I Spy Doom 8/29/2015
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The Days of Our Lives: Episode 2
Off the keyboard of RE
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Published on the Doomstead Diner on June 14, 2015
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Another Week has passed in the Last Great AdventureTM for RE, negotiating the Dysfunctional Health Care System of the Fascist States of AmerikaTM.
After the visit this week at the office of the Pro From Dover who is supposed to carve up my neck and fix me up at some point, two NEW Projects emerged which I need to resolve before Signing on the Dotted Line for all the charges that are going to be pitched out for such a Surgery.
First thing is to get the Subrogation between the two Insurance Companies (my own Insurance and Workman's Comp Insurance) properly set up. This has to happen because in the event I win my Workman's Comp case, all the bills that currently have been paid for by my insurance or myself will need to be reimbursed to me and my insurance company ex-post-facto.
Second thing is to nail down precisely WHAT the costs are for this operation? All I have right now are the charges the main Pro From Dover drops on the Bill, but there are many more. Anaesthesiologist, Neuro-Monitoring Dover Pro, Assistant Neck Carver Dover Pro, and the Hospital costs themselves. There probably are other ones not yet identified too.
All of this we have been detailing out Inside the Diner in the thread evolving from Episode 1 so far. Balance of this article comes from that thread.
From JDW:
Heh, you're not the only one, Micheal Snyder just published this:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/hospitals-are-blatantly-ripping-us-off
From Surly:
Right on time.
50 hospitals charge uninsured more than 10 times cost of care, study finds
From Eddie:
I mentioned the story of how my son went to the ER in Del Rio to get checked out for a bit of heat stroke, right?
The actual treatment rendered consisted of starting an IV and giving one bag of fluids.
The bill? Ten thousand dollars. Seems they like to diagnose heat stroke using an MRI and a CT Scan on a healthy 24 year old.
From RE:
I just finished composing two emails to my Insurance company, which of course can only be sent on their proprietary server. For "security" reasons of course.
However, a minute after sending them that way, I sent the same two emails to myself through two of my many email addys. So I have my own record with the time and date stamps on them.
In addition, for the reading pleasure of the Diners following the Days of RE's Life Soap Opera, here are the two emails:
Note: I have changed names and numbers for legal reasons in this version. Changes are in BLUE
First, on the Workman's Comp Subrogation issue:
I have spent the last several month undergoing diagnosis for an injury I suffered at work.
I was informed by the billing department of one of the doctors that the claim needed to be "subrogated", so I called up ALLWRONG Insurance a couple of months back to find out about this. The representative on the phone told me there was nothing I needed to do, my claims were being paid.
I was informed again yesterday the claim needed to be subrogated, and that ALLWRONG Insurance said I had never called about that, which is not accurate.
The Insurance company for the Workman's Comp Claim is Mutual of Deceit. The Claim Number is 666-FUCKYOU.
Further information regarding the case can be provided by my Lawyers Dewey, Cheatham & Howe. They can be reached at (666) SHYSTER.
Please let me know when this has been properly handled.
Thanks for the fine coverage you have provided so far. Without it, I would not have been able to get diagnosed.
Second, on the reimbursement rates for the Pro From Dover's list of charges:
I have been diagnosed with a neck injury and will need spinal surgery.
I have been given a list of 2 possible proceedures that might be undertaken, and the prices the Pro From Dover charges for this. It does not include the charges from the anaesthesiologist or neuromonitoring doctor or the assisting doctor, just his own charges. It also does not include the hospital charges. I have not yet been able to get those charges. However, we can begin with this.
I will list the codes for each proceedure and the prices he charges.
63081 $13,000
22551 $19,000
22554 $12,500
22846 $ 7,900
22585 $ 3,500
20931 $ 1,300
Total $57,200
or
63081 $13,000
22554 $12,500
22846 $ 7,900
22585 x 2 $3,500 each
63082 $ 4,500
20931 $ 1,300
Total $46,200
Please send me the list of reimbursement rates from ALLWRONG Insurance on both of these sets, and the total reimbursement for each one.
Thanks for your help and fine coverage.
——————
I am going to get a LOT of Blogging material out of this!
From RE:
OK, just fired off another email to try and get a Price Quote on the REST of the charges for this operation.
Doing this is not easy, because just FINDING an email address to send this mail to was difficult, but I did find one that was semi-appropriate in a pdf on the Providence Hospital website.
None of the Pros From Dover provide email addys, and everybody has their own Billing department. If you have dealt with just ONE of these billing departments on the phone, you know you can't get jack shit in information this way.
Anyhow, here is my first attempt at trying to get the FULL LIST of charges for the operation by the Pros From Dover:
I have been Diagnosed with a neck injury I suffered at work, and will need Spinal Surgery to repair it.
The Surgeon at Providence I visited with is Dr. X. He has provided me with his list of charges for the operation, but not the rest of the charges such an operation at Providence Hospital will accrue.
I need the list of charges from the following Doctors and Providence:
1-Anaesthesiologist charges (No Doctor Named)
2-Neuromonitoring Doctor (Dr. Q named)
3-Assisting Doctor to Dr. X (No Doctor Named)
4-Providence Hospital Charges for the Operating Room and Recovery stay at Providence
Estimated time in Surgery is 3 hours
This is the only email address I could find to try and get this information. Please forward to the appropriate billing departments and have them reply to me if you cannot provide this information yourself at this address.
Thanks for your help.
—————-
OK, that is IT for today in trying to swim through this clusterfuck.
Now I am going back to DOOM!
From GO:
Realize it's easy to say but throw it out of your mind, it will add to your illness if you dwell too much on it.
There is no swimming through it, it's an endless river of pure evil extortion. Get the operation as soon as possible to get yourself well and deal with it later. The whole fucking country is in unpayable debt and bankrupt anyway, from students to senior citizens to the government. Something will have to be done to help out people in such an untenable situation sooner rather than later.
From RE:
Nope, will not do this operation until I get it all spelled out.
It's really a very good Test Case of many aspects of the system, besides the Medical Industry bullshit & Insurance Industry bullshit, you also have Unemployment Insurance (Epic Fail already), Workman's Comp (still under litigation) and SSDI (still in bureaucratic paper shuffling).
I'm not going to get bullied into an operation that will bankrupt me before I am otherwise bankrupt anyhow. Right now I can still write and I have a roof over my I head I can do it in and plenty of food to eat too. When I have used up the last of my savings, THEN I will go in for the operation, if I'm still alive anyhow.
It's my LAST GREAT ADVENTURETM.
From GO:
Well, you certainly are the best judge of your own situation RE.
I was merely coming from the usual assumption that a medical condition untreated become worse and harder to deal with later on. But I'm no Doctor, that's for sure.
It's such an evil racket that it turns the stomach of honest normal people.
From RE:
Everyone "assumes" that "your health is the most important thing". So no matter WHAT it costs, you're supposed to do it.
Really though, your Health is subsidiary to your Economic Well-Being. If getting fixed up means GOING BANKRUPT, HTF am I better off? I have a fixed neck but I am HOMELESS? This is an IMPROVEMENT?
The Med industry trades on the fact that sick & injured people will spend whatever it takes to get fixed up, rather than die or live as a cripple. I WON'T pay whatever it takes, if whatever it takes will BANKRUPT me. It's not worth it.
From JDW:
You know, RE, you may have trouble with your spine, but you definitely have BACKBONE.
Most people (myself included) would not do what you're doing, and that's why these businesses are able to get away with it.
From GO:
I hear you and think the same way RE. My idea is they know they can't get blood from a stone so it may be possible to work out a long term payment plan without ending up on a park bench.
Of course if you had a paid for home or they smelled assets they would bleed you dry. But a school teacher, on a modest salary, living in a rental and driving what they consider to be a shitbox is another matter. They surmise you are not rolling in dough They might want to grab every dime the could get from insurance and all the avenues you listed and then, after they maxed out all they could get there, saddle you with some leftovers and work out a monthly pay plan which allows you to continue without bankruptcy. A lot of legal firms offer an initial free consultation, perhaps you could get an idea with an inquiry.
Another idea is a legal aid society. a lot of colleges and schools offer free advice to people in financial trouble, the law students usually give ideas from that source and not actual lawyers.
I certainly understand what you are saying though, would do the same thing if in your shoes, just trying to offer some ideas.
From RE:
Thanks for that JDW, but it's really not "Backbone" or "Courage" at work here, it's my LOGIC and CFS at work.
I just did a COST-BENEFIT analysis on the situation.
1- The operation is unlikely to restore my former spry and athletic self. Damage done already is too great for that. All it does is stabilize the situation some.
2- I am not likely to be fit for any type of work that I have experience with even after a successful operation which stabilizes it.
3- Being BANKRUPT and unfit for any type of work I have experience with leads to HOMELESSNESS if I cannot get my Bennies or a Settlement on the Workman's Comp Claim.
4- Finishing off my life as a Homeless Cripple is not how I would like to go to the Great Beyond.
So in this Game Theory exercise, I have only one valid option, which is to fight the system and hope I hold up long enough to make it through to the Other Side of it.
I'm not being "Brave". I am just doing what makes CFS to me.
I will WIN! I will make it through the Clusterfuck! I have HOPIUM.
I never QUIT! I never GIVE UP!
It ain't OVAH till the Fat Lady Sings for RE, and she's not sung the final Aria yet!
From Monsta:
Logical it maybe but it still involves courage. The thing is we like to think of ourselves as rational human beings that apply logic whenever possible but the thing is when logic meets our primal desires it often fails. Our will to live is strong and quite often those logic decisions we make get overruled. It is partly this reason why we have the clusterfuck we see today. So in the end while your decision maybe CFS it still requires courage on the fact it takes balls to overrule your desire to live (you're primitive brain often does not make the distinction between good life and bad life). Also another desire that stops people is quite often people want to fit and not rock the boat and be a troublesome person. This is a fact that many companies play on when giving poor customer service; the lack of courage some customers have in speaking out.
And that is probable MORE than enough for Episode 2 of Days of Doomer LivesTM here on the Doomstead Diner. More coming down the pipe, to be sure.
RE
Emergency Savings: How much do you REALLY need?
Off the keyboard of RE
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Published on the Doomstead Diner on May 10, 2015
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As I mentioned in my last article RE's Excellent Spinal Surgery Adventure, I am currently in the midst of a Health Catastrophe that only a very expensive surgery can hope to do anything to fix up. Bad as it is having to deal with that, you get an ancillary problem when one of these catastrophes strikes, you lose your income pretty much instantaneously if your income comes from having a Job, as most folks besides the Filthy Rich need for a source of income.
Generally speaking, people in the FSoA believe we have a Social Safety Net that keeps you from falling off the cliff right away if you can't work. Unemployment Insurance is supposed to cover you for 6 months to begin with, right? Wrong.
In order to be eligible for UI, you have to be READY, ABLE & WILLING to take a job. If you can't do that, you can't receive UI Bennies. So if say you were a Tree Trimmer and lost your arm in the Wood Chipper, obviously right after it occurs you're not going to be ready to work at ANYTHING for quite a while, and never Tree Trimming again. Once you get your prosthesis and heal up, you might be able to work as an IT Developer, but you don't have those skills or experience, so you're not going to get a job like that requiring only one good arm. So you don't get UI.
Clearly, you have become DISABLED, so you should be eligible for SSDI, Social Security Disability Insurance. However, it takes minimum 4-6 months for Social Security to determine whether to hand you those Bennies, and this is only if you do all the filing correctly and quickly, which you probably don't do right away because you're too busy getting your medical problems fixed up. After this 4-6 month waiting period, SS approves currently around 40% of the applications the first go round, and another 40% on a second go round, which of course takes an appeal and a few more months to finally get it if you're not one of the 20% that get left twisting in the wind in perpetuity.
Now, for the Wood Chipper, if his accident happened on the job, in theory he should be eligible for Workman's Compensation. This assuming he is not Self-Employed and has an Employer to file a Workman's Comp claim against. Employers have Insurance Companies that get called in when a WC claim drops in, and of course they don't want to pay up unless they absolutely have to, which brings in the State Labor department when they "Contravert" the claim, which basically is for some reason they deny the responsibility to pay up. This then goes into an arbitration proceedure, and you better have a good Lawyer to represent you for that one. Even with a real good case like the Wood Chipper probably has here, you don't even get your fist Pre-Hearing for 6 weeks, and then it is another 6 before the first Hearing, and meanwhile you are twisting in the wind and racking up the medical bills too.
So basically, far as a Social Safety Net goes, there really isn't one that is effective if you get hurt or have a medical problem that keeps you from taking a job, even temporarily, which is in many senses worse than a problem which makes you permanently disabled. If you're permanently disabled, at least after 6 months you should start receiving your SSDI bennies. Calling this an "Entitlement" is absurd, you paid into this insurance fund for precisely such an occurence. If it was just a temporary problem, like say the Wood Chipper just broke his arm but didn't cut it off, he isn't eligible for SSDI once he heals up, which he does before SS even makes a determination on his condition. His employer replaced him while he was laid up, so now he needs to find a new Wood Chipping job. He IS now eligible for UI, but this will only last him 6 months once he finally gets it rolling, but if he didn't have at least enough savings to carry him through the 6 weeks or so while his arm was healing he may already be Homeless, his Cell Phone cut off and living in his car. Even if there are any other Wood Chipper jobs available, it's tough to get a job when you have fallen this far off the cliff.
So, how much Emergency Savings do you really need? Here's some estimates from Business Insider on what your Emergency Savings Fund should be:
Your emergency fund is the cash you have set aside in case of — you guessed it — an emergency.
Ideally, you're storing this cash in a separate savings account, in order to draw a mental and logistical barrier between this money and your other savings, so you don't accidentally spend it on a trip to Aruba or a comfy new mattress.
This money is specifically for emergency situations, like a medical emergency, a death in the family, or to cover your living expenses should you lose your job and income. "If you also have an investment portfolio, you don't want to have to liquidate things at an inopportune time to raise a little money," explains Jonathan Meaney, a certified financial planner. "It's good to have some cash on hand that's not exposed to the ups and downs of the market."
But how much, exactly?
Emergency savings aren't usually measured in terms of dollars — rather, it's months of living expenses that money could cover. For that reason, everyone will have a different dollar amount, and everyone will have a different need.
The most basic emergency fund, for a healthy person without dependents who lives well within their means, is three months of living expenses.
"If you lost your job, you could presumably find another one within this window," explains Meaney. "Although in the current job market, it's been a bit of a challenge."
Dual-income families, people with dependents, or individuals with variable or commission-based income might want to think more in terms of having at least six months of living expenses stored in their emergency savings.
Some experts even recommend that every person blow straight past three months, and sock away at least six months' worth of savings no matter their situation.
Again, the amount of savings you need is highly personal. "What does your overhead look like? Are your only expenses every month your utilities, or do you also have a $600 car note?" Meaney asks.
When calculating your month's living expenses, you'll want to include costs like your child's tuition, any debt payments you need to make, or any other expenses you'd have to cover should your income be interrupted. The number you come up with shouldn't be a surprise, if you know how much you're spending every month. "You're starting from your budget," Meaney explains.
Single-income families, families with health problems, and older and/or retired people will most likely want more months' worth of cash stored away — at least eight months, or even an entire year.
While no one expects an emergency, those who are bringing in less income or who are at a higher risk for some sort of upset (like older individuals) will want to make sure they have enough money to cover them for a considerable period of time, or a series of very large bills.
It may sound like a lot of money, but amassing your emergency fund is just like saving for a vacation or a new car: Set up a regular auto-deposit from your paycheck into your emergency fund, and let it grow quietly in the background, hopefully never to be needed.

Fewer than one in four Americans have enough money in their savings account to cover at least six months of expenses, enough to help cushion the blow of a job loss, medical emergency or some other unexpected event, according to the survey of 1,000 adults. Meanwhile, 50% of those surveyed have less than a three-month cushion and 27% had no savings at all.
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The Retail Death Rattle
Off the keyboard of Jim Quinn
Published on The Burning Platform on January 20, 2012
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“I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest, to make money they don’t want, to buy things they don’t need, to impress people they don’t like.” ― Emile Gauvreau
If ever a chart provided unequivocal proof the economic recovery storyline is a fraud, the one below is the smoking gun. November and December retail sales account for 20% to 40% of annual retail sales for most retailers. The number of visits to retail stores has plummeted by 50% since 2010. Please note this was during a supposed economic recovery. Also note consumer spending accounts for 70% of GDP. Also note credit card debt outstanding is 7% lower than its level in 2010 and 16% below its peak in 2008. Retailers like J.C. Penney, Best Buy, Sears, Radio Shack and Barnes & Noble continue to report appalling sales and profit results, along with listings of store closings. Even the heavyweights like Wal-Mart and Target continue to report negative comp store sales. How can the government and mainstream media be reporting an economic recovery when the industry that accounts for 70% of GDP is in free fall? The answer is that 99% of America has not had an economic recovery. Only Bernanke’s 1% owner class have benefited from his QE/ZIRP induced stock market levitation.
The entire economic recovery storyline is a sham built upon easy money funneled by the Fed to the Too Big To Trust Wall Street banks so they can use their HFT supercomputers to drive the stock market higher, buy up the millions of homes they foreclosed upon to artificially drive up home prices, and generate profits through rigging commodity, currency, and bond markets, while reducing loan loss reserves because they are free to value their toxic assets at anything they please – compliments of the spineless nerds at the FASB. GDP has been artificially propped up by the Federal government through the magic of EBT cards, SSDI for the depressed and downtrodden, never ending extensions of unemployment benefits, billions in student loans to University of Phoenix prodigies, and subprime auto loans to deadbeats from the Government Motors financing arm – Ally Financial (85% owned by you the taxpayer). The country is being kept afloat on an ocean of debt and delusional belief in the power of central bankers to steer this ship through a sea of icebergs just below the surface.
The absolute collapse in retail visitor counts is the warning siren that this country is about to collide with the reality Americans have run out of time, money, jobs, and illusions. The most amazingly delusional aspect to the chart above is retailers continued to add 44 million square feet in 2013 to the almost 15 billion existing square feet of retail space in the U.S. That is approximately 47 square feet of retail space for every person in America. Retail CEOs are not the brightest bulbs in the sale bin, as exhibited by the CEO of Target and his gross malfeasance in protecting his customers’ personal financial information. Of course, the 44 million square feet added in 2013 is down 85% from the annual increases from 2000 through 2008. The exponential growth model, built upon a never ending flow of consumer credit and an endless supply of cheap fuel, has reached its limit of growth. The titans of Wall Street and their puppets in Washington D.C. have wrung every drop of faux wealth from the dying middle class. There are nothing left but withering carcasses and bleached bones.
The impact of this retail death spiral will be vast and far reaching. A few factoids will help you understand the coming calamity:
- There are approximately 109,500 shopping centers in the United States ranging in size from the small convenience centers to the large super-regional malls.
- There are in excess of 1 million retail establishments in the United States occupying 15 billion square feet of space and generating over $4.4 trillion of annual sales. This includes 8,700 department stores, 160,000 clothing & accessory stores, and 8,600 game stores.
- U.S. shopping-center retail sales total more than $2.26 trillion, accounting for over half of all retail sales.
- The U.S. shopping-center industry directly employed over 12 million people in 2010 and indirectly generated another 5.6 million jobs in support industries. Collectively, the industry accounted for 12.7% of total U.S. employment.
- Total retail employment in 2012 totaled 14.9 million, lower than the 15.1 million employed in 2002.
- For every 100 individuals directly employed at a U.S. regional shopping center, an additional 20 to 30 jobs are supported in the community due to multiplier effects.
The collapse in foot traffic to the 109,500 shopping centers that crisscross our suburban sprawl paradise of plenty is irreversible. No amount of marketing propaganda, 50% off sales, or hot new iGadgets is going to spur a dramatic turnaround. Quarter after quarter there will be more announcements of store closings. Macys just announced the closing of 5 stores and firing of 2,500 retail workers. JC Penney just announced the closing of 33 stores and firing of 2,000 retail workers. Announcements are imminent from Sears, Radio Shack and a slew of other retailers who are beginning to see the writing on the wall. The vacancy rate will be rising in strip malls, power malls and regional malls, with the largest growing sector being ghost malls. Before long it will appear that SPACE AVAILABLE is the fastest growing retailer in America.
The reason this death spiral cannot be reversed is simply a matter of arithmetic and demographics. While arrogant hubristic retail CEOs of public big box mega-retailers added 2.7 billion retail square feet to our already over saturated market, real median household income flat lined. The advancement in retail spending was attributable solely to the $1.1 trillion increase (68%) in consumer debt and the trillion dollars of home equity extracted from castles in the sky, that later crashed down to earth. Once the Wall Street created fraud collapsed and the waves of delusion subsided, retailers have been revealed to be swimming naked. Their relentless expansion, based on exponential growth, cannibalized itself, new store construction ground to a halt, sales and profits have declined, and the inevitable closing of thousands of stores has begun. With real median household income 8% lower than it was in 2008, the collapse in retail traffic is a rational reaction by the impoverished 99%. Americans are using their credit cards to pay their real estate taxes, income taxes, and monthly utilities, since their income is lower, and their living expenses rise relentlessly, thanks to Bernanke and his Fed created inflation.
The media mouthpieces for the establishment gloss over the fact average gasoline prices in 2013 were the second highest in history. The highest average price was in 2012 and the 3rd highest average price was in 2011. These prices are 150% higher than prices in the early 2000′s. This might not matter to the likes of Jamie Dimon and Jon Corzine, but for a middle class family with two parents working and making 7.5% less than they made in 2000, it has a dramatic impact on discretionary income. The fact oil prices have risen from $25 per barrel in 2003 to $100 per barrel today has not only impacted gas prices, but utility costs, food costs, and the price of any product that needs to be transported to your local Wally World. The outrageous rise in tuition prices has been aided and abetted by the Federal government and their doling out of loans so diploma mills like the University of Phoenix can bilk clueless dupes into thinking they are on their way to an exciting new career, while leaving them jobless in their parents’ basement with a loan payment for life.
The laughable jobs recovery touted by Obama, his sycophantic minions, paid off economist shills, and the discredited corporate legacy media can be viewed appropriately in the following two charts, that reveal the false storyline being peddled to the techno-narcissistic iGadget distracted masses. There are 247 million working age Americans between the ages of 18 and 64. Only 145 million of these people are employed. Of these employed, 19 million are working part-time and 9 million are self- employed. Another 20 million are employed by the government, producing nothing and being sustained by the few remaining producers with their tax dollars. The labor participation rate is the lowest it has been since women entered the workforce in large numbers during the 1980′s. We are back to levels seen during the booming Carter years. Those peddling the drivel about retiring Baby Boomers causing the decline in the labor participation rate are either math challenged or willfully ignorant because they are being paid to be so. Once you turn 65 you are no longer counted in the work force. The percentage of those over 55 in the workforce has risen dramatically to an all-time high, as the Me Generation never saved for retirement or saw their retirement savings obliterated in the Wall Street created 2008 financial implosion.
To understand the absolute idiocy of retail CEOs across the land one must parse the employment data back to 2000. In the year 2000 the working age population of the U.S. was 213 million and 136.9 million of them were working, a record level of 64.4% of the population. There were 70 million working age Americans not in the labor force. Fourteen years later the number of working age Americans is 247 million and only 144.6 million are working. The working age population has risen by 16% and the number of employed has risen by only 5.6%. That’s quite a success story. Of course, even though median household income is 7.5% lower than it was in 2000, the government expects you to believe that 22 million Americans voluntarily left the labor force because they no longer needed a job. While the number of employed grew by 5.6% over fourteen years, the number of people who left the workforce grew by 31.1%. Over this same time frame the mega-retailers that dominate the landscape added almost 3 billion square feet of selling space, a 25% increase. A critical thinking individual might wonder how this could possibly end well for the retail genius CEOs in glistening corporate office towers from coast to coast.
This entire materialistic orgy of consumerism has been sustained solely with debt peddled by the Wall Street banking syndicate. The average American consumer met their Waterloo in 2008. Bernanke’s mission was to save bankers, billionaires and politicians. It was not to save the working middle class. You’ve been sacrificed at the altar of the .1%. The 0% interest rates were for Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein. Your credit card interest rate remained between 13% and 21%. So, while you struggle to pay bills with your declining real income, the Wall Street bankers are again generating record profits and paying themselves record bonuses. Profits are so good, they can afford to pay tens of billions in fines for their criminal acts, and still be left with billions to divvy up among their non-prosecuted criminal executives.
Bernanke and his financial elite owners have been able to rig the markets to give the appearance of normalcy, but they cannot rig the demographic time bomb that will cause the death and destruction of our illusory retail paradigm. Demographics cannot be manipulated or altered by the government or mass media. The best they can do is ignore or lie about the facts. The life cycle of a human being is utterly predictable, along with their habits across time. Those under 25 years old have very little income, therefore they have very little spending. Once a job is attained and income levels rise, spending rises along with the increased income. As the person enters old age their income declines and spending on stuff declines rapidly. The media may be ignoring the fact that annual expenditures drop by 40% for those over 65 years old from the peak spending years of 45 to 54, but it doesn’t change the fact. They also cannot change the fact that 10,000 Americans will turn 65 every day for the next sixteen years. They also can’t change the fact the average Baby Boomer has less than $50,000 saved for retirement and is up to their grey eye brows in debt.
With over 15% of all 25 to 34 year olds living in their parents’ basement and those under 25 saddled with billions in student loan debt, the traditional increase in income and spending is DOA for the millennial generation. The hardest hit demographic on the job front during the 2008 through 2014 ongoing recession has been the 45 to 54 year olds in their peak earning and spending years. Combine these demographic developments and you’ve got a perfect storm for over-built retailers and their egotistical CEOs.
The media continues to peddle the storyline of on-line sales saving the ancient bricks and mortar retailers. Again, the talking head pundits are willfully ignoring basic math. On-line sales account for 6% of total retail sales. If a dying behemoth like JC Penney announces a 20% decline in same store sales and a 20% increase in on-line sales, their total change is still negative 17.6%. And they are still left with 1,100 decaying stores, 100,000 employees, lease payments, debt payments, maintenance costs, utility costs, inventory costs, and pension costs. Their future is so bright they gotta wear a toe tag.
The decades of mal-investment in retail stores was enabled by Greenspan, Bernanke, and their Federal Reserve brethren. Their easy money policies enabled Americans to live far beyond their true means through credit card debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, and home equity debt. This false illusion of wealth and foolish spending led mega-retailers to ignore facts and spread like locusts across the suburban countryside. The debt fueled orgy has run out of steam. All that is left is the largest mountain of debt in human history, a gutted and debt laden former middle class, and thousands of empty stores in future decaying ghost malls haunting the highways and byways of suburbia.
The implications of this long and winding road to ruin are far reaching. Store closings so far have only been a ripple compared to the tsunami coming to right size the industry for a future of declining spending. Over the next five to ten years, tens of thousands of stores will be shuttered. Companies like JC Penney, Sears and Radio Shack will go bankrupt and become historical footnotes. Considering retail employment is lower today than it was in 2002 before the massive retail expansion, the future will see in excess of 1 million retail workers lose their jobs. Bernanke and the Feds have allowed real estate mall owners to roll over non-performing loans and pretend they are generating enough rental income to cover their loan obligations. As more stores go dark, this little game of extend and pretend will come to an end. Real estate developers will be going belly-up and the banking sector will be taking huge losses again. I’m sure the remaining taxpayers will gladly bailout Wall Street again. The facts are not debatable. They can be ignored by the politicians, Ivy League economists, media talking heads, and the willfully ignorant masses, but they do not cease to exist.
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” – Aldous Huxley
Trying to Stay Sane in an Insane World- At World’s End
Off the keyboard of Jim Quinn
Published on The Burning Platform on September 10, 2013
Discuss this article at the Geopolitics Table inside the Diner
In the first three parts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) of this disheartening look back at a century of central banking, income taxing, military warring, energy depleting and political corrupting, I made a case for why we are in the midst of a financial, commercial, political, social and cultural collapse. In this final installment I’ll give my best estimate as to what happens next and it has a 100% probability of being wrong. There are so many variables involved that it is impossible to predict the exact path to our world’s end. Many people don’t want to hear about the intractable issues or the true reasons for our predicament. They want easy button solutions. They want someone or something to fix their problems. They pray for a technological miracle to save them from decades of irrational myopic decisions. As the domino-like collapse worsens, the feeble minded populace becomes more susceptible to the false promises of tyrants and psychopaths. There are a myriad of thugs, criminals, and autocrats in positions of power who are willing to exploit any means necessary to retain their wealth, power and control. The revelations of governmental malfeasance, un-Constitutional mass espionage of all citizens, and expansion of the Orwellian welfare/warfare surveillance state, from patriots like Julian Assange, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden has proven beyond a doubt the corrupt establishment are zealously anxious to discard and stomp on the U.S. Constitution in their desire for authoritarian control over our society.
Anyone who denies we are in the midst of an ongoing Crisis that will lead to a collapse of the system as we know it is either a card carrying member of the corrupt establishment, dependent upon the oligarchs for their living, or just one of the willfully ignorant ostriches who choose to put their heads in the sand and hum the Star Spangled Banner as they choose obliviousness to awareness. Thinking is hard. Feeling and believing a storyline is easy.
A moral society must be inhabited by an informed, educated, aware populace and governed by honorable leaders who oversee based upon the nation’s founding principles of liberty, freedom and limited government of, by and for the people. A moral society requires trust, honor, property rights, simple just laws, and the freedom to succeed or fail on your own merits. There is one major problem in creating a true moral society where liberty, freedom, trust, honor and free markets are cherished – human beings. We are a deeply flawed species who are prone to falling prey to the depravities of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. Men have always been captivated by the false idols of dominion, power and wealth. The foibles of human nature haven’t changed over the course of history. This is why we have 80 to 100 year cycles driven by the same human strengths and shortcomings revealed throughout recorded history.
Empires rise and fall due to the humanness of their leaders and citizens. The great American Empire is no different. It was created a mere 224 years ago by courageous patriots who risked their wealth and their lives to create a Republic founded upon the principles of freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; took a dreadful wrong turn in 1913 with the creation of a privately held central bank to control its currency and introduction of an income tax; devolved into an empire after World War II, setting it on a course towards bankruptcy; sealed its fate in 1971 by unleashing power hungry psychopathic elitists to manipulate the monetary and fiscal policies of the nation to enrich themselves; and has now entered the final frenzied phase of pillaging, currency debasement, war mongering, and ransacking of civil liberties. Despite the frantic efforts of the financial elite, their politician puppets, and their media propaganda outlets, collapse of this aristocracy of the moneyed is a mathematical certainty. Faith in the system is rapidly diminishing, as the issuance of debt to create the appearance of growth has reached the point of diminishing returns.
Increase in Real GDP per Dollar of Incremental Debt
“At the root of America’s economic crisis lies a moral crisis: the decline of civic virtue among America’s political and economic elite. A society of markets, laws, and elections is not enough if the rich and powerful fail to behave with respect, honesty, and compassion toward the rest of society and toward the world.” – Jeffrey Sachs
Five Stages of Collapse
The day of reckoning for a century of putting our faith in the wrong people with wrong ideas and evil intentions is upon us. Dmitry Orlov provides a blueprint for the collapse in his book – The Five Stages of Collapse – Survivors’ Toolkit:
Stage 1: Financial Collapse. Faith in “business as usual” is lost. The future is no longer assumed to resemble the past in any way that allows risk to be assessed and financial assets to be guaranteed. Financial institutions become insolvent; savings wiped out and access to capital is lost.
Stage 2: Commercial Collapse. Faith that “the market shall provide” is lost. Money is devalued and/or becomes scarce, commodities are hoarded, import and retail chains break down and widespread shortages of survival necessities become the norm.
Stage 3: Political Collapse. Faith that “the government will take care of you” is lost. As official attempts to mitigate widespread loss of access to commercial sources of survival necessities fail to make a difference, the political establishment loses legitimacy and relevance.
Stage 4: Social Collapse. Faith that “your people will take care of you” is lost, as social institutions, be they charities or other groups that rush to fill the power vacuum, run out of resources or fail through internal conflict.
Stage 5: Cultural Collapse. Faith in the goodness of humanity is lost. People lose their capacity for “kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity.” Families disband and compete as individuals for scarce resources. The new motto becomes “May you die today so that I can die tomorrow.”
The collapse is occurring in fits and starts. The stages of collapse do not necessarily have to occur in order. You can recognize various elements of the first three stages in the United States today. Stage 1 commenced in September 2008 when this Crisis period was catalyzed by the disintegration of the worldwide financial system caused by Wall Street intentionally creating the largest control fraud in world history, with easy money provided by Greenspan/Bernanke, fraudulent mortgage products, fake appraisals, bribing rating agencies to provide AAA ratings to derivatives filled with feces, and having their puppets in the media and political arena provide the propaganda to herd the sheep into the slaughterhouse.
The American people neglected their civic duty to elect leaders who would tell them the truth and represent current and future generations equally. They have neglected the increasing lawlessness of Wall Street, K Street and the corporate suite. The American people have lived in denial about their responsibility for their own financial well-being, willingly delegating it to a government of math challenged politicians who promised trillions more than they could ever deliver. The American people have delayed tackling the dire issues confronting our nation, including: $200 trillion of unfunded liabilities, the military industrial complex creating wars across the globe, militarization of our local police forces, domestic spying on every citizen, allowing mega-corporations and the financial elite to turn our nation from savings based production to debt based consumption, and allowing corporations, the military industrial complex, Wall Street, and shadowy billionaires to pick and control our elected officials. The civic fabric of the country is being torn at the points of extreme vulnerability.
“At home and abroad, these events will reflect the tearing of the civic fabric at points of extreme vulnerability – problem areas where, during the Unraveling, America will have neglected, denied, or delayed needed action. Anger at “mistakes we made” will translate into calls for action, regardless of the heightened public risk. It is unlikely that the catalyst will worsen into a full-fledged catastrophe, since the nation will probably find a way to avert the initial danger and stabilize the situation for a while. Yet even if dire consequences are temporarily averted, America will have entered the Fourth Turning.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – 1997
Our Brave New World controllers (bankers, politicians, corporate titans, media moguls, shadowy billionaires) were able to avert a full-fledged catastrophe in the fall of 2008 and spring of 2009 which would have put an end to their reign of destruction. To accept the rightful consequences of their foul actions was intolerable to these obscenely wealthy, despicable men. Their loathsome and vile solutions to a crisis they created have done nothing to relieve the pain and suffering of the average person, while further enriching them, as they continue to gorge on the dying carcass of a once thriving nation. Despite overwhelming public outrage, Congress did as they were instructed by their Wall Street masters and handed over $700 billion of taxpayer funds into Wall Street vaults, under the false threat of systematic collapse. The $800 billion of pork stimulus was injected directly into the veins of corporate campaign contributors. The $3 billion Cash for Clunkers scheme resulted in pumping taxpayer dollars into the government owned union car companies, while driving up the prices of used cars and hurting lower income folks.
Ben Bernanke has peddled the false paradigm of quantitative easing (code for printing money and airlifting it to Wall Street) as benefitting Main Street. Nothing could be further from the truth. He bought $1.3 trillion of toxic mortgage backed securities from his Wall Street owners. He has pumped a total of $2.8 trillion into the hands of Wall Street since September 2008, and is singlehandedly generating $5 billion of risk free profits for these deadbeats by paying them .25% on their reserves. Drug dealer Ben continues to pump $2.8 billion per day into the veins of Wall Street addicts and any hint of tapering the heroin causes the addicts to flail about. Ben should be so proud. He should hang a Mission Accomplished banner whenever he gives a speech. Bank profits reached an all-time record in the 2nd quarter, at $42.2 billion, with 80% of those profits going to the 2% Too Big To Trust Wall Street Mega-Goliath Banks. It’s enough to make a soon to retire, and take a Wall Street job, central banker smile.
“The money rate can, indeed, be kept artificially low only by continuous new injections of currency or bank credit in place of real savings. This can create the illusion of more capital just as the addition of water can create the illusion of more milk. But it is a policy of continuous inflation. It is obviously a process involving cumulative danger. The money rate will rise and a crisis will develop if the inflation is reversed, or merely brought to a halt, or even continued at a diminished rate. Cheap money policies, in short, eventually bring about far more violent oscillations in business than those they are designed to remedy or prevent.” – Henry Hazlitt – 1946
Any serious minded person knew Wall Street had too much power, too much control, and too much influence in 2008 when they crashed our economic system. When something is too big to fail because it will create systematic collapse, you make it smaller. Instead we have allowed our sociopathic rulers to allow these parasitic institutions to get even larger. Just 12 mega-banks control 70% of all the banking assets in the country, with 90% controlled by the top 86 banks. There are approximately 8,000 financial institutions in this country. Wall Street will be congratulating themselves with record compensation of $127 billion and record bonuses of $23 billion for a job well done. It is dangerous work making journal entries relieving loan loss reserves, committing foreclosure fraud, marking your assets to unicorn, making deposits at the Fed, and counting on the Bernanke Put to keep stocks rising. During a supposed recovery from 2009 to 2011, average real income per household grew pitifully by 1.7%, but all the gains accrued to Bernanke’s minions. Top 1% incomes grew by 11.2% while bottom 99% incomes shrunk by 0.4%. Therefore, the top 1% captured 121% of the income gains in the first two years of the recovery. This warped trend has only accelerated since 2011.
The median household income has fallen by $2,400 to $52,100 since the government proclaimed the end of the recession in 2009. Real wages for real people continue to fall. A record 23.1 million households (20% of all households) are receiving food stamps. After four years of “recovery” propaganda, we are left with 2.2 million less people employed (5 million less full time jobs) and 22 million more people on SNAP and SSDI. A record 90.5 million working age Americans are not working, with labor participation at a 35 year low. Ben’s money has not trickled down, but his inflation has fallen like a load of bricks on the heads of the middle class. Bernanke’s QE to infinity constitutes a transfer of purchasing power away from the middle class to the bankers, mega-corporations and .1%. This Cantillon effect means that newly created money is neither distributed evenly nor simultaneously among the population. Some users of money profit from rising prices, and others suffer from them. This results in a transfer of wealth (a hidden tax) from later receivers to earlier receivers of new money. This is why the largest banks and largest corporations are generating the highest profits in history, while the average person sinks further into debt as their real income declines and real living expenses (energy, food, clothing, healthcare, tuition) rise.
Ben works for your owners. Real GDP (using the fake government inflation adjustment) since July 2009 is up by a wretched 5.6%. Revenue growth of the biggest corporations in the world is up by a pathetic 12%. One might wonder how corporate profits could be at record levels with such doleful economic performance. One needs to look no further than Ben’s balance sheet, which has increased by 174%. There appears to be a slight correlation between Ben’s money printing and the 162% increase in the S&P 500 index. With the top 1% owning 42.1% of all financial assets (top .1% own most of this) and the bottom 80% owning only 4.7% of all financial assets, one can clearly see who benefits from QE to infinity.
The key take away from what the ruling class has done since 2008 is they have only temporarily delayed the endgame. Their self-serving exploits have guaranteed that round two of the financial collapse will be epic in proportion and intensity. This Fourth Turning Crisis is ongoing. The linear thinkers who control the levers of power keep promising a return to normalcy and resumption of growth. This is an impossibility – mathematically & socially. Fourth Turnings do not end without the existing social order being swept away in a tsunami of turmoil, violence, suffering and war. Orlov’s stages of collapse will likely occur during the remaining fifteen years of this Crisis. We are deep into Stage 1 as our national Detroitification progresses towards bankruptcy, with an added impetus from our trillion dollar wars of choice in the Middle East. Commercial collapse has begun, as faith in the fantasy of free market capitalism is waning. The race to the bottom with currency debasement around the globe is reaching a tipping point, and the true eternal currencies of gold and silver are being hoarded and shipped from the West to the Far East.
Monetary Base (billions of USD)
When the financial collapse reaches its crescendo, the just in time supply chain, that keeps cheese doodles and cheese whiz on your grocery store shelves, Chinese produced iGadgets in your local Wal-Mart Supercenter, and gasoline flowing out of gas station hoses into your leased Cadillac Escalade, will break down rapidly. The strain of $110 oil is already evident. The fireworks will really get going when ATM machines run dry and the EBT cards stop functioning. Within a week riots and panic will engulf the country.
“At some point we are bound to hear, from across two oceans, the shocking words “Your money is no good here.” Fast forward to a week later: banks are closed, ATMs are out of cash, supermarket shelves are bare and gas stations are starting to run out of fuel. And then something happens: the government announces they have formed a crisis task force, and will nationalize, recapitalize and reopen banks, restoring confidence. The banks reopen, under heavy guard, and thousands of people get arrested for attempting to withdraw their savings. Banks close, riots begin. Next, the government decides that, to jump-start commerce, it will honor deposit guarantees and simply hand out cash. They print and arrange for the cash to be handed out. Now everyone has plenty of cash, but there is still no food in the supermarkets or gasoline at the gas stations because by now the international supply chains have broken down and the delivery pipelines are empty.” – Dmitry Orlov – The Five Stages of Collapse
We are witnessing the beginning stages of political collapse. The government and its leaders are being discredited on a daily basis. The mismanagement of fiscal policy, foreign policy and domestic policy, along with the revelations of the NSA conducting mass surveillance against all Americans has led critical thinking Americans to question the legitimacy of the politicians running the show on behalf of the bankers, corporations and arms dealers. The Gestapo like tactics used by the government in Boston was an early warning sign of what is to come. Government entitlement promises will vaporize, as they did in Detroit, with pension promises worth only ten cents on the dollar. Total social and cultural collapse could resemble the chaotic civil war scenarios playing out in Libya and Syria. The best case scenario would be for a collapse similar to the Soviet Union’s relatively peaceful disintegration into impotent republics. I don’t believe we’ll be this fortunate. The most powerful military empire in world history will not fade away. It will go out in a blaze of glory with a currency collapse, hyper-inflation, and war on a grand scale.
“History offers even more sobering warnings: Armed confrontation usually occurs around the climax of Crisis. If there is confrontation, it is likely to lead to war. This could be any kind of war – class war, sectional war, war against global anarchists or terrorists, or superpower war. If there is war, it is likely to culminate in total war, fought until the losing side has been rendered nil – its will broken, territory taken, and leaders captured.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – 1997
In Whom Do You Trust?
“Use of money concentrates trust in a single central authority – the central bank – and, over extended periods of time, central banks always tend to misbehave. Eventually the “print” button on the central banker’s emergency console becomes stuck in the depressed position, flooding the world with worthless notes. People trust that money will remain a store of value, and once the trust is violated a gigantic black hole appears at the very center of society, sucking in peoples’ savings and aspirations along with their sense of self-worth. When those who have become psychologically dependent on money as a yardstick, to be applied to everything and everyone, suddenly find themselves in a world where money means nothing, it is as if they have gone blind; they see shapes but can no longer resolve them into objects. The result is anomie – a sense of unreality – accompanied by deep depression. Money is an addiction – substance-less and unreal, and sets itself up for a severe and lengthy withdrawal.” – Dmitry Orlov – The Five Stages of Collapse
Our modern world revolves around wealth, the appearance of wealth, the false creation of wealth through the issuance of debt, and trust in the bankers and politicians pulling the levers behind the curtain. The entire world economic system is dependent on trusting central bankers whose only response to any crisis is to create more debt. The death knell is ringing loud and clear, but people around the globe are desperately clinging to their normalcy biases and praying to the gods of cognitive dissonance. It seems the only things that matter to our controllers are stock market levels, the continued flow of debt to the plebs, continued doling out of hush money to those on the dole, and of course an endless supply of brown skinned enemies to attack. With every country in the world attempting to the same solution of debasing their currencies, we are rapidly approaching the tipping point. India is the canary in the coal mine.
Government, Household, Financial & Non-Financial Debt (% of GDP)
An exponential growth model built upon cheap plentiful energy and debt creation has its limits, and we’ve reached them. With the depletion of inexpensive, easily accessible energy resources, higher prices will continue to slow world economies. Demographics in the developed world are slowing the global economy as millions approach their old age with little savings due to over consuming during their peak earnings years. Bernanke has already quadrupled his balance sheet with no meaningful benefit to the economy or the financial well-being of the average middle class American. Financial manipulation that creates nothing has masked the rot consuming our economic system. The game has been rigged in favor of the owners, but even a rigged game eventually comes to an end. Americans and Europeans can no longer maintain a façade of wealth by buying knickknacks from China with money they don’t have. The US and Europe are finding that their credit is no longer good in the exporting Far East countries. This is a perilous development, as the West has depended upon foreigners to accommodate its never ending expansion of credit. Without that continual expansion of debt, the Ponzi scheme comes crashing down. As China, Japan and the rest of Asia have balked at buying U.S. Treasuries with negative real yields, the only recourse for Ben has been to monetize the debt through QE and inflation. The doubling of ten year Treasury rates in a matter of three months due to just talk of possibly slowing QE should send shivers down your spine.
We are supposedly five years past the great crisis. Magazine covers proclaimed Bernanke a hero. If we are well past the crisis, why are the extreme emergency measures still in effect? If the economy is growing and jobs are being created, why do we need $85 billion of government debt to be monetized each and every month? Why are the EU, Japan, and China printing even faster than the Fed? The answer is simple. If the debt was not being monetized, it would have to be purchased out in the free market. Purchasers would require an interest rate far above the 2.9% being paid today. The debt levels in the U.S., Europe and Japan are so large that a rise in interest rates of just a few points would explode budget deficits and lead to a worldwide financial collapse. This is why Bernanke and the rest of his central banker brethren are trapped by their own ideology of bubble production. Just the slowing of debt creation will lead to collapse. Bernanke needs a Syrian crisis to postpone the taper talk. Those in control need an endless number of real or false flag crises to provide cover for their printing presses to keep rolling.
There are a couple analogies that apply to our impending doom. The country is like a 224 year old oak tree that has been slowly rotting on the inside due to the insidious diseases of hubris, apathy, selfishness, dependence, delusion, and debasement. The old oak gives an outward appearance of health and stability. Winter has arrived and gale force winds are in the forecast. One gust of wind and the mighty aged oak will topple and come crashing to earth. I think an even more fitting analogy is the sandpile with grains of sand being added day after day. Seven out of ten Americans receive more in government benefits than they pay in taxes. Goliath corporations and the uber-wealthy use the tax code and legislation to syphon hundreds of billions from the national treasury every year. We spend $1 trillion per year on past, current and future wars of choice. Annual interest on the debt we’ve racked up in the last few decades already approaches $400 billion per year. The entire Federal budget totaled $400 billion in 1977. The sandpile grows ever higher, while its instability expands exponentially. One seemingly innocuous grain of sand will ultimately cause the pile to collapse catastrophically. Will it be an unintended consequence of a missile launch into Syria? Will it be a spike in oil prices? Will it be the collapse of one of the EU PIIGS? Will it be an assassination of a political figure or banker? No one knows. But that innocuous grain of sand will trigger the collapse of the entire pile.
Worried people are looking for solutions. They often get angry at me because they don’t think I provide answers to the issues I raise about our corrupt failing system. They want easy answers to intractable problems. Sadly, I’ve come to the conclusion that our system and majority of citizens are too corrupted to change our course through the ballot box or instituting policies along the lines of those proposed by Ron Paul and many other thoughtful liberty minded people. We are experiencing the downside of a representative democracy. Once a person is democratically elected a gulf is created between the electors and the person they elected, as the representative becomes corrupted and bought by moneyed interests. Elected officials become a class unto themselves. The political class grows to be puppets that resemble human beings but are nothing but cogs in a vast corporate run machine, pawns in an enormous game of chess played by powerful vindictive immoral men.
There are no cures for our disease. It’s terminal. Anyone telling you they have the answers is either lying or trying to sell you something. More people and organizations are on the take than are playing by the rules. The producers are being overrun by the parasites. The barbarians are at the gate. An implosion of societal trust is underway. The next stage of this crisis, which I believe will materialize within the next twelve months will try the souls of the weary.
“As the Crisis catalyzes, these fears will rush to the surface, jagged and exposed. Distrustful of some things, individuals will feel that their survival requires them to distrust more things. This behavior could cascade into a sudden downward spiral, an implosion of societal trust. This might result in a Great Devaluation, a severe drop in the market price of most financial and real assets. This devaluation could be a short but horrific panic, a free-falling price in a market with no buyers. Or it could be a series of downward ratchets linked to political events that sequentially knock the supports out from under the residual popular trust in the system. As assets devalue, trust will further disintegrate, which will cause assets to devalue further, and so on.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – 1997
As a nation we have squandered our inheritance, born of the blood of patriots. A freedom loving, liberty minded, self-responsible, courageous people have allowed ourselves to fall prey to selfishness, apathy, complacency and dependency. Once we allowed our human appetites of greed, power seeking, and control to override the moral responsibility for our own lives and the lives of future unborn generations, collapse was inevitable. The danger now is what happens after the unavoidable collapse. Will the millions of dependency zombies beg for a strong dictator to protect them, provide for them and lead them into further bondage? Or will the spark of liberty and freedom reignite, allowing citizens to throw off the shackles of banker and corporate control? I believe most of the people in this country are good hearted. We are merely pawns in this game of Risk being played by those seeking power, wealth and world domination. We are all trapped in our own forms of normalcy bias. Have I cashed out my retirement funds, sold my suburban house and built a doomstead in the mountains? No I haven’t. Do I second guess myself sometimes? Yes I do. But even the aware have families to support, jobs to go to, bills to pay, laundry to do, lawns to mow, and lives to live. I can’t live in constant fear of what might happen. We only get 80 or so years on this earth, if we’re lucky. The best we can do is leave a positive legacy for our children and their children. A drastic change to our way of life is coming, but most of us are trapped in a cage of our own making.
Each living generation will need to do their part during this Crisis if we are to survive the coming storm. Since no one knows the nature of how the next fifteen years will unfold, it would be wise to at least make basic preparations for food, water, heat and protection. This is easier for some than others, but you don’t have to star on Doomsday Preppers in order to stock up on items that can be purchased at Wal-Mart today, but won’t be available when the global supply chain breaks down. Make sure you have neighbors and family you can rely upon. A small community of like-minded people with varied skills is more likely to succeed in our brave old world than rugged individualists. With no financial means to maintain our globalized world, living locally will take on a new meaning. After much turmoil, chaos, violence, and likely mass casualties the best outcome would be for the Great American Empire to break into regional republics, incapable of waging global war, led by law abiding moral liberty minded individuals, and willing to trade freely and honestly with their fellow republics. Daily life would revert back to a simpler Amish like time. Would that be so bad?
This Fourth Turning could end with a whimper or a bang. There are enough nuclear arms to obliterate the world ten times over. There are enough hubristic egomaniacal psychopathic men in power, that the use of those weapons has a high likelihood of happening. It will be up to the people to not allow this horrific result. I love my country and despise my government. The Declaration of Independence clearly states that when a long train of abuses and usurpations lead toward despotism, it is our right and duty to throw off that government and provide new guards of liberty. My family comes first with my country a close second. I will fight with whatever means necessary to protect my family and do what I can to influence the future course of our country. Time is running out. Will we have the courage, fortitude and wisdom to make the right decisions over the next fifteen years? Will we choose glory or destruction? The fate of our nation hangs in the balance. Are you prepared? Are you ready to fight for your family and your rights?
The Fourth Turning could spare modernity but mark the end of our nation. It could close the book on the political constitution, popular culture, and moral standing that the word America has come to signify. The nation has endured for three saecula; Rome lasted twelve, the Soviet Union only one. Fourth Turnings are critical thresholds for national survival. Each of the last three American Crises produced moments of extreme danger: In the Revolution, the very birth of the republic hung by a thread in more than one battle. In the Civil War, the union barely survived a four-year slaughter that in its own time was regarded as the most lethal war in history. In World War II, the nation destroyed an enemy of democracy that for a time was winning; had the enemy won, America might have itself been destroyed. In all likelihood, the next Crisis will present the nation with a threat and a consequence on a similar scale. – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – 1997
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