Is this SHTF, or are you expecting something much more dire?

I believe we are in for some bad times. The corpgov is printing money as fast as they can so the banksters don't get caught with their pants down. Inflation is about to become a part of life. You know where they're getting the 700 billion that we don't have? They're printing it 24/7. Bcuz it's da** sure not in the bank!
A link for anyone to peruse......http://www.urbansurvival.com/week.htm

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We have now officially entered the twilight zone.

If your questions is whether it's bottomed yet, the answer is no. I'm thinking it'll be another year or two out, maybe more. The Great Depression lasted well over 10 years, but this one is a global event.

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Ask Me About Linux System Administration

Well written comments.
I have 2: I think actual unemployment is much higher than measured or compared to recent (Carter's time). I've been in the construction business 30 years and for the last 5 or 6 everyone has become a subcontractor. Even the kids hired to sweep have to pay their own taxes and have no Employment Security. They...we...will not be counted.
Governments have been dumping money into businesses to deal with deflation. That dump of money will haunt us next year as inflation. Maybe hyper-inflation. That is likely to cause further trouble. A bubble type activity is the only way to recover...which leads to another crash....

I agree, what constitutes "SHTF" differs from person to person.

I've never really gone through a time quite like this in my life. I was too young to remember the recession in the '70s. I didn't realize there were problems during the recessions in the late '80s and mid '90s; we didn't have cable TV or Internet, and I wasn't a big TV watcher and so I was blissfully unaware that the world was crumbling around me. These days, I have instantaneous access to news on the Internet and, since I'm on the Internet for work several hours a day, I can't escape the news if I wanted to. Sometimes I feel like the world is falling down around me. Then, I go talk to Mom.

Mom was a young adult in Germany during WWII. By the time the war really got started she had lost both parents. Then, she lost the family home and pretty much everything she owned (including family photos and heirlooms) when the building was destroyed by a bomb. She lost her second home the same way, both times being left with what she was able to take with her to the bomb shelters. There were no government programs to help the displaced; they had to find their own way, very often not even being able to sort through the rubble of their destroyed homes to look for belongings that survived the destruction. Needless to say, my mother doesn't consider this situation anywhere NEAR "SHTF" status...

That makes a good point.

Being displaced from your home, is a good gauge for SHTF.

During the Great Depression a great many were displaced. Both sets of my grandparents were farmers and had children. They were all displaced from their farms by the banks. Both of my parents were teens, they moved from relative to relative, as each set of relatives lost their farms. My parents fished for food, picked weeds for salads, eventually walking and hitching rides West to find work in the fields.

That did not happen in the 70s, nor 80s. Any 'recession' during the 70s or 80s was purely a statistical function that very few felt.

Times like these, it feels good to be in the food service sector. I'm just about to graduate college with a degree in English with a minor in Creative Writing. I don't have too many complaints, but I've never really had anything to lose anyhow. As a Christian, I'm not to lay up treasures in the earth that moth and rust can corrupt, but to lay my treasures up in heaven. I have only faced severe lack due to my own stupidity or ignorance, not because of anything the government did or didn't provide me with. I was on foodstamps for a bit, but I'm not on them now. My God shall supply all my needs according to His riches in Glory!

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Just a few more days to travel just a few more days to roam then I'll enter heaven's portal, when the saints are gatthered home!

http://mlw107.zealforlife.com

come see my page

The people who don't have long term stock investments bash them. That's fine. More for me to buy for my grandchildren.

Buying stock is buying part of the businesses in this country that make life go around. Things are slow now, and may be slow a long time. If you have a long view, that's not a problem. If you believe in capitalism and the American way, that's not a problem.

This is a buying opportunity for the long term. If you don't want to, fine, but don't bash what you don't understand.

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

I don't believe it's wise to buy into a falling market, but I'm not bashing anyone for doing so. After all, it's your money. However, I do draw the line at giving poor investment advice. You never know who might take it.

But I am curious as to how you know which companies will make it and which one won't? Obviously, if a company goes under it's a poor long term investment, regardless of how long you hold the stock. Wouldn't you agree?

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Ask Me About Linux System Administration

Does anyone not think the market has been manipulated? Do you think it won't be manipulated more in the future?
Financial Engineering, my new favorite term.

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"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence"
Robert Frost

I'm thinking the DOW may see 1,500 - 1,200 before this is all said and done. Somewhere around where it was in '85 or so. It will take awhile to get there and will go up and down along the way but I'm thinking somewhere south of 2,000 is going to be the bottom. You can still buy and sell stocks in a market like this, but many times it will be like trying to catch a falling knife. Sometimes you catch it the right way and it hurts if you don't.

I have no idea how folks with large debt loads can handle this down turn. Our friends are losing their jobs. So far none of them are living in the shed in our backyard but I suspect there will be someone living there before this whole economic boondoggle is over.

We, as a nation, need to start producing things instead of consuming things.

But you know what they say, war is good for the economy. Hmph.

What I find disgusting is the way they make the employment rates look better than they really are. Ok, so there is, say, a 10% unemployment rate....does that sound low to you? Doesn't this mean 90% of people are "gainfully" employed? No, it doesn't. It means many people may be "technically" employed, but part-time or casual. I always ask myself, where are all these happily-employed people that are easily making ends meet due to these great employment rates? Not in my town! Even if the government does say unemployment is "low", it doesn't mean that people are not hurting.

How many people do you know that are part-time workers, that cannot find full-time work? LOTS! It's too costly to hire full-time, particularly when they have to offer benefits. It's cheaper to hire 2 part-timers with no benefits. Often part-timers will move on (unlike a full-timer) before they have a chance to get a raise, so this means re-hiring another at the "start" wage, a money-saver. Seeing as customer service and/or quality is not the #1 priority in most business now, having a non- or only partially-trained worker on a continual basis is often not a big concern. A full-time HR manager is often salaried, so whether he's hiring new employees or just managing the system, it doesn't cost the firm more.

I think one of the biggest job-killers in Canada are unions. Don't get me wrong, I think they had their place a long time ago, fighting for the workers, but now it's based on greed. I worked in a factory for 15 years at $14 an hour.....a darned decent wage for a non-union job. I got basic benefits. In the union factories, I would have got $18 or more plus a bagload of benefits that would choke a horse: free fitness membership, 3 weeks (instead of 2) paid holidays, free dental (up to $2000 a year), full prescription (drugs, eyeglass, etc) coverage. Oh and of course, you would have to practically commit murder to lose your job....the union would make sure that NOTHING would get you fired, they would fight to the death (with your union dues) for your rights. Great......til the factories decided it was cheaper and less hassle to move to the US.....and now the US is seeing the same thing we did.....now it's cheaper to move to Mexico. (And meanwhile, that little non-union factory keeps going, paying lower wages, and the previously high-paid university-trained management folk are dying to get in there at the student rate, go figure).

And what can you say about job security? There isn't much of that anywhere anymore. People are struggling just to make ends meet in low-paying jobs, taking on 2 or even 3 jobs just to buy food and afford heat and gas. So many factories in my area have closed down, companies that were here for decades, that employed long-time workers that, in their golden years, will be hard-put to pay their mortgages with a job at McDonald's. Disgusting! It's the old tirade every time: we're moving to Mexico or China because it's cheaper. The Hershey chocolate plant is a good example of this. It left Ontario (where some workers got $18/hr+), to go to Pennsylvania, and now it's going to Mexico, where I believe they pay around $3 an hour? How can you compete with that?

That's the one thing I will give Obama, at least he's going to consider changing the NAFTA agreement.....some of this may also trickle back up to Canada. We'll see!

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"The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese in the trap."

I don't think the SHTF will be one event.I think it will be a combination of events.The global problems escalate because of the econimic down turn,war,starvation,then a pandemic .
Could this be it?Could be the start
That being said ,hard times are upon us not SHTF but bad enough to cause some hardship.

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Chris
http://aberryvinefarm.blogspot.com/

In answer to the question "How do you know which companies will make it?" - you do research. Besides what you can learn from your broker and the internet, you ask around. You'd be amazed what a broad network of friends and acquaintances can do for you!

We have railroad stock, oil company stock, pharmaceutical stock, bonds in municipalities, retirement/nursing home stock, timber land, rental properties (both commercial and residential), gold fund stock, etc.

Diversification is important. No, it's essential.

I'm not advising that someone who knows nothing get an online brokerage account and go nuts buying things. I'm just saying that the panic selling that's going on is a prime opportunity for anyone with long range investment plans to buy.

I highly recommend reading Money magazine, The Motley Fool, and other investment publications.

Has the organic fertilizer impacted the air circulation device? Yes for those who weren't ready yet. No for those who have been preparing, both personally and financially since the 1970's.

Our preparation: We paid off our house and land, invested carefully, grow as many of our veggies as we can, and take care of ourselves by exercising and eating right.

I know that not everyone on this board can do what we have done, but I want to be the voice that counters the folks that say, "The market is falling, and you should sell your stock." Also the voice that counters, "You will lose your money in the stock market." It's simply not true if you learn what to do and when.

It's also essential not to be overly concerned about the value of your stock portfolio when the market is having spasms. You have the SAME NUMBER OF SHARES, and the value is not the most important thing if you are buying for the long term. You have to UNDERSTAND that the market fluctuates, and the value will fluctuate. It's *normal.* Just ride it out.

OK, that's the end of my essay for today. Some will agree, some will disagree, some will flame. Such is the nature of the board.

Have a good day.

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

This is exactly the kind of thing I am preparing for, I don't really believe civilization will collaspe totally, or we'll have a nuclear war, etc. but I was once out of work for over a year and our food storage and way of life (living lower than our means) kept us going until I finally got work. We've also made it through a couple of hurricanes when we lived in FL in reasonable comfort.

I think we're in for some hard times and our lifestyles will help us survive and possibly even be able to help some others.

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Apocalyptic and Survival Fiction - Readers and writers welcome

Yeah, it'll make you feel good, but what about the deers feelings?

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Apocalyptic and Survival Fiction - Readers and writers welcome

Many of you confirm what I have told others; We're not prepping for going over the cliff in a free fall. Rather, it is falling off one step at a time. It is amazing to me when I think where our economy, both local and national, was in July, 2005 and where we are now.

Based on reading what many of you wrote and what I read elsewhere starting in December, 2007, my wife and I started prepping for what we thought might be a temporary contraction in the the economy. Fast forward 11 months, I would never have thought that we would be where are right now. Far worse, but yet, it kind of as happened one step at a time.

The SHTF scenario, which I liken to the bank failures of the 1930's mentioned in a post above, is going to be when the Fed's debt gets downgraded or the currency loses its reserve status in the world.

Hunker down in the saddle, because it will become a wild ride when that happens, and that may not be more than six months away.

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Hillbilly and Proud of It!

Amen, I increased my 401k contributions, we'll be out of this mess in 15 years when I retire and I'll have gotten my mutual funds at bargin basement prices.
Will some companies go out of business? yes of course, but having investements in a few different mutual funds divirsifies you enough.
Remember the old saying "Buy low, Sell High" -- its a perfect opportunity for people to do that. But you got to be in for the long term.

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Apocalyptic and Survival Fiction - Readers and writers welcome

I don't have stock market investments because I don't trust the stock market. It is all imaginary and on paper. It goes away in a whim. The market is manipulated by the big players. I have no control over what happens. I prefer to invest my money in things I have more control over such as our land, our livestock, our farm, our business.

No, that is a fallacy that people in the stock market like to promote. The stock market doesn't make business happen. When Apple's stock goes up that does not benefit Apple. When Apple's doing well their stock might go up or down. Same for other businesses. It is a sham that revolves around people's expectations of what they can sell the stock to other people in the future rather than than any real valuation of the company or how well the company does. Stocks are not even necessary for raising money for business - loans work quite well. If the stock market were truely necessary to make business happen there wouldn't be so many small and large privately held companies.

To re-quote you: Those who invest in the stock market try to justify its existence.

Fortunately it is a somewhat free country and you can invest in the stock market, and other investments, if you want and I can not invest if I want. HOWEVER, I strenuously object to my money being used to bail out your bad investments. When you gamble and lose you should take the hit.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Well, my husband and I bought into the idea that we were doing the responsible thing by investing in 401 K mutual funds. Over the years we had thousands of dollars taken out of our paychecks so we wouldn't have to rely on social security during our retirement years. Now it looks like we may never be able to retire. Our investments are currently worth about half of what they were before August. Our banker keeps reminding us that if people had stayed in the stock market during the 1929 crash instead of bailing out they would have made money - taking our money out at this point doesn't make sense. With the penalties and taxes our investments would be worth almost nothing. My husband has seven years until he retires and I have about fourteen. Hopefully they will be worth something in the long run.

We, like millions of other Americans did what we thought was the responsible thing by investing our dollars in 401K plans. After all, our government told us it was what we should do. Little did we know that the people on Wall Street were pulling a fast one...(again) and the people running our country were asleep at the wheel.

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Some things are just worth waiting for

I will be eligible to join DH in retirement Jan 30 2009. He retired 5 yrs ago and has been waiting for me to retire so we could spend more time together.

I was within $4K of my goal of having what to me would be my comfort zone to have that much put away in my 401K that I'd feel safe to retire.

I'm now $29K short of that goal.

I'm trying very hard to see things as I'm better off to have this happen before I retired rather than after.

And I'm trying to see that I'm better off that I won't be forced to retire and can keep on working - and having 20 yrs seniority, being one of only 4 full employees and the rest are contractors.

But it sure is hard to see things that way when you've been counting down the months/weeks/days.