Something really strange appears to be happening. All over the globe, governments and big banks are acting as if they are anticipating an imminent financial collapse. Unfortunately, we are not privy to the quiet conversations that are taking place in corporate boardrooms and in the halls of power in places such as Washington D.C. and London, so all we can do is try to make sense of all the clues that are all around us. Of course it is completely possible to misinterpret these clues, but sticking our heads in the sand is not going to do any good either. Last week, it was revealed that the U.S. government has been secretly directing five of the biggest banks in America “to develop plans for staving off collapse” for the last two years. By itself, that wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But when you add that piece to the dozens of other clues of imminent financial collapse, a very troubling picture begins to emerge. Over the past 12 months, hundreds of banking executives have been resigning, corporate insiders have been selling off enormous amounts of stock, and I have been personally told that a significant number of Wall Street bankers have been shopping for “prepper properties” in rural communities this summer. Meanwhile, there have been reports that the U.S. government has been stockpiling food and ammunition, and Barack Obama has been signing a whole bunch of executive orders that would potentially be implemented in the event of a major meltdown of society. So what does all of this mean? It could mean something or it could mean nothing. What we do know is that a financial collapse is coming at some point. Over the past 40 years, the total amount of all debt in the United States has grown from about 2 trillion dollars to nearly 55 trillion dollars. That is a recipe for financial armageddon, and it is inevitable that this gigantic bubble of debt is going to burst at some point. (Read More...)
11 Things That Can Happen When You Allow Your Country To Become Enslaved To The Bankers
Why are Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and so many other countries experiencing depression-like conditions right now? It is because they have too much debt. Why do they have too much debt? It is because they allowed themselves to become enslaved to the bankers. Borrowing money from the bankers can allow a nation to have a higher standard of living in the short-term, but it always results in a lower standard of living in the long-term. Why is that? It is because you always have to pay back more money than you borrowed. And when you get to the point of having a debt to GDP ratio in excess of 100%, you are basically drowning in debt. Huge amounts of money that could be going to providing essential services and stimulating your economy are now going to service your horrific debt. Today, citizens in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy are experiencing a standard of living far below what they should be because the bankers have trapped them in endless debt spirals. Sadly, the vast majority of the people living in those countries have absolutely no idea what is at the root cause of their problems. (Read More...)
The Sobering Reality Of What Life Is Like In Reno, Nevada
What do you do when the city where you live is dying? All over the United States formerly great cities are crumbling, but some are definitely in worse shape than others. One reader recently wrote to me about what she sees happening all around her in Reno, Nevada. The unemployment rate in Reno is now up to 11.7 percent, which is well above the national average of 8.3 percent. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. The recent recession hit Nevada particularly hard and people have been moving out of the state in waves. In fact, the labor force in Nevada has shrunk by close to 20 percent over the past year as workers have moved elsewhere in search of work. But even though the labor force is now nearly 20 percent smaller, the unemployment rate is still well above 11 percent. There simply are not enough jobs in large Nevada cities such as Reno and Las Vegas. Unfortunately for Reno, it does not have the same kind of big corporate money pouring into it that Las Vegas does. The good news is that you can buy a house very, very cheaply in Reno because homes were foreclosed on in droves during the housing crash. Even today, some housing developments that were put up near the end of the boom times look like virtual ghost towns. The main industry in Reno is “entertainment”, but many of Reno’s strip clubs and gambling establishments have aged so badly at this point that they just look kind of depressing. I guess that is kind of fitting, because Nevada has the fifth highest suicide rate in the nation, and Reno has been ranked as one of the top 10 depressed cities in the entire country. As the city has declined, gangs have moved in and the drug trade is flourishing. Reno has been called the meth capital of America, and crime is on the rise. Despite being surrounded by tremendous natural beauty, Reno has become a very unpleasant place in which to live. But what is happening in Reno is also happening in hundreds of other communities across the United States. Our economy is collapsing and our cities are crumbling right in front of our eyes, and it is only going to get worse from here. (Read More...)
14 Questions People Ask About How To Prepare For The Collapse Of The Economy
How in the world is someone supposed to actually prepare for an economic collapse? What should you do with your money? How can you make sure that your family is going to be okay? How can you prepare if your resources are extremely limited? These are the kinds of questions people ask me all the time. Once people understand that the economy has been collapsing and will continue to collapse, then the next step for most of them is that they want to get prepared for the storm that is coming. So where should someone get started? Well, the truth is that no two people are facing the exact same set of circumstances, so preparation is going to look different for each individual. But there are certain core principles that we can all benefit from. For example, when a financial storm is coming that is not the time to be blowing thousands of dollars on vacations and new toys. You would be surprised at how many people there are that claim that they have no extra money in their budgets and yet somehow have plenty of money to run down to Wal-Mart and buy a big stack of DVDs. When times are difficult, each hard-earned dollar becomes much more precious, and we all need to start getting into the habit of making the most out of our limited resources. The seemingly endless prosperity that we have all been enjoying for decades is coming to an end, and most of us have absolutely no experience on how to deal with truly hard times. If you are under the age of 60, it might be a really good idea to read a book or two on what conditions were like during the Great Depression of the 1930s. There is a lot that we can learn from our own history. (Read More...)
Dead Crops, Extreme Drought And Endless Wildfires Are Now The New Normal In America
As you read this, the United States is experiencing the worst drought it has seen since the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s. As you read this, nearly half of all corn crops in the United States are in “poor” or “very poor” condition. As you read this, 38 major wildfires are ripping across the central and western United States. The brutal wildfires in Oklahoma have been so bad that they have made national headlines. The price of corn has hit a brand new record high this summer and so has the price of soybeans. More than half of all the counties in this country have been declared to be “natural disaster areas” by the U.S. Department of Agriculture at this point. Things are so bad for ranchers that the CEO of Smithfield Foods is projecting that meat prices will rise by “significant double digits” in the months ahead. Sadly, this drought is projected to continue throughout August and into September. As you will read about below, some meteorologists are even openly postulating that there may not be enough moisture to avoid another drought next year. Yes, things are really bad this year, but when you step back and take a look at the broader picture they become truly frightening. (Read More...)
The Employment Rate In The United States Is Lower Than It Was During The Last Recession
Did you know that a smaller percentage of Americans are working today than when the last recession supposedly ended? But you won’t hear about this on the mainstream news. Instead, the mainstream media obsesses over the highly politicized and highly manipulated “unemployment rate”. The media is buzzing about how “163,000 new jobs” were added in July but the unemployment rate went up to “8.254%“. Sadly, those numbers are quite misleading. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in June 142,415,000 people had jobs in the United States. In July, that number declined to 142,220,000. That means that 195,000 fewer Americans were working in July than in June. But somehow that works out to “163,000 new jobs” in July. I am not exactly sure how they get that math to add up. Perhaps someone out there can explain it to me. Personally, I find that the “employment rate” gives a much clearer picture of what is actually going on in the economy. The employment to population ratio is a measure of the percentage of working age Americans that actually have jobs. When it goes up that is good. When it goes down, that is bad. In July, the employment to population ratio dropped from 58.6 percent to 58.4 percent. Overall, the percentage of working age Americans that have jobs has now been under 59 percent for 35 months in a row. (Read More...)
Spain And Italy Are Toast Unless Germany Allows The ECB To Print Trillions Of Euros
The financial chess game in Europe is still being played out, but in the end it is going to boil down to one very fundamental decision. Is Germany going to allow the ECB to print up trillions of euros and use those euros to buy up the sovereign debt of troubled eurozone members such as Spain and Italy or not? Nothing short of this is going to solve the problems in Europe. You can forget the ESM and the EFSF. Anyone that thinks they are going to solve the problems in Europe is someone that would also take a water pistol to fight a raging wildfire. No, the only thing that is going to keep Spain and Italy from collapsing under the weight of a mountain of debt is a financial nuke. The ECB needs to have the power to print up trillions of euros and use that money to buy up massive amounts of sovereign debt in order to guarantee that Spain and Italy will be able to borrow lots more money at very low interest rates. In fact, this is probably what European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has in mind when he says that he is going to “do whatever it takes to preserve the euro”. However, there is one giant problem. The ECB is not going to be able to do this unless Germany allows them to. And after enduring the horror of hyperinflation under the Weimar Republic, Germany is not too keen on introducing trillions upon trillions of new euros into the European economy. If Germany allows the ECB to go down this path, Germany will end up experiencing tremendous inflation and the only benefit for Germany will be that the eurozone was kept together. That doesn’t sound like a very good deal for Germany. (Read More...)
Mainstream Reporter Tells The Truth About Audit The Fed And The Creation Of The Federal Reserve
When someone in the mainstream media goes out on a limb to tell the truth, then the rest of us should go out of our way to applaud that effort. Reporter Ben Swann of Fox 19 in Cincinnati is one of the few local television reporters in the United States that consistently tackles the tough issues. As you can see from his “Reality Check” archives, he regularly does reports on the Federal Reserve, the emerging police state, the loss of our freedoms and liberties, the advance of globalism, the economic collapse, political corruption, etc. etc. That is one reason why his YouTube channel is rapidly approaching a million views. In his most recent Reality Check, Ben Swann asked this question: “Is auditing the Federal Reserve really necessary?” In just four minutes, Swann covered the creation of the Federal Reserve, where money comes from, the 16 trillion dollars in secret loans given out by the Fed during the last financial crisis, and why an audit of the Fed is so important. It really was extraordinary to watch a local mainstream news reporter tell the truth about these things. We could definitely use about 1000 more reporters just like him. (Read More...)