The Coming Recession/Depression and What You Can Do To Protect Yourself

It’s an amazing time when the optimists among us are expecting only a severe recession. But that’s the case right now. Most observers know what is coming. It’s a Depression (capital “D” intended) that’s coming, called by some another Great Depression, and by others the Greater Depression. I think that’s accurate.

Why? We have built our house on the shifting sands of credit, not financially stable savings. We made the mistake of assuming paper profits that were so inflated they weren’t even taxed (how insubstantial must a type of profit be for even the U.S. Government not to recognize it?). Sure, Capital Gains on Real Estate used to be taxed when the property was sold, but no longer. That, as much as anything should have tipped us off that they weren’t real.

Over the next two years, Americans will learn some hard lessons. Among them:

• Real Estate prices cannot and do not go up forever.
• Houses and ATMs are two very different things.
• Our leaders don’t know nearly as much about the economy as they pretend to.
• Spending more than you make doesn’t work for individuals, businesses or governments.

So, Americans are left watching the spectacle devoted to what the government is going to do to fix this. Soon, maybe in the next 3 weeks, maybe in the next 3 months, we as a society will come to the conclusion that the government hasn’t the first clue about how to fix the problem. At that point, Americans’ attention will shift to what they can do individually to protect themselves. My suggestion is that you make that shift now.

Toward that end, I’m putting together a report titled “A New Great Depression: What you can do to prepare your family and yourself for economic disaster.” It’s going to be a free report, downloadable from this site when it’s finished, hopefully by the end of the week.

In it, I’ll lay out where we are right now as an economy, and some of the things I believe we’ll be facing as Americans over the next 10 years. The report will have a set of steps to prepare for the aftermath of the collapse we’re seeing unfold right now.

As soon as I have it finished, I’ll post the link to download the report.

The Economic Event

In a word, that event is here. So, there’s no longer any need for the warning banner.

Whether or not what we’re seeing in the Dow and credit markets meltdown is what the web bots predicted for October 7th, the past week has seen a dramatic economic “event” unfold. As of this writing, it is still unfolding as TRILLIONS of dollars are being lost and entire financial worlds wiped out. I believe that in the years that come, we will look back on the week of October 6th, 2008 as when world slowly, groggily started waking up to the reality of the Greater Depression.

Jim Sinclair on today:

Gold is about to VAULT UP.

I am reliably informed that the paper versus bullion gold war is lost by paper gold at a $930 close.

Gold will vault to slightly under $1000 then get pushed back, but not much at all. Directly after that we are off to $1200.

A Bank Holiday is moving from possible to PROBABLE.

• Have you fully protected yourself?
• Have you distanced yourself as much as possible away from financial agents holding your assets?
• Have you gotten paper certificates for your shares or became a direct registration book entry at the transfer agent?
• Have you protected your retirement accounts the same way as your shares above but in the name of the retirement account and the trust holding them?
• Have you closed your Money Market fund accounts regardless of what assurances your bankers offer?
• Have you withdrawn from your Credit Union?
• Have you exited your corporate retirement fund?
• Do you have significant gold and related shares investments?

It is getting UGLY out there as each day an attempt to postpone a bank holiday fails. Almost every other day lately financial leaders of the world have announced new plans that were “the final answer” to the super-glued credit market. All these plans have had no effect. The Dow fell like a rock off a cliff.

This says all efforts have failed.

Once again, Sinclair is short and direct. His counsel is sound.

Next post. Nuts and bolts about what you can do.

The Recession Is Already Here

—WCN Warning: Economic/Terrorist event possible—

A post from Financial Armageddon saying what I’ve been thinking recently, when I hear the mainstream media say things like “a recession in the U.S. is possible.”

Possible?

Holy cow, if it’s not clearly upon us, I’m not sure I want to see what they’re talking about. We’re in danger of a major depression setting in over the next couple weeks, and hearing about the chances of recession here is just…Well, unbelievably naive.

By the way, if you haven’t yet read Financial Armageddon, the book, by Michael Panzer, you need to do that…Right away.

Will the Bailout Bill Fail?

—WCN Warning: Economic/Terrorist event possible—

Here’s my bet.

Yes.

I think the outpouring of angry comment from the constituents of the 435 House members, all of whom are up for reelection in November, will convince a big enough number of them that if they want to keep their jobs (for whatever that will be worth in the post-crash United States), they will vote against the bailout.

The American people are angry. They have a right to be. They’ve been manipulated, lied to, drugged with cheap credit, cheap mass media “entertainment” rich with endless hours of inane reality TV, ridiculously expensive popular culture retail fluff and the American Panto of loundmouthed talking head news/debate shows. They’re waking up from the American Dream, which is starting to look like a night’s restless sleep brought on by a huge malt liquor bender, their head hurts and they’re pissed.

Con Artists like Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd and the like are still trying to shove this pork-infested rescue of their rich patrons, getting progressively more strident in their swearing the bailout is necessary to keep the U.S. from plunging into a depression.

I, for one, am already depressed! I’m depressed that those who profess to lead our nation don’t feel they’ve stolen enough, that they have to take what’s left before fleeing town themselves. Then again, I think it’s possible that the thieves who have put us (with our distracted and at times unconscious help) in this precarious position may well have thought their gravy train would continue indefinitely. Is it possible their panic is more caused by their sudden realization that the income derived from their stealing may be at an end, too? Could it be they’ve overreached, and are about to kill their own golden goose?

That would sure panic me!

In any event, as painful as it will be, our economy and political system needs an overhaul, a cleaning that will sweep away those we’ve foolishly allowed to lead us. Americans need to really read the Constitution and once again embrace this document. it’s still relevent and will save us.

If we let it.

***Update***

Clearly, I was wrong about the bill failing. I keep this post up because I don’t want to hide the fact that I was wrong in my optimism that the Executive and Legislative branches of our Government would listen to the will of their constituents. They did not. There reportedly hasn’t been a greater outpouring of opposition to legislation they were pushing in the history of our Republic.

They failed us. And should pay for this dereliction of duty with massive electoral change in the November elections. No member of the House, Republican, Democrat or Independent (all of whom are up for reelection, of course) who voted for this atrocious bill should be summarily release from service by being voted out of office. The same for any Senator up for re-election, though I would guess you will find a lower percentage of those, since only a third of the Senate is begging for their continued employment in November. Though I haven’t looked at the numbers, the water for this abomination was probably born by those who had another 2 or 4 years left in their term.

Cowards, crooks, thieves and liars. I am ashamed. It is time for change.

The Iranian EMP Threat – Redux

Once again, as elements in our nation lobby for war, a story from NewsMax discusses the intelligence that suggests Iran is preparing an EMP attack on the U.S. Is this a credible threat?

Possibly.

More likely though, is that this story helps beat the war drum to hit Iran with this same type of attack. Much like an enormous amount of intelligence surfaced immediately after 9/11 about who attacked us and why, if there were a semi-successful attack on territory and resources not closely tied to the survival of the United States, I have a feeling we’d be served up hard evidence that Iran was behind it, and that they are, in fact, ahead of where we thought they were in their quest for nuclear weapons. That would justify the end of Iran’s participation in the 21st century (and 20th century as well). I don’t believe we would “turn their major cities to glass” as many call for, I just think we would detonate 4 or 5 EMP weapons ourselves, turning a very modern nation with a very backward religious-based authoritarian government into a 19th century society.

If that happens, there will be those in the government who will actually suggest we did them a favor by ending their conflict between the old world and the new. There will be those who say “be careful what you wish for.” Want the kind of male-dominated medieval society the Shiites seem to advocate? Here you go.

Personally, I don’t believe that Iran could pull this off. I think their President likes to talk a big game, but I don’t think the country collectively has the desire to end the modern era. But what’s most important, is what the people who run the United States believe and want, and what the Iranian government gives our leaders the excuse to do.