The Five Stages of Economic Collapse

Guest Post by David Meyer

Society as we know it will break down and collapse in a five stage process outlined here. While it can be accelerated by certain events like war, a natural disaster, pandemic, terrorist attack, or even an impending asteroid impact, history has shown that economic collapse will essentially happen in this five stage process. To survive the collapse, it is important to read and interpret the signs and understand what assets are important to the current situation so you can be prepared for the worst thereby allowing you to survive intact and with as little damage as possible.

STAGE 1. The Decay Begins

Everything is good and the economy is thriving. A high standard of living has been achieved. This is the way things should be. Goods are cheap and readily available. Everything seems to be in abundance. Stores are filled with retail items ready to be purchased. Life in general is good. The nation’s working infrastructure is solidly intact and working well. However, the idea that everyone is entitled to have what others have earned now permeates society. Redistribution of Wealth Policies are implemented and quietly woven into the fabric of society. Unchecked and under the guise of fairness and equality, these policies slowly decrease productivity and increase dependency on government entitlement and welfare programs.

Primary Assets:

1. Career


2. Home Value


3. Savings


4. Investments – Stocks and bonds


5. Health Insurance


6. Lifestyle Image


7. Good Credit Rating for Debt Accumulation

STAGE 2. The Slippery Slope

The economy goes into a slow but steadily increasing decline. Unemployment is on the rise. Ever increasing numbers of people receive government assistance in one form or another. People are paid not to work. Government spending has increased dramatically. The price of gold, silver, and other precious metals rise to prices unheard of just a few years earlier. Inflation reaches the double digit levels.

Primary Assets:

1. Cash


2. Precious Metals, Gold and Silver coins


3. Job Stability


4. Elimination of debt


5. Health Insurance


6. Home Equity


7. Automobile with good MPG


8. Acquiring secluded land more than 40 miles from densely populated areas

STAGE 3. It is Going to Get Worse

The total collapse of the economy begins after a significant and prolonged decline. The government implements price controls. Shortages on essential goods become widespread. Foreclosed houses sit vacant and deteriorating by the tens of thousands. Middle class neighborhoods begin to look like slums. The government begins to print currency to pay its bills and support the tens of millions on public assistance. Inflation increases even more and unemployment exceeds 25%. Banks and businesses fail at ever increasing rates. Nobody seems to have any money. Many are now homeless. Labor unions instigate strikes, civil unrest, and large scale riots. Government services are interrupted and unreliable. Local and national infrastructure is in decay. Violent gangs begin to appear and assert themselves. The government begins confiscation of firearms from law abiding citizens. Violence is everywhere. Cities and urban areas become very dangerous places to live.

At this stage, the country seems pretty much beyond the point of no return. However, things can still be reversed even at this stage if the right person at the top really believes in the basic fundamental concepts of Freedom, Independence, Liberty, and Individual Rights and is not afraid to do what is necessary to reverse the current trend. He will be vilified and hated because of his attitude toward personal responsibility, cutting entitlements, and ending welfare programs. Of course, if the right person were in power and did what needed to be done, none of this would have happened in the first place.

Primary Assets:

• Gold and Silver coins


• Cash


• Job


• Automobile


• Home


• Short term food supplies


• Short term fuel stores


• Firearms and ammo


• Plans to relocate to a secluded rural hideaway


• Small livestock – chicken, rabbit, fish…


• A close network of like minded people


• Survival knowledge and skills

STAGE 4. The Grab for Power

The collapse can transition to this stage at any time after Stage 3. Most of the middle class have lost everything. What used to be well manicured middle class neighborhoods are filled with the carcasses of empty houses damaged and destroyed by vandals. The nation’s infrastructure has been seriously neglected and is in need of a major overhaul. The power grid becomes unreliable. Rolling blackouts are a daily occurrence. You can no longer buy or sell gold or own foreign currency. Inflation is out of control. Now the economy collapses. There is a rush for everything and the shelves go empty in a matter of hours. Society falls into chaos. The control of urban areas shifts when violent gangs takeover control of the streets and urban neighborhoods. The government issues restrictive measures in an attempt to control the economy. Everything is in short supply and heavily rationed. Food and gasoline is very expensive and there are very long lines to get them when they are available. Affordable quality health care is non-existent and your job is a distant memory. You will do without what you are unable to provide for yourself. You will discover what it is to live in a third world country.

Primary Assets:

1. Relocation to the rural hideaway


2. Firearms and ammo


3. Long term food supplies (1 year minimum)


4. Adequate fuel stores


5. Security plan to protect the group and assets


6. Trained dog for security


7. A working knowledge of survival gardening


8. Survival knowledge and skills

Once all of the above has come to pass, the realization of the current circumstances at this moment must be all too obvious. It is too late to prepare at this point. What you did not acquire earlier, you are not going to possess now. Anything of value necessary for your survival has already been claimed. The situation gets worse… much worse.

Stage 5 is next… and it is not pretty.

STAGE 5. Freedom, Liberty, and Independence is Lost

The government implements martial law. Fighting between civilians and government forces break out nationwide. Maintaining more than a 30 day supply of food is considered hoarding food and is illegal. Severe poverty and starvation become a common sight. The government offers marginally acceptable food, water and shelter in exchange for your Freedom, Liberty, and Independence. Democracy ends and a Socialist form of government takes over under the guise of fixing society’s problems with the false promise that peace and prosperity will return better than it was just a few years ago. A Totalitarian regime assumes power and the individual freedoms and liberties once enjoyed by the people are completely eliminated.

Primary Assets:

1. Rural Hideaway


2. Security plan to protect the group and assets


3. Living below the radar in a community of like minded people


4. Firearms and the ability to use them


5. Guard dog for security


6. Survival knowledge and skills


7. A working and producing garden capable of feeding 150% of the group


8. A stable supply of clean water


9. Vegetable seeds for long term food production and barter


10. The will to live and survive in a harsh political climate

As you can see, priorities change as the world changes. Your most prized assets of today – your good credit, luxury automobile, and career are no longer important after the economy collapses.

FAILURE TO PREPARE TODAY WILL INCREASE THE MAGNITUDE OF YOUR SUFFERING TOMORROW.

It is better to prepare 10 years too early than 10 minutes too late. Many who lack vision will say that it will never happen and for those who decide to live unprepared should consider the following statement.

LACK OF PLANNING ON YOUR PART DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN EMERGENCY ON MY PART.

This article has been contributed by David Meyer. You can read more of his editorials at the Target of Opportunity web site.

Author:
David Meyer

Date: February 28th, 2012

Website: http://www.targetofopportunity.com

Economic Collapse-A Short Film- Part 2

The Information Age and the End of the United States of America

You are losing your rights.

I know you probably don’t believe it; you’ve heard it all before, and yet everything has turned out okay, hasn’t it? Sure! If “okay” means a failing currency, hyperinflation, a systematic destruction of the middle class, and the end of the United States’ role as the world’s preeminent financial power — and, indeed, its role as a sovereign nation. Yep. Things are just great.


In reality, of course, things are awful — and they’re only getting worse.

The United States Constitution and Bill of Rights were written — not for those in power, but for those not in power. These are social contracts designed to limit the amount of influence wielded by any human being, or group of human beings. These contracts were created to specifically to prevent the use of complex rhetoric and emotional appeals as masks for depriving people of their liberty. Unfortunately, the documents have failed.

The Soviet Union disintegrated because it was not financially solvent — nor could it be. Central planning doesn’t work. Nonetheless, it took over half a century — and the loss of tens of millions of innocent lives — for the evil empire to collapse. How did they do it? By lying and keeping their citizens uninformed. And it worked for a while, but eventually information got through anyway, and the people would no longer have any of it.

China was much wiser. Sure, they’re a gargantuan centralized communist power, but they’re also smart enough to see what happened to the Soviets. As such, they have embraced capitalism — and even encouraged it — slowly breaking down the imperative to centralize, and providing for a great deal of autonomy among its citizenry and markets. Granted, China seems to be trying to monitor and suppress information — mostly on the internet — but does anyone really believe they’re having any success? The news channels love the story: Insidious, Oppressive Government Seeks to Censor Its Population. Really? Come on. The reality of the Internet is that it is — by design — made to circumvent impediments. The Chinese can’t block the internet! Anybody with even a cursory knowledge of the world wide web can easily find ways to get around any silly governmental attempts to limit information.

Ah, the Internet… the ultimate weapon against propagandist tyranny and oppression. The Chinese know this. They’re not really trying to block the internet; they’re just trying to assert their authority as a paternalistic entity. No; the Chinese are rolling with the punches, and they’re doing a far better job than the United States.

And that brings me to the point of this article. Everyone knows the dollar is failing. Everyone knows hyperinflation is coming. Everyone knows the American consumer is broke, and the government has more debt than any nation in history. The United States federal government flushed the Constitution and the Bill of Rights down the toilet last month when it passed Obamacare — the most unconstitutional piece of legislation ever seen in this country. And while this reform is abjectly, and obviously a blow to everything our great republic once stood for, this is by no means the first time our contracts with our government have been ignored.

As far back as Abraham Lincoln’s tenure as our nation’s Commander-in-chief, executive powers have been flagrantly abused. Indeed, the entire Civil War was an illegal act on the part of the Union — an abusive and irresponsible campaign that relied on the politicization of every topic du jour, and ultimately cost the country over 620,000 lives. And why did this happen? Because some states wanted to exercise their right to leave the Union. What an unbelievable tragedy…

Unfortunately, Lincoln’s unprecedented tyrannical behavior set the stage for a string of equally offensive abuses. You don’t believe me? Where in the Constitution did the Founding Fathers provide for the creation of the following:

1. Social Security?

2. The Federal Reserve?

3. The CIA?

4. The FBI?

5. The NSA?

6. Medicare?

7. Medicaid?

8. National health care?

I’m sure many of you have bought into the rhetoric vomited out of Washington D.C. over the last 150 years — phrases like “national security” and “executive privilege” and “times of crisis.” I, however, have not. These organizations and programs (along with so many more) are illegal. They are oppressive, expensive insults to our freedom and to the very growth of knowledge. Americans have used these organizations to circumvent the core imperatives of the very documents that made the United States of America — ignoring, and even decrying the most fundamental and yet important philosophies contained therein.

These documents were not created to be hung on a wall and forgotten; no, they were created to protect the Rights of Man. But it goes further than that. These documents were created by the minds of people like Thomas Jefferson — building on the foundations created by revolutionary philosophers like John Stuart Mill — not to protect the rights of some men, but of all human beings. Yes, you may wish to fall back on the institution of slavery — an institution loathed by Jefferson and many of his colleagues. Indeed, Jefferson fought hard to write the end of slavery into the tenets that would guide our nation. He was a champion of individuality and freedom, and while the tide of opinion ultimately prevented success in that regard, it is a vacuous argument to suggest that Jefferson and his ilk were champions of slavery. They were not. They were early revolutionaries whose ideas clashed with the tide public opinion at the time — and yet they somehow laid the foundation for universal human freedom going forward.

And now, all of their painstaking work is being threatened by the likes of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, and Paul Krugman.

Our leaders seem to have forgotten about the principles of freedom. When Jefferson was president, he answered the door to the White House personally, and walked alone through the streets of Washington, D.C. Why? Because he didn’t believe his office was powerful enough to warrant a threat to his safety. My, how things have changed.

The U.S. now fights wars all over the globe — wars in which it has no business engaging. Our citizens have tortured other human beings, and our leaders have condoned the behavior! Does that sound like something Jefferson would have approved of?

The United States government will now try to perpetuate its policies by oppressing its own people. And because the legal challenges to the flagrant abuse of the Constitution will almost certainly be dismissed and ignored, the government’s oppression will succeed. For a little while.

Unfortunately, the days of Soviet-style information suppression really are gone for good. The United States government actually invented the internet many decades ago, and I wonder if the minds behind this revolutionary and ubiquitous technology realized it would mean their own undoing? Yes, the U.S. will react to the second wave of the economic crisis with characteristic and militaristic oppression. But it won’t work this time, because people are simply too informed. And you have but to turn on the television to take notice of the growing tide of human beings joining “tea parties” all over the world. We have not forgotten the purpose of the original event, and no amount of propaganda or twisted politicization will succeed in stemming the flood of information available to almost every human being on earth.

I will leave you with this thought: the United States of America is no longer a constitutional republic — simply because, we no longer have a Constitution. None of the elements conspiring to bring us to the current economic crisis were conceived out of respect for the aforementioned social contract — whose purpose was to stop these actors in the first place. And that leaves us with an extremely important and nagging question: if we are no longer a constitutional republic, then what are we? It sounds like a question Roman citizens probably asked themselves over 2000 years ago, as the slow, painful decline of their own empire began with the suffocation of the democratic principles on which it was founded.

But, of course, the Romans didn’t have the Internet. And that changes everything.




Paco Ahlgren

http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/339627-paco-ahlgren/62051-the-information-age-and-the-end-of-the-united-states-of-america

The rapid collapse of the US economy scenario *** Graphic Images ***

A Friend of mine put this video together showing a glimpse of what could be headed our way as the Economic collapse of the World economy unravels.