Statistics That Show We Are Already In A Collapse

Another good website to research and understand all the economic and financial factors that will influence just how fast and deep the coming collapse will be is
The Economic Collapse Blog

Great site, bookmark it and follow it would be my advice.

The following statistics are from their website which was introduced, in part, with the following: Most Americans have become so accustomed to the "new normal" of continual economic decline that they don't even remember how good things were just a few short years ago. Back in 2007, unemployment was very low, good jobs were much easier to get, far fewer Americans were living in poverty or enrolled in welfare programs and government finances were in much better shape. Of course most of this prosperity was fueled by massive amounts of debt, but at least times were better. Unfortunately, things have really deteriorated over the last several years. Since 2007, unemployment has skyrocketed, foreclosures have set new all-time records, personal bankruptcies have soared and U.S. government debt has gotten completely and totally out of control. Poll after poll has shown that Americans are now far less optimistic about the future than they were in 2007.

#1 In November 2007, the official U.S. unemployment rate was just 4.7 percent. Today, the official U.S. unemployment rate is 9.4 percent.

#2 In November 2007, 18.8% of unemployed Americans had been out of work for 27 weeks or longer. Today that percentage is up to 41.9%.

#3 As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million Americans that had been unemployed for half a year or longer. Today, there are over 6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or longer.

#4 Nearly 10 million Americans now receive unemployment insurance, which is almost four times as many as were receiving it back in 2007.

#5 More than half of the U.S. labor force (55 percent) has “suffered a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary part-time workers” since the "recession" began in December 2007.

#6 According to one analysis, the United States has lost a total of approximately 10.5 million jobs since 2007.

#7 As 2007 began, only 26 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, an all-time record of 43.2 million Americans are enrolled in the food stamp program.

#8 In 2007, the U.S. government held a total of $725 billion in mortgage debt. As of the middle of 2010, the U.S. government held a total of $5.148 trillion in mortgage debt.

#9 In the year prior to the "official" beginning of the most recent recession in 2007, the IRS filed just 684,000 tax liens against U.S. taxpayers. During 2010, the IRS filed over a million tax liens against U.S. taxpayers.

#10 From the year 2000 through the year 2007, there were 27 bank failures in the United States. From 2008 through 2010, there were 314 bank failures in the United States.

#11 According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the number of U.S. families with children living in homeless shelters increased from 131,000 to 170,000 between 2007 and 2009.

#12 In 2007, one poll found that 43 percent of Americans were living "paycheck to paycheck". Sadly, according to a survey released very close to the end of 2010, approximately 55 percent of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck.

#13 In 2007, the "official" federal budget deficit was just 161 billion dollars. In 2010, the "official" federal budget deficit was approximately 1.3 trillion dollars.

#14 As 2007 began, the U.S. national debt was just under 8.7 trillion dollars. Today, the U.S. national debt has just surpassed 14 trillion dollars and it continues to soar into the stratosphere.

So is there any hope that we can turn all of this around?

Unfortunately, the massive amount of debt that we have piled up as a society over the last several decades has made that impossible.

If you add up all forms of debt (government debt, business debt, individual debt), it comes to approximately 360 percent of GDP. It is the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world.

If the federal government and our state governments stop borrowing and spending so much money, our economy would collapse. But if they keep borrowing and spending so much money they will continually make the eventual economic collapse even worse.

We are in the terminal stages of the most horrific debt spiral the world has ever seen, and when the debt spiral gets stopped the house of cards is going to finally come down for good.

So enjoy these times while you still have them. Yes, today is not nearly as prosperous as 2007 was, but today is most definitely a whole lot better than 2015 or 2020 is going to be.

Go to The Economic Collapse and read the entire article.

Urban Survival Preparation - Stand Alone Food Buckets

I had previously written a post about vacuum packing foods in usable amounts and storing in buckets. The idea was rather than have a large bucket with nothing but rice, have several different types of foods and accessories in the buckets so they stand alone. Imagine having the ability to only grab one bucket during a Bug Out,......wouldn't you rather have a smaller amount if many different foods and items?...or would 25 lbs of rice make you happy.

Recently a friend called me to let me know he packed six buckets that he bought at Home Depot, with various foods including white and brown rice, pinto and black beans, spit peas, bouillon cubes and some peanut butter. He wanted to know if I thought he forgot something.

I told my friend to wargame grabbing the bucket, Bugging Out, then stopping at a secure, defensible location to rest and eat. Visualize opening the bucket and now what do you wish to find in it?

Some things to consider may be:

Vacuum packed bags of Nuts. Peanuts, dry roasted or plain or cocktail Nuts. I include two cans in each of my stand alone food buckets.

Butane lighters. I like to put a two of these with fire starters in a soap dish and vacuum pack.

Hand Soap. A squeeze tube of waterless hand cleaner and maybe even a small bar of soap.

Extra zip lock bags. These are good to place some dry goods like rice, beans, lentils, split peas, etc., into with water to soak, especially while you move so you can eat them cold if the security considerations dictate or have a quicker time cooking them.

Vacuumed packed coffee. I place a small can of coffee in my stand alone buckets. I can boil water to make coffee. I can put the coffee into a zip lock bag and use the can to cook in or to store other things.

Spices. I vacuum pack black pepper and garlic as well as include salt. Some of my buckets have a can of Morton's Iodized Salt while others have a vacuum pack of little table packets of salt.

Surplus Canteen Cup. These aluminum canteen cups with the folding handle are great to cook small amounts of food in. They are useful to catch or collect water from shallow sources for later purifying as well.

Hex Fuel Tablets.You can use them to cook over when building a fire is un-advised or the fuel for a fire is too wet. You can also use them for warmth, but beware the toxic fumes.

Small Travel Pack of Hand Wipes.These can double as toilet paper and take up less room.

Small Can Opener. P38 style military can opener. Indispensable. You may come across or barter for canned goods, and will need a can opener. I put 4 or 5 in stand alone food buckets. They are also great barter items.

Small bottle of mixed Aspirin and Ibuprofen. This stand alone food bucket is not designed to be your medical kit, however aspirin or Motrin takes up a small amount of room and may be routinely needed, also an great item for barter.

One last thing that I recently added to my stand alone Food Buckets are vacuumed packed complete dry soup and stew mixes. They don;t take up much room and can be added with one half pound of rice to make a big enough pot of chow to feed at least four hungry people.

I think food is going to be a really important aspect of not only a total collapse into chaos, but for a slow gradual period of hyper-inflation leading into a great depression. We need to be able to feed ourselves from stored food supplies and grow our own food as well. Be safe, stay prepared!

Weapons - Army XM25 to debut

No hiding place from new U.S. Army rifles that use radio-controlled smart bullets. Weapon hailed as a game-changer that can fire up and over barriers and down into trenches. Soldiers will start using them in Afghanistan later this month

The U.S. army is to begin using a futuristic rifle that fires radio-controlled 'smart' bullets in Afghanistan for the first time, it has emerged. The XM25 rifle uses bullets that be programmed to explode when they have traveled a set distance, allowing enemies to be targeted no matter where they are hiding. The rifle also has a range of 2,300 feet making it possible to hit target which are well out of the reach of conventional rifles. The XM25 is being developed specially for the U.S. army and will be deployed with troops from later this month, it was revealed today.

The XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System has a range of roughly 2,300 feet - and is to be deployed in Afghanistan this month.

The rifle's gun sight uses a laser rangefinder to determine the exact distance to the obstruction, after which the soldier can add or subtract up to 3 meters from that distance to enable the bullets to clear the barrier and explode above or beside the target. Soldiers will be able to use them to target snipers hidden in trenches rather than calling in air strikes.

The 25-millimetre round contains a chip that receives a radio signal from the gun sight as to the precise distance to the target. Lt. Col. Christopher Lehner, project manager for the system, described the weapon as a ‘game-changer’ that other nations will try and copy.

He expects the Army to buy 12,500 of the XM25 rifles this year, enough for every member of the infantry and special forces. Lehner told Fox News: ‘With this weapon system, we take away cover from [enemy targets] forever. ‘Tactics are going to have to be rewritten. The only thing we can see [enemies] being able to do is run away.’

Experts say the rifle means that enemy troops will no longer be safe if they take cover. The XM25 appears perfect weapon for street-to-street fighting that troops in Afghanistan have to engage in, with enemy fighters hiding behind walls and only breaking cover to fire occasionally.

The weapon's laser finder would work out how far away the enemy was and then the U.S. soldier would add one meter using a button near the trigger. When fired, the explosive round would carry exactly one meter past the wall and explode with the force of a hand grenade above the Taliban fighter.

The army's project manager for new weapons, Douglas Tamilio, said: ''This is the first leap-ahead technology for troops that we've been able to develop and deploy.' A patent granted to the bullet's maker, Alliant Techsystems, reveals that the chip can calculate how far it has traveled.
Mr. Tamilio said: 'You could shoot a Javelin missile, and it would cost £ 43,000 (British Pounds). These rounds will end up costing £ 15.50 apiece. They're relatively cheap. Lehner added: ‘This is a game-changer. The enemy has learned to get cover, for hundreds if not thousands of years.
‘Well, they can't do that anymore. We're taking that cover from them and there's only two outcomes: We're going to get you behind that cover or force you to flee.’ The rifle will initially use high-explosive rounds, but its makers say that it might later use versions with smaller explosive charges that aim to stun rather than kill.

Urban Survival - Radiation Detection and Symptoms

Of the many collapse scenarios that we plan for, possibly the hardest would be the nuclear blast and radiation threat from either a nuclear missile strike by another country or devices smuggled into this country either at port of entry or into a major city in the interior.

Obviously the best possible course of action is to situated in a location well outside of the major target areas and away from prevailing winds which would drive the radiation fallout.

There are other nuclear events that would necessitate some level of preparedness and protection. These may include: nuclear power plant accidents; nuclear weapons accidents; international incidents involving radioactive materials; lost (orphan) radiation sources and devices; and, accidents involving satellites containing radioactive material.

The amount of radiation exposure is usually expressed in a unit called millirem (mrem). In the United States , the average person is exposed to an effective dose equivalent of approximately 360 mrem (whole-body exposure) per year from all sources, however the medical community often expresses exposure in terms of Gray (Gy). One Gy equals 100 roentgens.

The dose calculator is based on the American Nuclear Society's brochure, "Personal Radiation Dose Chart". These values used in the calculator are general averages and do not provide precise individual dose calculations.

There are two basic types of radiation: ionizing and non-ionizing. Non-ionizing radiation comes in the form of radio waves, solar light, microwaves and radar. This kind of radiation usually does not cause tissue damage. Ionizing radiation is radiation that produces immediate chemical effects on human tissue and sickness.

The bigger the exposure dose, the faster the symptoms of radiation sickness will come upon you. Use the following symptoms and timelines to determine level of dose. Severe and Very severe exposure almost always means death. Moderate exposure may also mean death if competent medical treatment is not immediately received.

Nausea and vomiting

Mild exposure – within 6 hours
Moderate exposure – within 2 hours
Severe exposure – within 1 hour
Very severe exposure - within 10 minutes

Diarrhea

Moderate exposure – within 8 hours
Severe exposure – within 3 hours
Very severe exposure - within 60 minutes

Headache

Moderate exposure – within 24 hours
Severe exposure – within 4 hours
Very severe exposure - within 2 hours

Fever

Moderate exposure – within 3 hours
Severe exposure – within 1 hour
Very severe exposure - within 1 hour

Dizziness, Weakness and Hair Loss

Severe exposure – within 1 week
Very severe exposure - Immediate

Radiation detection. Most of us do not have radiation detection equipment simply because it is too expensive. However, there is a small device called a “RADsticker” which is a miniature radiation detector that is inexpensive and easy to use to monitor personal exposure or exposure to an area.

Available from the World Net Daily Superstore, the RADSticker is a peel & stick, postage stamp sized, instant color developing dosimeter, is always ready and with you 24/7, stuck onto the back your drivers license or anything you keep close, for any future radiation emergency.

The RADsticker is a non-electrical, reliable, rugged and useful for determining radiation exposure and if medical treatment required in a major radiological incident, such as a nuclear or dirty bomb explosion, nuclear power plant accident or mishandled radiation sources.