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Sunday, February 23, 2014

What the U.S. Economic Collapse May Look Like

An interview between Chris Martenson (of Peak Prosperity) and Fernando Aguirre, a source of expertise on the hyperinflationary destruction of Argentina’s economy in 2001, occurred which may give us an insight on the U.S. economy will collapse. The interview and comments are below, however this interview was preceded by an article, titled "Watch Out, It's Coming" by Bob Rinear on International Forecaster concerning the impending U.S. Economic Crash. First selected comments from Bob Rinear's article, then the interview between Martenson and Aguirre.

Bob Rinear: This are Bob's comment's about the recent Fed taper where the Fed injected (printed) less money than in previous months which affected the Stock Market.

"I’ve said many many times to you all that a global “reset” is coming. The IMF World bank knows that there’s too much debt in too many countries for it to ever be repaid. Global currency fluctuations are so extreme and so rapid, it is sometimes impossible to carry on continuous trade. Just recently when Turkey’s currency was imploding, one carpet manufacturer had to call for currency pricing every 20 minutes so he could quote customers. This goes on world wide, every minute of every day Because of huge disparities over the amount of debts outstanding, versus the “value” of each countries GDP, it is evident that to have a continuous world where things stop blowing up every six months, it has to be changed."

"Countries all over the world are tired of the US in particular, as they’ve destroyed the value of the dollar for years, making it virtually worthless. No matter where we look, the evidence suggests “they have to do something”. Well, they’re doing something as we speak. In the background, in the shadows, outside the spotlight they’re working on a “replacement” for the US dollar as the global reserve. But more than that, they’re working out a complete rebalancing of all Countries debts, versus their “worth” in natural resources, Gold and Silver reserves, output per capita, productivity, demographics, etc."

UrbanMan Comments: The U.S. may be in a slide that is completely irreversible as the national debt continues to soar abve $17 Trillion and the debt limit for annual budgetary spending is suspended until 2015. China actively working to dethrone the U.S. dollar, which will in and of itself devalue the dollar tremendously, as well as all economic indicators - housing prices, unemployment, entitlement spending and stock market instability that will add weight to hyper-inflationary period that seems to be unavoidable. That is the "Watch Out, It's Coming" that Rinear talks about. Now let's look at the history lessons, albeit only a few short 13 years ago, in Argentina:

Background: Argentina is a country re-entering crisis territory it knows too well. The country has defaulted on its sovereign debt three times in the past 32 years and looks poised to do so again soon. Its currency, the peso, devalued by more than 20% in January alone. Inflation is currently running at 25%. Argentina's budget deficit is exploding, and, based on credit default swap rates, the market is placing an 85% chance of a sovereign default within the next five years.

Want to know what it's like living through a currency collapse? Fernando Aguiree speaks to Chris Martenson and gives us good look:



Chris Martenson: Okay. Bring us up to date. What is happening in Argentina right now with respect to its currency, the peso?

Fernando Aguirre: Well, actually pretty recently, January 22, the peso lost 15% of its value. It has devalued quite a bit. It ended up losing 20% of its value that week, and it has been pretty crazy since then. Inflation has been rampant in some sectors, going up to 100% in food, grocery stores 20%, 30% in some cases. So it has been pretty complicated. Lots of stores don't want to be selling stuff until they get updated prices. Suppliers holding on, waiting to see how things go, which is something that we are familiar with because that happened back in 2001 when everything went down as we know it did.

UrbanMan Comments: The U.S. annual average inflation rate since 2009 lays between 1.4 to 3.0% depending upon which government source you use. However, the government also says the unemployment rate is around 7%. How many of us can deny that their grocery money goes far, far less now days than years ago?

Chris Martenson: So 100%, 20% inflation; are those yearly numbers?

Fernando Aguirre: Those are our numbers in a matter of days. In just one day, for example, cement in Balcarce, one of the towns in Southern Argentina, went up 100% overnight, doubling in price. Grocery stores in Córdoba, even in Buenos Aires, people are talking about increase of prices of 20, 30% just these days. I actually have family in Argentina that are telling me that they go to a hardware store and they aren't even able to buy stuff from there because stores want to hold on and see how prices unfold in the following days.

UrbanMan Comments: What would you do if grocery store and other comodity prices doubled within, say even a month, let alone one day? The majority of us living within a budget would have to priotize what we wanted as opposed to what we needed. However, the average American household has something like 3 to 4 days of food in their pantry. Many people would be calling in sick to work in order to be at the grocery store before they opened. Think of the riots when stores would refuse to open or sell until prices were set that day. Who would be setting those prices?

Chris Martenson: Right. So this is one of those great mysteries of inflation. It is obviously 'flying money', so everyone is trying to get rid of their money. You would think that would actually increase commerce. But if you are on the other end of that transaction, if you happen to be the business owner, you have every incentive to withhold items for as long as possible. So one of the great ironies, I guess, is that even though money is flying around like crazy, goods start to disappear from the shelves. Is that what you are seeing?

Fernando Aguirre: Absolutely. Shelves halfway empty. The government is always trying to muscle its way through these kind of problems, just trying to force companies to stock back products and such, but they just keep holding on. For example, gas has gone up 12% these last few days. And there is really nothing they can do about it. If they don't increase prices, companies just are not willing to sell. It is a pretty tricky situation to be in.

Chris Martenson: Are there any sort of price controls going on right now? Has anything been mandated?

Fernando Aguirre: As you know, price controls don't really work. I mean, they tried this before in Argentina. Actually, last year one of the big news stories was that the government was freezing prices on food and certain appliances. It didn't work. Just a few days later those supposedly "frozen" prices were going up. As soon as they officially released them, they would just double in price.

UrbanMan Comments: When there are price controls, you will see several things,... 1 - a burgeoning black market; bartering and alternative currency transactions,..... meaning gold and silver. Again, food riots would ensure.

Chris Martenson: Let me ask you this, then: How many people in Argentina actually still have money in Argentine banks in dollars? One of the features in 2001 was that people had money in dollars, in the banks. There was a banking holiday; a couple of weeks later, banks open up; Surprise, you have the same number in your account, only it's pesos, not dollars. It was an effective theft, if I could use that term. Is anybody keeping money in the banks at this point, or how is that working?

Fernando Aguirre: Well, first of all, I would like to clarify for people listening: Those banks that did that are the same banks that are found all over the world. They are not like strange South American, Argentinean banks – they are the same banks. If they are willing to steal from people in one place, don't be surprised if they are willing to do it in other places as well.

UrbanMan Comments: Hyper inflation and impending economic collapse would force the government to implement banking and other financial controls. This could be banking holidays; could be limits on transaction amounts; could/would be a government order to turn in gold and silver bullion; may be government take over of all retirement accounts. So ask yourself how prepared are you for hyper inflation and a economic collapse?

Monday, February 17, 2014

Does Gun Control Predict the Collapse? Precursor to Martial Law?

I have had a back and forth between two friends of mine, the topic being Federal and State gun control efforts which my two friends stridently believe are an intentional precursor to Governmental preparations for the impending collapse which the Federal Government knows they cannot stop.

While I understand that gun registration is the obvious and mandatory first step to any gun confiscation, and that any Martial Law imposition would be much less effective with an armed civilian population, I don't see the failed gun registration in Connecticut as a joint liberal state-federal government test case for national registration and eventual confiscation. Nor being done because the federal government knows it cannot stop the economic collapse from happening and is preparing for martial law.

Who in their right mind would just let an economic collapse happen? And I say this believing an economic collapse is much more likely now, then it was last year, or the year before, but not due to a conspiracy but to a choke hold on ideology and incompetence of our governmental institutions.

To be sure, any gun control efforts are unconstitutional and if given a foot hold will diminish not only our unalienable rights, but our ability to protect ourselves from the tenuous environment of today's world through the vastly increased dangers of an economic or societal collapse.

I think gun control efforts are a product of the age old liberal way of thinking that they know better than the rest of us what is best for us. And I am grateful that the citizens of the very liberal state of Connecticut are pushing back against unlawful registration.

The Blaze reports that Officials in Connecticut are stunned by what could be a Massive, State-Wide Act of ‘Civil Disobedience’ by Gun Owners:

On Jan. 1, 2014, tens of thousands of defiant gun owners seemingly made the choice not to register their semi-automatic rifles with the state of Connecticut as required by a hastily-passed gun control law. By possessing unregistered so-called “assault rifles,” they all technically became guilty of committing Class D felonies overnight.

Police had received 47,916 applications for “assault weapons certificates” and 21,000 incomplete applications as of Dec. 31, Lt. Paul Vance told The Courant.

At roughly 50,000 applications, officials estimate that as little as 15 percent of the covered semi-automatic rifles have actually been registered with the state. “No one has anything close to definitive figures, but the most conservative estimates place the number of unregistered assault weapons well above 50,000, and perhaps as high as 350,000,” the report states.

Needless to say, officials and some lawmakers are stunned.

Due to the new gun control bill passed in April, likely at least 20,000 individual people — possibly as many as 100,000 — are now in direct violation of the law for refusing to register their guns. As we noted above, that act is now a Class D Felony.

Then Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars writes a well written letter concerning the effects of unconstitutional governmental efforts to restrict gun ownership:


15 February 2014

To the men and women of the Connecticut State Police and the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection:

My name is Mike Vanderboegh. Few of you will know who I am, or even will have heard of the Three Percent movement that I founded, though we have been denounced on the national stage by that paragon of moral virtue, Bill Clinton. Three Percenters are uncompromising firearm owners who have stated very plainly for years that we will obey no further encroachments on our Second Amendment rights.

Some of you, if you read this carelessly, may feel that it is a threat. It is not. Three Percenters also believe that to take the first shot in a conflict over principle is to surrender the moral high ground to the enemy. We condemn so-called collateral damage and terrorism such as that represented by the Oklahoma City Bombing and the Waco massacre. We are very aware that if you seek to defeat evil it is vital not to become the evil you claim to oppose. Thus, though this letter is certainly intended to deal with an uncomfortable subject, it is not a threat to anyone. However, it is important for everyone to understand that while we promise not to take the first shot over principle, we make no such promise if attacked, whether by common criminals or by the designated representatives of a criminal government grown arrogant and tyrannical and acting out an unconstitutional agenda under color of law.

If we have any model, it is that of the Founding generation. The threat to public order and safety, unfortunately, comes from the current leaders of your state government who unthinkingly determined to victimize hitherto law-abiding citizens with a tyrannical law. They are the ones who first promised violence on the part of the state if your citizens did not comply with their unconstitutional diktat. Now, having made the threat (and placed the bet that you folks of the Connecticut State Police will meekly and obediently carry it out) they can hardly complain that others take them seriously and try by every means, including this letter, to avoid conflict.

Some of you are already working a major case on me, trying to figure out how I may be arrested for violating Conn. P.A. 13-3, which bears the wildly dishonest title of "An Act Concerning Gun Violence Prevention and Children's Safety." (What part of "protecting children" is accomplished by sparking a civil war?) Not only have I personally violated this unconstitutional and tyrannical act by smuggling and by the encouragement of smuggling, defiance and non-compliance on the part of your state's citizens, but I have further irritated your wannabe tyrant bosses by sending them standard capacity magazines in my "Toys for Totalitarians" program. I further have annoyed them by pointing out -- and seeking more evidence of -- the existence of Mike Lawlor's KGB file (as well as his FBI and CIA counter-intelligence files).

In short, I have made myself a nuisance to your bosses in just about every way I could think of. However, their discomfiture reminds me of the wisdom of that great American philosopher of the late 20th Century, Frank Zappa, who said, "Do you love it? Do you hate it? There it is, the way you made it." Whether you will be able to make a case on me that sticks is, of course, problematic for a number of reasons which I will detail to you in the letter below. I have already done so to your bosses and include the links in this email so that you may easily access them.

But even if you are not working on my case you will want to pay attention to this letter, because tyrannical politicians in your state have been writing checks with their mouths that they expect you to cash with your blood. We have moved, thanks to them, into a very dangerous undiscovered country. Connecticut is now in a state of cold civil war, one that can flash to bloody conflict in an instant if someone, anyone, does something stupid. So please pay attention, for Malloy and Co. have put all your asses on the line and are counting on your supine obedience to the enforcement of their unconstitutional diktat.

I apparently first came to your attention with this speech on the steps of your state capitol on 20 April 2013. It was very well received by the audience but virtually ignored by the lapdog press of your state. If I may, I'd like to quote some of the more salient points of it that involve you.

"An unconstitutional law is void." It has no effect. So says American Jurisprudence, the standard legal text. And that's been upheld by centuries of American law. An unconstitutional law is VOID. Now that is certainly true. But the tricky part is how do we make that point when the local, state and federal executive and legislative branches as well as the courts are in the hands of the domestic enemies of the Constitution. Everyone who is currently trying to take away your right to arms starts out by saying "I support the 2nd Amendment." Let me tell you a home truth that we know down in Alabama -- Barack Obama supports the 2nd Amendment just about as much as Adolf Hitler appreciated Jewish culture, or Joseph Stalin believed in individual liberty. Believe what politicians do, not what they say. Because the lie is the attendant of every evil.

Before this year no one thought that other firearms and related items would ever be banned -- but they were, they have been. No one thought that the authorities of your state would pass laws making criminals out of the previously law-abiding -- but they did. If they catch you violating their unconstitutional laws, they will -- when they please -- send armed men to work their will upon you. And people -- innocent of any crime save the one these tyrants created -- will die resisting them.

You begin to see, perhaps, how you fit into this. YOU are the "armed men" that Malloy and Company will send "to work their will" upon the previously law-abiding. In other words, this law takes men and women who are your natural allies in support of legitimate law enforcement and makes enemies of the state of them, and bully boy political police of you. So you all have a very real stake in what happens next. But let me continue:

The Founders knew how to answer such tyranny. When Captain John Parker -- one of the three percent of American colonists who actively took the field against the King during the Revolution -- mustered his Minutemen on Lexington Green, it was in a demonstration of ARMED civil disobedience. . . The colonists knew what to do and they did it, regardless of the risk -- regardless of all the King's ministers and the King's soldiery. They defied the King. They resisted his edicts. They evaded his laws and they smuggled. Lord above, did they smuggle.

Now we find ourselves in a similar situation. The new King Barack and his minions have determined to disarm us. We must determine to resist them. No one wants a new civil war (except, apparently, the anti-constitutional tyrants who passed these laws and the media toadies who cheer them on) but one is staring us in the face. Let me repeat that, a civil war is staring us in the face. To think otherwise is to whistle past the graveyard of our own history. We must, if we wish to avoid armed conflict, get this message across to the collectivists who have declared their appetites for our liberty, our property and our lives -- WHEN DEMOCRACY TURNS TO TYRANNY, THE ARMED CITIZEN STILL GETS TO VOTE.

Just like King George, such people will not care, nor modify their behavior, by what you say, no matter how loudly or in what numbers you say it. They will only pay attention to what you DO. So defy them. Resist their laws. Evade them. Smuggle in what they command you not to have. Only by our ACTS will they be impressed. Then, if they mean to have a civil war, they will at least have been informed of the unintended consequences of their tyrannical actions. Again I say -- Defy. Resist. Evade. Smuggle. If you wish to stay free and to pass down that freedom to your children's children you can do no less than to become the lawbreakers that they have unconstitutionally made of you. Accept that fact. Embrace it. And resolve to be the very best, most successful lawbreakers you can be.

Well, I guess at least some of my audience that day took my message to heart. As Connecticut newspapers have finally begun reporting -- "Untold Thousands Flout Gun Registration Law" -- and national commentators are at last noticing, my advice to defy, resist and evade this intolerable act is well on the way. The smuggling, as modest as it is, I can assure is also happening. This law is not only dangerous it is unenforceable by just about any standard you care to judge it by. Let's just look at the numbers mentioned in the Courant story.

By the end of 2013, state police had received 47,916 applications for assault weapons certificates, Lt. Paul Vance said. An additional 2,100 that were incomplete could still come in.

That 50,000 figure could be as little as 15 percent of the rifles classified as assault weapons owned by Connecticut residents, according to estimates by people in the industry, including the Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation. No one has anything close to definitive figures, but the most conservative estimates place the number of unregistered assault weapons well above 50,000, and perhaps as high as 350,000.

And that means as of Jan. 1, Connecticut has very likely created tens of thousands of newly minted criminals — perhaps 100,000 people, almost certainly at least 20,000 — who have broken no other laws. By owning unregistered guns defined as assault weapons, all of them are committing Class D felonies.

"I honestly thought from my own standpoint that the vast majority would register," said Sen. Tony Guglielmo, R-Stafford, the ranking GOP senator on the legislature's public safety committee. "If you pass laws that people have no respect for and they don't follow them, then you have a real problem."

This blithering idiot of a state senator is, as I warned Mike Lawlor the other day, extrapolating. It is a very dangerous thing, extrapolation, especially when you are trying to predict the actions of an enemy you made yourself whom you barely recognize let alone understand. I told Lawlor:

You, you silly sod, are extrapolating from your own cowardice. Just because you wouldn't risk death for your principles, doesn't mean there aren't folks who most certainly will. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but folks who are willing to die for their principles are most often willing to kill in righteous self-defense of them as well. You may be ignorant of such people and their ways. You may think that they are insane. But surely even you cannot be so clueless that, insane or not from your point-of-view, such people DO exist and in numbers unknown. This is the undiscovered country that you and your tyrannical ilk have blundered into, like clueless kindergarteners gaily (no pun intended) tap-dancing in a well-marked mine field.

The Founders marked the mine field. Is it our fault or yours that you have blithely ignored the warnings? If I were a Connecticut state policeman I would be wondering if the orders of a possible KGB mole throwback were worth the terminal inability to collect my pension. Of course, you may be thinking that you can hide behind that "thin blue line." Bill Clinton's rules of engagement say otherwise.

The odds are, and it gives me no particular satisfaction to say it, is that someone is going to get killed over your unconstitutional misadventures in Connecticut. And if not Connecticut, then New York, or Maryland, or California or Colorado. And once the civil war you all apparently seek is kicked off, it would not be -- it could not be -- confined to one state.

This is not a threat, of course. Not the personal, actionable threat that you may claim. It ranks right along with -- no, that's wrong, IT IS EXACTLY LIKE -- an ex-con meeting me in the street and pointing to my neighbor's house saying, "Tonight I am going to break in there, kill that man, rape his wife and daughters and steal everything that he is, has, or may become." I warn him, "If you try to do that, he will kill you first. He may not look like much, but I know him to be vigilant and perfectly capable of blowing your head off." That is not a threat from me. It is simply good manners. Consider this letter in the same vein. I am trying to save you from yourself.

For, like that common criminal, you have announced by your unconstitutional law and your public statements in favor of its rigorous enforcement that you have a tyrannical appetite for your neighbors' liberty, property and lives. It doesn't take a crystal ball to see that this policy, if carried to your announced conclusion, will not end well for anybody, but especially for you.

Now let's examine those numbers in the Courant story. You know the size of the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection. Wikipedia tells us that "CSP currently has approximately 1,248 troopers, and is headquartered in Middletown, Connecticut. It is responsible for protecting the Governor of Connecticut, Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut, and their families." There are but 1,212 email addresses listed on the state website to which this email is going, which presumably includes everyone including secretaries, receptionists, file clerks, technicians, etc. Now, how many shooters for raid parties you may find among that one thousand, two hundred and forty eight that Wikipedia cites, or whatever number will be on the payroll when something stupid happens, only you know for sure. I'll let you do the counting.

They are daunting odds in any case, and as you will see, they get more daunting as we go down this road that Malloy and Company have arranged for you. (By the way, don't forget to subtract those on the Green Zone protective details, for your political masters will certainly see their survival as your mission number one.) So, how many folks would your superiors be interested in seeing you work their will upon? And of these, how many will fight regardless of cost?

Let's assume that there are 100,000 non-compliant owners of military pattern semi-automatic rifles in your state. I think it is a larger number but 100,000 has a nice round ring to it. Let us then apply the rule of three percent to that number -- not to the entire population of your state, not even to the number of firearm owners, but just to that much smaller demonstrated number of resistors. That leaves you with at least 3,000 men and women who will shoot you if you try to enforce this intolerable act upon them. Of course you will have to come prepared to shoot them. That's a given. They know this. So please understand: THEY. WILL. SHOOT. YOU. (In what they believe is righteous self defense.)

Now, if any of them follow Bill Clinton's rules of engagement and utilize the principles of 4th Generation Warfare, after the first shots are fired by your raid parties, they will not be home when you come to call. These people will be targeting, according to the 4GW that many of them learned while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war makers who sent you. This gets back to that "when democracy turns to tyranny, the armed citizenry still gets to vote." One ballot, or bullet, at a time.

This is all hypothetical, of course, based upon the tyrants' appetites for these hitherto law-abiding citizens' liberty, property and lives as well as upon your own willingness to enforce their unconstitutional diktat. And here's where you can do something about it. The first thing you have to realize is that the people you will be targeting do not view you as the enemy. Indeed, you are NOT their enemy, unless you choose to be one.

Again, an unconstitutional law is null and void. Of course you may if you like cling to the slim fact that a single black-robed bandit has ruled the Intolerable Act as constitutional in Shew vs. Malloy, but that will not matter to those three percent of the resistors -- your fellow citizens -- whom you target. They no longer expect a fair trial in your state in any case, which leaves them, if they wish to defend their liberty, property and lives, only the recourse of an unfair firefight. So to cite Shew vs. Malloy at the point of a state-issued firearm to such people is, well, betting your life on a very slender reed.

Thus, my kindly advice to you, just as it was to Lawlor, is to not go down that road. You are not the enemy of the people of Connecticut, not yet. The politicians who jammed this law down the peoples' throats are plainly flummoxed by the resistance it has engendered. In the absence of a definitive U.S. Supreme Court decision do you really want to risk not being able to draw your pension over some politician's insatiable appetite for power?

There are many ways you can refuse to get caught up in this. Passive resistance, looking the other way, up to and including outright refusal to execute what is a tyrannical law that a higher court may yet find unconstitutional and therefore null and void. Do you really want to have to kill someone enforcing THAT? Just because you were ordered to do so? After Nuremberg, that defense no longer obtains. (You may say, "Well, I'm just a secretary, a clerk, you can't blame me for anything." Kindly recall from Nuremberg one other lesson: raid parties cannot break down doors unless someone like you prepares the list in advance. In fact, you have at your keyboard and in your databases more raw, naked power than any kick-in-the-door trooper. And with that power comes moral responsibility. Adolf Eichmann didn't personally kill anyone. But he darn sure made up the lists and saw to it that trains ran on time. When the first Connecticut citizen (or, God forbid, his family) is killed as a result of your list-making, do you think that because you didn't pull the trigger that gives you a moral pass?)

So I call on you all, in your own best interest and that of your state, to refuse to enforce this unconstitutional law. There are a number of Three Percenters within the Connecticut state government, especially its law enforcement arms. I know that there have been many discussions around water-coolers and off state premises about the dangers that this puts CT law enforcement officers in and what officers should do if ordered to execute raids on the previously law-abiding.

You have it within your power to refuse to initiate hostilities in an American civil war that would, by its very nature, be ghastly beyond belief and would unleash hatreds and passions that would take generations to get over, if then.

Please, I beg you to understand, you are not the enemy, you are not an occupying force -- unless you choose to violate the oath that each of you swore to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against ALL enemies, foreign and domestic. For their part, the men and women who will be targeted by your raids took an identical oath. Can you think of anything more tragic than brother killing brother over some politician's tyrannical appetite?

I can't. The future -- yours, mine, our children's, that of the citizens of Connecticut and indeed of the entire country -- is in YOUR hands.

At the very least, by your refusal you can give the courts time to work before proceeding into an unnecessary civil war against your own friends and neighbors on the orders of a self-anointed elite who frankly don't give a shit about you, your life, your future or that of your family. They wouldn't pass these laws if they thought that they would have to risk the potential bullet that their actions have put you in the path of. They count on you to take that bullet, in service of their power and their lies. Fool them. Just say no to tyranny. You are not the enemy. Don't act like one.

Sincerely,

Mike Vanderboegh

The alleged leader of a merry band of Three Percenters
PO Box 926
Pinson AL 35126

Saturday, February 8, 2014

18 Months From the Collapse?

I received a call from a old buddy of mine (Jeff) ...not a text message or an e-mail, but an actual phone call such as he was worked up. Apparently he has been reading articles and listening to news program and at some point he started believing the end is near,...18 months to be specific to a collapse. He was planning on quitting his job, moving out of the East coast and basically sinking 100% in prepping.

My response was "Okay, but what is going to be the catalyst? What do you think is going to happen and how?" I have been seeing articles in the last month of so pretty much outlining the good possibility of an economic collapse within the next two years, but I wanted Jeff to articulate the facts or assumptions that are leading him to his own view. So I told Jeff, "you may be right. I certainly think things will be tougher in the next 18 months,.....commodities shortages,.....inflation if not severe inflation,......I think we'll see food riots in urban areas. And the government will not be able to do too much as their assets pool is significantly shallower than ever." But I stopped short of telling Jeff that I think the collapse will occur in 18 months. I don't want to be responsible for someone basing their survival plan on my opinion, plus I'm still really in the plan for the worst - survival prep, and hope for the best camp. Anyway, I scanned all my on-line sources and resources to see what a cross section of people are saying.

Chris Martenson wrote on his website, Peak Prosperity, an article with the title - Why Your Own Plan Better Be Different - Because the cavalry isn't coming. Pretty much summing up that the US Government is broke and will not be able to get out of insolvency. Martenson remarks that action at the individual level is your best bet right now. I think action at the individual level has always been the best bet.

When the Treasury Department estimates that the U.S. has a ~$65 trillion NPV (Net Present Value) shortfall in its main accounts, it's saying that using its assumptions, the U.S. government would need to have $65 trillion – today – in an account, earning a stated rate of interest, in order to be solvent.

Since the U.S. government don't have that have that kind of scratch, it's insolvent. But the real picture is likely worse. The Fed calculates the NPV shortfall to be closer to $100 trillion. And if you believe Lawrence Kotlikoff's math, the figure is closer to $200 trillion. Either way – $65 trillion, $100 trillion, or $200 trillion – the sum cannot be paid.

Paul Joseph Watson, from Investor's Forecaster, reports: "On Saturday (Feb 1, 2014) it emerged that HSBC was restricting large cash withdrawals for UK customers from £5000 upwards, forcing them to provide documentation of what they plan to spend the money on, a form of capital control that more and more banks are beginning to adopt. (Then) Fears of bank runs have escalated with the news that Russian lender ‘My Bank’ has banned all cash withdrawals until next week. Bloomberg reports that ‘My Bank’ – one of Russia’s top 200 lenders by assets – has introduced a complete ban on cash withdrawals until next week. While the Ruble has been losing ground rapidly recently, we suspect few have been expecting bank runs in Russia.

These banking shenanigans (or are they tests?) follow a November 2013 incident where Chase Bank also recently imposed restrictions which prevent its customers from conducting over $50,000 in cash activity per month, as well as banning business customers from sending international wire transfers. Financial expert Gerald Celente said the news was a sign that Americans should prepare for a bank holiday.

And from Italy comes the headlines that "Italy’s president fears violent insurrection in 2014 but offers no remedy as events in Italy are turning serious. President Giorgio Napolitano has warned of “widespread social tension and unrest” in 2014 as the Long Slump drags on. Thousands of Italian companies are on the “brink of collapse”. Great masses of the working people are on the dole or at risk of losing their jobs. Very high rates of youth unemployment are leading to dangerous alienation.

Bob Rinnear writes - Housing ground to a virtual stop. The non-farm payroll report was horrid. The amount of folks not even in the workforce is almost 1/3 of the entire population. Food stamps, welfare, unemployment, and other fall back systems are overwhelmed. Just Monday 3 Feb 2014), the ISM report for the US hit. It could have been worse, but it would take work to do it. We saw the overall survey fall from 55.8 to 51. Inside the report, we saw the new orders index fall from 64 to 51, a 20% drop, the biggest drop since 1980. Yes you read that right. The biggest drop in 34 years........A likely scenario is that we bottom out, put in a massive bounce that comes up well shy of the highs, and then we roll over and plunge even lower.

Doug Casey, on Market Sanity.com said "We are heading toward The Greater Depression’ said The problem that we face in the world today is that almost all – in fact I’ll go so far as to say all of the world’s governments – are actually bankrupt, and the fact is, the world’s banking system is bankrupt as well…Both governments and the big banks are like a couple of drunks standing up holding each other up. The both should fall down. The entire world has become too financialized at this point. People are concentrating not on producing real goods and services, but on trading things and paper securities and so forth. This is a giant bubble that’s going to burst.” “I’ve been saying for years that we are heading for something that I call The Greater Depression…I call it The Greater Depression because I expect it to be much worse and much greater than what we went through in the 1930′s.”

James H. Kunstler wrote a column for Peak Prosperity titled "Get Ready For Strange Days - We're in the Twilight of American Federalism" . He makes an good argument about what the immediate aftermath of a collapse could look like with the states going it alone or perhaps banding together with other another state(s) to share and trade resources - from energy to commodities to defense capabilities.

The last time the USA faced a comparable political convulsion was the decade leading into the Civil War, but this time it will be more complex and confusing and it will have a different ending.

In the 1850s, the dominant Whig party choked to death on its own internal contradictions — mainly its failure to take a coherent position on slavery — and morphed into the Republican Party. The original Democratic Party broke apart into southern and northern factions. All of the doctrinal and legal debates of the day — states’ rights, property rights, et cet. — could not overcome the growing moral revulsion against human bondage. When Lincoln was elected in 1860, seven southern slave states seceded from the Union before his inauguration. The ferocity of the ensuing Civil War — the world’s first industrial-strength slaughter fest — came as a great shock to many who had expected little more than a few symbolic romantic skirmishes on horseback preceding a negotiated settlement.

I believe we are headed now into a breakup of the nation into smaller units, but this time there will be no reconstituting the original USA as in 1865. I realize this is a severe view, but the circumstances we face are more severe than the public seems to imagine. To some degree the coming political rearrangement would appear to be the unfinished business of the 1860s. The old animosities remain, mainly in cultural rather than economic terms. But the real driving force of schism will be catabolic economic collapse expressing itself in scale reduction of all our support systems: food production, energy production, transportation, finance, commerce, and governance.

Everything is going to have to get smaller, get more local, and be run differently. Just as political rhetoric failed to contain the revulsion against slavery, all the debates of the Left and Right in our time will not overcome the geophysical limits of energy resource scarcity and its affect on the other major systems of everyday life. Environmental degradation (including climate change) will amplify the journey downward in the viable scale of human operations.

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Dollar Collapse, Banks Close,...What Will You Do?

One of our neighbors, a woman who always struck me as a busy body type, organized a neighborhood cleanup and a cook out afterwards. I consented to both the cleanup and the cook out as I had the agenda to get to assess my neighbors better - so I could categorize their personalities, strengths and weaknesses. Only six couples out the group came to the cookout after the cleanup with the women in the kitchen and the men congregating around the outdoor grill - it was fairly cold and the gas grill provided a little heat.

One the men (I'll call him Hal) and another man (I'll call him Frank) were discussing the upcoming Super Bowl, when Hal's wife walked up and asked Frank how the burgers were coming, then she looked at Hal and said "don't let me keep you from talking about the Zombie Apocalypse".....using her fingers to denote quotation marks for Zombie Apocalypse. Then she walked off and nobody said anything for maybe 10 seconds before Hal said "She's still mad at me from finding out I bought a couple of buckets of survival food. She asked me what it was for and I said something Like "I don't know,..possibly the Zombie Apocalypse", and she has been made for the past week.

I said to Hal, "well what did you buy it for?" Hal replied "It seemed like a good idea just to have some extra food, plus Melissa found a machete, camp axe and camp saw which she is also pissed about. While mentally pegging Hal's wife, Melissa, in that those who have a difficult personality category, I then said "Well, makes sense to me. Lot's of potential bad things that could happen where it would come in handy".

A couple of side conversations took place about how bad things seemed. One guy said his health care premium went from $300 something to over $800 a month.

Trying to get the conversation back to prepping, I said "well Hal what would you do if the Government called a bank holiday for, say four days, and that included the ATM machines and debit card transaction?"

Frank spoke first and said words to the effect that it would certainly screw up a lot of people and possibly cause panic.

Chris, another guy, said "that would never happen." I said, "well, just suppose it did happen, what would you do? Most people only have three of four days of food in their pantry. And even if food wasn't the immediate concern, people would be panicked without access to their accounts. I'll be there would be more than a few cars running out of gas and I'll be you robberies, especially around grocery stores, would increase."

Hal mumbled, "yeah, maybe I need to get a gun." I said, "you don't have a gun?". And to make a long story short, I fielded about a hundred questions about guns, buying guns, guns laws, training and the like. Frank has a 12 gauge hunting shotgun which he has never shot, and one of the other guys said he had a rifle given to him by his Dad, but he didn't know anything about it, the make/model or caliber.

Bottom line is that this cleanup and picnic, while a pain in the ass, paid off for me as I now have five new friends who see me as the "gun expert" and are going to call me to talk about buying a gun for personal protection and getting some firearms and shooting lessons.

By the way, the bank scenario didn't just come of the blue. Read below what is happening in England, from Yahoo news a couple weeks ago. Are you prepared for any of it? Stocked food and water/ firearms for protection? Cash on hand? Someplace to go and a plan in case it all comes crashing down?


If you bank at HSBC in England, don’t plan on making any large cash withdrawals. At least not without a good explanation. Or, maybe even a permission slip.

That’s because a previously unannounced change in banking policy is blocking some customers from making large withdrawals without “evidence” explaining why they need the money from their accounts.

The policy affects customers attempting withdrawals for amounts as little as £5,000 ($8,253).

HSBC says it’s all done in the name of customer protection.

"The reason being we have an obligation to protect our customers, and to minimize the opportunity for financial crime,” HSBC said in a statement. “However, following feedback, we are immediately updating guidance to our customer facing staff to reiterate that it is not mandatory for customers to provide documentary evidence for large cash withdrawals, and on its own, failure to show evidence is not a reason to refuse a withdrawal. We are writing to apologize to any customer who has been given incorrect information and inconvenienced."

The change in approach comes after the BBC aired reports from multiple HSBC customers who said they were denied in their recent attempts to make cash withdrawals.

Banking customer Stephen Cotton says he attempted to withdraw approximately $11,000 to repay a loan from his mother but was blocked from doing so.

"When we presented them with the withdrawal slip, they declined to give us the money because we could not provide them with a satisfactory explanation for what the money was for,” he told the BBC. “They wanted a letter from the person involved."

Cotton says the bank wouldn’t even tell him how much he was allowed to withdraw under the new policy, which was not announced to customers when taking affect last November.

"So I wrote out a few slips. I said, 'Can I have £5,000?' They said no. I said, 'Can I have £4,000?' They said no. And then I wrote one out for £3,000 and they said, 'OK, we'll give you that.' "

In the U.S. there have been rumors of similar restrictions that major banks such as Citibank have denied. After the massive security breach at Target retail stores in December, JP Morgan did place a temporary limit on how much cash customers could withdraw from Chase ATM’s at Target stores and how much they could spend on their debit cards at one time. But that limit has since been removed.

A Conservative member of the British Parliament said the change in policy “infantilizes the customer.” However, the head of retail at the British Bankers Association defended the policy.

"I can understand it's frustrating for customers,” Eric Leenders told the BBC. “But if you are making the occasional large cash withdrawal, the bank wants to make sure it's the right way to make the payment."

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Collapse Scenario: A Civil War or World War Three?

Would You Prefer a Civil War or World War Three? This is the question from Dave Hodges on International Forecaster, who wrote this thought provoking article.  I still think it is much more likely for the collapse to be caused from economic conditions and if severe enough will cause societal breakdown and a possible military response by the government for control, especially of population centers and resource centers, but Dave Hodges gives us some things to ponder, even if they are so terrible in nature.   

This is what Dave say's:   America is on a collision course with a brutal civil war. We can argue if the coming civil war will be conventional or guerrilla. However, many of us feel that we have reached the point of no return and that civil strife is unavoidable. A political solution to our multiple issues would have been my preferred choice, but that ship sailed a long time ago. I know that the cognitive dissonance crowd will not believe this, however, nobody from that mindset can answer the most important question in the debate based upon the present circumstances: If a civil war was not inevitable, then explain how the military and this administration are going to get past the fact that this “false flag” President has fired over 200+ military command officers?

And there is a second important question: Why have 14 state governors restructured their respective state military organizations so that they are not under the control of Obama?

A Military Rebellion Is Unavoidable

Whenever 200+ leaders of any organization are fired in a short period of time, the person doing the firing has formed a group which opposes them. These military leaders had great influence and close ties over those that they have commanded. Obama just did not fire over 200+ military commanders, he alienated, tens if not hundreds of thousands of military personnel who based their professional loyalty to their military commanders and they will resist their foreign born Commander-In-Chief as a result of this betrayal of trust.

This is not a question of some of us in the media who desire for this happen. We have no say in the matter. And father time is defeating many of us, as several of us are too old to fight and too fat to run! It is not up to us as these conditions, which are ripe for a civil war, were forced upon our nation by Obama and his handlers.

Some Questions for the Fence-Sitting Sheep

Do you not think the executive officers under the command of the fired military leaders understood the issues behind the firing of their commanding officers? Was not the entire command structure in Afghanistan alienated from Obama when McChrystal was fired, largely over rules of engagement? Do you not think that all service personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan understand that this buffoon of a President increases their chances of not coming home alive, because of Obama’s treasonous rules of engagement which endangers American soldiers?

Do you not think that if many of us in the alternative media can find evidence of a massive Russian troop buildup, including the presence of Russian heavy equipment on our soil, that the military is not already resentful of the fact that they have to wet nurse these future martial law enforcing troops and that they are from a nation that has repeatedly threatened to nuke America in the past 15 months? Do you think our military commanders are looking forward to the participation of Chinese and Russian soldiers in the upcoming RIMPAC war games?

Do you not think that the upper echelon of the military is not scared to death that in a time of civil unrest, or civil war, that we have 200,000 troops, stationed in foreign countries, who will not likely get home? Do you think the Generals in the Pentagon do not know the commanders in Afghanistan, or Iraq? Do you not think there are not close personal relationships in and among our military leaders stationed around the world and there is not an overall awareness in the military that the President is playing for the other side? Do you sheep really believe that the next time our noncommissioned officers send another young American home in a body bag because of the President’s rules of engagement, that the resentment towards this administration does not grow exponentially? Do you not think that present active duty personnel do not hear from their veteran friends who have come back home, that the Obama administration now refers to veterans, in DHS documents, as domestic terrorists and that Obama is going after their guns because he fears them?

If we can find out about Obama’s fake birth certificate and his anti-American sentiment, do you not think that our troops have not learned these lessons a long time ago? Most American military commanders are loyal to each other and have been trained to risk their lives on behalf of their fellow soldiers. Why do you think that when someone from the executive branch flies into Afghanistan, that the troops must be disarmed because of previous shooting incidents?

Does anyone really believe that our military enjoys sleeping with the enemy? And who do you think they blame? After considering all of these facts, do you sheep still believe that it will not take much provocation to get the troops to act against the modern day KGB in America (i.e. DHS)? Hell, even Ray Charles could see this is fertile breeding ground for a civil war! If this was Stalinist Russia, these military officers would have been shot in the back of the head. Fortunately for these 200+ deposed military commanders, our modern communications system would make it impossible for Obama to purge the military in the same manner as Stalin did without incurring the ire of an entire nation.

However, the end result is the same. The military is being purged because it will not act against the American people and you can take that to the bank. The best we can hope for in the present set of circumstances, is a military coup and that, my friends, never ends well and I lose sleep over this possibility. If we do not change course, our greatest fears will be realized because the sides are already drawn and it will not be long until all hell breaks loose across our country.

An Epic Struggle Is Taking Shape

In one corner, we have the DHS led federal agencies accompanied by their muscle; the Chinese, the Russians and the Canadians. If this group prevails in the upcoming struggle, Mao will have to forfeit his title as the most murderous dictator in world history. There are members of the NWO who do not want two stones left together in this country. They want as many of us to die as possible (see the Georgia Guide Stones). They want to leave no trail of the traditional American notions of freedom and independence because these notions are a formidable roadblock to the lethal scientific dictatorship being installed on this planet. Americans are in the crosshairs of history.

American Christians will soon become the most hunted game on the planet because we represent freedom, autonomy and obedience to God’s laws and not blind obedience to the dictates of genocidal leaders. In our corner, the other corner, we have a large segment of the American military and some of the American citizenry, largely veterans,who will oppose the attempts to finalize the tyranny being installed across the planet. This is an all-stakes, winner-take-all battle. Soon, even the sheep are going to be forced to choose sides.

No Pleasant Alternatives

The coming conflict will not have a good outcome no matter who wins. If the military and the American citizens prevail, all we will likely accomplish is to replace one brutal dictatorship with another. If the other side wins, there is nowhere that will be safe.

All of us will become, by definition, an endangered species. Fourteen Governors Have Acquired Some Temporary Courage Against Tyranny I have previously written that I have recently spoken with a high ranking military officer who was fired because he would not help DHS to completely control a fully integrated state-to-state national guard organization. He was unwilling to voluntarily hand the keys to the car to a communist such as Obama whom he perceived as someone who was dedicated to the destruction of this country. This officer’s resolve was shocking, but now I understand why. In retrospect, he was lucky that he was only fired.

Why has DHS armed to the teeth? The answer is simple, Obama is facing opposition to not only his failed policies like Obamacare and he is facing the possibility of organized military resistance at the state level in several locations. There is presently an armed uprising directed at him by the select governors of 14 different states and that number is continuing to grow. To the previous point I raised as to why Obama is moving to nationalize the National Guard Forces, the answer is simple. Fourteen governors are militarily organizing against Obama. States such as Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota, Tennessee, Virginia, Louisiana and South Carolina, are saying no to the increasing level of tyranny. These state military entities have been structured in such a way that they cannot become federalized. This is highly significant because the vast amount of federal/DHS resources used to federalize local police forces is now being undermined in these 14 states.

Obama Is Not Just Facing An Armed Rebellion From the Military

Fourteen state governors have reestablished State Defense Forces which includes any and all militias and the national guard. The authority over these troops does not rest with the President and he is furious. Obviously, these 14 governors are talking and planning amongst each other because their actions are so uniform and have happened in such a narrow time frame, that their actions are clearly an act of insubordination to Obama. In 14 states, the 10th Amendment still has life. These actions by the 14 governors are one short step away from armed rebellion. I am confident that any and all attempts on the part of the Hessian troops on American soil to move against dissident Americans and to enforce martial law will be militarily opposed in these 14 states. When will 14 governors militarily opposed to Obama become 30, become 40?

I cannot overstate how significant this development is. We are “One shot heard around the world” from all hell breaking lose.

Conclusion

It is clear that the peoples’ closest elected representatives have had enough of this criminal organization as have our military. All citizens in the 36 states who are not militarily rising up against Obama, need to demand the same actions from their respective governors. Obama cannot act against a nation that is unified against him. However, this does mean that the bankers will push for WWIII to bring about their desired result if an internal takeover of America cannot be accomplished.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Off The Grid, Prepare for the Collapse Example

Another "motivational, if they can do it, you can do it" article about a couple who moved off the grid and is making it happen. This article is from Yahoo Finance and was published about this couple living on very little income. You will have to link to the article to see the pictures of their house and way of life. It is evident that they did not approach this from a pepper's point of view, and that is considering security or defense.  While they are saving money and sitting pretty well for an economic collapse, you can tell that they are not prepared for what the worst of humanity, or government for that matter, will throw at them,.....and here's a thought, "don't let people know where you live!".

At a time when we carry computers in our pockets and our cars practically do the driving for us, a certain subset of people have willingly chosen to cut the cord on modern American life — for good. Off-the-grid living — that is, using natural resources like sun and wind power to provide amenities like heat and electricity — has become commonplace in places like Terlingua, an isolated community in Southwest Texas.

What was once a bustling mining town is now a veritable ghost town, tucked into the foothills of Big Bend National Park in the north Chihuahuan desert. To Abe Connally, 34, it was the perfect place to go off the map. In 2002, Connally moved to Terlingua, leaving behind a lucrative job as a web designer in Austin, Texas in order to try his hand at rural life. "I’ve always enjoyed rural life, and the thought of sustainability and home-scale energy production intrigued me," says Abe, who grew up in New Mexico and Texas. "On top of that, I wanted to see how integrating systems to reduce waste and improve efficiency would affect the architecture and other components of this lifestyle."

Within a year, he met and married his wife, Josie, a British expat who was raised in Africa, Portugal and England before she finally settled out West. They never questioned whether to build their own home or not. It was only a matter of finding the right land and the right resources. "When we started building our first home, we figured that if we could build a sustainable homestead from scratch in the desert, then we could do it anywhere," Josie says. "We realized that if we could reduce our needs and resources, our lifestyle would be cheaper to maintain, giving us money to save or invest."

More than a decade, two hand-built homes and a pair of energetic sons later, they've dedicated their lives to maintaining their sustainable home, using their blog VelaCreations to teach others how to follow in their footsteps. Here's what it’s like to live really off-the-grid: "When we built our first home, we had almost no money," Josie says. "We bought 20 acres of pristine desert land for $1,000 and moved an old bus onto it. The bus — retrofitted with a bed, small stove, solar panel and batteries, etc. — was our home until we could build a better quality one."

Neither Abe nor Josie were particularly experienced home builders — far from it. They relied on books, blogs and online tutorials to learn everything from bricklaying to building solar panels for energy. Abe: "[Renowned architect] Michael Reynolds introduced us to the concepts of architecture as a group of integrated systems. From passive solar designs to using waste as construction materials, his books showed us that it was possible to live like we wanted to."

They built their first sustainable home in 2002 near Terlingua, but they were 30 miles from the closest schools and hospitals — not exactly ideal for raising small children. In 2007, they moved closer to town and started constructing home No. 2.

Like their own personal Rome, their new home took years to complete and is a constant work in progress. Abe: "We added to each system as we could afford it, in other words, little by little. For the house itself, we used adobe, mixing the mud with our feet and putting it into forms (made from scrap materials) straight on the walls. It took a long time, but cost almost nothing."

For off-the-gridders, the sun is crucial. The Connallys rely on solar power for all of their heat and electricity (with help from a homemade wind generator). "The house is partially buried in a south-facing hill [and] the thermal mass of the hill helps to keep a constant temperature inside the house year-round, like a cave," Abe explains. "The house stays about 70 degrees for most of the year."



Abe: "Our water is collected from the roof. We live in a desert, so rainfall is limited, and the majority of our rain comes from July through September. We store this water in large tanks we make ourselves and then filter for domestic use."

"The first part of off-grid living is to conserve, and reduce your needs, so that it’s easier to produce your necessities for yourself," Abe says. By using a composting toilet, which requires no water, they cut down on waste and fertilize their land at the same time.

Their $9,600 annual budget is planned down to the dollar. They earn a small income through Abe's web consulting business and some freelance writing, but their farm is their real paycheck. When they decided to rebuild, they sought out more fertile land with enough rainfall to sustain a garden and livestock.

As a family, they bring new meaning to the term "farm to table": "We've had tomato plants that produce for several years, and they become these jungles of fresh food right in the dining room," Abe says. "In fact, our youngest son, Nico, will sit there and eat every red tomato he can reach, but if you put one on his plate, he refuses to touch it."

Josie: "We grow a wide variety of things, depending on our tastes at the time. We regularly grow tomatoes, strawberries, peppers, okra, cucumbers, squash, corn, sunflowers, melons, greens, roots and several herbs. We also have a few fruit trees (plums, apricots, peaches)." They've even got a tiny village of beehives for fresh honey.

Meat is also on the menu. The Connallys have gradually raised a menagerie of livestock, including pigs, rabbits, guinea pigs, and chickens. It's vastly cheaper than purchasing their meat from stores.

Everyone lends a hand in the family harvest. Josie: "The kids collect eggs and feed all the poultry. We feed the rabbits, pigs and all the other little critters. We then all go look at any baby rabbits and the kids often get out their guinea pigs to play with."

Nothing goes to waste. Josie: "We sell any surplus. We often have extra meat (especially rabbit), which we sell locally. We also sell eggs, as well as trading them for raw milk. Any vegetables and such we tend to preserve (drying, canning, kimchi) as we don’t yet grow enough to fill our yearly needs." Even rabbit fur gets turned into cozy hats and slippers.

Josie: "Right now, we’re spending about $800 a month: $100 on fuel, $500 on [feed for the animals], groceries and other household items, and $100 on Internet and phone. We also continue to improve our homestead, which costs a little extra, depending on the task at hand."

With two kids under the age of 5, the Connallys admit they've made some allowances in their off-grid lifestyle. They have games for game nights and keep a healthy stock of books and DVDs for entertainment. They keep a car handy for trips to town and to cart the kids to and from school each day. Their goal this year is to get their car running on natural fuel supplies. Josie: "We live about a 20-minute drive from a small village, where there’s a kindergarten, primary school, clinic and a couple of basic stores. That’s actually one of the main reasons we moved here before starting a family: still very rural, but with everything needed for small kids."

I admire the out of the box thinking of this family.  Growing your own food, from gardening to the livestock aspect is great - a model for all prepared Bug Out locations, however, I would certainly be concerned about OPSEC and hope they have a plan for security and the defensibility of their homestead. 


Sunday, January 12, 2014

Survival Bug Out Vehicle: CJ Wilson’s Zombie-Proof Mazda CX-5

If you are a Major League Baseball fan, you'll recognize CJ Wilson's name. This article was posted on Yahoo Autos and shows how CJ is capitalizing on the Zombie phenomenon through his car dealership. Great idea for a capable vehicle to get you someplace, like your bug out location, but don't forget about the guns, water, food and medical supplies!




The whole “end of world” thing from 2012 came and went, but one thing remained in 2013, and that was the craze over zombies. MLB pitcher CJ Wilson owns a Mazda dealership and he had a CX-5 outfitted to ward off the flocks of flesh eating monsters. To get a better idea of where the heck they came up with such an idea and what exactly makes a vehicle ready for the zombie apocalypse, we got a little more info from professional major league pitcher CJ Wilson and the dealership’s general manager, Eric Vates.

The CX-5 Zombie Apocalypse Edition was the brain-child of CJ Wilson, pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. (Fun fact, CJ is a lefty-lefty, meaning that he both throws and bats left-handed. It is particularly rare. The author of this post is also lefty-lefty, though any MLB aspirations are as likely as an actual zombie apocalypse.) In creating this custom CX-5, Wilson asked one simple question: “what if we really did need to run and not look back?”

According to Wilson, “In a class-MPG-leader like the CX-5 Z-Day Edition, you really have your best chance to get to point B safely. The platform lends itself to customization…

The MLB pitcher and his dealership know a thing or two about customizing the CX-5. We’ve covered his daily driver here, and he clearly knows how to put a great aftermarket touch on the crossover. Dealership GM, Eric Vates broke down the equipment a little more, “With its knobby off road tires and aggressive stance plus overhead luggage rack complete with extra gas cans, spare and sledge hammer and pick axe (just in case the undead get too close) and full brush guards and off road lighting (power grid will probably be down) this is the vehicle to cruise to safety.” He continued, “The package retails for only $7995 and can be added to any CX-5 with any trim level.”

If you are on the run from the undead and have a large family, the boys at CJ Wilson Mazda are working on a CX-9. Wilson also brought up the impressive capability of this custom CX-5, “Our previous experience at CJW Mazda has been about putting more Zoom-zoom into Mazdas– and this one just shows that we can go in the other direction and make vehicles tougher and more off-road capable as well.” Well, Zombie apocalypse, or not, this would be a terrific crossover to have in the stable and more proof that crossover doesn’t have to mean “soft-roader.”

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Why the U.S. is Going to Collapse

An article by Michael Synder titled "83 Numbers From 2013 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe" from The International Forecaster. Some of these facts are obviously more important than others. I decided to list all of Mr Synder's facts but highlight the ones that would make and win the argument in court that a collapse, probably an economic collapse followed by a societal collapse is coming beyond a reasonable doubt.

During 2013, America continued to steadily march down a self-destructive path toward oblivion. As a society, our debt levels are completely and totally out of control. Our financial system has been transformed into the largest casino on the entire planet and our big banks are behaving even more recklessly than they did just before the last financial crisis. We continue to see thousands of businesses and millions of jobs get shipped of the United States, and the middle class is being absolutely eviscerated. Due to the lack of decent jobs, poverty is absolutely exploding. Government dependence is at an all time high and crime is rising. Evidence of social and moral decay is seemingly everywhere, and our government appears to be going insane.

If we are going to have any hope of solving these problems, the American people need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and finally admit how bad things have actually become. If we all just blindly have faith that "everything is going to be okay", the consequences of decades of incredibly foolish decisions are going to absolutely blindside us and we will be absolutely devastated by the great crisis that is rapidly approaching.

The United States is in a massive amount of trouble, and it is time that we all started facing the truth. The following are 83 numbers from 2013 that are almost too crazy to believe...

#1 Most people that hear this statistic do not believe that it is actually true, but right now an all-time record 102 million working age Americans do not have a job. That number has risen by about 27 million since the year 2000.

#2 Because of the lack of jobs, poverty is spreading like wildfire in the United States. According to the most recent numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49.2 percent of all Americans are receiving benefits from at least one government program each month.

#3 As society breaks down, the government feels a greater need than ever before to watch, monitor and track the population. For example, every single day the NSA intercepts and permanently stores close to 2 billion emails and phone calls in addition to a whole host of other data.

#4 The Bank for International Settlements says that total public and private debt levels around the globe are now 30 percent higher than they were back during the financial crisis of 2008.

#5 According to a recent World Bank report, private domestic debt in China has grown from 9 trillion dollars in 2008 to 23 trillion dollars today.

#6 In 1985, there were more than 18,000 banks in the United States. Today, there are only 6,891 left.

#7 The six largest banks in the United States (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) have collectively gotten 37 percent larger over the past five years.

#8 The U.S. banking system has 14.4 trillion dollars in total assets. The six largest banks now account for 67 percent of those assets and all of the other banks account for only 33 percent of those assets.

#9 JPMorgan Chase is roughly the size of the entire British economy.

#10 The five largest banks now account for 42 percent of all loans in the United States.

#11 Right now, four of the "too big to fail" banks each have total exposure to derivatives that is well in excess of 40 trillion dollars.

#12 The total exposure that Goldman Sachs has to derivatives contracts is more than 381 times greater than their total assets.

#13 According to the Bank for International Settlements, the global financial system has a total of 441 trillion dollars worth of exposure to interest rate derivatives.

#14 Through the end of November, approximately 365,000 Americans had signed up for Obamacare but approximately 4 million Americans had already lost their current health insurance policies because of Obamacare.

#15 It is being projected that up to 100 million more Americans could have their health insurance policies canceled by the time Obamacare is fully rolled out.

#16 At this point, 82.4 million Americans live in a home where at least one person is enrolled in the Medicaid program.

#17 It is has been estimated that Obamacare will add 21 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#18 It is being projected that health insurance premiums for healthy 30-year-old men will rise by an average of 260 percent under Obamacare.

#19 One couple down in Texas received a letter from their health insurance company that informed them that they were being hit with a 539 percent rate increase because of Obamacare.

#20 Back in 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-basedhealth insurance. Today, only 54.9 percent of all Americans are covered by employment based health insurance.

#21 The U.S. government has spent an astounding 3.7 trillion dollars on welfare programs over the past five years.

#22 Incredibly, 74 percent of all the wealth in the United States is owned by the wealthiest 10 percent of all Americans.

#23 According to Consumer Reports, the number of children in the United States taking antipsychotic drugs has nearly tripled over the past 15 years.

#24 The marriage rate in the United States has fallen to an all-time low. Right now it is sitting at a yearly rate of just 6.8 marriages per 1000 people.

#25 According to a shocking new study, the average American that turned 65 this year will receive $327,500 more in federal benefits than they paid in taxes over the course of their lifetimes.

#26 In just one week in December, a combined total of more than 2000 new cold temperature and snowfall records were set in the United States.

#27 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, median household income in the United States has fallen for five years in a row.

#28 The rate of homeownership in the United States has fallen for eight years in a row.

#29 Only 47 percent of all adults in America have a full-time job at this point.

#30 The unemployment rate in the eurozone recently hit a new all-time high of 12.2 percent.

#31 If you assume that the labor force participation rate in the U.S. is at the long-term average, the unemployment rate in the United States would actually be 11.5 percent instead of 7 percent.

#32 In November 2000, 64.3 percent of all working age Americans had a job. When Barack Obama first entered the White House, 60.6 percent of all working age Americans had a job. Today, only 58.6 percent of all working age Americans have a job.

#33 There are 1,148,000 fewer Americans working today than there was in November 2006. Meanwhile, our population has grown by more than 16 million people during that time frame.

#34 Only 19 percent of all Americans believe that the job market is better than it was a year ago.

#35 Just 14 percent of all Americans believe that the stock market will rise next year.

#36 According to CNBC, Pinterest is currently valued at more than 3 billion dollars even though it has never earned a profit.

#37 Twitter is a seven-year-old company that has never made a profit. It actually lost 64.6 million dollars last quarter. But according to the financial markets it is currently worth about 22 billion dollars.

#38 Right now, Facebook is trading at a valuation that is equivalent to approximately 100 years of earnings, and it is currently supposedly worth about 115 billion dollars.

#39 Total consumer credit has risen by a whopping 22 percent over the past three years.

#40 Student loans are up by an astounding 61 percent over the past three years.

#41 At this moment, there are 6 million Americans in the 16 to 24-year-old age group that are neither in school or working.

#42 The "inactivity rate" for men in their prime working years (25 to 54) has just hit a brand new all-time record high.

#43 It is hard to believe, but in America today one out of every ten jobs is now filled by a temp agency.

#44 Middle-wage jobs accounted for 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession, but they have accounted for only 22 percent of the jobs created since then.

#45 According to the Social Security Administration, 40 percent of all U.S. workers make less than $20,000 a year.

#46 Approximately one out of every four part-time workers in America is living below the poverty line.

#47 After accounting for inflation, 40 percent of all U.S. workers are making less than what a full-time minimum wage worker made back in 1968.

#48 When Barack Obama took office, the average duration of unemployment in this country was 19.8 weeks. Today, it is 37.2 weeks.

#49 Investors pulled an astounding 72 billion dollars out of bond mutual funds in 2013. It was the worst year for bond funds ever.

#50 Small business is rapidly dying in America. At this point, only about 7 percent of all non-farm workers in the United States are self-employed. That is an all-time record low.

#51 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have as much wealth as the bottom one-third of all Americans combined.

#52 Once January 1st hits, it will officially be illegal to manufacture or import traditional incandescent light bulbs in the United States. It is being projected that millions of Americans will attempt to stock up on the old light bulbs before they are totally gone from store shelves.

#53 The Japanese government has estimated that approximately 300 tons of highly radioactive water is being released into the Pacific Ocean from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear facility every single day.

#54 Back in 1967, the U.S. military had more than 31,000 strategic nuclear warheads. That number is already being cut down to 1,550, and now Barack Obama wants to reduce it to only about 1,000.

#55 As you read this, 60 percent of all children in Detroit are living in poverty and there are approximately 78,000 abandoned homes in the city.

#56 Wal-Mart recently opened up two new stores in Washington D.C., and more than 23,000 people applied for just 600 positions. That means that only about 2.6 percent of the applicants were ultimately hired. In comparison, Harvard offers admission to 6.1 percent of their applicants.

#57 At this point, almost half of all public school students in America come from low income homes.

#58 Tragically, there are 1.2 million students that attend public schools in the United States that are homeless. That number has risen by 72 percent since the start of the last recession.

#59 According to a Gallup poll that was recently released, 20.0 percent of all Americans did not have enough money to buy food that they or their families needed at some point over the past year. That is just under the all-time record of 20.4 percent that was set back in November 2008.

#60 The number of Americans on food stamps has grown from 17 million in the year 2000 to more than 47 million today.

#61 Right now, one out of every five households in the United States is on food stamps.

#62 The U.S. economy loses approximately 9,000 jobs for every 1 billion dollars of goods that are imported from overseas.

#63 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs. #64 According to one survey, approximately 75 percent of all American women do not have any interest in dating unemployed men.

#65 China exports 4 billion pounds of food to the United States every year.

#66 Overall, the United States has run a trade deficit of more than 8 trillion dollars with the rest of the world since 1975.

#67 The number of Americans on Social Security Disability now exceeds the entire population of Greece, and the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the entire population of Spain.

#68 It is being projected that the number of Americans on Social Security will rise from 57 million today to more than 100 million in 25 years.

#69 Back in 1970, the total amount of debt in the United States (government debt + business debt + consumer debt, etc.) was less than 2 trillion dollars. Today it is over 56 trillion dollars.

#70 Back on September 30th, 2012 our national debt was sitting at a total of 16.1 trillion dollars. Today, it is up to 17.2 trillion dollars.

#71 The U.S. government "rolled over" more than 7.5 trillion dollars of existing debt in fiscal 2013.

#72 If the U.S. national debt was reduced to a stack of one dollar bills it would circle the earth at the equator 45 times.

#73 When Barack Obama was first elected, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio was under 70 percent. Today, it is up to 101 percent.

#74 The U.S. national debt is on pace to more than double during the eight years of the Obama administration. In other words, under Barack Obama the U.S. government will accumulate more debt than it did under all of the other presidents in U.S. history combined.

#75 The federal government is borrowing (stealing) roughly 100 million dollars from our children and our grandchildren every single hour of every single day.

#76 At this point, the U.S. already has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain.

#77 Japan now has a debt to GDP ratio of more than 211 percent.

#78 As of December 5th, 83 volcanic eruptions had been recorded around the planet so far this year. That is a new all-time record high.

#79 53 percent of all Americans do not have a 3 day supply of nonperishable food and water in their homes.

#80 Violent crime in the United States was up 15 percent last year.

#81 According to a very surprising survey that was recently conducted, 68 percent of all Americans believe that the country is currently on the wrong track.

#82 Back in 1972, 46 percent of all Americans believed that "most people can be trusted". Today, only 32 percent of all Americans believe that "most people can be trusted".

#83 According to a recent Pew Research survey, only 19 percent of all Americans trust the government. Back in 1958, 73 percent of all Americans trusted the government.

Pretty bleak picture these factoids paint, don't they.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Enemies of the Government

This article was published on the Truth Wins.com with the original title: 72 Types Of Americans That Are Considered “Potential Terrorists” In Official Government Documents. While many of us have seen or read about government "intelligence reports" that say that various groups, such as veterans returning from combat, are potential threats, I believe there is NO government report that lists all of these 72 groups in one document as government threats. However, I think most of us feel that if you can be described in any one of the groups, you are potentially going to recognized as a potential threat. And some of the groups scare me as well!


Are you a conservative, a libertarian, a Christian or a gun owner? Are you opposed to abortion, globalism, Communism, illegal immigration, the United Nations or the New World Order? Do you believe in conspiracy theories, do you believe that we are living in the “end times” or do you ever visit alternative news websites (such as this one)? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you are a “potential terrorist” according to official U.S. government documents. At one time, the term “terrorist” was used very narrowly. The government applied that label to people like Osama bin Laden and other Islamic jihadists.

But now the Obama administration is removing all references to Islam from terror training materials, and instead the term “terrorist” is being applied to large groups of American citizens. And if you are a “terrorist”, that means that you have no rights and the government can treat you just like it treats the terrorists that are being held at Guantanamo Bay. So if you belong to a group of people that is now being referred to as “potential terrorists”, please don’t take it as a joke. The first step to persecuting any group of people is to demonize them. And right now large groups of peaceful, law-abiding citizens are being ruthlessly demonized.

Below is a list of 72 types of Americans that are considered to be “extremists” and “potential terrorists” in official U.S. government documents. To see the original source document for each point, just click on the link (in the original article). As you can see, this list covers most of the country…

1. Those that talk about “individual liberties”
2. Those that advocate for states’ rights
3. Those that want “to make the world a better place”
4. “The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule”
5. Those that are interested in “defeating the Communists”
6. Those that believe “that the interests of one’s own nation are separate from the interests of other nations or the common interest of all nations”
7. Anyone that holds a “political ideology that considers the state to be unnecessary, harmful, or undesirable”
8. Anyone that possesses an “intolerance toward other religions”
9. Those that “take action to fight against the exploitation of the environment and/or animals”
10. “Anti-Gay”
11. “Anti-Immigrant”
12. “Anti-Muslim”
13. “The Patriot Movement”
14. “Opposition to equal rights for gays and lesbians”
15. Members of the Family Research Council
16. Members of the American Family Association
17. Those that believe that Mexico, Canada and the United States “are secretly planning to merge into a European Union-like entity that will be known as the ‘North American Union’”
18. Members of the American Border Patrol/American Patrol
19. Members of the Federation for American Immigration Reform
20. Members of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition
21. Members of the Christian Action Network
22. Anyone that is “opposed to the New World Order”
23. Anyone that is engaged in “conspiracy theorizing”
24. Anyone that is opposed to Agenda 21
25. Anyone that is concerned about FEMA camps
26. Anyone that “fears impending gun control or weapons confiscations”
27. The militia movement
28. The sovereign citizen movement
29. Those that “don’t think they should have to pay taxes”
30. Anyone that “complains about bias”
31. Anyone that “believes in government conspiracies to the point of paranoia”
32. Anyone that “is frustrated with mainstream ideologies”
33. Anyone that “visits extremist websites/blogs”
34. Anyone that “establishes website/blog to display extremist views”
35. Anyone that “attends rallies for extremist causes”
36. Anyone that “exhibits extreme religious intolerance”
37. Anyone that “is personally connected with a grievance”
38. Anyone that “suddenly acquires weapons”
39. Anyone that “organizes protests inspired by extremist ideology”
40. “Militia or unorganized militia”
41. “General right-wing extremist”
42. Citizens that have “bumper stickers” that are patriotic or anti-U.N.
43. Those that refer to an “Army of God”
44. Those that are “fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)”
45. Those that are “anti-global”
46. Those that are “suspicious of centralized federal authority”
47. Those that are “reverent of individual liberty”
48. Those that “believe in conspiracy theories”
49. Those that have “a belief that one’s personal and/or national ‘way of life’ is under attack”
50. Those that possess “a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism”
51. Those that would “impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)”
52. Those that would “insert religion into the political sphere”
53. Anyone that would “seek to politicize religion”
54. Those that have “supported political movements for autonomy”
55. Anyone that is “anti-abortion”
56. Anyone that is “anti-Catholic”
57. Anyone that is “anti-nuclear”
58. “Rightwing extremists”
59. “Returning veterans”
60. Those concerned about “illegal immigration”
61. Those that “believe in the right to bear arms”
62. Anyone that is engaged in “ammunition stockpiling”
63. Anyone that exhibits “fear of Communist regimes”
64. “Anti-abortion activists”
65. Those that are against illegal immigration
66. Those that talk about “the New World Order” in a “derogatory” manner
67. Those that have a negative view of the United Nations
68. Those that are opposed “to the collection of federal income taxes”
69. Those that supported former presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr
70. Those that display the Gadsden Flag (“Don’t Tread On Me”)
71. Those that believe in “end times” prophecies
72. Evangelical Christians

The groups of people in the list above are considered “problems” that need to be dealt with. In some of the documents referenced above, members of the military are specifically warned not to have anything to do with such groups.

We are moving into a very dangerous time in American history. You can now be considered a “potential terrorist” just because of your religious or political beliefs. Free speech is becoming a thing of the past, and we are rapidly becoming an Orwellian society that is the exact opposite of what our founding fathers intended.

Please pray for the United States of America. We definitely need it.

About the author: Michael T. Snyder is a former Washington D.C. attorney who now publishes The Truth. His new thriller entitled “The Beginning Of The End” is now available on Amazon.com.

Friday, December 27, 2013

Wall Street Advisor Advocates Survival Prepping

A top financial advisor, worried that Obamacare, the NSA spying scandal and spiraling national debt is increasing the chances for a fiscal and social disaster, is recommending that Americans prepare a “bug-out bag” that includes food, a gun and ammo to help them stay alive.

David John Marotta, a Wall Street expert and financial advisor and Forbes contributor, in a article to investors titled "Be prepared: Wall Street advisor recommends guns, ammo for protection in collapse" said that Firearms are the last item on the list, but they are on the list. There are some terrible people in this world. And you are safer when your trusted neighbors have firearms.”

His memo is part of a series addressing the potential for a “financial apocalypse.” His view, however, is that the problems plaguing the country won't result in armageddon. “There is the possibility of a precipitous decline, although a long and drawn out malaise is much more likely,” said the Charlottesville, Va.-based president of Marotta Wealth Management.

UrbanMan's comment: I think it is more likely for the economic collapse to come on gradually. In fact, I think it has already started.

Marotta said that many clients fear an end-of-the-world scenario. He doesn’t agree with that outcome, but does with much of what has people worried.

“I, along with many other economists, agree with many of the concerns expressed in these dire warnings. The growing debt and deficit spending is a tax on those holding dollars. The devaluation in the U.S. dollar risks the dollar's status as the reserve currency of the world. Obamacare was the worst legislation in the past 75 years. Socialism is on the rise and the NSA really is abrogating vast portions of the Constitution. I don't disagree with their concerns,” he wrote.

In his latest note, he said that Americans should have a survival kit to take in case of a financial or natural disaster. It should be filled with items that will help them stay alive for the first 72-hours of a crisis, including firearms.

“A bug-out bag is a good idea depending on where you live even if the emergency is just power outages, earthquakes and hurricanes. And with your preparedness you will be equipped to help others who might be in need,” he wrote. “Be prepared. Especially because it keeps you from being scared.”

Marotta provides a list of items on his website, with a desription of, and recommended Bug Out Bag items straight from Wikipedia.

The suggested contents of a bug-out bag vary, but most of the following are usually included:

•  Enough food and water to last for 72 hours. This includes: Water for washing, drinking and cooking. Canada recommends 2 litres per person per day for drinking plus an additional 2 litres per person per day for cleaning and hygiene.  In addition to 6litres/6kg of water for personal hygiene for 3 days the Canadian government also recommends carrying a portable shower, nail clippers, hairbrush, cosmetics, shaving gear or beard trimmer (if electric then carry a portable generator and petrol), shampoo, deodorant, acne cream, incontinence pads, a dinner suit/gown (you never know what will happen on your adventure, it could be quite exciting, maybe a new romance).

Forget trying to walk, you'll need a car because your survival backpack will be too heavy to carry. Have a nice disaster. New Zealand recommends 3 litres per person per day for drinking. US recommends 1 gallon (3.78 litres) per person per day.

•  Non-perishable food
•  Water purification supplies
•  Cooking supplies
•  A first aid kit
•  Fire starting tool (e.g., matches, ferrocerium rod, lighter, 9volt battery, etc.)
•  A disaster plan including location of emergency centers, rallying points, possible evacuation routes, etc.
•  Professional emergency literature explaining what to do in various types of disaster, studied and understood before the actual disaster but kept for reference
•  Maps and travel information •Standard camping equipment, including sanitation supplies
•  Weather appropriate clothing (e.g., poncho, headwear, gloves, etc.)
•  Bedding items such as sleeping bags and blankets
•  Enough medicine to last an extended evacuation period
•  Medical records
•  Pet, child, and elderly care needs
•  Battery or crank-operated radio
•  Lighting (battery or crank operated flashlight, glow sticks)
•  Cash and change, as electronic banking transactions may not be available during the initial period following an emergency or evacuation
•  Positive identification, such as drivers license, state I.D. card, or social security card
•  Birth certificate or passport
•  Fixed-blade and folding knife
•  Duct tape and rope or paracord
•  Plastic tarps for shelter and water collection
•  Wire for binding and animal traps
•  Compass Some users include the following.

These items are appropriate and legal in some areas:

•  Slingshot, pellet gun, blowgun or other small game hunting equipment
•  Firearms and appropriate ammunition

UrbanMan's comment: Then just when you think this guy is providing some decent type of service to people who are pretty clueles about Survival and Preping, Marotta say's this:

Just to be clear. Firearms are the last item on the list, but they are on the list. There are some terrible people in this world. And you are safer when your trusted neighbors have firearms . But in most disasters, including I suspect TEOTWAWKI, most people you meet will be civil.

UrbanMan's comment: Yep!! I'm banking on people being civil, listening to reason, not trying to take what I have,....and I rely on my neighbors to protect me and my family. NOT!!

Sunday, December 22, 2013

More Expanded TSA Powers?

Ken sent me this article and asked me "Is this Obama's National Police like he promised in 2008? I read your article on the TSA and it is very likely we are seeing only the tip of the coming iceberg. You WILL see armed TSA at airports and related facilities, AMTRAK train stations, bus depots and in many harbors. Not enough TSA agents to go around? I think you'll see the Obama Administration and their Senate allies putting amendments in the next immigration bill to hire more TSA agents. I predict another 20,000. While you and most of your followers are prepping to survive some type of economically oriented collapse or disaster, I am preparing to survive the total collapse of this country that will come after a martial law type scenario where the government first uses TSA and other feds then maybe the military to enforce a dictatorship. "

UrbanMan Replies: Ken, I am not discounting expansion of federal law enforcement or the "security guard" type agencies like TSA for some type of plan to be used for nefarious purposes. It's just that an economical collapse which will spark a societal collapse then probably a martial law scenario is much more likely. But even with all the active duty military, and federal law enforcement (FBI, DHS, DEA, etc.) there will no be enough troops to secure anything but a few large metro areas and essential facilities. But I'm with you that arming and expanding TSA powers are a bad idea.

The Article: TSA now overseeing warrantless vehicle searches of cars parked at airports - from Police State.com

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has now expanded its intrusive searching protocol to include the interior of parked cars left at the airport. Reports of vehicle searches have been reported at multiple airports since this summer.

Since roughly June, airports have been performing vehicle searches of cars parked in front of terminals. According to their signs, this is being done in accordance with TSA mandates and local authorities.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, a traveler photographed the sign pictured above at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport in Birmingham, Alabama. It reads:

“ALL CARS WILL BE SEARCHED BY UNIFORMED SECURITY AS MANDATED BY BAA AND TSA”

The sign is being displayed by AmeriPark, a valet company. It cites the Birmingham Airport Authority and TSA as the government agencies responsible for the warrantless vehicle searches.

This report is similar to what was reported in Rochester, NY, this July. A woman discovered a note left in her car that her vehicle had been searched without her permission or notice. Laurie Iacuzza said she was “furious” that airport personnel had used her keys to gain access to the vehicle which she had entrusted to a valet parking attendant.

The notice, found on her dashboard read: “Thank you for your patronage. Your vehicle has been inspected under TSA regulations.”

When asked which parking lots were being searched, John McCaffery, TSA, said that the searches include vehicles that were parked close enough to present a “vulnerability” to the airport, which did not necessarily include distant garage parking.

WHEC 10 News’s Berkeley Brean reported that “The TSA says that this is part of its overall security plan, in that its a proactive move to keep you and your family safe at the airport. “

“The attendants told me that its kind of a three-phase thing, they’re ordered to search the trunk, the engine, and scan the inside of the car,” Brean continued. “They say it takes about 30 seconds to do it. They say that they don’t go through your console or your glove boxes. The TSA says that they’re instructing these valet attendants to look for large amounts of explosive material.”

The TSA responded to outrage in July over the program, claiming that the searches were not technically mandated — despite staff at multiple airports apparently believing the opposite. “While the airport security plan is approved by the TSA, it is up to each airport authority and its state and local law enforcement partners to follow the plan that has been implemented,” wrote Bob Burns of the TSA Blog.

The warrantless searches of vehicles at the behest of the TSA and local airport officials should not be tolerated. While outrageous, given the wholesale infringement of travelers’ rights, it cannot be surprising to anyone paying attention. As the 4th amendment fades into distant memory, we are left to wonder where the mission-creep of the homeland security complex will lead us next.