The coming shakedown

Forbes ^ | 6/10/10 | David Malpass

[EscondidoSurfer]

As cash runs low in government coffers around the country, politicians are ratcheting up the intensity of their search for revenue and new areas to regulate. Small businesses are in their cross-hairs in a mammoth, nationwide shakedown. They are the nation's critical engine for growth, innovation and job creation, yet they are being starved for credit and slammed with more taxes, government directives and litigation exposure.

[GBA]

Interesting. Thanks for the first hand report. I'm guessing silence doesn't indicate reverence and respect.

(Flames be damned, but I can't hold the applause for Michael against them. I have to compartmentalize on MJ to some degree. He was a year older and I grew up being amazed a guy my age could sing and dance like he could. The music he made before he went crazy was and still is phenomenal.)

[Thermalseeker]

As the desperation for money grows within the halls of our gubmint I expect all sorts of bad ideas to be floated. The so-called “imputed income tax” is being floated again. Originally, this idea was proposed back in 1993 to pay for Hillarycare. Imputed income is money you could make, but don’t because you choose not to. For incidence, let’s say your house would rent for $2000/month. That’s $24,000/year in “imputed income” you could be making if you rented your house. Never mind that if you rented your house you’d have to go find another place to live. I expect to see a flurry of nutty ideas like this to be floated over the coming months. What scares me is the idiots in Congress, DemocRat and Republican, are likely to pass some of it!

[MrB]

Just a word of caution on the "barter" idea.
This Guy recommends that it is better, at least at first, to just have everything you and your family need and don't depend on barter.

Bartering requires that you leave your home. Dangerous.
You also advertise that you have excess goods. Dangerous.

[Thermalseeker]

True, but the coming collapse isn't going to last a few months. We're staring down the barrel at a decade or more of horribly bad economic times that will likely make the Great Depression look like a walk in the park because the majority of our population now does not know how to be self sufficient. Back during the Great depression there were still a lot of small family farms. My mother and father were both young adults during the Depression. My father lived in Atlanta and he and his mother had a very rough go of it. My mother, OTOH, lived on a small farm. She told me once that they were so poor and so used to doing for themselves when the depression hit they hardly even noticed. Nowadays, we have a huge chunk of the population that has never tended a garden, never preserved their own food, doesn't know how to entertain themselves without TV or the internet. Those people are going to suffer big time. Then, there is the welfare brood mare dependent class. They'll be the ones responsible for the cities burning when the checks stop coming.

I agree it is dangerous advertising if you have excess supplies and in certain incidences in certain places it will be dangerous to leave home. Eventually, though, folks are going to have to start bartering because stuff is going to run out. I envision bartering more services for goods, as opposed to goods for services, anyway.

[MrB]

What I concluded was that, at first, you need to stay holed up until the “heard is thinned” and the gangs of roaming looters have been killed off or starve.
This is assuming you’re in a semi-rural area, etc.

You need provisions for that time, then after things settle down a bit and it’s not so dangerous, that’s when you start to trade and barter.

[Thermalseeker]

You need provisions for that time, then after things settle down a bit and it’s not so dangerous, that’s when you start to trade and barter.

I would agree with that. It shouldn't take all that long for the dependent class to kill each other off or be killed by those who are prepared to defend themselves. At some point, when the gang bangers see their homies dropping like flies all around them, they will stop thinking like a group and start thinking like individuals and about individual self preservation. Basic human psychology.....

[FrankR]

Snappy comeback...but again, you can’t push a rope...

[Oatka]

My mother, OTOH, lived on a small farm. She told me once that they were so poor and so used to doing for themselves when the depression hit they hardly even noticed.

I was a tramp printer back in the late '50s-60s and always made a point to ask the people in the various states I was in how it was for them during the Depression. Almost without variation, it was the same as you mom's, with some saying that while they didn't have any money, at least they had something to eat and a place to stay. On the other hand, those whose folks lived in the city lived in Hell.

I see the same cities burning scenario you do. I'm in a semi-rural area and keep a low profile along with my food and ammo stocks.

[Thermalseeker]

I'm in a semi-rural area and keep a low profile along with my food and ammo stocks.

I've been living in a rural area for about 25 years now. I grew up on a small farm in Georgia in what was at that time a rural area. It got swallowed by Atlanta's urban sprawl and I moved to a fairly rural part of Tennessee. My parents both drilled their experiences into my head and reminded me almost daily that it could happen again. In fact, in 1978 shortly before my father's death, he warned me that I would see another Depression in my lifetime. He knew he wouldn't live long enough to see it, but I would. He was convinced of it in 1978! That thought has stuck in my head ever since. About 10 years ago I bought a 70 acre farm. Shortly thereafter I started planting fruit trees, grape vines, berry bushes and such. We do a big garden every year, I put in 12 raised beds for non-row crop veggies. I put in a green house about 2 years ago that gives us fresh produce year round. The next step, one that I've been working on for a while now, is replacing old rusty fences so I can run some cattle and goats in certain areas. I've done about a mile of fence so far with another half mile or so to go. A chicken tractor is also in the works. My ponds are stocked. We've also made significant preparations for protecting what is ours. The best part is it's all paid for. We're about as prepared as we can be. What I find interesting is most of my neighbors have done or are doing the same. A country boy can (and will) survive.....

[GOPJ]

Originally, this idea was proposed back in 1993 to pay for Hillarycare. Imputed income is money you could make, but don’t because you choose not to. For incidence, let’s say your house would rent for $2000/month. That’s $24,000/year in “imputed income” you could be making if you rented your house.

Awful - economic insanity.