This is to all the people that foresee a coming financial collapse.
If there is a coming financial collapse or catastrophe on the horizon, once it comes though in full force, how do you see it playing out? Do you have plans on how to live after the event has finished?
What is your timescale from the event until everything will go back to normal?
What models or past financial issues have you used to gauge the coming event?
Are you set to come out alive, or do you plan to come out better than you went in?
Quote:Financial Collapse - Survive or Thrive?
This is to all the people that foresee a coming financial collapse.
If there is a coming financial collapse or catastrophe on the horizon...
No "if" about it!
Quote:...once it comes though in full force, how do you see it playing out? Do you have plans on how to live after the event has finished?
Chaos at first. The governments trying to keep control, but failing. How to live afterwards? Day by day!
Quote:What is your timescale from the event until everything will go back to normal?
I believe that the US economy will fall apart in mid-September of this year - I doubt that I'll live long enough to see it get back to normal (whatever "normal" is)...
Quote:What models or past financial issues have you used to gauge the coming event?
Historical models - the Weimar Republic, the Great Depression, Zimbabwe, 2008 crash, to name but a few...
Quote:Are you set to come out alive, or do you plan to come out better than you went in?
I'm too old to come out of this alive... maybe my kids or grandkids will...
(11 July 2015, 01:58)Jonas Wrote: [ -> ]Quote:What models or past financial issues have you used to gauge the coming event?
Historical models - the Weimar Republic, the Great Depression, Zimbabwe, 2008 crash, to name but a few...
Quote:Are you set to come out alive, or do you plan to come out better than you went in?
I'm too old to come out of this alive... maybe my kids or grandkids will...
Interesting choices of financial model. A lot of wealth was created in all those points and places. Many lost out big time, but a few whom knew how, came out much better than they went in.
(11 July 2015, 11:34)Scythe13 Wrote: [ -> ]Interesting choices of financial model. A lot of wealth was created in all those points and places. Many lost out big time, but a few whom knew how, came out much better than they went in.
Isn't always the case?
Money and wealth doesn't disappear, it just changes hands.....
Usually from the many to the privileged few.
I guess everyone's circumstances are different, determining how they will be affected and how they will react. Personally there are two things on my radar:
1. A short-term banking crisis (much as we're seeing in Greece now) caused by a shock to the system (e.g. contagion from a collapsing economy elsewhere). This would manifest itself as a liquidity problem in the banks, with bank-runs adding to the problem. Credit may freeze, causing difficulties with payments and procurement of supplies, leading to local shortages. If an individual bank collapses, I don't think it will stop at that. The ensuing panic will cause other banks to topple in a "domino" effect. In this case I have doubts over the Government's ability to meet its obligations to savers under the FSCS. Cash in hand will be needed in order to survive day to day, but local prices will rise as shortages occur. I maintain "classic preps" for this scenario; car fuel tank kept full, spare fuel stored, domestic oil tank kept full, coal and wood stores kept full, stock of food, cash on hand. I believe this scenario is survivable, although we might all come out of it poorer as a country. Think 2008 on steroids.
2. A longer-term worsening of the country's financial standing (perhaps caused by having to deal with two or three of the above types of shock), leading to a major re-evaluation of ability to fund such things as the NHS and state pensions. I am 8 years from pensionable age. I don't have much in the way of private pensions but we do have capital in the form of bank savings and property. Our low outgoings mean that I'll be able to live quite happily on the state pension as it stands, if it stands!
My worst case scenario would be a short-term shock, leading to an unrecoverable loss of bank savings, followed by a severe reduction or elimination of the state pension. I am mitigating against this by moving slowly but surely towards self-sufficiency, but I'm very aware that being self-sufficient can be hard work when old age kicks in. We took a decision to "downshift" to Northern Scotland early, rather than making it a "retirement project" as many people do. We wanted to do this so that we could build up our situation while we're fit, energetic and enthusiastic enough to do so. We're "intentionally poorer" as a result, but there is enjoyment to be had in simple pleasures.
My gut feel is that the financial system as we know it is not sustainable, and will disappear. However, there will always be the need to trade goods and services, and to store value. So the old prepping adage applies; have a skill or the ability to make or grow things, that will be in demand and that you can sell or exchange, however the transaction takes place.
I have three healthy lads who are busy pursuing their own lives in various parts of the country. If things collapse to the point where their livelihoods are under threat, there is a place for them here with us. It's one of the main reasons for coming here. Our woodland has the capacity to provide for several families sustainably.
Sorry if this doesn't answer each of the questions directly, but hopefully it gives a sense of how we see things, and our trajectory.
we are still in a economic meltdown from 2008.....
there were no
power cuts
mass unrest
mass strikes
police state
Historically, a real and total "Crisis" takes two years to unfold from a definite starting point to the level of full depression of "collapse".
It actually takes two to five years to "lose your money overnight"!
It took from 1929 to 1932 for the Great Depression to unfold. Most of the people that knew the economy had plenty of time to cash out and preserve their wealth.
It took two years for the 2008 thing to unfold. I had plenty of time to get my securities cashed out and stowed away safely. I did that the second quarter my mutual funds showed the deficit they were guaranteed to never show.
We have been talking about this "Greek Crisis" for how many years??? Don't claim you never saw that coming!
China,,,well that was all a theatre of smoke and mirrors from the start and they have simply been waiting for the proper moment to nationalize all that foreign capitol.
The point is that in the past 100 years we have probably already seen things in GB, Germany and the U.S. get as bad as they are ever going to get. There were revolutions, restructuring and wars, but no one wound up in the stone age.
The real and true crashes of the social order occurred during the two World Wars fought during the 20th Century. Look to those instances for the real key to what will unfold during a real collapse, and I am not talking about the actions on the battlefield!
total control of all production
total control of all labor
total control of the movement of the population
total control of all agricultural production
seizure of property for non-compliance
rationing of everything from food to clothing
complete absence of petroleum to the public
heavy civil penalties for "hording"
total control of all media outlets
loss of as much as 50% of the adult male population in some areas.
Taxation heavy enough to end the traditional lifestyle of the upper classes
End of the colonial mercantile structure w/outlet for surplus population
It has been so long since the "civilized nations" had a real war that they are now a point of discussion of historical memory and not experience. We no longer fear war because it is always a small, controlled activity far away fought by volunteers who knew what they were getting into before they left.
What we fear is loss of our fish and chips money, having to share our space with relatives, not having enough hot water and the internet shutting down.
Good God???? how does one prepare for loss of the internet????
I don't think a financial collapse will end the world. It never has in the past. The cycle of history is 2 recessions and 1 depression every 100 years.
MB, for the loss of the internet, my plans are to stock up on porn magazines and funny cat videos. Then I'll just post myself useless adverts for viagra pills that I'll never read, and throw in the bin, but will somehow appear again the next day.
Who knows, if the internet crashes, I might even go outside!!! Haha, who am I kidding? Like I'd ever do that!
Recessions are actually more common that two a century.
Over here we had one around 1900, another in 1919 after WW1, the big depression from '32-'39, one right after WW2 when all the GIs came home and war production shut down. We had a serious recession in 1957(they started building our interstate highway system to end that one) and another serious one at the end of our Viet Namn war due to slowdown in defense production. There was a bad recession in the early 1980s due to government financial manipulations and a stock market "crash" as bad as 1929 that shut many of our banks in 1987 and cost Bush I his presidency. There was a serious stock market "correction" when tech stocks crashed in 1998. Then there was the one of 2007.
Thing is, if it happened longer than two days ago everyone forgets it happened.
If one is in a line of work like production or transport then it was the end of the world with each downturn and the whole world was out to get you every time you got back on your feet. Being on the bottom of the heap makes one more sensitive to fluctuations.
If you were a professional in an insulated position all you noticed was that your retirement account was not earning as it should and the TV news was very boring.
It is much like this Greek "crisis", if you want to call it that.
The U.S. is divided into 50 states which are semiautonomous but answerable to federal restrictions. Of those 50 states 25 of them have a GDP larger than Greece. We have cities with higher GDP than Greece!
Fact is that we have had several of those states go bankrupt in the past, surrender control to the Federal government and recover without the nation crashing or the world ending.
The failure of a nation that has only 10% of the GDP of GB will not really make a ripple anywhere but in the political realm. This is all a big show to justify bailing out the banks for the unsecured bond issues that funded a socialist states' excesses.
Germany or GB either one could buy Greece, then give every Greek a broom and put them on the German government payroll to clean the place up, reopen the resorts and show a profit for their nation in less than a year!
You already did that once right after WW2. It was letting the Greek communists regain control of the government that has created the present problem.
The funny thing is, the more I look into the issues caused by a financial meltdown, the less concerned I am. Not in that I don't think it'll be bad. It will be.
The part that I would be concerned about would be if we went like Zimbabwe. Hyper inflation. That would cause rationing and the alike. But even in Zimbabwe, it only really effected the poorer elements of society to start, but it ended up with a 90% or more (can't remember which) unemployment rate. If things even started in that direction, we'd be leaving the UK.
With the Greece thing, not concerned that much. It could come this way, in that we destabilise as a financial power. With our economy being largely based on services, that could very easily be an issue if things did start to go sour. However, being separate from the Euro could well be a saving grace.
The main issue is to keep our head above the water if things do go wrong. To do this we have savings, precious metals, food & water, and ways to produce power. This allows us to pay our bills (mainly taxes and mortgage) eat, drink, and have heat. Very basic, but that's what we're getting ready for. But even this isn't an EOTWAWKI event. It's just times getting really tough.
I truly believe, if it's a major financial collapse, worse than 2007-2008, then if you play it right, you could well come out of it a few years later, much richer than you went in.