We're getting an early spring in some of the country. Time to get prepared for planting some crops. Even if you are in a holding location and plan to Bug Out to a more secure location either just before or during the collapse, planting a few vegetables to gain the experience, get the fulfillment of growing something useful,...flowers are most often not useful,.....and eating the product of your labors is really a cool thing to do, not to mention a key to your survival in a collapse unless you're sitting on a warehouse of food in a secure location.
Many neighborhoods in urban locations are collaborating together to develop roof top gardens on high rises; use former grass or landscaped areas to grow crops; and develop unique methods of gardening such as hydroponic and container gardening, all in order to make the shrinking dollar go further and actually develop a surival skill set - feeding yourself.
Throughout the winter I have been composting organic material so that next month when I start my first vegetable plants I'll have some nutrient rich, clean soil for planting. Using regular hybrid seeds for the local Home Depot, so if I am forced to Bug Out, I won't be leaving behind any of my precious non-hybird seeds nor anything else that can't be replicated with a little time.
By my calendar, sometime in late June, I'll be able to trade some cucumbers and squash to my neighbor who has a chicken coop and regular gets 8 to 10 eggs a week. In fact, I have been trading .22 LR ammunition to him for the eggs lately. At 500 rounds per dozen eggs, he's getting the better part of the deal and I do that to develop a good relationship with him. But who knows what the value of eggs or ammunition will be in the collapse.....probably depends is your highest priority was security/hunting or eating.
Survival Mom from Survivalmom.com also has the same idea, that it is getting close to planting time. I read a great tip on her site pertaining to soil preparation. The whole article is here, but in short the part that taught me something I did not know was:
6. If your planting season is still a month or more away, solarize your garden area. This is very easy, and I wish I had done this last month. Water your garden area very, very well and cover it with a huge sheet of clear plastic. I’ve seen some gardeners use black plastic, but this site recommends otherwise. Weight the plastic down around the edges to make sure that it doesn’t fly away, even in a good sized gust. Wait for 4-6 weeks. This allows the weeds to sprout, thinking, “Yaaay! We can begin adding hours of backbreaking work to this poor gardener’s week!” However, the joke is on them because once the seeds have sprouted, they will quickly die, either from the heat beneath the black plastic or from being smothered with no air or sunlight. Some seeds won’t sprout at all but will still die from being overheated.
Great tip. Sure beats the hell out of pulling weeds several few days.
Another good resource is the book "The Backyard Homestead". It is advertised as teaching you how to grow 2,000 pounds of vegetables in as little as a ¼-acre backyard. And not just a gardening book, this book includes how to raise chickens and bees for honey.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Real Life Unintended Consequences
Some of you may remember, in the last week, seeing the report on the Colorado Prison Warden who was shot and killed at his home. The subsequent on-line article, from Yahoo by P. Solomon Banda and Nicholas Riccard outline several murders of officials across the country, 35 in the past 3 years, which is as much as the preceding 10 years. This brings to mind a real life imitation of the novel "Unintended Consequences".
I am NOT an advocate of taking "justice" in one's own hands. However, with the reality or perceptions of an out of control Federal (and sometimes State) governments impacting negatively on the individual freedoms of Americans,....some backlash has to expected, especially when coupled with a failing economy.
When the New York papers published names and home addresses of local gun owners, then someone responded with the names and addresses of the Newspaer staff of the offending paper, a lot of people including me, thought that there would be at least one or two cases of deliberate targeting of these media folks. I guess that goes to show you that most gun owners, certainly the ones who have state permits, are a law abiding group.
And certainly not all of the 35 murders in the last three years can be linked to government mis- or mal-feasance. In fact, one the leading suspects early on in the investigation of the Colorado Warden's murder is a Saudi Arabian national, or his associates, who the Warden refused to transfer to Saudi to serve out the remainder of his sentence. Now, authorities are pretty sure the murderer was an ex-con killed in a shootout in Texas a few days ago. And to be fair, some of the reported 35 murders of government officials are attributable to the ex-Los Angeles Police Officer who recently went on a revenge rampage.
Still the lack of situational awareness, whether at home, the office, a restaurant or while driving is annoying to say the least.
The article, Colorado Corrections Dept. Chief shot, killed at home, by Solomon Banda and Nicholas Riccard of the Associated Press:
MONUMENT, Colo. (AP) — In the weeks before Colorado's top prisons official was fatally shot after answering his front door, he carried out a variety of functions including requesting execution chemicals and speaking to legislators about security issues.
It's unknown what role Tom Clements' position as executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections might have played in the shooting Tuesday, but investigators said they aren't ruling out any possible motives, including whether it was random or a work-related attack.
Colorado corrections spokeswoman Adrienne Jacobson would not comment on whether Clements had security at his home. Security was stepped up for other state officials, including Gov. John Hickenlooper, who was ashen-faced as he addressed reporters at the Capitol before signing bills placing new restrictions on firearms.
"Tom Clements dedicated his life to being a public servant, to making our state a better place and he is going to be deeply, deeply missed," Hickenlooper said Wednesday.
Authorities are looking for a late-model car, possibly a Lincoln or a Cadillac, that a neighbor spotted outside Clements' home around the time of the shooting Tuesday, El Paso County Sheriff's spokesman Lt. Jeff Kramer said in a report carried by the Denver Post.
Kramer also said investigators want to speak with a woman seen speed-walking near Clements' home not long before the shooting because she may have seen the suspect. The woman was wearing light pants, a dark windbreaker and possibly a hat.
While small in numbers, similar attacks on officials have been increasing in the U.S. in recent years, said Glenn McGovern, an investigator with the Santa Clara County District Attorney's office in California who tracks such incidents worldwide. He said there have been roughly as many in the past three years — at least 35 — as the entire prior decade. Revenge is usually the motive, he added.
"It's often taking place away from the office, which makes sense, because everyone's hardening up their facilities," he said, adding that he advises prosecutors to constantly assess the safety of their residences.
On Jan. 31, Texas prosecutor Mark Hasse was gunned down as he left his car in the parking lot to the county courthouse. McGovern also counts the rampage by an ex-Los Angeles police officer who killed the daughter of a retired city police officer as part of a plot to avenge his firing.
In Colorado, a prosecutor was fatally shot in 2008 as he returned to his Denver home. In 2001, federal prosecutor Thomas Wales was fatally shot by a rifleman while he worked on a computer at night in his Seattle home. Both cases remain unsolved.
Attacks on legal officials are still extremely rare, said Scott Burns of the National District Attorneys Association, which counts 11 prosecutors as having been slain in the last 50 years. But he acknowledged that legal officials are vulnerable outside of protected offices and courthouses.
"If someone wants to truly harm or kill them, it's very difficult, frankly. There's not a lot we can do," he
Mike McLelland, the district attorney in rural Kaufman county east of Dallas, is a 23-year military veteran. Since his prosecutor, Hasse, was killed on his way into the office, McLelland has warned his staff to be vigilant about their surroundings and possible danger.
"The people in my line of work are going to have to get a lot better at it, because they're going to need it more in the future," McLelland said, adding that he carries a gun everywhere he goes.
Clements came to Colorado in 2011 after working three decades in the Missouri prison system. He began a review of Colorado's solitary confinement system and closed a new prison built specifically to hold prisoners being held in solitary — Colorado State Penitentiary II.
He lived in a wooded neighborhood of large, two-story houses on 2-acre lots dotted with evergreen trees in an area known as the Black Forest. Long driveways connect the homes to narrow, winding roads that thread the hills. After word of the shooting spread Tuesday night, some residents slept with shotguns at the ready, fearful the shooter would return.
It would have been simple to find Clements' house. It took two clicks to get his street address through a publicly available Internet locator service Wednesday morning. The listing also included his previous address in Missouri.
McGovern said he tells his prosecutors to assume that any possible assailants can find their home addresses online and to check for areas they may be especially vulnerable such as neighboring alleys and poorly lit porches.
There is no central database of attacks on legal officials and senior law enforcement executives like Clements.
McGovern has documented 133 of them in the U.S. since 1950 by searching news accounts and court cases. The total includes 41 killings of judges, prosecutors and other justice and police officials. The assaults usually come with little warning, he said.
Steven K. Swensen, a former U.S. Marshal who runs a business consulting on security for court officials, said attacks on legal staff used to occur in courtrooms. As security has been expanded to protect those rooms, then courthouses, the attacks have spilled out further and further.
"Now we're having more violence off-site, in judges' houses, on their way to and from work," Swensen said.
Clements' survivors include two daughters and his wife, who is director of the state Office of Behavioral Health.
While Clements generally kept a low profile, his killing comes a week after he denied a request by a Saudi national to serve out the remainder of a Colorado prison sentence in Saudi Arabia.
Clements also recently requested chemicals to execute Nathan Dunlap, who was convicted of killing four people in a 1993 shooting rampage at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant and is scheduled to become the second person executed in Colorado since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976.
Clements' father-in-law, Carroll Smith, told The Denver Post (http://bit.ly/YX6lLN) that Clements opposed the death penalty.
Earlier this week, Clements spoke to legislators about the need for more security staff in the department's food service areas, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Alison Morgan said. Last year, a kitchen worker at a state prison was killed and another was injured in an assault involving an inmate.
Clements is at least the second state prisons chief killed in office. Michael Francke, director of the Oregon corrections department, was stabbed to death outside his office in 1989 in what prosecutors described as a bungled car burglary. A former Oregon prison inmate was found guilty of aggravated murder in 1991 and sentenced to life in prison.
I am NOT an advocate of taking "justice" in one's own hands. However, with the reality or perceptions of an out of control Federal (and sometimes State) governments impacting negatively on the individual freedoms of Americans,....some backlash has to expected, especially when coupled with a failing economy.
When the New York papers published names and home addresses of local gun owners, then someone responded with the names and addresses of the Newspaer staff of the offending paper, a lot of people including me, thought that there would be at least one or two cases of deliberate targeting of these media folks. I guess that goes to show you that most gun owners, certainly the ones who have state permits, are a law abiding group.
And certainly not all of the 35 murders in the last three years can be linked to government mis- or mal-feasance. In fact, one the leading suspects early on in the investigation of the Colorado Warden's murder is a Saudi Arabian national, or his associates, who the Warden refused to transfer to Saudi to serve out the remainder of his sentence. Now, authorities are pretty sure the murderer was an ex-con killed in a shootout in Texas a few days ago. And to be fair, some of the reported 35 murders of government officials are attributable to the ex-Los Angeles Police Officer who recently went on a revenge rampage.
Still the lack of situational awareness, whether at home, the office, a restaurant or while driving is annoying to say the least.
The article, Colorado Corrections Dept. Chief shot, killed at home, by Solomon Banda and Nicholas Riccard of the Associated Press:
MONUMENT, Colo. (AP) — In the weeks before Colorado's top prisons official was fatally shot after answering his front door, he carried out a variety of functions including requesting execution chemicals and speaking to legislators about security issues.
It's unknown what role Tom Clements' position as executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections might have played in the shooting Tuesday, but investigators said they aren't ruling out any possible motives, including whether it was random or a work-related attack.
Colorado corrections spokeswoman Adrienne Jacobson would not comment on whether Clements had security at his home. Security was stepped up for other state officials, including Gov. John Hickenlooper, who was ashen-faced as he addressed reporters at the Capitol before signing bills placing new restrictions on firearms.
"Tom Clements dedicated his life to being a public servant, to making our state a better place and he is going to be deeply, deeply missed," Hickenlooper said Wednesday.
Authorities are looking for a late-model car, possibly a Lincoln or a Cadillac, that a neighbor spotted outside Clements' home around the time of the shooting Tuesday, El Paso County Sheriff's spokesman Lt. Jeff Kramer said in a report carried by the Denver Post.
Kramer also said investigators want to speak with a woman seen speed-walking near Clements' home not long before the shooting because she may have seen the suspect. The woman was wearing light pants, a dark windbreaker and possibly a hat.
While small in numbers, similar attacks on officials have been increasing in the U.S. in recent years, said Glenn McGovern, an investigator with the Santa Clara County District Attorney's office in California who tracks such incidents worldwide. He said there have been roughly as many in the past three years — at least 35 — as the entire prior decade. Revenge is usually the motive, he added.
"It's often taking place away from the office, which makes sense, because everyone's hardening up their facilities," he said, adding that he advises prosecutors to constantly assess the safety of their residences.
On Jan. 31, Texas prosecutor Mark Hasse was gunned down as he left his car in the parking lot to the county courthouse. McGovern also counts the rampage by an ex-Los Angeles police officer who killed the daughter of a retired city police officer as part of a plot to avenge his firing.
In Colorado, a prosecutor was fatally shot in 2008 as he returned to his Denver home. In 2001, federal prosecutor Thomas Wales was fatally shot by a rifleman while he worked on a computer at night in his Seattle home. Both cases remain unsolved.
Attacks on legal officials are still extremely rare, said Scott Burns of the National District Attorneys Association, which counts 11 prosecutors as having been slain in the last 50 years. But he acknowledged that legal officials are vulnerable outside of protected offices and courthouses.
"If someone wants to truly harm or kill them, it's very difficult, frankly. There's not a lot we can do," he
Mike McLelland, the district attorney in rural Kaufman county east of Dallas, is a 23-year military veteran. Since his prosecutor, Hasse, was killed on his way into the office, McLelland has warned his staff to be vigilant about their surroundings and possible danger.
"The people in my line of work are going to have to get a lot better at it, because they're going to need it more in the future," McLelland said, adding that he carries a gun everywhere he goes.
Clements came to Colorado in 2011 after working three decades in the Missouri prison system. He began a review of Colorado's solitary confinement system and closed a new prison built specifically to hold prisoners being held in solitary — Colorado State Penitentiary II.
He lived in a wooded neighborhood of large, two-story houses on 2-acre lots dotted with evergreen trees in an area known as the Black Forest. Long driveways connect the homes to narrow, winding roads that thread the hills. After word of the shooting spread Tuesday night, some residents slept with shotguns at the ready, fearful the shooter would return.
It would have been simple to find Clements' house. It took two clicks to get his street address through a publicly available Internet locator service Wednesday morning. The listing also included his previous address in Missouri.
McGovern said he tells his prosecutors to assume that any possible assailants can find their home addresses online and to check for areas they may be especially vulnerable such as neighboring alleys and poorly lit porches.
There is no central database of attacks on legal officials and senior law enforcement executives like Clements.
McGovern has documented 133 of them in the U.S. since 1950 by searching news accounts and court cases. The total includes 41 killings of judges, prosecutors and other justice and police officials. The assaults usually come with little warning, he said.
Steven K. Swensen, a former U.S. Marshal who runs a business consulting on security for court officials, said attacks on legal staff used to occur in courtrooms. As security has been expanded to protect those rooms, then courthouses, the attacks have spilled out further and further.
"Now we're having more violence off-site, in judges' houses, on their way to and from work," Swensen said.
Clements' survivors include two daughters and his wife, who is director of the state Office of Behavioral Health.
While Clements generally kept a low profile, his killing comes a week after he denied a request by a Saudi national to serve out the remainder of a Colorado prison sentence in Saudi Arabia.
Clements also recently requested chemicals to execute Nathan Dunlap, who was convicted of killing four people in a 1993 shooting rampage at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant and is scheduled to become the second person executed in Colorado since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976.
Clements' father-in-law, Carroll Smith, told The Denver Post (http://bit.ly/YX6lLN) that Clements opposed the death penalty.
Earlier this week, Clements spoke to legislators about the need for more security staff in the department's food service areas, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Alison Morgan said. Last year, a kitchen worker at a state prison was killed and another was injured in an assault involving an inmate.
Clements is at least the second state prisons chief killed in office. Michael Francke, director of the Oregon corrections department, was stabbed to death outside his office in 1989 in what prosecutors described as a bungled car burglary. A former Oregon prison inmate was found guilty of aggravated murder in 1991 and sentenced to life in prison.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Mexican Drug Cartel's a Threat to Preppers?
In Mexico, in not all locations but some, the Cartels or Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO's) are sometimes seen as folk heroes or at least an existing force in a Country who has a long history of one group or another subjugating the population.
Currently there is an effort by the new Administration of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and the Cartels to control the news media reports of continued violence, be it Cartel on Cartel, Cartel on Mexican law enforcement or military, or murders of prominent Mexicans like journalists or politicians.
While Mexico, especially the Northern border adjacent to the U.S. states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California is basically a failed state, there is no immediate danger of the Cartels exporting violence into the U.S. in any large degree. In fact, there have only been a couple of high profile cases where Cartels conducted murders inside the U.S. The DTO's know that the U.S. is a sleeping giant and could bring a lot of resources to bear on the problem if violence impacting American citizens.
However, any American collapse, be it hyper-inflation, death of the dollar, economic collapse, large scale terrorist attack and/or total infrastructure failure would note only affect Mexico as well, but would more severely degrade the Mexican Government's ability to fight the Cartels, than it would the Cartels ability to continue the status quo. In fact, any U.S. collapse and the follow on repercussions on Mexico would emboldened the Cartels.
Mexican cartels are highly armed having automatic weapons (usually AK's and M-4 variants), rocket propelled grenade launchers (RPG-7's), belt and box fed machine guns, hand grenades and .50 caliber sniper rifles. And, contrary to liberal media reports, the major supply train for this weaponry is through theft, barter and gift from the Mexican and Guatemalan militaries as well as through clandestine importation through Central America.
The often media reported links between the Cartels and Islamic Terrorists groups and foreign countries hostile towards the U.S. (Cuba, Venezula) is not good. One of the indications of this would be an increasing sophisication and use of explosive devices which are not widely used in Mexico as they are in the Middle East. This capability would wrech havoc on the U.S. Law Enforcemnt and presumably the U.S. military deployingto the border areas, if the Cartels began overt operations, in the U.S. during a large collapse scenario.
One of Rawles' last novels he integrated a story of a Houston based Street gang using their existing organization and resources to basically grow a small army and become maruders through Texas and New Mexico. This is not all that far fetched. All of the Mexican based Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO) have links to U.S. based street gangs. This is common sense for the DTO's as they add resources who are normally U.S. citizens, are geographically knowledgeable and understand the U.S. based Law enforcement agencies and their capabilities.
U.S. based street gangs, to me, is the bigger threat. Maybe you have heard of some of these gangs: Barrio Aztecas; Latin Kings; Mexican Mafia; Mara Salvatrucha MS-13; Surenos; Tango Blast; Texas Syndicate. All of these have varying degrees of affiliation and loyalty to the major Mexican Cartels: Gulf Cartel; Los Zetas; Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Cartel; Sinaloa Cartel; and the Tijuana Cartel - which are the cartels who control the northern Mexican border.
In a collapse, it is probable that the U.S. based street gangs would move to control the U.S. urban areas cutting off the Cartels from resources that they do not want to share.
My thoughts above are not considering Street Gangs and Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs who are not normally associated with Mexican Cartels. These would include: Hells Angels; Bandidos; Mongols; Bloods; Crips, Gangster Disciples; Vice Lords; and others. And still we haven't included gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood and their various off shoots and the minority ethnic Asian gangs.
So what can we do? We can can understand the threat based on our geographic area. We can prepare well, develop a organized survival team and stay on top of indicators of threat groups operating in or near our areas.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Europe on the brink of Economic Collapse?
Often in discussions with friends, some of them in my survival group and some not, the topic of how the world's economy can effect or cause a depression or even an economic collapse of this country is discussed.
As simple as I understand it, as I am not a economist or involved in any aspects of financial markets,....the United States as a government, and as commercial enterprises (banks and the financial institutions) owns some of Europe's debt. Likewise, financial institutions and governments in Europe own some ofthe U.S. government debt. If either suffers large losses, re-calling some or all of the owed debt could over burden the other, causing mild to hyper inflation, a depressions or even an economic collapse or collapse of that countries currency.
Lots of possibilities in my admittedly non-financial educated mind........hyper inflation on commodities from foods to fuels, especially what we have to import,.............the tanking of the dollar in value relative to other currencies or even the total collapse of the dollar. Pictures of German citizens prior to World War II pushing wheel barrows of money to a bakery to buy bread come to mind,....or more recently, images of Greeks standing in soup kitchen lines or de-foresting the rural areas for fire wood to heat their homes.
So just how likely is a collapse in Europe? Basically, all the Eurozone countries are at risk with the exception of Germany. Let's take a short look at some of them:
SPAIN
Spain’s unemployment rate is now at 26 per cent. The austerity measures of the Government is causing social unrest, especially upon the unemployed. The Government's efforts to rescue banks with money it has to borrow furthers angry in the private sector. Lower benefits for out of work employees and higher taxes further burden this economy which is on the brink of either a social collapse or a financial one. One will precede the other.
PORTUGAL
Portugal's unemployment rate is about 18%, only behind Spain and Greece. The economy fell over 3 percent last year causing the government to raise taxes and cut government pensions to try and bring in more revenue. (Sound familiar?)
The government is being forced to enact austerity measures in order to receive international money for a bailout. Most of these bailout's are usually phased providing minimal relief versus the increasing social pressure of the unemployed and entitled youth.
FRANCE
The Washington Times says that "Look no further than France to see where the faltering U.S. economy is headed. President Obama has adopted a distinctly European fashion when it comes to expanding government and imposing tax hikes. For this, we can expect to achieve the same results as our ally on the Continent. "
France is “totally bankrupt,” Labor Minister Michel Sapin admitted last month. Unemployment over 10% with a whopping 27% unemployment rate for French youth. The French government takes up over 55% of the Gross Domestic Product. There are demonstrations, after demonstrations of the public sector unions fighting what the government say's are necessary government spending and work force reduction.
GERMANY
Germany is the Uncle Bailout for many of these financially screwed European countries. Germany has a constant fear of the collapse of the Euro and with it the European Union, saying goodbye to all the debt that is owed Germany.
The German government is reportedly holding assets in order to cover giant potential losses.
ENGLAND
Unemployment is way up in England, while manufacturing and therefore job production is down. Industrial indexes are down to wear they were 25 years ago. The pound sterling is down to a 2.5 year low.
Inflation is running at over 3%, combined with the fall of industrial production and high employment is causing the analysts to think that a large recession is coming.
CYPRUS
The Cyprus government is announcing a plan to tax bank accounts. Are you kidding me? Unfortunately no. The U.S. is not far behind this concept with the US Government taxing health care plans. But at least our government does not tax our holds other than the interest earned on it.
GREECE
A plan to cut the government work force by 150,000 is being laid out in order to placate creditors that Greece is serious about reducing government debt. Austerity measures, also in order to gain bailout money, creating hostility towards the government on a large scale. This can be a chase your tail type of thing, if the government ever gets on track to stabilize the economy, they may run out of patience with the population and find themselves replaced with a different political party and philosophy. And while the Greece government is forecasting a recovery on late 2013, the population has been taking money out of their banks fearing a collapse.
As simple as I understand it, as I am not a economist or involved in any aspects of financial markets,....the United States as a government, and as commercial enterprises (banks and the financial institutions) owns some of Europe's debt. Likewise, financial institutions and governments in Europe own some ofthe U.S. government debt. If either suffers large losses, re-calling some or all of the owed debt could over burden the other, causing mild to hyper inflation, a depressions or even an economic collapse or collapse of that countries currency.
Lots of possibilities in my admittedly non-financial educated mind........hyper inflation on commodities from foods to fuels, especially what we have to import,.............the tanking of the dollar in value relative to other currencies or even the total collapse of the dollar. Pictures of German citizens prior to World War II pushing wheel barrows of money to a bakery to buy bread come to mind,....or more recently, images of Greeks standing in soup kitchen lines or de-foresting the rural areas for fire wood to heat their homes.
So just how likely is a collapse in Europe? Basically, all the Eurozone countries are at risk with the exception of Germany. Let's take a short look at some of them:
SPAIN
Spain’s unemployment rate is now at 26 per cent. The austerity measures of the Government is causing social unrest, especially upon the unemployed. The Government's efforts to rescue banks with money it has to borrow furthers angry in the private sector. Lower benefits for out of work employees and higher taxes further burden this economy which is on the brink of either a social collapse or a financial one. One will precede the other.
PORTUGAL
Portugal's unemployment rate is about 18%, only behind Spain and Greece. The economy fell over 3 percent last year causing the government to raise taxes and cut government pensions to try and bring in more revenue. (Sound familiar?)
The government is being forced to enact austerity measures in order to receive international money for a bailout. Most of these bailout's are usually phased providing minimal relief versus the increasing social pressure of the unemployed and entitled youth.
FRANCE
The Washington Times says that "Look no further than France to see where the faltering U.S. economy is headed. President Obama has adopted a distinctly European fashion when it comes to expanding government and imposing tax hikes. For this, we can expect to achieve the same results as our ally on the Continent. "
France is “totally bankrupt,” Labor Minister Michel Sapin admitted last month. Unemployment over 10% with a whopping 27% unemployment rate for French youth. The French government takes up over 55% of the Gross Domestic Product. There are demonstrations, after demonstrations of the public sector unions fighting what the government say's are necessary government spending and work force reduction.
GERMANY
Germany is the Uncle Bailout for many of these financially screwed European countries. Germany has a constant fear of the collapse of the Euro and with it the European Union, saying goodbye to all the debt that is owed Germany.
The German government is reportedly holding assets in order to cover giant potential losses.
ENGLAND
Unemployment is way up in England, while manufacturing and therefore job production is down. Industrial indexes are down to wear they were 25 years ago. The pound sterling is down to a 2.5 year low.
Inflation is running at over 3%, combined with the fall of industrial production and high employment is causing the analysts to think that a large recession is coming.
CYPRUS
The Cyprus government is announcing a plan to tax bank accounts. Are you kidding me? Unfortunately no. The U.S. is not far behind this concept with the US Government taxing health care plans. But at least our government does not tax our holds other than the interest earned on it.
GREECE
A plan to cut the government work force by 150,000 is being laid out in order to placate creditors that Greece is serious about reducing government debt. Austerity measures, also in order to gain bailout money, creating hostility towards the government on a large scale. This can be a chase your tail type of thing, if the government ever gets on track to stabilize the economy, they may run out of patience with the population and find themselves replaced with a different political party and philosophy. And while the Greece government is forecasting a recovery on late 2013, the population has been taking money out of their banks fearing a collapse.
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