Presenting The Survivalist's Dream Desktop | zero hedge

I have got to get one of these,

Presenting The Survivalist's Dream Desktop | zero hedge

Rioting Breaks Out In Egypt | zero hedge

And so it continues...

Rioting Breaks Out In Egypt | zero hedge

War on Cops: The Shot Heard Round the World? « The Burning Platform

StuckInNJ – the local constabulary has traditionally been the maintainers of the status quo. That job was taken over by federal agencies during the depression, namely the FBI, to combat interstate and organized crime. John Dellinger is the famous example of depression era populist heroes taken down by the feds.

While the local sheriff may be the jack booted thug marching to the order of the regionally affluent, the feds march to a higher authority and don’t bother themselves with crowd control.

All of the pieces are in place for an authoritarian police state. Local cops are the lowest pawns in the game, and if SHTF, they have no departmental contingency plans for dealing with it, Why should they? Most will not report to work, but take care of their families. The Guard will be called in to restore order and man distribution centers.

Another scenario would be what is described in this article, a systemic breakdown in social order due high unemployment and inflation. Local authorities aren’t stupid and they’re going to do what they have to do protect themselves, even if it mean long incident response times.

In either of these scenarios, the crime rate goes up as social order declines. I see it in my area, as I’m sure everyone does. If you don’t, maybe you’re part of the problem.

For the rest of civil society, as order declines, it will be become more important to provide one’s protection.

War on Cops: The Shot Heard Round the World? « The Burning Platform

SOMETHING AIN’T RIGHT « The Burning Platform

Indeed, the damage is done, and the patient may bleed out. Instead of bankrupting the banks, Congress bailed them out, and in the process sold out the American public, They've been doing it for so long, they didn't even realize what they were doing.

Is the US TBTF, or the EU, or China? The simple answer is no, but that's the lie we were told about the banks, because Congress doesn't want to own up to the reality that the gig is up.

We're at the end of a seventy year business cycle fueled by deficit spending, and it didn't have to end this way. It's only been since Reagan's administration that federal spending began spiraling out of control, pumping trillions into the economy while wages stagnated. Those benefiting from the system don't want the party to end, reminiscent of the ball room scene from the 70's movie, "The Poseidon Adventure". Unfortunately, the aftermath may be the same, i.e. survival scenario, with the only unknown being whether the vastly less populated world will be a police state, or one based upon individual freedom.

People in this country have been arming themselves since the economic downturn began. That Obama was elected President matters little, as our government has taken on a life of it's own. In addition to arms, there are a number of things people can do to prepare themselves for short or long term societal collapse. Having a plan is the most important thing, and then executing your plan.

One of my New Years resolutions was to start blogging about my own preparedness plans, but there is plenty of information out there. I recommend reading Patriots by James Wesley Rawles, and there's a series of posts about the Argentinian collapse in 2001 written by an individual known as Ferfal. Patriots is a "best practices" of survival planning, and Ferfal is a first hand account. It isn't pretty, but it may save your life to know what could happen and how to plan for it.

SOMETHING AIN’T RIGHT « The Burning Platform

Tossing the Consumer Under the Bus « The Burning Platform

Thanks for stating the problem and it's causes, and a solution. I whole heartedly agree, and as someone stated, it's going to take a depression that we can see to change minds.

Manufacturing jobs may very well be gone, but not for good, and the American people aren't too soft, it will just take a little while to work off the fat. Not everyone will survive, given a choice between work or die, and there will have to be a restructuring of the capitalist system to provide real profit sharing, on the order of treating inputs of production equally, dollar for dollar.

God makes a way where there is no way, and I for one, don't see any other way. How far must we descend into this hell pit before we call on the one true god to save us from this untoward generation. Has Armageddon come to this?

Tossing the Consumer Under the Bus « The Burning Platform

Snapshot of the Middle-Class « The Burning Platform

“eliminating Free Shit and forcing personal responsibility” isn’t going to happen with the current vote buying and vote selling US Congress.

We’re coming to the end of a 70 year business cycle fueled by deficit spending. There was no need to end up where we have, but competition from the public sector has crowded out private investment. The latest bubble to surface is the public pension bubble, which may be the last straw in addition to a host of other demographically driven cost factors, namely SS and Medicare, both of which will begin running deficits in the near future.

Our government is the biggest free loader, and it’s going to be tough to wean them off the public tit, but DC would become nothing more than a tiny piece of dirt if all fifty states seceded. However, we can start by getting rid of the Federal Reserve.

The next six months are going to be interesting as the debt ceiling bumps up against the need to bail out states that will run out of money before the end of the year, with only more of the same to look forward to.

Thanks for the insight LLPOH. God makes a way where there is no way, and I don’t see much hope in this world, either.

Snapshot of the Middle-Class « The Burning Platform

Predicting Americas Collapse.

This post should more properly be titled, "The Collapse of the Global Financial System", where the US is the printer of the world's reserve currency. The US, China and EU are in a currency war, and it's the third world that lives on subsistence rations who are going to suffer the worst. We are living in an economic age of micro-bubbles, and it's only a matter of time before one busts and sets of a chain of cascading events that causes one of the three economic super powers to collapse, dragging down the other two. It's also possible the Fed's plan to export inflation will work, for a time.

Here's the chain of events thus far. The housing bubble caused the mortgage debt crisis, which morphed into a sovereign debt crisis, that has turned into a current currency war. Commodities inflation is going to cause a lot pain to a lot of people, who are rioting in Tunisia and Algeria (I looked, they're both on the Mediterranean coast of Africa, in a temperate climate, go figure, must be the high population density), there's still the sovereign debt issues in the EU, who are rioting in various capital cities over their government's austerity programs.

It's all those little bubbles that are the problem. Take your pick, there's local and state budgets, pension funds, but public and private, but the federal government is on the hook for the private funds, there's unemployment, a second housing decline, we never got out of the first recession, demographic dynamics that will escalate Social Security and Medicare spending, rising health care costs, etc, etc, etc.

None of these issues, in and of itself will cause a bubble to burst, but the aggregate of these almost certainly will, and we have a kleptocracy whom we continually re-elect to public office at the state and federal levels. The latter is the reason there has been no effective response to any of these issues, and in fact, is the root cause of much if it. Public spending has crowded out the private economy, causing high unemployment, wages have been stagnant in the US for thirty years, and the wealth gap is as high or higher than during the 1920's and 30's. The difficulty is marshalling an effective response to any of these issues because of all the vested interests. So, are we doomed to collapse? The answer is maybe, or maybe not, if we can successfully wind down public services and federal spending. However, it's also not very likely, but the end result is going to be either an orderly decline or a collapse. Neither of which is going to sit well with constituents, because either is going to cause much higher unemployment rates.

When basic needs are no longer being met, is when civil unrest is going to occur. We're already seeing riots overseas. We could see some isolated incidences potentially on the scale of the Los Angeles riots in 1991 after the Rodney King verdict. Crime rates are almost a certainty to increase. A good description of what could happen was written by a guy named FerFal about the Argentinian collapse in 2002.

The best thing anyone can do to prepare is a number of things. The most important is keeping a 2 - 3 weeks supply of food in the house, 2 -3 months would be even better. Just look at the expiration date of items you use every day, and rotate your stock. Water filters, like the Big Berkey, and 5 gallon water cans for storage. And of course, personal defence, which doesn't have to be elaborate. Koreans in LA held off rioters with hand guns. If you can survive the first few weeks of a breakdown in civil order, your chances of long term survival dramatically increase.

Love you guys, be safe out there.

Predicting Americas Collapse.

The Progressive Pulse – Repeal of health care reform would kill 32,000 per year

The constitutional role of government is to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare. Liberals always get it backwards.

Address how you plan to pay for $50T of unfunded federal entitlements, then we can discuss adding a single more dime in deficit spending. Otherwise, you're just spinning your wheels while ignoring the real issue facing our society, that is surviving the end of a seventy year business cycle.

The Progressive Pulse – Repeal of health care reform would kill 32,000 per year