I see an economic diasater coming...

[Nink]

So, do nothing and act once bad things happen in your neighbourhood. If it is only economic hardship, just forget your losses, you can not take anything with you when you die.

If unrest starts, I will join the best organised group which can convince me that it can pull off a credible fight for power in the area where I live.

Greetings, Conrad

You are right I was an idiot for selling all my stocks and buying physical gold back in September.  Keep me in the loop on how your do nothing strategy is working out. 

[triffid]

http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/reports/RWR/blackoctober/credential/?ccode=&em=&sc=DIANO&ec=6809157&dv=MAM 

can Washington really go broke? check out the link above.
triffid


Edelson points out that, when Greece defaulted on its debts on June 30, 2015, its total debt was 1.5 times larger than the total value of all goods and services produced by its economy. Or, as an economist would put it, "Greece's 'debt to GDP ratio' stood at 177%."

But today, Portugal's debt-to-GDP ratio is 130.2% ... Italy's is 132.1% ... Spain's is 97.7% ... and France's is 95% — and those debts are growing at an alarming rate.

Tokyo's is 233% — 42 times higher than the debt that caused Greece to go broke — and it, too, is still growing by leaps and bounds.

Most alarming: America's official national debt plus Washington's off-budget obligations now stand at $117 trillion. That gives the U.S.A. a total debt to GDP ratio of 101%: 330 times greater than the debt that broke the back of the Greek economy.

"These debts are patently unpayable," says Edelson. "That means they cannot, will not ever be repaid. That means default is inevitable."

[conradelektro]

You are right I was an idiot for selling all my stocks and buying physical gold back in September.  Keep me in the loop on how your do nothing strategy is working out.

Only time will tell, if you were right to go into gold. There will always be a time when gold is good to have, but there always will be a time when gold is down or downright dangerous to own.

So, it is all a question of the situation you are in. Statistically speaking, the times when gold is a good thing to have are rare.

If there is social unrest, please do not show a single peace of gold, because you will be followed and tortured to death till you give up the rest of your gold. If you have it in a bank, it will be lost anyway because the bank will be bankrupt and all its contents will be in the hand of someone who will not give you your gold. So, gold in hard times is a liability which will kill you.

There might come a time when gold is very expensive and you could sell it with profit. But what will you buy? Real estate and stock will probably be risky in times when gold is very valuable. So, you can not really win, only in exceptionally rare cases.

In short, the only really valuable thing in hard times is a functioning farm in a safe area. But will there be a safe area and will you be physically able to farm? Do you want to live on a farm from now on? Because you have to do that now in order to be ready. It is a huge effort in money, labour and time to set up a functioning farm and to keep it functioning. Even for people with considerable money that is mostly not feasible.

The best advise I heard: to prepare for hard times make sure to repay all monetary debts. At least nobody can demand anything from you in case of disaster. You may be able to hold on to your house, which helps a lot. But you might be forced to leave your house, in which case you could just forget the mortgage. So, even that advice might not help. I would say, that repaying your debt is a good way of acting if we are heading for moderately bad times. You could pull through a temporary low of the economy. I personally always avoided debt, just because I do not like to pay interest. But I lived in the good times and everything was relatively easy.

Greetings, Conrad

[conradelektro]

can Washington really go broke?

Only a weak state can go broke. A strong state just prints new money.

If the money system breaks down, there will be a new political area with new and different political leaders. And if you look at history, new political leaders always printed their own new money.

Yes fortunes will be lost, but only monetary values (bank accounts and financial papers like stock and bonds and all the rest). But real estate and functioning enterprises which provide needed services and produce needed goods will go on. You have to realise that money is a fiction. But besides this fiction there are real things and the real things do not disappear in case of a money catastrophe. The real things might change hands, but they mostly stay on (unless they are destroyed by war).

Yes, the money system like we know it now for sure will break down. But there will be a new political class which will print new money. Real political power does not go bankrupt, it creates its own fictional money.

You are right, the political power that rules today in Washington or Europe or Japan is at the end of its life span and will be replaced in the coming years (and with it our current money system dies). Nobody knowns when and how that will happen, chances are that there will be another big war, which always was the big solution in history.

What can you do? Well, practically nothing, just wait and see and decide when it happens. Whatever you plan now will be wrong. There are no reliable prophets or prophesies. Survival in hard times is mostly ruled by chance. It helps to be young, beautiful, strong and clever. But that it is also true for good times.

And if you are old? Well, you had your time, stop lamenting you will die anyway.

Greetings, Conrad

[the_big_m_in_ok]

(snip for simplicity)

I am not sure how this will end but I would advise
1)buy phsysical gold,

I was told earlier in this thread that gold can't be eaten, since a silver dollar can't be eaten, either.   Money is a medium of exchange, only.   Making it a commodity like cereal grains that are physical,---they're a commodity---will eventually be impossible to control.   Just like the worldwide stock markets.   That's usury and it's a sure way to go broke---eventually.

2)Own assets

Food that's preserved is fine.   Guns---that work---and---enough!---ammo---that works---will also be valuable in a barter economy.   They're a commodity as long as greed doesn't get in the way and prices one 'out of the market'?


3) Get some bitcoin 4)Get out of debt (or have a method of servicing the debt without income) and 5) Stockpile enough for 12 months food water power and 6) ?