Just How Bad Is It?

[I refuse to let this blog completely die, so here is a tiny update – Admin]

A few news clips:

What do you think of being paid to pay off your credit card debt (so you can create more debt by buying an overpriced house)? The goal is to fatten up the tax rolls and keep the noses to the grindstone.

American Express will pay select customer $300 to close their accounts

Target Stores – profits fall 41%

Macy’s Drops 59%

Office Depot 1.54 Billion loss

Bernake – The stupid idiot is still calling this a ‘recession‘ and to add insult to injury, claims we’ll be out of this by the end of the year.

General Motors, AIG, Bank of America, CITI, Microsoft, you name it, a “who’s who” of industry, finance and global development are cashing it in.

Now, a recent email exchange. This is a letter I received:

I am in the process of trying to prep. I have one and only one friend who is also trying to prepare for something major in terms of systemic collapse. We both have trouble convincing our wives that it’s a serious issue. We both have children.

I’m wondering if you had trouble convincing your wife of the gravity of the situation? What strategies can be used? It seems that being alarmist, even if warranted, does not help.

I’m short on time these days (especially today), so I wrote a quick note:

Hi,

Let me try the direct route:

Stop buying food. Let the cupboards go bare. Withhold the checkbook and cash. Let the car run out of gas. Don’t buy anything.

Or better yet — stop earning money. Don’t pay the mortgage. Don’t pay the bills. Let the lights go out.

Nothing short of in-your-face-stark-reality is going to work on some people.

We are facing a unbelievable catastrophe. Anybody that does not “get it” yet is walking dead meat. They’re only going to last a short while now.

As for you, stop playing games. Don’t mess around. There isn’t time for this anymore. Systematic collapse is already here.

You cannot save someone that won’t save themselves. They’re drowning, they even know it, but prefer to drown. Let them.

Okay then, that’s the direct route. I emphasize with your situation, but there’s no other way I can tell you what to do. You yourself have to move on. Who do you value more? Wife or kids? Your responsibility is to the young, your wife is old enough to pull her head out and realize what is going on. But your kids need you, so your job is to make sure you’ve done what you can for them.

All you can do is “what you can”. Absolutely nobody is going to stop this. The rhetoric is going to convince the idiots, but you’re already smarter then that. So move on, focus (intently) on what you can do. Don’t even bother trying to “drag the wife along” now. She’ll either get on board or not.But your kids are the ones
that you need to help, they are the future, the next generation. Help them to survive. Show them everything you possibly can about getting along in a collapsing world.

I have to run, so that’s why this was short, direct and focused. You are free to write back, not trying to piss you or anyone off, but it’s past time to be agonizing over what to do.

~Survival Acres~

I received a response:

Hello-

I appreciate the directness of your message, and the fact you bothered to write. You’re a good guy who really thinks it’s going to get bad. I usually agree with you. Sometimes, though.. sometimes, I think that it might be possible for certain areas, maybe even whole states (future republics?) to survive to do OK.

Isn’t it possible for communities or states to redeploy scarce resources in intelligent ways to allow for survival? And to encourage or mandate the conversion to sustainable agriculture, and the support of community farms and gardens? Don’t bother to respond to this paragraph if you don’t have time, because I know you’ve addressed this in your blog.

However, since I believe there is a significant possibility of the worst case scenario you paint in many of your blog entries, I am ethically obligated to prepare for the worst. I am doing so, with my limited resources.

Again, thanks for your brutally honest response. I’ve tried what I consider brutal honesty on myfamily, and it got a somewhat positive response: we are going to have a series of 3 one hour meetings to discuss the economy and how to respond. My mother-in-law didn’t respond for a few days – I called them “deer in the headlights,” but in the end, I got a response.

I’m attaching a photo of my son, to give you an idea of one of the reasons I’m trying to get my
act together.

Nice looking kid he’s got there. But the only help he’s going to receive is his own.

Hi,

You suggest that there is intelligent life in the Universe. I always say, “show me” when I hear such things. The deplorable condition of humankind demonstrates adequately enough for me that there isn’t any real hope. If there was, we’ve have seen it already.

We are at the apex. We’ve been able to build ourselves up, but refuse to take ourselves down. Again, if we would (versus just talking about it), we’d have done so already.

The proof is ALWAYS in the pudding as they say. The saying, “show me the money” only means that let’s see the proof. There is absolutely no proof at all that humans are going to slide through this collapse gracefully, anywhere. Everyone conveniently forgets that we’re still getting by today on yesterday’s energy endowment. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, melting fast, literally and figuratively.

Humans take the easy road and it’s easier right now to find excuse, reason, denial, delay, delusions. It all means death.

There are some reasonable humans, but don’t you notice that they are neither in charge or able to actually do much of anything? We’re all going to suffer from the stupidity of our peers, we already are. And this is going to get unbelievably worse.

Keep that little tyke off the rolls (tax rolls, school rolls, military recruitment and on and on and on) and you’ll do more for him then you can possibly imagine. Trust me on this — make it so he can “disappear” when he needs to (he will). There is nothing to be gained by supporting Empire in any way shape or form. Create several i.d.’s for him NOW.

We’ve all got to die, just don’t make it wasted. It’s how we live that matters, and what we live for. Teach the young to be self-sufficient and intelligent. Educate them to think for themselves and to see beyond the veil that is being drawn over everyone’s eyes. It isn’t more education that we need right now, it’s people who are independent thinkers.

The entire inheritance is theirs, not ours. We’ve had our shot and it’s soon over.

You mention possibilities. Anything is possible, but trajectory must be taken into account. We are repeating history, we are no more special, intelligent, capable or willing then our ancestors to do the right thing. We have a lot more going wrong for us then they ever had.

Anyway, not trying to convince you. If you notice, I’m not trying to convince anyone these days, it’s not longer worthwhile.

My mom sounds like yours by the way. But utterly incapable of change. There are several billion humans that are going to ensure we don’t before it’s too late. Never forget that.

~Survival Acres~

I can appreciate and understand why people reach out. They’re looking for answers (where there are none, unfortunately). There is a lot of fear out there right now and it’s going to get a lot worse. There is nothing that can be done to help that.

Essentially, we’re all going to have to deal with it. All of it, all the ugly, all the pain, all the suffering, all the betrayals, the lies, the deceptions, the debt and even all the death. It does none of us any good (if we are adults) to go on pretending it isn’t happening, it isn’t real or that Bernake is right.

I’ve tried pretty hard to make it crystal clear that governments and entire nations were going to engage in a series of very desperate acts to try and save themselves. This is a playbook, anybody could actually write it if they thought about the reasons why things are going to shake out like they are.

We are only into the opening acts right now. We’re going to see plenty more and some really scary scenarios play out. Already governments around the world are deploying their forces to deal with public unrest. A summer of ‘rage and riot‘ is already being planned. This is happening here too in the United States. The nationalization of assets will continue and the serfs are going to keep watching their lives, their futures and their hopes go up in smoke.

I’ve also warned that we’re going to have to get tough and hardened, and we’re going to have to make some hard decisions. Easy street is over for all of us. Nice things to have like democracy and fairness, justice and equity can only flourish when there is an abundance of everything. Take away those things (food, water, energy, tolerable climate to name just a few) and we WILL revert, rapidly and forever into something most of us can barely envision.

But I do caution my faithful readers — don’t take your anger out on the wrong people. Ignorance does not make someone guilty. The planned destruction of the United States and the world’s economy is no accident. There are entire organizations of people deliberately focused on making sure this happens. Their goal is massive population reduction and control over the remaining resources.

I never talk about the New World Order on this blog because quite frankly, I won’t waste the space. It’s not that it’s not “there”, of course it is, but it’s like complaining that the ocean is blue. Move on already and deal with your reality. Your world is being taken apart, brick by brick, right in front of your eyes and bitching about it isn’t going to help. Stop waiting for a groundswell of grassroots organizations and people, it’s not going to change anything even if it ever did happen.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to realize that you alone are responsible for your life, your future and your well-being. Do whatever is necessary now to ensure that you have sufficient means to exist. The world at large is going to implode, with or without your help (the sooner the better). Toss the rule book out the window and do what needs to be done.