How to Survive the Coming US Economic Collapse
April 23, 2007
I've come to the conclusion that the US Economy is going to completely implode in the next 6-24 months (most indications are that the collapse will probably come in 2008 but it could happen sooner, and if the US Federal Reserve can control it, it could in fact 2-4 years but this is unlikely). I was going to try and make the case here but I don't think I can due the complicated and multi-faceted argument justice and you will have to do your own research and investigation.
The best thing you can do to understand the issues is to read the book Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse
The sad part for me is that Canada, which has a much more sound economic and financial picture will be sideswiped in the process since we are so heavily dependent on exports to the US. A lot of good but uninformed people are going to be hurt here as well.
Once you read the book, you will ask yourself what you can we do to protect yourself. Here are my suggestions (I am very conservative and pessimistic so take that into account):
- Move your bank accounts to a small bank or credit union that has no 3rd world investments, whose loans are covered by deposits, has little or no US dollar investments and has limited speculative investments (review their financial statements). Large banks will have massive exposure and could fail completely unless the government bails them out.
- Keep enough money in your bank accounts to cover 1 year of expenses
- Keep on hand a one month supply of cash in case the banks are closed for a period of time.
- Eliminate all debt obligations where possible.
- Move your mortgage obligations to fixed rates rather than variable rates to protect against potential hyper-inflation.
- Purchase bullion grade gold coins (Canadian Maple Leaf, British Sovereign etc.), bars or wafers.
- If you have the stomach for it, you might consider some short term speculative investments like gold stocks (the price is expected to double in the next year and could go much higher - with the mutiplier you would have - about 3x - you could profit greatly). However, you must expect to lose it all. It will be a timing issue if and when the market collapses. You could profit handsomely up to the start of the collapse but will have to get out before the full force of the collapse hits. Beware.
- With any major economic disruption, there is the potential for a disruption of the food supply, so you need to store a 3-12 month supply of food.
If you actually take the time to look around, you will find tons of articles written about a potential economic collapse. Here are a couple:
Doomsday for the Greenback
Former World Bank Chief Economist Predicts Global Crash
The following 5 hour audio presentation represents what the mainstream would call the the conspiracy point of view as opposed to the mainstream view. I find it interesting that a classically trained financial guy like Peter Schiff and the alternative guy G. Edward Griffin have both reached a similar conclusion. Download the G. Edward Griffin audio presentation
"A Reality Course on Money" in which he covers the history of banking
and finance in the US then moves on to the best case, worst case, and likely case
scenarios: