The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out other people’s money. – Margaret Thatcher
What made this conference remarkable was not the presentations, though they were generally quite interesting. The stunning part of the conference was learning – as part of casual conversation during breaks, meals, and other socializing time – how many rich people are planning for the eventual collapse of European society.
Not stagnation. Not gradual decline. Collapse.
Read the whole thing. Via Instapundit
So a Greek cruise might be a bad idea?
Daniel said the feet and toes of iron and clay would collapse.
syncro, be prepared to sit at each port until the passengers buy enough fuel to reach the next stop.
WalterF
…Aahrrr…
Collapse is coming. The strongest economy of all, Germany, had problem selling bonds and they are supposed to rescue everyone else. Ain’t goona happen. What idiot would have bought the latest series of Italian bonds at any interest rate?
Wealthy people all over the world are preparing for the collapse of the economic system as we know it. That’s why the disparity between the rich and the poor is growing. They’re hoarding wealth for the coming collapse. The didn’t get rich and stay rich by being stupid.
There is nothing wrong with the European (or any other) economy that can’t be fixed by stopping payments to unproductive people. Beginning with all the hangers-on in useless government positions. Abolish the welfare state later.
“Reality always avenges itself” — Ayn Rand
NV53@2:07…you nailed it! And North of 60 still has its brain frozen. You are not preparing for the future? Try starting with saving some bucks.
(several of them remarked that they no longer see the U.S. as a good long-run refuge).
As if we needed another reason to get Obama out of office.
The latest “save the euro plan” involves issuing European central bank Bonds. This plan will work because the ECB raises the money to buy bonds buy printing it. This will “work” because there will be one interest rate for Germany and Italy. It will also lead to Weimar style inflation. The easiest way for the government to “solve” the problem is to inflate the debt out of existence. Inflation in basically a stealth for of taxation. If you have little it won’t affect you much, so long as the economy doesn’t collapse. If you have money in the bank it will have no purchasing power in the future. If you have hard assets, you might be lucky and the dollar price of them will go up with inflation. That’s the best case, worst case it total economic collapse.
I am certainly not salivating waiting for it to happen. This is why we right wingers have been trying to get governments to not live way beyond our means. I have two small children who will have to live with the results of what they had no say in causing, even though the government has been borrowing money from them since before they were born. I do however, have guns and gold so I can try my best to ensure the welfare of my family when TSHTF.
Collapse?
Remember folks you need a hundred pounds of flour, 25 pounds of sugar per person in your home. Coffee, spices and sugar, peanut butter will be the new gold….
Ever notice how so called “Hoarders” have been slowly demonized or shown to be mentally ill on TV?
Why does the name Maurice Strong come to mind?
Maurice Strong? Hell, George Soros, and the list goes on……
Yeah!
Well!..
They can’t eat any more than you do.
Well,
except maybe that fat ass Michael Moore..
Stocks, Bonds, Cash,
and even gold taste like shit,
Get you some MREs and water storage-
take one percent of your savings/portfolio and buy food.
Don’t be stupid and starve your family when the sad times hit..
–
Wonder how long M. Moore could go without a sandwich?
Good follow up Kate, if these articles don’t show the connection for the average dullard leftie, between Glowball warming and bankrupt countries, nothing will. The Euroweenies dove headlong into the “I’ve got to save the planet” BS” and it has broke their countries, we can back away from this SCAM now, tell your MP, we want nothing to do with SCAMS, or we can continue to flush TAXPAYERS money into the accounts of green thieves. I think that could be a song, green thieves. Snake oil salesmen like Strong Gore Suzuki Weaver etc need to be defunded now, Thank you conservatives for what you have accomplished so far with the wretched media and assorted nuts screaming constantly about “climate change”, yea climate changes, always has.
Collapse of European society? What does that mean?
I can understand a collapse of the European Union, the collapse of the Euro as a form of currency, but collapse of the European society? What does that mean?
syncrodox and WalterF nail it in the opening comments to this thread. Europe’s problems have only started.
It is quite something when a former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky warns the Hungarian Civic Forum about the drift of the Eu toward a EUSSR.
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/865
H/T Jack’s Newswatch
Clean up on isle between 6:53 and 6:55.
“Several of them remarked that they no longer see the U.S. as a good long-run refuge.” …
BUT … it’s the only civilized place on earth where I can legally buy and legally carry (in all the states I care about) a firearm for my own protection, so I’ll continue to take my chances there / here.
Britain as a refuge? That’s like rowing into the mangroves to seek shelter from the hurricane.
looks like ‘bama & the moonbats are already preparing for it…
not necessarily a bad idea and one I’d ordinarily support and even encourage…in very, very limited operations against ‘citizens in name only’, but added to everything else that bypasses the Republican-held US Congress, it might possibly mean that the ‘democrats’ have no intention of relinquishing power after the next election… if there is one……
http://www.infowars.com/senate-moves-to-allow-military-to-intern-americans-without-trial/
The Senate is set to vote on a bill today that would define the whole of the United States as a “battlefield” and allow the U.S. Military to arrest American citizens in their own back yard without charge or trial.
…Section 1031 essentially repeals the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by authorizing the U.S. military to perform law enforcement functions on American soil….
…Under the the National Defense Authorization Act bill, no declaration of martial law is necessary since Americans would now be subject to the same treatment as suspected insurgents in places like Afghanistan and Iraq….
forgot the excerpt that ties this to the main story…
…Given that the Department of Homeland Security has characterized behavior such as buying gold, owning guns, using a watch or binoculars, donating to charity, using the telephone or email to find information, using cash, and all manner of mundane behaviors as potential indicators of domestic terrorism, such a provision would be wide open to abuse….
// The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out other people’s money. – Margaret Thatcher //
Eventually being 2008, when the Big Bang Financial deregulation of Maggie’s era came home.
But she is too far gone to appreciate it.
Especially the “socialism for the banks” aspect.
More and more it seems the mattress is the only safe place to stash money.
Greece (for one) is trying to change the rules on Swiss bank accounts to get the money back that has left the country.
Good article here about it:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-currency-controls-in-us-at-currency.html
100 lb of flour? Good idea, 100 lb of rice is better. 25 lb of sugar? Except as exchange, 25 lb of rice is better.
Re ET’s question: the economy breaks down, food production and distribution break down,
as does power production. Farmers use oil and electrical power, and they usually need some kind of
fairly sophisticated financial system to handle the time intervals between planting, harvesting, and sales
(the collapse of MF Global is hurting US farmers a lot, according to one report).
People begin to starve, and keep right on starving. Population loss from starvation and violence can reach 90%,
according to David Goldman’s book on the collapse of civilisations. As for “quality of life”, hah!
St. John’s, where I live, is said to have food for about 10 days, in warehouses in Donovan’s industrial park mainly.
If supplies from the mainland were cut for more than a week, we would turn to local agriculture and fishing,
which probably couldn’t handle feeding the entire population of about 120,000 for the whole year
[the fishery in principle probably could feed Nfld. but a massive restructuring would be necessary; and of course it relies on fuel oil].
How useful commercial aviation would be would depend on the extent of the crisis.
The denouement would come quickly and to a degree unexpectedly. Of course there would be plenty of warning – we are getting the warning now. But the final financial collapse would take less than a day.
It is something like the end of a massive star – there are instabilities of greater or lesser extent, which throw off some material, but events move move faster and faster [for stars the sequence is approximately helium burning, carbon burning, neon burning, oxygen burning, silicon burning, each taking place at a higher temperature than the last, each lasting less and less time] until the whole thing blows apart in a few minutes.
Better believe it
Mmmm
I like it best these days when the masses are continuing in there self imposed ignorance and obsessions with celebrity etc.
ET – I suppose the collapse would be as a result of governments not having any money to redistribute any more. The first to go would be cuts to health care and pensions. Then there would be no money to pay civil servants. This would no doubt lead to rioting of the sort we see in Greece and England. Not as bad here but in Europe government spending accounts for 50% of the economy. Best case, half of those wages disappear. Masses of unemployed, hungry people will soon start to get violent. Civil unrest will lead to armed gangs roving the streets, and probably civil war.
If you are stocking up on flour (which I have) don’t forget to stock up on yeast or baking powder. Otherwise the flour isn’t as useful. You can try yhr sour dough thing but we have never had a lot of luck with that. You can also stock up on lard. It has a long shelf like and as long as you rotate your stock it shouldn’t go off. It will add much needed calories to your bread. I have enough shotgun shells to feed well off the masses of geese and pigeons in these parts if it gets really bad.
To The Grey Lady
Yes, also how trial balloons are being sent up to outlaw hoarding in homes as a “fire hazard”.
ET said: “…collapse of the European society? What does that mean?”
War, usually.
Also Famine, Pestilence and the other one, whatisname, oh yeah Death. That guy. And his horse too. Historically that’s been the case. Wish it was hyperbole, but probably isn’t.
I understand from friends that land in the Maritimes is popular with well-off Germans looking for a bolt hole. Picturesque, astoundingly cheap and Canadian, therefore boringly stable.
I certainly hope they’re right.
Most folks underestimate taste fatigue in an emergency. Store what you eat and eat what you store.
Tampons are always nice too.
If you haven’t had much luck with sour dough I might be able to help you, I have some reported to be off the the world famous Carl Griffiths 1847 trail batch. It works delightfully and is free with a self addressed stamped envelope.
Also try a no knead bread high hydration approach. YOu might have better luck.
when you can’t get food from the grocery stores because the parent company went broke then we’ll see the moonbats out en masse demanding that those who had the foresight to put a little bit away for their families ‘redistribute’ it to them…and once that’s gone then they’ll scream for “the government” to hand them their free daily bread…it’s become a multi-generational way of life in many countries but liebrals won’t stand patiently in line or take responsibility for themselves…they’re entitled to their entitlements after all…
I watched all the videos on the CTV link and thought I was watching the CBC. Every interviewee (four by my count) were left wing dingbat climate change alarmists citing confounded statistics and random events. The broad from Durban actually makes the ridiculous claim that manmade climate change is directly responsible for flash flood deaths occurring in South Africa right now… and the journalist doesn’t call her out on it. But I’m the stupid ‘denier’ for not believing that driving my car is killing kids in the third world.
The thing is that I’m not going to bitch much or petition for CTV to be banned because I perceive an obscene bias. I just don’t take them as a credible source of news.
“…then we’ll see the moonbats out en masse demanding that those who had the foresight to put a little bit away for their families ‘redistribute’ it to them…”
Its nice to be more than a day’s walk from Toronto.
We had a very brief glimpse of what will happen in a “collapse” during the darkest days of ice storm ’98 when there was no electricity. Banks closed up tight and no debit card or credit card would work. It reverts to a cash society very quickly. Almost instantly a black market sprung up…candles 5$ each, bread 8$ a loaf, gas 10$ a gallon…
The number one priority in this climate is keeping warm. You’ll freeze to death before ya starve…and the only reliable source of heat is wood.
The vast majority of people have no clue on how to survive. I remember one complaining because there was no fresh lemon for their tea…never mind the work it took to get water to make the effing tea!
Can someone tell me..Do you need a license for a cross bow?
and the moonbats are already on it….
“the push for more entitlements “is going to be fought in the streets.” — cornel west
http://weaselzippers.us/2011/11/28/cornel-west-on-occupy-wall-street-ultimate-fight-for-entitlements-will-be-in-the-streets/
Glengarrian,
A cross bow is still legal in ontario, it has an added bonus of being silent and does not require constant expensive reloading.
Compound bow, follow up shot. Crossbow, no follow up shot.
Food is going to be a major problem if we have social collapse. The two main things to stock up on are food and fuel (I’m assuming that most SDA types have already stocked up on guns and ammo). Food is easy to stockpile and I’ll see if I have time to cut firewood as I have a wood stove for backup heat and cooking in my shop. Gasoline is a pain in the ass to store and should probably buy lots of 5 gallon plastic gasoline containers before they’re all sold out. Anyone have any experience in storing gasoline for long periods? Only thing I could think of was adding BHT to the gasoline to prevent polymerization.
The main problem I’m going to run into in the event of a societal collapse is getting drugs for patients. Right now pharmacies seem to run on a JIT system which means that there’s only a couple of days worth of supply locally, if that. I’ve had a few patients ask me about getting a years supply of their prescriptions given their concerns about the state of the world and I’ve been giving them that. What I’d suggest for those people who need Rx drugs to survive is to stock up now. Another problem is that, for many drugs, there is only one manufacturing plant in the world. If Europe goes tits up, then a lot of drugs will be in short supply until someone starts synthesizing them in N. America.
Um guys, you know if there is a collaspe most of us won’t make it, right? You could be Rambo and your wife could be Xena but you have to sleep sometime. A punk kid from the slums could get in a cheap shot and take your food and anything else he likes. Speaking of food how long are we supposed to plan for? Four months? Four years? What? I have diabetics in my family. They’ll be dead by the end of the first bad month. I’m not gleefully looking forward to WTSHTF day.