Posted on 06/06/2010 11:52:21 PM PDT by Windflier
Introduction
The following is just my opinion. It is nothing more than my opinion. I have nothing to substantiate or prove any aspect of my opinion. My opinion is simply the logical conclusion of a law-abiding sixty-year old Christian grandfather who has both an engineering degree and an M.B.A. degree and who has seen both good times and hard times during his life.
The Current Situation:
At the present time every nation in the entire world is facing serious financial and social stress. If only a few nations were involved then it might be possible to contain the upcoming meltdown to a few specific geographical areas. This has been successfully done in the past. However, since the entire world is currently on the edge of the cliff, when the meltdown begins it will impact almost everyone on the face of the earth.
Unless God chooses to intervene, the meltdown is no longer avoidable. Our governments and our financial institutions are no longer in control. However, to keep the system working just a little longer they must maintain the illusion that they have the system under control. But the system is broken and it can't be fixed.
There are two reasons why the system can't be fixed:
1. It has grown beyond its own capacity to support itself.
2. It has become so complex that no one can do anything significant to fix it because it is hemorrhaging in too many different places.
The average person in every nation on the face of the earth knows the meltdown is coming. The wealthy people know it. The poor people know it. Nobody wants it to happen. But almost everyone is just patiently waiting for it to begin and at the same time hoping that it doesn't begin too soon.
Nobody knows when the meltdown will actually start. It may begin one-month from now. Or a year from now. Or three-years from now.
But almost everyone knows that at some future date the meltdown will occur.
This widespread knowledge of the impending disaster is the reason that when the disaster begins it will quickly and completely spiral out-of-control in one-hour or less. In my opinion, most people do not seriously believe it could happen this quickly. Most people expect a more gradual meltdown. They may be right because nobody can predict the future, and that includes myself.
The One-Hour Meltdown
However, my personal opinion is that once the meltdown begins then in less than one-hour it will quickly escalate far beyond anyone's ability to control or manage it on a worldwide basis. The five basic assumptions that cause me to believe in my "one-hour meltdown theory" are as follows:
1. Banks: The financial institutions around the world cannot withstand a full-scale worldwide bank run. Therefore, they have already made plans to immediately shut down the instant they are told to do so. Within minutes, all across the globe, all the ATM machines will be offline, all credit card and debit card verification transactions will be halted, and all banks will have their vaults locked and their doors locked and their building emptied of all personnel, except perhaps for some special security guards. All high-level bank executives will immediately disappear to a wide variety of remote safe unknown locations. All telephone call inquiries to any of the financial institutions will be automatically answered by a computer with a pre-recorded message similar to the following: "Our system is currently experiencing an extremely high call volume and therefore we are unable to answer your call at this time. Please try again later when our call volume returns to normal."
2. Governments: The vast majority of our government leaders all over the world are relatively intelligent individuals. They completely understand the ramifications of a "bank holiday" in our computer controlled financial economy. Therefore, all government offices will also be immediately shut down, and they will empty their buildings and lock their doors. Any transaction in progress, including any trials in progress, will be immediately halted and postponed until some future date. All high-level government officials, including all judges and tax officials, will immediately disappear to a wide variety of remote safe unknown locations.
3. Retail Businesses: Since they will be unable to process even simple transactions, all retail establishments, both large and small, will immediately lock their doors to prevent anyone else from entering. If possible, they will complete any transactions for customers already inside their building if those customers have enough cash to pay for their purchases. Any customers wishing to pay by check or credit card or debit card will be told that the verification system is down and their transaction can't be completed. All customers will then be immediately escorted to the doors and the doors will be briefly opened and then immediately locked after they exit. In addition, in a manner similar to what happened during the World Trade Center meltdown, each store's management may demand that their employees remain at their stations until further notice or they will lose their jobs for leaving without management's permission. But most of the more intelligent employees will leave at the same time as the store's last few remaining customers. The store's special security guards may or may not remain behind in order to protect the store with their lives. Since most of these special security guards are not paid exceptionally well, a large number of them may decide that they should return home and protect their own families instead.
4. Criminals: Anyone and everyone who has any criminal tendencies and who has been patiently waiting for this to happen will immediately see it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to improve their financial situation. More than likely the vast majority of these criminals have already made very detailed plans that includes exactly which businesses they are going to rob first, second, third, and so on. Any business with a reasonable level of cash-on-hand will be very high on every criminal's list. Every jewelry store and pawn shop that has any type of silver or gold jewelry, or precious stones (diamonds, rubies, emeralds, etc.), will be very high on everyone's list. The warfare that breaks out at these establishments between competing criminals will not be pleasant.
5. Normal People: Normal average people will begin looting. Grocery stores will be broken into and they will be completely emptied from wall-to-wall, including the rear storage area, in less than one-hour. Stores that have firearms, ammunition, appliances, clothing, shoes, or anything else needed by the average citizen will be emptied in less than one-hour. In skirmishes over the few remaining resources, normal average people will begin killing one another inside the stores, and in the parking lots outside the stores, and on the streets as these fully loaded vehicles try to escape with their loot.
The above events will all happen simultaneously during the first one-hour of the meltdown. After that first hour has passed, things will really begin to get nasty. Everyone will quickly realize there are not are not enough law enforcement personnel to protect everyone and everything. Although the military will probably be ordered to protect specific high priority establishments and resources, there will simply not be enough military personnel to protect individual civilians or businesses.
More here: http://www.grandpappy.info/honehour.htm
Half of the unprepared will be shivering in their stranded vehicles in a traffic jam, reading Psalm 91, or some such.
The other half of the unprepared will be going from vehicle to vehicle, or house to house, barbequeing the carcasses therein, and stripping the vehicles or houses of any useful materials.
Willful ignorance is the essence of evil.
Yummy. Make me one too!
Bump to keep the thread going.
Bump-de-rebump
Mark
bookmark
How’s the cost of living in Northern Idaho?
Not too bad - the trick is making a living here. Gas is just under $3/gallon. Food is creeping up, but careful shopping helps there. Lot of good local meat and produce.
Power and water depends a lot on where you are. There’s everything from Avista, a supporter of ‘sustainability’, to the Kootenai Electric Cooperative, which has kept things reaonable for now. Our water is produced by a local outfit with virtually the first take out of the Rathdrum Aquifer. The well head is local, defendable and has backup power.
Then there’s a lot of DIYers for power and water. Your own well isn’t cheap - about $20K to get it done and you may have to go 600+ feet to hit an aquifer channel. Some folks around here haul their water in 500 gallon tanks set on the bed of a pickup. Some friends of ours did just that for over 20 years befor they saved up enough to put in a well and the infrastructure to support it.
There are basically two kinds of real estate to be had. There are the no-hopers who bought at or near the top of the bubble and will never get what they hope to get for thier property. Local example are a bunch of California alpaca rancher wanna-bes who bought 20 acres, cut down a nice young forest to the last tree (they said that they didn’t like pine trees), sectioned it off in little one acre lots and hoped to rent it out to other alpaca farmers. Never panned out ,and they just left a bunch of piles of slash in place of that nice forest. Jerks. The three families built their modular homes within spitting distance of one another, making it a tough sell in the best of circumstances. Now it’s deserted, with nothing but yard lights on and a Sotheby’s sign that gets no action. When the lights go out, I’ll know that they’ve truly walked away.
Then there are the real deals offered by folks who ran out their luck but don’t have the upside down problems that the first lot have. They just want as much of their equity as they can get to make a new start elsewhere. Seen quite a few of those.
ping for later
In my state, back in the end of October, you may recall the freak snow storm we had that took out the power to the whole state of CT for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I had a somewhat minor, but scary, medical emergency, that would have normally only required a doc office visit. When they were called, the answering service didn’t even work. No walk-in-clinics were open. My only recourse was to have someone drive me to an ER. The ER was open, on emergency power, albeit lightly staffed; one doc, one nurse. I got seen, as was in and out in only 20 mins. Problem solved.
What was very disconcerting...my medical co-pay went from $15.00 to $100. b/c of the crazy circumstances.
My rambling point is, that if our power grid goes down, no one’s medical histories will be available, and we will be f’ed. Unless your particular doctor’s office has a generator, I doubt if you will be seen.
If the U.S. grid goes down for any serious length of time, America will be instantly transported to the mid nineteenth century. Your medical history will be whatever you remember to tell the local sawbones about it.
Yep. It will be nightmare. After the incident I described......I couldn’t find any pharmacies that were open for business....took me 2 days to find one.....................then.................. I got an invoice for the ER visit a month later..........my insurance was charged $4,800. WTH?
BFL
I liked that part too. I moved to central KY from Seattle before reading this thread and that list describes where I live.
Nice!
It’s 19 F and snowing at a pretty good clip at the moment. Just did my morning property line walk-around; dead quiet and absolutely gorgeous. It’s nice to live in an area where you can walk around your grounds with an M4gery slung over your shoulder. Nobody would think twice about it even if they saw you.
BTW, here's my place. I bought the 12 acres in 2008 and the 20 in 2013. Two streams and a natural well and enough lumber to heat and build, if necessary. I STILL need to get solar though.
http://s409.photobucket.com/user/robbbb4/slideshow/Kentucky%20home
One of the guys I worked with at Fort Knox has property in the mountains of Idaho. My in laws used to as well. I remember it being up the hill from what I think was called “Twin Lakes”. We lost our kick dog there while spending a weekend. He wondered off and never came back.
You’ve got a beautiful place. The fact that you’ve got on-property water is a huge plus. Nice tractor, too.
We recently gave up our semi-permanent loaner Kubota B7300 to the folks who bought their place from its original owner. Not much more than a jumped-up lawn tractor, really. They’re going find out that they’ll going to need more tractor for the size of the place they now own.
We replaced it with a well-restored 1979 Kubota L225DT. Came with a loader and a 6’ back blade. Now that’s more like it. What used to take multiple passes to plow our driveway now takes just 2.
Twin Lakes is not too far from where we are, btw. Sorry to hear about the dog. We’ve lost several cats over the years to the local predators, but that’s life out here.
I was glad the dog “got it”. Sorry, but it was a real pain.
I use my tractor for two things: A box to smooth the driveway and a bushhog. And even a REAL tractor can be pushed. If I get the box too full going up the driveway, the wheels will just spin. Even with those treads.
For later reading
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