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by Mac Slavo
August 11, 2015
from
SHTFplan Website
For the last several months there have
been warnings of a coming economic storm, with many
forecasting serious financial calamity
by the Fall of this year.
With stock markets in China having self
destructed, Greece and Europe in another crisis, and corporate
earnings for some of the world's biggest corporations showing
lackluster performance, it should be clear that the situation is
rapidly deteriorating.
But for the last several years America
has appeared to remain fairly insulated from overt crisis.
We were told that a recovery had taken
hold, jobs were returning and consumer confidence had reached new
highs, propaganda which drove millions of investors back into stock
markets and real estate.
No one in the mainstream world, it
seems, believes there's anything to be concerned about. Except there
is...
A
report from Zero Hedge highlights
just how hard Americans have been hit with increased energy prices,
inflation and low-wage labor offerings.
This is the hard evidence that proves
once and for all what most Americans will become privy to after the
fact: we are in a recession.
One of the biggest drivers of the
so-called recovery (in addition to the Fed's $4.5 trillion
balance sheet levitating te S&P500 and the offshore bank
accounts of 1% of the US population) has been the US consumer:
that tireless spending horse who
through thick, thin, recession and depression is expected to
take his entire paycheck, and then some tacking on a few
extra dollars of debt, and spend it on worthless trinkets.
Sure enough, for the past 8 years,
said consumer has done just that and with the help of the
endless hopium and Kool-Aid dispensed by the administration (who
can forget Tim Geithner's August 2010 op-ed "Welcome
to the Recovery"), and by the political and financial
propaganda media, spent, spent and then spent some more hoping
that "this time it will be different."
…
The biggest culprit in the collapse
in spending intentions was the middle class (those making
between $50 and $100K) but mostly the wealthy, those with
incomes over $100K.
It was the latter whose spending
expectations dropped to, you guessed it, the lowest in series
history.
Needless to say, this was not
supposed to happen.
Worse,
in an economy
where 70% of the GDP is in the hands of consumer spending, a
collapse in spending intentions to multi-year low levels means
just one thing: recession.
The U.S. economy is driven by one thing:
consumer spending, much of it based on credit.
As the chart above shows, spending has
collapsed. And that can really only mean one thing going forward.
America is not about to enter a recession, we are already in one
right here and now.
But
that's just part of the story. It actually gets worse.
Recent earnings from the world's largest
manufacturer of construction and mining equipment suggests it's
actually a whole lot worse than just another short-term dip.
We are, by the following account
detailing
Caterpillar's global sales, in a
full blown global depression:
Summarizing it all, after an
increasingly shallower series of dead CAT bounces in the past
year, first thanks to Latin America, and then the US, global
retail sales just dropped by 14% - marching the biggest Y/Y
decline since the financial crisis.
And the cherry on top:
there has now been an
unprecedented 31 consecutive months of CAT retail sales declines.
This compares to "only" 19 during the near systemic collapse in
2008.
…
In other words, if global
demand for heavy industrial machinery, as opposed to unemployed
millennials' demands for $0.99 Apple apps, is any indication of
the true underlying economy, forget recession:
the world is now in a second great depression
which is getting worse by the month.
That's right, while the band plays on
and everyone says there's nothing to worry about, the ship is
rapidly sinking.
What follows is anybody's guess, but if
government military exercises and simulations are a guide, we can
fully expect a significant economic event followed by widespread
civil unrest.
You didn't think they were stockpiling
guns, bullets, gas masks and riot gear just for fun, did you?
Somebody in government knows exactly
what is coming, and they will do whatever it takes to maintain
control once the Ponzi scheme has been revealed to the rest of the
public in the form of financial crashes and wealth confiscation.
It has been suggested that the collapse
of the debt bubble could lead to shortages of the most basic
necessities for survival.
Analyst Greg Mannarino
recently warned that because the
growth, including population growth, we've seen over the last two
decades has been
dependent on credit, once that
credit is frozen it will have ramifications that most people can't
even imagine as a possibility:
-
It's created a population boom…
a population boom has risen in tandem with the debt. It's
incredible.
-
So, when the debt bubble bursts
we're going to get a correction in population. It's a
mathematical certainty.
-
Millions upon millions of people
are going to die on a world-wide scale when the debt bubble
bursts. And I'm saying when not if…
The scenario outlined by Mannarino is
certainly an outlier, but what if he's right?
How would most Americans cope?
According to
The Prepper's Blueprint
author Tess Pennington, they won't because they have become
so dependent on the system they simply will not have the tools or
mental ability to adjust:
Collectively speaking, the
contribution from our easy lifestyle and comfort level has
created rampant complacency and a population of dependent,
self-entitled mediocres.
We no longer count on our sound
judgment, capabilities and resources.
The system keeps everything in
working order so we don't have to depend on ourselves, and
furthermore, don't want to. I realize that many of the readers
here do not fall into this collectivism, as you see through the
ideological facade and know that the system is fragile and can
crumble.
Breaking away from the system is the
only way to avoid the destruction of when it comes crumbling
down.
When you don't feed into the
manipulation tactics of the system, or enslave yourself to debt,
and possess the necessary skills to sustain yourself and your
family when large-scale or personal emergencies arise, you will
be far better off than those who were dependent on the system.
Those who lived during the Great
Depression grew up in a time when self-reliance was bred into
them and were able to deal with the blow of an economic
depression much easier.
Which side of this would you want to be on?
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