Money And Change

Fedcoin: The U.S. Will Issue E-Currency That You Will Use
By Wendy McElroy - news.bitcoin.com 

January 12, 2017

The U.S. Federal Reserve will not only issue its own cryptocurrency but will also make sure Americans use it. That’s the prediction of currency guru Doug Casey who has an uncanny record of being correct about economic and political trends. His latest book, Surviving Fedcoin: How to Protect Yourself (and Profit) from America’s Coming Currency Change, is a public bet that the U.S. government will issue its own bitcoin which Casey views as “the last arrow” in its money quiver.

How will the dynamic play out? He speculates, “To start with, I suspect it’s going to be a parallel currency. Perhaps usable just within the U.S. which, in effect, would be a form of foreign exchange controls even more effective than the inability of Americans to open up foreign bank and brokerage accounts today [due to monetary control through FATCA]…I think it’s a near certainty that they’re going to do something like this and soon.”
Also read: China to Play a ‘Leading Role’ in Bitcoin’s Future
Fedcoin

Fedcoin refers to cryptocurrency and/or protocol established by a central bank. National banks could forge their own ‘bitcoin’ with comparative ease and bitcoin consultants have sketched possible scenarios on how.

In “Some Thoughts on Fedcoin – a Fed backed cryptocurrency” (March 9, 2015),  Albert Szmigielski suggests, “[T]he Fed should premine all the currency that they want to issue on a blockchain….A premine happens where all (or part of) the cryptocurrency is issued in the first block, the genesis block. Then the Fed would just exchange the fedcoin for a dollar each.”
In the article entitled “Fedcoin” (October 19, 2014), J.P. Koning speculates, “The Fed would create a new blockchain called Fedcoin. Or it might create a Ripple style ledger by the same name. It doesn’t matter which. There would be an important difference between Fedcoin and more traditional cryptoledgers. One user—the Fed—would get special authority to create and destroy ledger entries….The Fed would…provide two-way physical convertibility between both of its existing liability types—paper money and electronic reserves—and Fedcoin at a rate of 1:1.”
Koning draws upon the work of mathematician and economist Sina Motamedi for “a more technical explanation for how this would work in the case of a blockchain-style ledger.” Motamedi advises, “The simplest way for a central bank to create its own crypto-currency is for it to fork the Bitcoin protocol into a new protocol that is unchanged in every way except that, going forward, the central bank would set and adjust the block mining reward at its discretion…. [L]ike paper currency, the central bank’s crypto-currency would be both decentralized (in transaction) and centralized (in supply).
” 
Discussions have been encouraged by the attention governments are directing toward Fedcoin. When the Bank of England released a paper (February 2015) that addressed the subject, the bitcoin-processing company Payment21 was not alone in asking, “Bank of England: Why might central banks issue digital currencies?”

In America, similar scenarios occur. In June 2016, central bankers from 90-some countries met behind closed doors in Washington D.C. and conferred with bitcoin experts. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen opened the conference, which included the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and Bank for International Settlements.
 
Adopting blockchain as a protocol to facilitate bank transfers was the focus but issuing ‘official’ digital currencies was actively explored. Adam Ludwin, CEO of the blockchain company Chain, delivered a speech entitled “Why Central Banks Will Issue Digital Currency.” Ludwin urged governmental attendees to use the revolutionary shift to create new assets for themselves.
[T]he medium of money has only changed a few times in history, from precious metals to bearer currencies to now our ledger-based electronic systems. Bitcoin and blockchain represent a transition to a new medium. This transition is often referred to as distributed ledger technology….But I find it more helpful to look back to bearer instruments, like banknotes, to appreciate what this new medium enables: a digital bearer instrument.

A key argument for Fedcoin is the perceived need to stabilize a cryptocurrency by pegging it to traditionally-issued money. The pegging would not necessarily be voluntary. Motamedi explains, “just like what happened with paper currencies, central banks will eventually step in to create their own crypto-currency protocols and forbid the use of any others. For simplicity, let’s call the central bank crypto-currency protocol BitDollar. Of course, these BitDollars would always be redeemable in regular dollars by the central bank, at least at first.”

Koning is more blunt. “Now is the time for the rebels to figure out how to create a stable-price version of bitcoin, before Darth Vader does it himself. Otherwise they may someday find themselves closing down their bitcoin startups in order to write code for the Empire.”

The Why Of It According to Casey

Doug Casey addresses America’s central banking system but the circumstances favoring a U.S. Fedcoin are mirrored throughout the Western world.

He doesn’t buy the stability theory. The U.S. government is bankrupt with liabilities far exceeding assets. Casey explains, Social Security is bankrupt… Forty-seven percent of the people in this country are net recipients of money from the government… Officially, one-third of all the US government’s assets are student loans; little-known fact. About $1 trillion worth of them.

The greenback is semi-stabilized by being “the world’s money” but its privileged status is being shaken by nations such as China and Russia who aggressively seek alternative mediums for global commerce. Casey believes that yesterday’s monetary controls – quantitative easing and interest rates at near zero or below – cannot sustain a bankrupt dollar with waning global relevance. Yesterday’s methods are “going to come to an end….What can they [the feds] do?”

What the feds can do is cryptocurrency; Fedcoin is what’s coming to a start. And, according to Casey, the primary benefit to government would be a centralization of supply and a transparency of demand (or transactions), which could centralize control of the economy to an unprecedented extent.

Why would people use the cryptocurrency? Fedcoin would almost certainly emerge as a parallel currency which would be adopted due to government requirements for its use in paying taxes or accessing entitlements such as Social Security. Increasingly, however, Fedcoin would become a tool to push toward a cashless society because physical money provides a privacy that prevents government control.
Casey observes that the feds, like to blame a lot of the problems on a lack of transparency, but with blockchain and the Fedcoin technology, they can see everything, everywhere. So it’s complete transparency ….Without cash, you have no privacy. If you have to put everything through a bank account, the government knows exactly what you’re buying, what you’re selling, how much you are earning. They’re in complete control; able to take what they want…including your entire account if you become politically undesirable.

Fedcoin would give the government God-like ability to track wealth. The justification will be to prevent criminal activities such as drug dealing and money laundering.

Will the U.S. create a Fedcoin?

Counter-arguments can be easily made; for example, most black or gray market activities are peaceful and not properly criminal. But Casey focuses on the harm inflicted on the prosperity and freedom of average people. “[P]eople that are dealing in what’s called the underground economy are actually providing useful goods and services,” he observes. “[I]f the government extracts its 30 or 40 percent in taxes, which they will be able to do now with Fedcoin, [that] is going to hurt the economy, not help it. It will help the U.S. government, but that’s different from the economy in America.” The government would grow richer.

It would also become a more powerful engine of social control. In terms of privacy, Fedcoin could become the anti-cash. “If I’ve got a $100 bill in my wallet or a bunch of 10s and 20s,” Casey explains, “I can spend them on anything I want with anybody I want and nobody knows. With blockchain….[the feds] know exactly who’s getting the money and what it’s being spent for. It can be programmed [perhaps through a mechanism simiar to smart contracts] so that certain transactions can’t take place….So you are pretty well blocked in.”

Fat people could be prevented from buying sugar; gun owners could be cut off from ammunition; teenagers could be banned from buying beer, cigarettes or video games. The possibilities seem almost infinite. In doing so, Fedcoin would merely extend existing policies under food stamp programs that prohibit spending on alcohol, casinos or strip clubs. The efficiency would be so much greater, however, that the difference of degree would become one of kind. The government could “prohibit anything without even passing a law….If your Fedcoin smartphone or chip isn’t programmed to let you buy that, how are you going to get it?” Politically controversial items, like a gun registry, could become irrelevant.

One of Casey’s dystopian predictions seems doubtful to me, however. It is the idea that many or most Americans would embrace being physically “chipped.” But, then, I may simply have more confidence in average people when it comes to recognizing their own self-interest.

The Shadow Of Solution?

Casey likens the potential currency revolution to the Industrial Revolution. The technologies developed then gave unprecedented freedom and literally ‘life’ to the common man; the human life-span and population increased dramatically.

Bitcoin and blockchain are equally liberating to the individual but revolutionary technologies also challenge the status quo. And, so, entrenched powers attempt to co-opt their use.
Whether governments will succeed is not clear; they may be thwarted by their own incompetence or by the intrinsic decentralization of cryptocurrencies. It seems clear, however, that governments will make the attempt. And when they do, the best response is a better technology that sprints forward and leaves those who wish to ‘tame’ it coughing on its dust.

Those on the cutting edge of technology are today’s freedom fighters.

"The Greater Depression" - Comparing The 1930s And Today
Jan 24, 2017 8:40 PM
Submitted by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,

You've heard the axiom "History repeats itself." It does, but never in exactly the same way. To apply the lessons of the past, we must understand the differences of the present.

During the American Revolution, the British came prepared to fight a successful war—but against a European army. Their formations, which gave them devastating firepower, and their red coats, which emphasized their numbers, proved the exact opposite of the tactics needed to fight a guerrilla war.
Before World War I, generals still saw the cavalry as the flower of their armies. Of course, the horse soldiers proved worse than useless in the trenches.

Before World War II, in anticipation of a German attack, the French built the "impenetrable" Maginot Line. History repeated itself and the attack came, but not in the way they expected. Their preparations were useless because the Germans didn't attempt to penetrate it; they simply went around it, and France was defeated.

The generals don't prepare for the last war out of perversity or stupidity, but rather because past experience is all they have to go by. Most of them simply don't know how to interpret that experience. They are correct in preparing for another war but wrong in relying upon what worked in the last one.

Investors, unfortunately, seem to make the same mistakes in marshaling their resources as do the generals. If the last 30 years have been prosperous, they base their actions on more prosperity. Talk of a depression isn't real to them because things are, in fact, so different from the 1930s. To most people, a depression means '30s-style conditions, and since they don't see that, they can't imagine a depression. That's because they know what the last depression was like, but they don't know what one is. It's hard to visualize something you don't understand.
Some of them who are a bit more clever might see an end to prosperity and the start of a depression but—al­though they're going to be a lot better off than most—they're probably looking for this depression to be like the last one.
Although nobody can predict with absolute certainty what this depression will be like, you can be fairly well-assured it won't be an instant replay of the last one. But just because things will be different doesn't mean you have to be taken by surprise.
To define the likely differences between this depres­sion and the last one, it's helpful to compare the situa­tion today to that in the early 1930s. The results aren't very reassuring.

CORPORATE BANKRUPTCY1930s

Banks, insurance companies, and big corporations went under on a major scale. Institutions suffered the consequences of past mistakes, and there was no financial safety net to catch them as they fell. Mistakes were liquidated and only the prepared and efficient survived.

Today

The world’s financial institutions are in even worse shape than the last time, but now business ethics have changed and everyone expects the government to "step in." Laws are already in place that not only allow but require government inter­vention in many instances. This time, mistakes will be compounded, and the strong, productive, and ef­ficient will be forced to subsidize the weak, unproductive, and inefficient. It's ironic that businesses were bankrupted in the last depression because the prices of their products fell too low; this time, it'll be because they went too high.
UNEMPLOYMENT1930s

If a man lost his job, he had to find another one as quickly as possible simply to keep from going hungry. A lot of other men in the same position competed desperately for what work was available, and an employer could hire those same men for much lower wages and expect them to work harder than what was the case before the depression. As a result, the men could get jobs and the employer could stay in business.

Today

The average man first has months of unemployment insurance; after that, he can go on welfare if he can't find "suitable work." Instead of taking whatever work is available, especially if it means that a white collar worker has to get his hands dirty, many will go on welfare. This will decrease the production of new wealth and delay the recovery. The worker no longer has to worry about some entrepreneur exploiting (i.e., employing) him at what he considers an unfair wage because the minimum wage laws, among others, precludes that possibility today. As a result, men stay unemployed and employers will go out of business.

WELFARE1930s

If hard times really put a man down and out, he had little recourse but to rely on his family, friends, or local social and church group. There was quite a bit of opprobrium attached to that, and it was only a last resort. The breadlines set up by various government bodies were largely cosmetic measures to soothe the more terror-prone among the voting populace. People made do because they had to, and that meant radically reducing their standards of living and taking any job available at any wage. There were very, very few people on welfare during the last depression.

Today

It's hard to say how those who are still working are going to support those who aren't in this depression. Even in the U.S., 50% of the country is already on some form of welfare. But food stamps, aid to fami­lies with dependent children, Social Security, and local programs are already collapsing in prosperous times. And when the tidal wave hits, they'll be totally overwhelmed. There aren't going to be any breadlines because people who would be standing in them are going to be shopping in local supermarkets just like people who earned their money. Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of it is that people in general have come to think that these programs can just magically make wealth appear, and they expect them to be there, while a whole class of people have grown up never learning to survive without them. It's ironic, yet predictable, that the programs that were supposed to help those who "need" them will serve to devastate those very people.

REGULATIONS1930s

Most economies have been fairly heavily regulated since the early 1900s, and those regulations caused distortions that added to the severity of the last depression. Rather than allow the economy to liquidate, in the case of the U.S., the Roosevelt regime added many, many more regulations—fixing prices, wages, and the manner of doing business in a static form. It was largely because of these regulations that the depression lingered on until the end of World War II, which "saved" the economy only through its massive reinflation of the currency. Had the government abolished most controls then in existence, instead of creating new ones, the depression would have been less severe and much shorter.
Today

The scores of new agencies set up since the last depression have created far more severe distortions in the ways people relate than those of 80 years ago; the potential adjustment needed is proportionately greater. Unless government restrictions and controls on wages, working conditions, energy consumption, safety, and such are removed, a dramatic economic turnaround during the Greater Depression will be impossible.

TAXES1930s

The income tax was new to the U.S. in 1913, and by 1929, although it took a maximum 23.1% bite, that was only at the $1 million level. The average family’s income then was $2,335, and that put average families in the 1/10th of 1 percent bracket. And there was still no Social Security tax, no state income tax, no sales tax, and no estate tax. Furthermore, most people in the country didn't even pay the income tax because they earned less than the legal minimum or they didn't bother filing. The government, therefore, had immense untapped sources of revenue to draw upon to fund its schemes to "cure" the depression. Roosevelt was able to raise the average income tax from 1.35% to 16.56% during his tenure—an increase of 1,100%.

Today

Everyone now pays an income tax in addition to all the other taxes. In most Western countries, the total of direct and indirect taxes is over 50%. For that reason, it seems unlikely that direct taxes will go much higher. But inflation is constantly driving everyone into higher brackets and will have the same effect. A person has had to increase his or her income faster than inflation to compensate for taxes. Whatever taxes a man does pay will reduce his standard of living by just that much, and it's reasonable to expect tax evasion and the underground economy to boom in response. That will cushion the severity of the depression somewhat while it serves to help change the philosophical orientation of society.

PRICES1930s

Prices dropped radically because billions of dollars of inflationary currency were wiped out through the stock market crash, bond defaults, and bank failures. The government, however, somehow equated the high prices of the inflationary '20s with prosperity and attempted to prevent a fall in prices by such things as slaughtering livestock, dumping milk in the gutter, and enacting price supports. Since the collapse wiped out money faster than it could be created, the government felt the destruction of real wealth was a more effective way to raise prices. In other words, if you can't increase the supply of money, decrease the supply of goods.

Nonetheless, the 1930s depression was a deflationary collapse, a time when currency became worth more and prices dropped. This is probably the most confusing thing to most Americans since they assume—as a result of that experience—that "depression" means "deflation." It's also perhaps the biggest single difference between this depression and the last one.
 
 
 
Today

Prices could drop, as they did the last time, but the amount of power the government now has over the economy is far greater than what was the case 80 years ago. Instead of letting the economy cleanse itself by allowing the financial markets to collapse, governments will probably bail out insolvent banks, create mortgages wholesale to prop up real estate, and central banks will buy bonds to keep their prices from plummeting. All of these actions mean that the total money supply will grow enormously. Trillions will be created to avoid deflation. If you see men selling apples on street corners, it won't be for 5 cents apiece, but $5 apiece. But there won't be a lot of apple sellers because of welfare, nor will there be a lot of apples because of price controls.

Consumer prices will probably skyrocket as a result, and the country will have an inflationary depression. Unlike the 1930s, when people who held dollars were king, by the end of the Greater Depression, people with dollars will be wiped out.

THE SOCIETY1930s

The world was largely rural or small-town. Communications were slow, but people tended to trust the media. The government exercised considerable moral suasion, and people tended to support it. The business of the country was business, as Calvin Coolidge said, and men who created wealth were esteemed. All told, if you were going to have a depression, it was a rather stable environment for it; despite that, however, there were still plenty of riots, marches, and general disorder.

Today

The country is now urban and suburban, and although communications are rapid, there's little interpersonal contact. The media are suspect. The government is seen more as an adversary or an imperial ruler than an arbitrator accepted by a consensus of concerned citizens. Businessmen are viewed as unscrupulous predators who take advantage of anyone weak enough to be exploited.
A major financial smashup in today's atmosphere could do a lot more than wipe out a few naives in the stock market and un-employ some workers, as occurred in the '30s; some sectors of society are now time bombs. It's hard to say, for instance, what third- and fourth-generation welfare recipients are going to do when the going gets really tough.

THE WAY PEOPLE WORK1930s

Relatively slow transportation and communication localized economic conditions. The U.S. itself was somewhat insulated from the rest of the world, and parts of the U.S. were fairly self-contained. Workers were mostly involved in basic agriculture and industry, creating widgets and other tangible items. There wasn't a great deal of specialization, and that made it easier for someone to move laterally from one occupation into the next, without extensive retraining, since people were more able to produce the basics of life on their own. Most women never joined the workforce, and the wife in a marriage acted as a "backup" system should the husband lose his job.

Today

The whole world is interdependent, and a war in the Middle East or a revolution in Africa can have a direct and immediate effect on a barber in Chicago or Krakow. Since the whole economy is centrally controlled from Washington, a mistake there can be a national disaster. People generally aren’t in a position to roll with the punches as more than half the people in the country belong to what is known as the "service economy." That means, in most cases, they're better equipped to shuffle papers than make widgets. Even "necessary" services are often terminated when times get hard. Specialization is part of what an advanced industrial economy is all about, but if the economic order changes radically, it can prove a liability.
 
 
 
THE FINANCIAL MARKETS1930s

The last depression is identified with the collapse of the stock market, which lost over 90% of its value from 1929 to 1933. A secure bond was the best possible investment as interest rates dropped radically. Commodities plummeted, reducing millions of farmers to near subsistence levels. Since most real estate was owned outright and taxes were low, a drop in price didn't make a lot of difference unless you had to sell. Land prices plummeted, but since people bought it to use, not unload to a greater fool, they didn't usually have to sell.

Today

This time, stocks—and especially commodities—are likely to explode on the upside as people panic into them to get out of depreciating dollars in general and bonds in particular. Real estate will be—next to bonds—the most devastated single area of the economy because no one will lend money long term. And real estate is built on the mortgage market, which will vanish.
Everybody who invests in this depression thinking that it will turn out like the last one will be very unhappy with the results. Being aware of the differences between the last depression and this one makes it a lot easier to position yourself to minimize losses and maximize profits.
*  *  *
So much for the differences. The crucial, obvious, and most important similarity, however, is that most people's standard of living will fall dramatically.

The Greater Depression has started. Most people don't know it because they can neither confront the thought nor understand the differences between this one and the last.
As a climax approaches, many of the things that you've built your life around in the past are going to change and change radically. The ability to adjust to new conditions is the sign of a psychologically healthy person.

Look for the opportunity side of the crisis. The Chinese symbol for "crisis" is a combination of two other symbols—one for danger and one for opportunity.

The dangers that society will face in the years ahead are regrettable, but there's no point in allowing anxiety, frustration, or apathy to overcome you. Face the future with courage, curiosity, and optimism rather than fear. You can be a winner, and if you plan carefully, you will be. The great period of change will give you a chance to regain control of your destiny. And that in itself is the single most important thing in life. This depression can give you that opportunity; it's one of the many ways the Greater Depression can be a very good thing for both you as an individual and society as a whole.

Jim Rickards: Economic Collapse Is Predicted in 2017 – US Dollar Crash and Gold Prices to 10K! – Massive 78% US Depopulation

Beforeitsnews.com  / prepperfortress.com  Sunday, January 22, 2017 10:53
The collapse of the Western financial system will wipe out the standard of living of its population while ending ponzi schemes such as the stock exchange and the pension funds. The population will be hit so badly by a full array of bubbles and ponzi schemes that the migration engine will start to work in reverse accelerating itself due to ripple effects thus leading to the demise of the States.

This unseen situation for the States will develop itself in a cascade pattern with unprecedented and devastating effects for the economy. Jobs offshoring will surely end with many American Corporations relocating overseas thus becoming foreign Corporations!!!!mWe see a significant part of the American population migrating to Latin America and Asia while migration to Europe – suffering a similar illness – won’t be relevant. Nevertheless the death toll will be horrible.

Take into account that the Soviet Union’s population was poorer than the Americans nowadays or even then. The ex-Soviets suffered during the following struggle in the 1990s with a significant death toll and the loss of national pride.

Might we say “Twice the pride, double the fall”? Nope. The American standard of living is one of the highest, far more than double of the Soviets while having added a services economy that will be gone along with the financial system.

When pensioners see their retirement disappear in front of their eyes and there are no servicing jobs you can imagine what is going to happen next. At least younger people can migrate. Never in human history were so many elders among the population. In past centuries people were lucky to get to their 30s or 40s.
The American downfall is set to be far worse than the Soviet Union’s one. A confluence of crisis with a devastating result…

The following are 11 predictions of economic disaster in 2017 from top experts all over the globe…

#1 Bill Fleckenstein: “They are trying to make the stock market go up and drag the economy along with it. It’s not going to work. There’s going to be a big accident. When people realize that it’s all a charade, the dollar will tank, the stock market will tank, and hopefully bond markets will tank.
Gold will rally in that period of time because it’s done what it’s done because people have assumed complete infallibility on the part of the central bankers.”

#2 John Ficenec: “In the US, Professor Robert Shiller’s cyclically adjusted price earnings ratio – or Shiller CAPE – for the S&P 500 is currently at 27.2, some 64pc above the historic average of 16.6. On only three occasions since 1882 has it been higher – in 1929, 2000 and 2007.”

#3 Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, one of the most respected economic journalists on the entire planet: “The eurozone will be in deflation by February, forlornly trying to ignite its damp wood by rubbing stones. Real interest rates will ratchet higher. The debt load will continue to rise at a faster pace than nominal GDP across Club Med. The region will sink deeper into a compound interest trap.”

#4 The Jerome Levy Forecasting Center, which correctly predicted the bursting of the subprime mortgage bubble in 2007: “Clearly the direction of most of the recent global economic news suggests movement toward a 2016 downturn.”

#5 Paul Craig Roberts: “At any time the Western house of cards could collapse. It (the financial system) is a house of cards. There are no economic fundamentals that support stock prices — the Dow Jones. There are no economic fundamentals that support the strong dollar…”

#6 David Tice: “I have the same kind of feel in ’98 and ’99; also ’05 and ’06.  This is going to end badly. I have every confidence in the world.”

#7 Liz Capo McCormick and Susanne Walker: “Get ready for a disastrous year for U.S. government bonds. That’s the message forecasters on Wall Street are sending.”

#8 Phoenix Capital Research: “Just about everything will be hit as well. Most of the ‘recovery’ of the last five years has been fueled by cheap borrowed Dollars.Now that the US Dollar has broken out of a multi-year range, you’re going to see more and more ‘risk assets’ (read: projects or investments fueled by borrowed Dollars) blow up. Oil is just the beginning, not a standalone story. If things really pick up steam, there’s over $9 TRILLION worth of potential explosions waiting in the wings. Imagine if the entire economies of both Germany and Japan exploded and you’ve got a decent idea of the size of the potential impact on the financial system.”

#9 Rob Kirby: “What this breakdown in the crude oil price is going to spawn another financial crisis.  It will be tied to the junk debt that has been issued to finance the shale oil plays in North America.  It is reported to be in the area of half a trillion dollars worth of junk debt that is held largely on the books of large financial institutions in the western world. 

When these bonds start to fail, they will jeopardize the future of these financial institutions.  I do believe that will be the signal for the Fed to come riding to the rescue with QE4.  I also think QE4 is likely going to be accompanied by bank bail-ins because we all know all western world countries have adopted bail-in legislation in their most recent budgets. The financial elites are engineering the excuse for their next round of money printing . . .  and they will be confiscating money out of savings accounts and pension accounts.  That’s what I think is coming in the very near future.”

#10 John Ing: “The 2008 collapse was just a dress rehearsal compared to what the world is going to face this time around. This time we have governments which are even more highly leveraged than the private sector was. So this time the collapse will be on a scale that is many magnitudes greater than what the world witnessed in 2008.”

#11 Gerald Celente: “What does the word confidence mean? Break it down. In this case confidence = con men and con game. That’s all it is. So people will lose confidence in the con men because they have already shown their cards. It’s a Ponzi scheme. So the con game is running out and they don’t have any more cards to play. What are they going to do? They can’t raise interest rates. We saw what happened in the beginning of December when the equity markets started to unravel.
So it will be a loss of confidence in the con game and the con game is soon coming to an end. That is when you are going to see panic on Wall Street and around the world.”

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

This is a good motto to live by, despite how you think about things.
Individuals can still hope for the best (that things can and will eventually work out), but what good is your prosperity going to do if you don’t have anything to eat or a safe place to hang out for an extended period of time?

Why not prepare while you still can — when things are readily available and can still be purchased at cheap prices? The coming hyper-inflation will make any such purchases beforehand look very intelligent…

To prepare for the worst, you need a plan. Why are most people so against doing basic preparations that could be the difference on how they survive — or whether they survive?
History shows time and again that those who prepare always fare better than those who did not.
Having a plan and being determined to act on that plan will always be the best way to handle any contingencies, should they occur.

After disaster strikes, your mind is going to be racing around like a car on a race track.
Preplanning and having a written set of measures to take will make someone’s life go much smoother when the SHTF.

What will happen in 2017? For Economic, Gold, Silver Prices, US & World Economy, Debt, Dollar, Currencies & Stock Market Predictions on Collapse, Crisis and Crash by Top Economists and Investors – Please see my channel for more outlooks and forecasts!

Remember, calamities are everywhere: at work, home, school and many other places. These calamities cause tension and leads to a decrease in productivity. This may finally lead to a reduction in life. Fortunately, the lost ways review will provide solutions to these situations. It will give you the tips for preparing yourself when nothing seems to go as expected.
Generally, most people are optimistic. This makes them unprepared for failure. However, the best thing is to prepare for worst times. It is important to tell your kids about earthquakes, fire outbreaks, extreme weather conditions and other calamities. Tell them how to deal with these calamities in case they occur.