A glimpse of the financial future?
This is what it looks like when absurd taxes, hyper-regulation, and high (yet not hyper) inflation make it impossible for ordinary people to trust their country’s money and institutions.
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September 7th, 2010 at 8:07 am
“…trust their country’s money and institutions”. I’ve never done that. What kind of idiot would do that?
Anyway, you should be more worried about that ‘Berlin Wall’ your Sadistic Elite are building to stop you all escaping to the high life in Mexico when they decide you’ve all got to work eighteen hours a day 7 days a week in some corporate slave colony in order to ‘save America’. That’s their America, the one which belongs to the top 0.1%, protected by their billions.
You’re doomed! DOOMED!
On that cheerful note, I’m off. Have fun.
September 7th, 2010 at 9:11 am
Time to crunch some numbers… .308, .223, .30-06, .45, .357, .50
practice your numbers!
September 7th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Skeery stuff…that could easily be the U.S. It’s my observation that the underground economy here in the U.S. is very much alive and prospering-regulation and taxes do that. On a more cheerful note, I recently bought a copy of The Freedom Outlaw’s Handbook as a birthday gift. I waited a little too long to order, so now it’ll be a Christmas gift. The neat thing about giving books as gifts is you get to read’em-eyetracks leave few traces. An absolute hoot to read(up ’til 3 A.M. on a work night)…I’m not sure what I am, tho’..a Ghost, I suppose…
September 7th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
When I first read “Freedom Outlaw’s Handbook” I was struck by the following passage in which our gracious hostess sets forth a vision of what many of us would like to see (pp. 76-77):
Not just cyber communities on the Net. Not the the libertarian equivalent of isolated communes. But full-scale, real-world communities that perform the functions that communities always have. People[...] will need to establish alternate, free-market, underground systems of transportation, communications, medical care, employment, insurance, and of course self-defense.
Some of these communities will be actual, physical “compounds” or towns that quietly exist outside of the law[...] Other communities will be more like loose networks, providing services but not having any physical center[...]
(Inherent in this concept would seem to be the creation of internal money, based on precious metals or other tangibles.)
This, of course, would be highly preferable to what exists in Argentina, and to what is likely coming down the tracks to America. What I had a hard time grasping, however, is how such a thing could evolve.
Comes now one John Robb over at Global Guerrillas (http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/)
Among many other things, he describes how existing governments are decaying into “hollow states” that provide the form but not the functions traditionally associated with governments (such as the minting of stable currencies.) His theses also extend to how “fourth generation warfare” is leading to a destabilization of governments by the destruction of highly vulnerable physical and economic infrastructure at the hands of small, decentralized insurgencies.
Robb writes that as the inevitable collapse of large institutions proceeds:
The clear and unambiguous message to every citizen of the West will be:
You are on your own. You are in direct competition with everyone else in the world, and your success or failure is something you alone control.
For those that think that this will bring about a surge of peaceful economic vigor, you will be wrong. It will fragment society and lead to perpetual stagnation/depression, endemic violence/corruption, and squalor[...]
As this occurs, you have a choice.
You can stand alone and do nothing. Thereby suffering the predations of [the] new criminal class.
You can join them and prey on your former compatriots, enriching yourself in the process.
Or finally, you can build something new. Resilient communities and independent economic networks based on freedom, prosperity, and a new moral compact.
When I read about how Argentina may be a “canary in a mineshaft” for America, it does me well to think of things like this.
Claire, would you favor us with your reaction?
September 8th, 2010 at 6:19 am
This is a good article, but if you want a TRUE glimpse of the economic future I would start here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMLVMEQmhTQ
The video is in Spanish with subtitle, so there is some reading involved. The only problem I see with the article above is that looking at Argentina now is about a decade into the problem. Is sounds bad to see “25% inflation”, but things have actually more or less stabilized, it was MUCH, MUCH worse.
But, this could never happen here. They had a president with a progressive agenda (not like the US), which led to high taxes and major recession (nope. would never happen here). Then all the shortfalls created major debt problems and borrowing from the IMF. Come on! We have a very conservative Treasury/FED running up our debt supported by foreign nations like China….(again nothing like borrowing from the IMF…. that is like borrowing from a consortium of foreign governments).
I tell you it is completely different…..no similarities at all.
September 8th, 2010 at 6:37 am
CS, damn good comment, and I will definitely be thinking more about it. No time for a quick reaction right now (sorry). But I’ll aim for a good response shortly. Okay?
September 8th, 2010 at 6:52 am
G.W.F. Thank you so much for your comforting observations. I feel much better now. ;-)
September 8th, 2010 at 7:30 am
If (when?) it happens here, it will be much worse. The folks down in Argentina can at least convert their worthless pesos into dollars. We won’t have any other currency to convert our worthless dollars into.
September 8th, 2010 at 8:15 am
Take your time, Claire. Long ago, I learned that ideas, like decent wine and beer, require a certain amount of fermentation and aging before they’re ready.
;)
@Tom,
A humble suggestion: Denominate value out of dollars now to the greatest extent possible and into silver, gold and tangibles. Yes, we still need USDs for a lot of things, but if and when bank closures, inflation and withdrawal restrictions start in earnest, a modest sack of “junk silver” may start looking pretty useful.
(Even more importantly, people should use this time to develop skills that are of value. We can’t eat gold or silver, but should things really go badly and someone has a skill that I need, I’ll make damned sure they eat.)
Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. I’m afraid that given the culture of dependence and loss of epistemic integrity that’s flourished in this nation in the last several decades, things here will be much worse in many ways.
September 8th, 2010 at 8:21 am
Tom, that is an interesting question. It is one I have had as well. I actually ran across another interesting video “surviving without money” when I was searching for that documentary on the Argentina economic collapse:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDKeQ4IACJ4&feature=related
I have not watched the full thing yet, but it looks pretty interesting so I am going to try and get to it tonight. I had seen the Argentina documentary a while back and felt actually seeing the people taking to the streets when the banks closed their doors and robbed all the citizens was worth people seeing.
September 8th, 2010 at 11:49 am
For those who haven’t run across it, “FerFal” Aguirre has an extensive blog on his experiences entitled “Surviving in Argentina.”
http://ferfal.blogspot.com/
It’s interesting reading and offers a host of insights on his life in a country that’s been in economic ruin for nearly a decade.
September 8th, 2010 at 8:00 pm
CS: I was about to recommend that same blog. He has a book out now, too.
September 9th, 2010 at 9:21 am
This is off topic, but ‘splain this to me-I guess I are ignernt. From what I’m told by someone I trust, the color of a pocketknife in Boston can determine whether a cop thinks it’s a deadly weapon or not. A black handled Swiss Army knife(or one in “military” colors) is considered(or can be)”threatening”. The traditional red handled one(or other color-Swiss Army knives come in many colors now)isn’t-even if they’re physically identical otherwise.(He lived in Boston for a while, and had several run-ins with cops over really screwball stuff).
Using that standard, could you walk down the street in Boston with the Hello Kitty AK-47?(this started out as a joke, but several have been created,I think) It’s pink with Hello Kitty stickers on it.
September 9th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
Scott: test that with a plastic one first :p