Well, I am preparing for the worst. I think there's a 90% chance we go down the rathole in the next 5 years. Probably three (or less). Neither side has any interest to cut the debt, nor the FED raise rates or refuse to monetize, the Country is filled with pussies, dependents and dumbasses, and the historical angle from nations in our circumstances, is bleak. Can America pull a MJ with 2 seconds left on the clock, half court, 2 points down to win? No, it cannot. Good luck. And bookmarked. And those who caution about a timetable or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I am. Who cares? If these dire predictions are RIGHT, you guys who are unprepared will get absolutely hung out to dry. A currency collapse could happen within the span of a couple days. It'll be way too late to get prepared, buy gold, guns, a remote cottage after shit happens. This takes months to get prepared, and you'll have a day or two (maybe).
One other thing that troubles me about our debt to GDP levels is that guys like Krugman point to the 30's and say we are fine, cause we pulled out of it back then. Well the big difference after World War 2 was that the war had just finished destroying the manufacturing sector of every single country in the world, so the u.s. had free reign for a few decades, and thus we were able to pull out of it. The Economists today like Krugman, who point to that as evidence that our debt doesnt matter have their heads up their ass. We are facing larger debt to GDP levels if this continues, and instead we are also facing an economy where manufacturing is going off shore, which is the complete opposite of what happened after the war. You should check out the book "Paper Money Collapse" by Detlev Schlichter, or else check out some of detlev Schlichters economics videos on youtube, im pretty sure you will like him.
Everybody here knows your wheelhouse is having your head up your ass trying as hard as you can to make achilles scenarios fact.
I guess to what extreme you are taking this is the key. 10% or 90% of assets. More than 10% into gold, guns and stockpiles of food etc etc kinda sounds silly to me.
IMO, there is a pretty easy way to safegaurd yourself, and atleast make sure you have starting capital in the event of a total reset, and that is to simply own Real Estate, in a couple different countries. That is what i have done. The bottom line is that people are always going to need a place to live, so regardless of what happens with the economy, and whether or not there is a total meltdown, as long as you own real estate in a couple countries, it will always hold some kind of value, and you can sell it off, and get whatever "New" currency is needed to start again. IMO the best insurance policy against a collapse, isnt Gold, its property, as everyone needs shelter, regardless of what happens. Your house may not be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but a house is always going to be worth a certain amount based on someones labour, so it will always hold enough of a value to get you started again in a new currency.
Thanks for that. I'll check out Detlev. I hoped somebody brought up the post WW2 Cinderella story. Keynesian socialists always point to three economic miracles to justify their profligate spending: 1) Post WW2 America = 'massive debt-to-GDP is no big deal' 2) Japan = 'massive debt-to-GDP is no big deal' 3) The Nordic Tigers = massive taxation "works" The problem with outliers is....they're outliers. For every Japan or Germany, there's 50 examples where excessive indebtedness or taxation *ruined* a Country, or their currency. We're playing with fire here, and you're exactly right. When Krugman or any of these shits opine that we're the next Japan, or 'we did it after WW2, so we can do it again', there's no context, either for the cases they cite, or the overwhelming majority of cases where it didn't work. And they know it. They're suckering us down this path to economic ruin with false equivalencies and bullshit. So did Bernacke, Summers, Geithner and Krugman not read Rogoff and Reinhart? They're not aware countries can't borrow without restraint? This is more crap. They know it. That's what troubles me. Bernacke came out a couple weeks ago and said the path we're on, leads to financial ruin. I think he's trying to establish plausible deniability for when the SHTF. "I told you so". I'll quote the article. And it's ironic, considering Bernacke, the man our resident socialists look to for clarity, now echos the same dire warnings the deficit hawks preached all along. This is no joke. Bernanke to Congress: We're Much Closer to Total Destruction Than You Think Published: Wednesday, 9 Feb 2011 | 11:09 AM ET By: John Carney http://www.cnbc.com/id/41491193/ Official Congressional budget estimates understate the peril of rising debt, Fed chair Ben Bernanke told the Budget Committee on Capitol Hill today. Warning that our nation's fiscal health has deteriorated appreciably since the onset of the financial crisis and the recession, Bernanke called upon lawmakers to confront the long term fiscal challenges sooner rather than later. If lawmakers don't confront them, they'll find themselves confronted by them. From Bernanke's prepared remarks: "By definition, the unsustainable trajectories of deficits and debt that the CBO outlines cannot actually happen, because creditors would never be willing to lend to a government with debt, relative to national income, that is rising without limit. One way or the other, fiscal adjustments sufficient to stabilize the federal budget must occur at some point. The question is whether these adjustments will take place through a careful and deliberative process that weighs priorities and gives people adequate time to adjust to changes in government programs or tax policies, or whether the needed fiscal adjustments will come as a rapid and painful response to a looming or actual fiscal crisis. " Bernanke explained that the Congressional Budget Office's calculations miss an important reality. As the government's debt and deficits rise, the economy will slow downâan effect not taken into account by the CBO (Rogoff and Reinhart). So, for instance, when the CBO says that federal spending for health-care programs will roughly double as a percentage of GDP in the next 25 years, it is probably being too optimistic. If debt keeps, rising, GDP will be much lower than the CBO estimatesâwhich will mean that health care spending will be a much larger percentage of the overall economy. Here's Bernanke on the effect of rising debt: Sustained high rates of government borrowing would both drain funds away from private investment and increase our debt to foreigners, with adverse long-run effects on U.S. output, incomes, and standards of living. Moreover, diminishing investor confidence that deficits will be brought under control would ultimately lead to sharply rising interest rates on government debt and, potentially, to broader financial turmoil. In a vicious circle, high and rising interest rates would cause debt-service payments on the federal debt to grow even faster, resulting in further increases in the debt-to-GDP ratio and making fiscal adjustment all the more difficult. In short, the official estimates members of Congress hear from their budget office are under-estimating our dire economic predicament. If fiscal policy is not brought under control, things will be much, much worse.
Maybe it does...to you. Here, read this: http://www.cnbc.com/id/41491193/ Short-term dated maturities are no biggie. The problem is moving your cash out of your broker (who may or may not be solvent), into a bank (who may or may not be solvent), withdrawing from that bank (who may or may not let you), into physical metals (that likely won't be available), after the SHTF. Not possible. Max is right. Real estate, in multiple countries, is a safe bet. The Yuan should be freely convertible in a year or two. Again, this is not a coincidence, imo. Money needs exits, and the dollar won't implode before the big guys can offload into Renminbi. I have no problem putting >10% of my net worth in bullion. So long as you're not trading a 9 figure account, and you don't bury all your eggs in one basket, it's not a big deal. When the dollar goes south, they'll be all types of capital/withdraw/safe deposit controls. Banks will go bust. Anything can happen. I don't like this anymore than the next guy, but the entire insurance/FDIC system is setup to protect blackswan events. The rare insolvency. When the system goes under, all bets are off. You might be caught holding dollars in your brokerage account, and a week later, prices double? What then? Take the 50 percent haircut and move on? A debasement is intended to rob savers to pay down the debt, in devalued money. Ordinary people who can afford it the least, get stung the most. Look at Argentina.
Well, it's certainly good to be prepared. And even though I want you to be wrong (for entirely selfless and obvious reasons), I will offer some well-worn words of caution with which I am quite certain you are already familiar: trade what you see, not what you think. Good luck...sort of.