[Black Blade]

This is my whole point really. I prepare for the possibility of unemployment (bad economy or medical issues), natural disasters, economic collapse, terrorism and warfare, etc. Just common sense since I also have auto insurance, medical insurance, property insurance, life insurance, etc. I think the most likely event will be a financial collapse as we (the US) sinks deeper into debt. It is now mathematically impossible for us to ever pay off the national debt without hyperinflation where we can pay off our creditors (China, Japan, Federal Reserve bank, etc) with cheap devalued dollars.

This last week China's rating agancy declared that the US is already in technical default and they may no longer be a major buyer of US debt. If the US falls then everyone falls. There is nowhere else left to go. The US is in decline like the Roman Empire. Once the people figure out that they can raid the national treasury to benefit themselves they will send the nation into bankruptcy like Rome. They will tax the relatively wealthy until they are depleted as a resource. They the nation falls like Rome when they could not afford to defend themselves from the financial collapse without and from the barbarians at the gates.

Not that this really matters to me as I am getting old but am debt-free and hold raw rural land and precious metals as well as my long term stores of food, basic goods and defense materials. I am isolated enough to be low profile and my neighbors are either of the same mindset and similar levels of preparedness or are part time/summer residents. I guess I am more concerned about the coming generations who will have to clean up our nation's financial messes and excesses or submit themselves to some form of slavery to whatever regime comes to power next.

People always tend to say "it's different this time". Those last famous last words are a warning on Wall Street and should be a warning everywhere. History does repeat (some say rhyme) because man by his very nature does not learn from his past but repeats the same mistakes over and over as if somehow the outcome will be different. I live my life as a free man and enjoy life but I also know the score. The odds are against us.

Just my two cents.