FLU23B
Every organism from the lowly ameba to the smartest human does that which it PERCEIVES to be in its own best interest.
Desert Dave -- (Quotation, with attribution, permitted and encouraged.)
Perception is reality at least insofar as we react to it
Anonymous -- (Quotation, with attribution, permitted and encouraged.)
If you agree with the above two statements you'll probably agree that in the future the greatest personal danger you and your family will face will more likely come from desperate fellow citizens in a depression rather than some nuts with nukes.
Nor will you be able to depend on direct action on your behalf from your friendly local, barely aware that you exist, government.
If the gas & lights are out and no water runs from the taps in your house does it matter to you if the cause is global thermonuclear war or depression brought on hyperinflation?
We've all seen that picture (taken during the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic) of the
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| From Desert Dave's TEOTWAWKI Survival Guide |
As conditions worsen people don't head for the hills, they adapt.
By 1923 the backs of million mark bills, which had been printed on one side only to save time and ink, were being used as note pads.
The White House recently announced the deficit for fiscal year 2009 alone was $1.4 trillion. (Update) The U.S. is making interest payments of $500 million a day. According to a U.S. National Debt Clock our national debt stands at somewhere over $13,875,295,120,352.
That's over thirteen trillion bucks folks ! While our politicians dither like a debt-a-holic sitting on a curb trying to decide which one of 23 credit cards to cut up foreign nations are coming to the conclusion that although the US Dollar may be the best looking horse in the glue factory of international currencies that ain't sayin' much.
These developments haven't gone unnoticed: China has nearly doubled it gold reserves in the past six years and India's Reserve Bank just bought 200 metric tons of gold as the country’s finance minister warned the economies of the US and Europe had "collapsed". Other Central banks and sovereign wealth funds are following suit.
But what does all that mean to you?
During our own Great Depression cops, firemen (sorry ladies it was all men back then) and thousands of city and state civil service workers were laid off or had their pay reduced in addition to the millions of non-governmental workers we read about in history books.
What most history books don't tell us is that many of those cops got by by taking bribes and in some cases outright thievery/thugery. Back then most Americans were farmers with at least the space and know-how to grow their own food. Will it be that easy the second time around?
Mexico has a similar civil service system to what existed in America during the Great Depression i.e. cops are paid very little and expected to get by on bribes.
In the Great Depression bribed cops looked the other way while booze was smuggled into the local speakeasy. Today armed Mexican military and police escort drug shipments to the U.S. Mexican border. So far the Mexican cops and police haven't crossed over the border with the drug mules. So far as we know.
However my conversations with a senior ICE agent and others indicate there's a lot going on along our southern border that isn't released to the news media. No, it won't be easy the second time around.
In 2010 alone over 3000 people (police, soldiers, men, women, children & infants) were killed in the drug cartel wars to control ciudad Juárez. Over 30,000 people have been killed in Mexican drug wars since 2006 and there is no indication the pace of either the killings or the drug smuggling is slowing down.
Enough Backstory, what can YOU expect in the coming years?
A depression will mean the governments (federal, state & local) will be able to collect less in taxes. Governments don't shrink willingly. They will be dragged kicking and screaming (fingernails leaving furrows in the fine marble floors of capitals and city halls) to fiscal responsibility i.e. spending only what they take in. This will have repercussions you may not have considered.
Fewer shiny fire engines and ambulances to respond to 911 calls and more crime as crooks realize there are fewer cops to respond to 911 calls, fewer courts to try them in if they get caught and less room in prisons (read early release) if they are convicted. If it gets bad enough one of the guys involved in your home invasion may turn out to be the cop who comes later to take a report.
No, I'm not some whacko nut job survivalist fanaticizing gloom & doom; that is what's happening now in Mexico and other South American countries. People are afraid to report extortion, home invasions, robberies and kidnappings to the authorities because the police are often taking bribes from (or among) the criminals committing the crimes.
Bottom Line
In the future you will have to take on more of your own personal security and home protection duties because as time goes on police and fire response will become less reliable.
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