are going to affect your future.

The Other Side Of Christmas

The Other Side Of ChristmasFor some Americans this past Christmas represented the best of times. They drove their imported cars out to the big box stores where they bought cheap plastic imported goods from China to give to their family members as they huddled in the spacious family rooms of their McMansions. But for millions of other Americans this was not a happy Christmas. For those Americans, the holiday season has been filled with frustration and despair as they try to pick up the pieces of their lives after being hit by an economic tsunami. You see, the deep recession of 2008/2009 is not just about numbers and figures – it is about real people with very real problems. Boneheaded policies developed in Washington and in the corporate boardrooms of America have had devastating consequences for millions of people out there. So if you are having a “happy” holiday season, perhaps you could take a few moments to consider what the other side of Christmas is like for the large numbers of Americans who are really hurting out there right now.

In 2009, millions of Americans lost their jobs. It may seem really easy to tell someone to “get a job”, but when there are simply no jobs out there it can literally suck the life out of the unemployed. In fact, some areas of the United States now more closely resemble a war zone than a modern industrialized nation. For example, the city of Detroit is a complete disaster area. The “official” unemployment rate in Detroit is 27 percent, but the mayor of Detroit says that it should really be about 45 percent using a broader definition of unemployment.

Almost half of the people in one of America’s biggest cities out of work?

Can you even imagine?

And yet it is a reality.

People there are desperate.

People there are turning to crime.

Forget about figuring out what to buy for Christmas – people in Detroit are figuring out how to put a roof over their heads and are wondering where their next meal is going to come from.

But it is not just Detroit.

Unemployment is ravaging the entire nation.

For example, 1400 truckers based in Oklahoma who worked for Arrow Trucking suddenly found themselves unemployed and found their paychecks bouncing when their employer suddenly went out of business.  Some of them even found themselves stranded in the middle of their routes when their gas cards simply stopped working.  Just check out the video news report below….

Now many of those truckers are wondering how they are going to feed their families.

That was their Christmas.

So how was yours?

If you do not understand how explosive the growth of unemployment has been the past two years, then please go take a look at this startling animated map which graphically shows the mind blowing growth of unemployment in the United States.  It will simply take your breath away.

Millions of other Americans have lost their homes in 2009.

How would you feel if you lost your home and had to move into a motel or move in with your relatives or even move into a tent city?

Tent cities?

Yes, tent cities are popping up all over the United States.  People who once lived in beautiful homes and who celebrated Christmas with their families around the ole Christmas tree are now relegated to trying to survive in tent cities….

Millions of other Americans who may still have jobs and who may even still have their homes cannot sleep at night because they are up to their eyeballs in debt.  Credit card debt has become a national nightmare as Americans have indulged in the greatest consumer debt binge of all time over the past decade.

Now those chickens are coming home to roost.  Just check out the following video….

The truth is that the average American household is drowning in debt.  In 1980, the average U.S. household held $670 in credit card debt.  That number today is up to $7,800.

As the economy crumbles, many people would love to get out of debt but they simply can’t.  In fact, millions of Americans find themselves unable to make ends meet at the end of the month.

More Americans than ever are allowing frustration to slowly become despair.  People know things are bad and they are not optimistic that things will get any better any time soon.

In fact, one new poll has revealed that eight in ten Americans say that the economy is in poor shape.

The American middle class is simply tapped out.  Millions of people are going broke.  The total number of bankruptcies filed in the third quarter in the United States surged 33%.

So how are you doing?

If you had a wonderful Christmas without any financial worries consider yourself fortunate.

But as the U.S. economic collapse continues it may come and claim you as a victim as well.

You better get ready.

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Is The World About To Experience A Devastating Economic Collapse?

Is the world about to experience an absolutely crippling economic collapse?  That is the conclusion that we have come to after years of research.  The truth is that the world economic system is essentially a mountain of debt based on paper money that is backed up by nothing.  History has shown that any economy based on debt and paper money will always fall apart in the end – especially when greed and corruption are huge factors in the equation as they are today.

In particular, the United States finds itself in a massive economic mess.  It was once the greatest creditor nation on earth, but now it is the biggest debtor in the history of the world.  It blows the mind to think that the “richest nation in the world” has become the nation with the most debt in the history of the planet in just one short generation.

But rather than learning the lessons of the past, this current administration is making the long-term economic problems far worse by spending American taxpayer dollars as if they were monopoly money.  In an effort to “stimulate the economy” and “bail out” troubled financial institutions, the current administration has put future generations in so much debt that it is basically mathematically impossible for them to ever get out of it.

Not that U.S. corporations and financial institutions are doing any better.  They have created a financial black hole known as “derivatives” that threatens to destroy the entire financial system at any moment.  Most large U.S. corporations are either so highly leveraged or have so much exposure to derivatives (or both) that even a slight shift in the economic winds can capsize many of them.

Of course we all know about how much of a mess American consumers find themselves in.  Credit card debt has absolutely exploded this decade and the majority of Americans now find themselves living month to month.  Personal bankruptcies and mortgage defaults continue to set all-time record after all-time record.  Millions of Americans are losing their jobs and millions of Americans are losing their homes as the economy continues to implode.

So is there hope for the future?

No.

The U.S. government continues to go into debt so fast that it is absolutely mind blowing.  Pension funds from coast to coast are broke.  Banks are failing at a frightening rate.  Millions of good jobs have been shipped overseas for decades and they simply are not coming back.  Without good jobs, the American middle class cannot support the bizarre debt spiral that has kept the U.S. economy going for so long.

What is ultimately going to happen is that the financial authorities will flood the money supply with tons of cash in an effort to “print” our way out of the economic crisis.  But all that will do is cause hyperinflation and will absolutely destroy the value of the dollar.  All of the accumulated wealth of the American people will disintegrate before their eyes as their dollars quickly become worthless.

So, no, the future is not pretty.

And that is what we will be documenting on this website.

A global economic collapse is coming and it is going to rip the world apart.

You better get ready.

 

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