The End of the (Financial) World As We've Known It?

[mrmarklin]

I'm going to go to Europe this fall. I think it will still be there.

I'll be in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany.

All this alarmist stuff is nonsense.

[mrmarklin]

Some people express ideas better than I do. I really like a line from Shakespeare that went something like this:

Nothing is as good or as bad as it seems only that thinking makes it so.

The Traveler

I had a business partner that told me: 99% of the stuff I ever worried about never happened.

True to this day.......................

Not saying no one should prepare for the future, but c'mon.

[Traveler]

I had a business partner that told me: 99% of the stuff I ever worried about never happened.

True to this day.......................

Not saying no one should prepare for the future, but c'mon.

Wow!!! you should worry about a lot more things - I do not know of anything you could do that is more effective!

The Traveler

[lds2]

I had a business partner that told me: 99% of the stuff I ever worried about never happened.

True to this day.......................

Not saying no one should prepare for the future, but c'mon.

Sometimes bad things do happen and there are a lot of smart people right now, who are usually bullish saying some pretty bearish things...

But ya know...it's just that one percent you really need to worry about...yep, yep, yep

Just kidding I don't want anyone to worry, I just want EVERYONE to be so prepared they will never need to worry because they are both temporally and spiritually prepared for whatever 1 percents are in our future.

Edited July 14, 2012 by lds2

[Sicily510]

Lds2,

you are filled with so much care and I am so grateful for your spirit in such concerns. It's inevitable with the monetary system because that was man made system that distributes wealth amongst people. As it was created from men it shall perish....I fear nothing that is not of creation of our heavenly father, because our heavenly father enlightened us with knowledge in preparing ourselves. However, preparing is not necessarily just storage food but sewing, cooking, farming, building shelter.

I was blessed while in my youth to go on the Young Womens camp and during that camp I've learned so much as far as surviving in the wilderness. :) I never felt more closer with our Heavenly Father than experiencing being away from electronics and worldy things of such sorts. As we become accustomed to man-made creations and innovations we become dependent on such things. This gospel teaches us to do for ourselves what we shouldn't expect others to. In mutual we did a lot of cooking, sewing, quilting, crocheting, their is the boys scouts. All of these things taught in my youth became self-evident that preparation is the key for ourselves, extended family and friends to benefit.

The world may become dependent on the monetary system or man-made of such devices, only a few will live in unity to help each other thrive in righteousness. The news hasn't told me anything new of what I've read in the scriptures.

[lds2]

The health of 15 of the world’s largest financial institutions has been called into serious question, as Moody’s downgraded their credit ratings...

Banking giants including Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Royal Bank of Scotland all had their credit ratings cut.

Moody's takes axe to ratings of global banks

Banks downgraded as size of Spanish crisis revealed | Business | The Guardian

U.S. stocks tumbled, while commodities entered a bear market, after signals of a global slowdown in manufacturing added to disappointing housing and labor market data at the world’s largest economy.

U.S. Stocks Tumble Amid Slowdown Concern - Businessweek[/url

All of Spain’s major banks were hit with cuts of one to four notches – worse than expected and sending several deeper into junk status. (Telegraph News, June 25)

Gold should be rebounding soon as when stocks go down people have to sell it which often brings the prices down for a bit.

Like I said before, I expect things to keep bumping along until at least after the elections. But right now is an unusually good time to buy food and other stores ahead as there is plenty and it is inexpensive compared to other years. My opinion...FWIW

But I really hope all are ready for possible adversity (whatever that may be) in the future. The Church has said that they can't help all of us, we must follow the "loving commandment" of our Heavenly Father and "prepare every needful thing" so that should adversity come we can help our family, friends, neighbors and the bishop help the poor and the needy. The Church's message lately has been that we must be self-reliant in order to be able to help others...makes sense.

Edited June 26, 2012 by lds2

[Sicily510]

Adversity exists for individuals who cannot spiritually understand "THE PURE IN HEART". When an individual becomes accustomed to doing good works and deeds, that individual does good things from the pureness of their heart. I believe that adversity will be separated from "Zion", because those who cannot do things without seeking something in return will not be in tuned with Heavenly Fathers law. For example tithing is a request amongst members rich or poor, but the fact that those who pay regardless of their financial standings in the monetary system statistics will come together in "Zion" in common faith and principles. In "Zion" we will be able to live in unity with the understanding of doing well amongst each other and living in righteousness. "Zion" is against wickedness, if Heavenly Father is saying that we must repent than we should sin no more and commit to it. We face that exact circumstance now more than ever, people are diluting the plan of salvation with rationalizing, wresting the scriptures, and doubt. Those who have been blessed with the gospel and the spirit will understand each other on a spiritual level with Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ in the center. I like this statement from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland:

“The loss of respect for religion is the dry rot of social institutions. The idea of God as the Creator and Father of all mankind is to the moral world, what gravitation is in the natural; it holds everything else together and causes it to revolve around a common center. Take this away and any ultimate significance to life falls apart. There is then no such thing as collective humanity, but only separate molecules of men and women drifting in the universe with no more cohesion and no more meaning than so many grains of sand have meaning for the sea.”

I seek for the day when I can live in Zion with my fellow brothers and sisters, helping each other stay in tuned and closer with the gospel so that we may be worthy to stand in holy places for our father thy Savior Jesus Christ to proclaim us as his faithful children. I know some may think of me as a silly individual who is possessed with mysticism and a skeptical belief. I only know Heavenly Father to be the one to keep me sane, civil, spiritual, and strong because I sought for him in prayer, scriptures, and in the things I do. I don't know anything that can offer me such spiritual enlightenment or even remedy my afflictions but Heavenly Father and the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love helping in my community, I have so much spirit to do things when I am doing good or living in the light of righteousness. I've already experienced the route of unrighteousness and haven't felt a pure happiness but a temporal happiness, happiness is not gained by doing bad things or continuing in wickedness (this route only made me miserable) it's gained through sacrifice and love. I like this statement from the "Declaration Of Independence”:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light

and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are

sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

This is just like the concept of repentance, that mankind is more disposed to suffer in their iniquities because wickedness is sufferable, than to right themselves by repenting and choosing to live in a covenant to our Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ for righteousness.

D&C 97:21

21. Therefore, verily, thus saith the Lord, let Zion rejoice, for this is Zion—the pure in heart; therefore, let Zion rejoice, while all the wicked shall mourn.

Moses 7: 18-19

18 And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them.

19 And Enoch continued his preaching in righteousness unto the people of God. And it came to pass in his days, that he built a city that was called the City of Holiness, even Zion.

[lds2]

"Centered in the heart of farm belt, the firm handled agricultural futures accounts for a number of clients who grow corn, soybeans and cotton." "PFGBest revealed to clients on Monday that their money has been frozen and that they would (not) be allowed to withdraw funds or make new trades until further notice." PFGBest scandal deals farmers another blow after MF Global | Reuters

No Room for New Fed ‘Twist’ Beyond Year-End: Bullard

"Twist has been extended through the end of the year, but we are running out of balance sheet," James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank

News Headlines

China - From shrinking trade to stalling factories to surprise rate cuts, signs are mounting that China is headed for a hard landing. Tuesday investors fretted as China’s imports in June grew at half the expected pace...

China economy: 5 'real world' signs of the coming apocalypse | Economy | News | Financial Post

More and more banks and banking accounts are being "hacked" (too many articles to post)

Edited July 14, 2012 by lds2

[lds2]

Student Debt: America’s $1 Trillion Time Bomb

What is clear, though, is that any increase in Treasury rates from current near-record lows will only increase the fiscal burden of student-loan debt.

News Headlines

[kapikui]

Ok, here's my take on the whole thing. The United States, and the rest of the world are headed for economic disaster, and we're doing all the wrong things to avoid it. Many of the things people are trying to do are for good and righteous reasons, or at least the stated reasons are good and righteous, but the outcome is anything but.

We have started to create a welfare state. People now expect the government to bail them out no matter what happens. The U.S. is a bit behind the curve on this, but let's look at Greece. They have a government program to essentially protect people from any poor choice they make. You can pretty much do whatever you want, and as long as you commit no crime, you can still live pretty well, at least that was how they tried to do things.

Now they can't do it. The money isn't there. The problem is that many of the people there have no other means of supporting themselves but to live off of the government, and they like those government protections. The problem is that there is no money to do it. They're borrowing from other countries to prop up their own, but those other countries have some of the same somewhat Socialistic policies, and are having trouble keeping those programs running in their own countries, and can't support Greece.

Thus we get the austerity measures. Many Greeks are angry, and are rioting over it. Now the financial problems are leading to civil problems, and that leads to more money spent, just to contain the civil unrest, and even less money can be spent on social type programs, causing more civil unrest.

The problem is twofold. First, we've raised a generation that's scared to death of hard work. How do I know? I'm one of them. I have an underlying feeling that I'm owed a living by someone, and I shouldn't have to do anything significant for it. I know intellectually and spiritually that this is an evil idea, but a large part of me still wants it, and gets angry when I don't get it.

The second is that we are in many ways too generous. The generosity does bad things, first it creates the aforementioned generation that's scared to death of hard work. If you keep giving someone something without their having to work for it, often they will consider such a thing to be a right. At that point, you can't take it away without violence, as we're seeing in Greece.

The second is that we can only be so generous. From King Benjamin's address

26 And now, for the sake of these things which I have spoken unto you—that is, for the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may walk guiltless before God—I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants.

27 And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.

Note that last verse there. It is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. Unless the budget of the United States is cut by a gargantuan amount, we WILL see an economic collapse, and we will see it soon. I don't have a time table, we could limp along for a long while, but without either a major change in the way we do things, or a miracle, we're going to have a collapse. Not just a double dip recession, but a complete collapse. Things are going to get very bad.

On the other hand, if we try to make the changes, things are going to get very bad. People are already either dependent on the government financially, or emotionally dependent on the feeling of security the government programs provide. An attempt to cut them far enough that we can even service our own debt would likely result in riots and violence.

The question now is what to do about it. While it is tempting to say, "Let's fix these societal problems," the underlying problem is one of attitude, and it may even be an acceptable idea to try and convince others to follow to change their attitudes too. The thing is that the only real effective means of stopping the disaster isn't to prevent it from happening, because that is most likely beyond your capabilities. The answer is to place yourself in a situation that such a problem will have minimal effect on you.

This means having a money surplus, food storage, water storage, auxiliary power generation methods, means of food production, self defense and whatever else you can do. The other thing to consider is that even if the monetary system doesn't collapse, chances are very good that you personally have a financial catastrophe at least once in your life (I've had several), and having such things prepared will be to your benefit.

[NeuroTypical]

Unless the budget of the United States is cut by a gargantuan amount, we WILL see an economic collapse, and we will see it soon. I don't have a time table, we could limp along for a long while, but without either a major change in the way we do things, or a miracle, we're going to have a collapse. Not just a double dip recession, but a complete collapse. Things are going to get very bad.

One definition of Bad Science: a prediction that is not falsifiable.

If you want folks to take you seriously, you'll have to distinguish yourself from the average melodramatic hand-waving prophecying that pops up every year or two whenever there's a hiccup somewhere. Because otherwise, we can't tell the difference between your prophecy, and the 2010 food price scare, or the 2009 "we're running out of pistol ammo" scare, or the 2008 H1N1 scare, or the 2008 hyperinflation scare, or the 2000 Y2K scare, or the 1998 "Pres Hinckley just said we were all gonna starve" scare, or the 1996 "the commies are coming back in the UN" scare. (There are plenty more, but 1996 is when I started paying attention.)

Good science is falsifiable. You want to be more successful in urging people to action, vague sensationalistic doomsaying only works on people suseptible to such things.

[Praetorian_Brow]

There is 800 trillion dollars worth of credit floating around in the worlds financial system when the world GDP is only about 70 trillion. On an average basis, there is about 1 billion barrels of oil futures being traded, when world production is barely producing 80 million barrels per day. If you aren't aware of how much debt everyone is in, you are either in denial or living under a rock.

Our finanical systems are now global and have moved towards a credit system, rather than a barter system. As long as the credit flows, no one seems to mind.

Ownership is the real issue here and when that is in doubt, people get creative. Governments fall and governments invade, which has been ongoing since time was written. What makes this age different is that our collective fiscal mismanagement is going to impact not just our generations, but many many generations down the road. The reset point for global econimics, is going to be at an unimaginable human scale of suffering.

Yet, I don't really care that much, because I know that buying my fourth iPhone tomorrow will make all my dreams come true. I'll convince myself that I am environmentally conscious, hip, progressive and superawesome, but I won't care about who made it and where it is from, because it was on sale and I can pay with my credit card! Win!

[NeuroTypical]

If you aren't aware of how much debt everyone is in, you are either in denial or living under a rock.

My issue isn't with the trouble we're in. My issue is with folks waving arms around and issuing vague nebulous predictions about complete financial collapse and civil unrest. I'm as big on personal preparation as the worst of the sky-is-falling-ites, but if you're trying to motivate people to do something, melodrama isn't persuasive.

Governments fall and governments invade, which has been ongoing since time was written. What makes this age different is that our collective fiscal mismanagement is going to impact not just our generations, but many many generations down the road.

Falling empires have never impacted future generations before? You might consider studying history a bit more. The only thing different about this round is the extent of global interdependency and how easily measurable everything is.

Yet, I don't really care that much, because I know that buying my fourth iPhone tomorrow will make all my dreams come true. I'll convince myself that I am environmentally conscious, hip, progressive and superawesome, but I won't care about who made it and where it is from, because it was on sale and I can pay with my credit card! Win!

Again, when you have a notion to push, and someone is showing resistance to accepting it, how useful do you really think it is to insult them like this?

I honestly don't find passive-aggressive sarcastic insults all that persuasive. But hey - I'll add yours to the list of things said to/about me over the years:

Ostrich with head buried in the sand.

In denial.

I chose to wear blinders.

Blind idiot who can't see my own hand in front of my face in broad daylight.

Dupe of [whatever term is being used to describe the current conspirators].

I focus on the MESSENGER instead of the subject.

I consider myself "super tough".

I use emotion instead of logical reasoning.

I'm rude.

I get angry when someone mentions the existence of secret combinations.

My posts make me look bad.

I "troll for sincere people".

I'm prideful, heading for destruction.

I have a haughty spirit, and I'm heading for a fall.

[Vort]

I honestly don't find passive-aggressive sarcastic insults all that persuasive. But hey - I'll add yours to the list of things said to/about me over the years:

Ostrich with head buried in the sand.

In denial.

I chose to wear blinders.

Blind idiot who can't see my own hand in front of my face in broad daylight.

Dupe of [whatever term is being used to describe the current conspirators].

I focus on the MESSENGER instead of the subject.

I consider myself "super tough".

I use emotion instead of logical reasoning.

I'm rude.

I get angry when someone mentions the existence of secret combinations.

My posts make me look bad.

I "troll for sincere people".

I'm prideful, heading for destruction.

I have a haughty spirit, and I'm heading for a fall.

Plus, you make lists of your attributes. It's always about you, isn't it, LM?

[Praetorian_Brow]

I was not directing comments at you, Loudmouth_Mormon. Also, you made an error in reading what I wrote in regards to empires.

I assume by your nerd rage that you consider internet forums a direct threat to your ownership of Apple products. Furthermore, I find your defensive stance intriguing and I consider it good form that I don't exploit it, as many want to do.

[lds2]

Originally Posted by kapikui, "Unless the budget of the United States is cut by a gargantuan amount, we WILL see an economic collapse, and we will see it soon. I don't have a time table, we could limp along for a long while, but without either a major change in the way we do things, or a miracle, we're going to have a collapse. Not just a double dip recession, but a complete collapse. Things are going to get very bad."

Originally Posted by Loudmount, "One definition of Bad Science: a prediction that is not falsifiable."

**

To know what is not falsifiable you need to know what is falsifiable...

Fal´si`fi`a`ble...able to be proven false, and therefore testable; as, most religious beliefs are not falsifiable, and are therefor outside the scope of experimental science.

**

In the same way that religious beliefs are not falsifiable (although I believe in our case they are), I would think that opinions about the future would fall into the same category. Most opinions voiced in conversation related to the future are not falsifiable...even your own...at least not until the future becomes the present. So I'm not sure how that is "bad science," to me saying that just seems like another way of using namecalling to denigrate someone's opinion you don't agree with.

That is the difficult thing about forseeing the future, it is pretty impossible. We mostly only have our strongly held opinions unless a true prophet comes along. A strongly held belief in conversation (as those voiced here) is not the same as a "prophecy" in LDS terms, although others in this thread imply they are synonymous. It would be interesting to see how long a conversation could go on regarding the future if you had guidelines where you could only say things that were falsifiable or that were not in any way prophetic.

Regardless, if rather than budget you continually borrow large amounts of money in order to spend it, have very high interest payments on the money you have previously spent that take up the majority of your income, and no real intentions to change, it seems reasonable to me that at some point in the future there will be consequences you are not going to like...but then that is just my opinion regarding the future...nothing falsifiable right now...FWIW

Some civility and respect for other's with differing opinions would be nice, but I "prophecy" :) that that is not probably going to happen any time soon...is that not falsifiable enough...I wonder...

.

Edited July 14, 2012 by lds2

[lds2]

As far as what "scares" people most....

The 2008 "scare" wasn't a hyperinflation scare as much as it was an economic end of the good-life scare which we have been actually seeing happening slowly over the years since then. Living the good life off the equity in our houses is no longer an option for most of us. The housing industry where a fifth of the jobs were generated (many of the better paying jobs to boot) has suffered greatly. Many more people are jobless or underemployed, more people are claiming disability, more middle-aged to elderly people are in a world of debt due to student loans and/or living off of credit cards, many others have been using up their retirement assets to live and/or to help support their grown children and other family members, more people are on foodstamps, etc. You are fortunate that these things haven't impacted your life much but that doesn't mean that many others aren't being significantly impacted. For those of us in our middle age years many of us are seeing more of our kids struggle and many grown children (even with kids) are moving back in with family. Fewer can get good jobs, buy homes, have insurance to pay for accidents or their children's births, for chronic health conditions and/or expensive medications, etc.

Food prices did go up and have been going up over all the past several years in the stores. Quality and quantity have gone down and we aren't going to see an end to that before the crop comes in from 2013 (IF the drought ends before then.) And even then other inflationary pressures are out there not related to crops. To me at least that is inflation...

I guess you would have to own guns to be scared about the low supply of ammo...which I believe was partly caused by the record breaking numbers of people going out since 2008 to buy what some in the movies call "protection"

In 1998 President Hinckley never said that we were going to starve, he did say that there was a storm coming and that we needed to prepare our houses for that. Whether we in fact do see a global "famine" by the end of 2012 monetarilly or in regards to food prices...well let's just say I'll let you know in about 6 months.

When you point your finger about being melodramatic you need to remember that three fingers point back at yourself...despite all the evidence to the contrary, you in your own prophetic way imply that nothing is going to change, is changing or will change substantially for most of us in our generation. Personally, I hope you are right!

However, this implication is interesting to me as Jesus and many prophets throughout the ages have said to expect great calamities in the last days and modern prophets have said that we are now in "perilous times," that these calamities we have already experienced are "just the beginning" and will increase in the future.

To me that is just fact, it amazes me what negative "spin" and namecalling result from such beliefs...on my more melodramatic days (and I have some too) I might even call that persecution...these beliefs certainly don't seem to be "politically correct" here based on the ridicule, vitriol and namecalling that soon follow...

Edited July 14, 2012 by lds2

[lds2]

For me, this thread is about "watching with all perseverence" and doing what we can to prepare our houses and get them in order BEFORE calamities come upon us...you and I LM already have mostly done that, but there may be others who experience a change of priorities and heart that may be grateful for the time to prepare while things are still relatively good.

If that can be the case, I want to show what is happening in the world real time as best I can, so that no one is surprised and so that we have as much time as possible to prepare for what we are told will be "difficult days" ahead.

As the prophets have said, it isn't about having only enough for our own family should calamity come, but we are to prepare so that we can help and serve others in "the Lord's way." For many, that could take some time...

Edited July 14, 2012 by lds2

[mrmarklin]

My father lived through the Great Depression:

Please all of you read the Church pamphlet on preparedness.

The people that survived the depression saved their money, made wise investments, bought a home if they could, worked hard, and in general went about life in a conservative way (while the US government amassed unprecedented debt).

All the while Naziism was rising, communism was less than a decade away of taking over almost 1/3 the world's population, and the economies of Europe really DID collapse (see Marshall Plan).

I don't think any of us are going to go through anything worse than that.

During my lifetime my standard of living has risen beyond what my parents, or grandparents ever dreamed of in their wildest dreams.

The iPhone is a case in point. What would that have been worth to a national power in the 30s or 40s?? Yet it's accessible to us all. It's a miracle and that power of communication is keeping us free, and empowering people all over the world to control their destinies.

We live in the best of times.

[mrmarklin]

PS I'm still going to Europe in October.

Will it be there?

[lds2]

PS I'm still going to Europe in October.

Will it be there?

Barring big asteroids or sun flares my prediction is...yes. :)

We have family living in Europe still we like to visit. My husband's uncle was roped into being a German Soldier as a teenager. He is a relatively big guy normally, but by the end of the war he weighed somewhere between 70 and 80 pounds. Their biggest concern was blindness as there was little oil to be gotten anywhere. Since then he has been blessed and he has lived a long prosperous life...but that first part as a teenager was very rough.

Edited July 15, 2012 by lds2

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[Ijustforgotit]

I know this is not really fun to hear, yet I feel an obligation to my friends to post what I see...as the swirl of the toilet water is rapidly speeding up for an ultimate flush of our monetary system...I believe it will start in the EU but it won't be long after that we are just as effected.

G7 to hold emergency eurozone talks Tuesday

OTTAWA • The deteriorating state of Europe’s debt crisis has renewed a sense of urgency among global leaders, as markets around the world continue to recoil from the threat of a financial contagion. ‘There’s a heightened sense of alarm over developments in Europe, particularly in Spain’ Group of Seven finance ministers and central bankers were to hold talks early Tuesday morning, with concerns growing that the capital-stretched financial system in Spain — the latest casualty in the region — could buckle, possibly causing a run on banks that could spread through Europe and beyond...

G7 to hold emergency eurozone talks Tuesday as concerns over Spain grow | Economy | News | Financial Post

***

Global slump alert as world money contracts

Growth of the world money supply has dropped to the lowest level since the financial crisis of 2008-2009, heralding a severe economic slowdown later this year unless authorities rapidly take action.

Global slump alert as world money contracts - Telegraph

***

US Factory Orders Post Surprise Fall in April

New orders for U.S. factory goods fell in April for the third time in four months as demand slipped for everything from cars and machinery to computers, the latest worrisome sign for the economic recovery.

News Headlines

***

Notice that the articles above are not coming from Jon Doe's Survival blog...

These thiings are concerning, but the thing that will ultimately take the whole house of cards down are derivatives...the following is kind of a primer on what the "big boys" have done and serously and unfortunately there is just not enough money or assets in the world to cover all the leveraged derivative bets that are "out there." Some say that all the world's government debt is 70 Trillion and while there is no exact count it is believed that there may well be more than 700 Trillion dollars created through leveraging the worlds debt. No government or bank in the world could cover that should things start breaking down further.

Short Rough Primer on Leveraging and Derivatives,

By: Hugh Sunday September 28, 2008 12:06 pm

Leveraging means something like this. You sell $10 million in stock. You use this money as the basis to take out a loan so you can buy $100 million in mortgages. Now say you issue mortgage backed securities based on these and sell them. Now you have a $100 million in cash so you go out and buy more mortgages only this time you use your $100 million to buy a billion dollars of them. You have just leveraged your initial $10 million 100 times. This works if you, your banks, and the buyers of your paper are all sufficiently greedy. Why would banks loan you $100 million on $10 million collateral? The short answer is they wouldn’t for you or me, but they would and did to financial companies because of the fees and interest they made off of such transactions and because they “knew” those companies were good for it. This was all much easier to believe on the upside of the bubble because the value of the underlying assets (houses) kept going up. So even if a few percent of the mortgages defaulted, a) the house’s value is greater than at the start and you can sell it again and b) the overall value of the mortgage package on which all this was based kept going up as well. Banks were also making money in fees from writing loans and the companies they were loaning money to were precisely the ones who were buying these mortgages off them so that the banks could make more money in fees writing yet more mortgages...

A short rough primer on leveraging and derivatives | MyFDL

***

Sorry guys, this is not a tin-hat moment as much as everyone would like their lives to go on as they have for the past generation or two. I believe we are about (within a month to a year) to slide into the second dip of this double dip recession or what some even have called a depression.

While prices are rising rapidly for processed foods, there has been little demand for the bulk grains and beans that we are asked to store for adversity and so prices are still relatively low.

I believe, if it can be done, that things will be propped up at least until after the election so now is a very good time, a time of abundance for most of us, to tuck money and food stores away for a rainy day.

If you wait for adversity or until the writing is on the wall for all to see, such food stores could be very expensive to get and there could be shortages as well.

Buying food farther ahead than most (like three months with a basic supply of longer-term grains) during a time of plenty when much is wasted and thrown away is not hoarding, it is being prudent!...as who knows if an earthquake, disease or other calamity could effect the ability of "just in time" trucks to get to any one local...perhaps yours.

Thanks for sharing the info. I have done substantial research on this subject myself. We are definetley headed for a global collapse. Private banks control the worlds money. With this new Libor scam coming out, people should be more concerned and throw these guys in jail, but they wont. Get your bug out bags ready

[lds2]

Euro-area bonds fell today after Moody’s lowered the outlook to negative for the AAA credit ratings of Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Moody’s cited “rising uncertainty” over Europe’s debt crisis. It left Finland as the only country in the 17-nation euro region with a stable outlook for its top ranking.

Germany pushes back against Moody’s downgrade | Economy | News | Financial Post

Moody's rating map

Moody's Credit Rating for each country

Edited July 24, 2012 by lds2

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Seven indicators of inflation all hitting at the same time does NOT bode well...

*The Philly Fed index of factory activity is in the red for the third straight month.

*Retail sales are also down three months in a row (April-June) .

*Jobs: A non-farm payrolls reading south of 100,000 for July would make four in a row.

*Disinflation: Inflation is trending down and the flat to negative readings in the past three months has led to a mild deflationary environment

*Exports: The ISM manufacturing export orders index in June sagged to its lowest level since July 2009

*A 40% surge in grain costs in just over a month is going to hit Americans’ household budgets hard. Every recession going back to 1970 was preceded by a squeeze from soaring food prices.

*Fiscal Cliff: When your economy is running at barely more than 1%, a 4 to 5% drop off the fiscal cliff is not pretty. “Go back to the last two times we saw anything close to a fiscal withdrawal as intense as what seems in store for 2013 — we are talking about 1960 and 1969 — and recessions did ensue.”

David Rosenberg: Seven 'extremely rare' events that show recession risks are rising in America | Economy | News | Financial Post