Karl Denninger of the Market Ticker asks How Long Before You Wake Up, Politicos?
So let’s cut the crap – we are in a Depression right now. We are pretending we are not, just like you can pretend you didn’t really lose your job so long as your credit card does not reach its limit. We have been in that depression for about 18 months and there is no evidence that we will exit it, as we have yet to find a way to pull back the deficit spending without an instantaneous collapse in the economy.
Yet at some point we must and will stop. We will either do so of our own volition, or we will do so when the cost of borrowing skyrockets, as others get tired of funding our profligacy. If we attempt to “print” our way out of it the cost of petroleum products will shoot the moon and destroy our economy anyway.
You haven’t seen the half of what happened though – not yet. It appears that AIG – the company we have bailed out (thus far) to the tune of some $100 billion plus, in fact isn’t done. It appears they may have written credit protection on Greece. If this allegation by the German equivalent to The New York Times is true Americans are going to be asked to pay billions of dollars – or more likely, hundreds of billions (since Greece is almost certainly not the only place – try Spain, Portugal, Ireland, etc) to bail out a bunch of FOREIGN NATIONS.
Do you both think Americans can and will pay that bill? A bill that has been forced on us, and yet benefits not The United States economy, but foreigners?
Wars – big wars – start over much less, my friends.
The PIIGS’ exposure (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain) is somewhere in the area of $3 Trillion. Did AIG et. al. write credit protection on Greece and the rest of the PIIGS? If so, get ready for more printing, or will our government stand up and finally say that we are no longer going to bail out the TBTF’s? According to Ben Bernanke, we will no longer monetize debt, but does that mean the Federal Reserve will not use other methods to bail out big banks or insurance companies who backed bad debt?
If we have to print trillions more to bailout out foreign banks and countries, it will not bode well at home. According to Denninger:
To the politicians who are reading this, your Thorazine dosage needs adjustment as well. The math is irrefutable. If, in point of fact, AIG has entangled itself with the European Continent there is no escape from what is to come. There is only destruction, and our only two choices are to cause as much of it as we can to occur there, by pulling the plug on these clowns now, or risk a literal World War. We may get one anyway, but if we bring the bulk of the damage here we’ll be dealing with a civil collapse at the same time, and have no chance of being able to deal with the geopolitical implications. We must not allow that to happen. You must not allow that to happen.
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It’s time to stop. Not because you want to, not because you fear us (even though you should – after all, we’re your employers and can fire you) but because if you don’t there won’t be a nation worth governing left. You know who the crooks are – including those among you.
As we come closer to what many believe will end with a total collapse of our economic system, analysts and bloggers have been writing more and more about the response of federal and local law enforcement in the event of civil unrest and lawlessness. Mr. Denninger suggests that when it really hits the fan, federal law enforcement will not come to the aid of their local colleagues:
If it gets bad, and I believe both history and the math says it will, who’s going to help you? Do you really think the entirety of the 150,000 Federal Officers will come to your aid? Or will they sit in Washington DC and in their big black Suburbans (armored, of course) issuing orders for you to go into the streets in your (unarmored) Crown Vics and die in their place? Remember that the “bad guys” in such a circumstance outnumber you 10 or even 20:1 and not only are they probably armed as well as you are, they’ve actually shot – offensively – at other human beings. Unless you’re one of the “bad cops” you’ve never done that, and few of you have had to fire in self-defense. Your only realistic advantage in such a situation is that most of the gangbangers are pretty poor marksman.
Do not underestimate the power of panic, especially if local law enforcement personnel choose to head home to protect their own families if the SHTF.
Karl Denninger discusses a host of issues related to the financial crisis, domestic law enforcement, and the coming fallout in his article How Long Before You Wake Up, Politicos? and we highly recommend you give it a read in its entirety.
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Its coming
There is no way to pull back the deficit spending without an instantaneous collapse in the economy.
OHHHH dude, Israhell ain’t done with us YET!
The good part is israhell will be left to fare for themselves.
let israhell burn to the ground …good riddance
Comments…..what goes around comes around, all the havoc caused by the U.S. for the past 100 years will all come back  instantaneously and destroy it from with in. give 6 more years and all out civil war will break out. Of course by the then all the jews would have sucked the country dry, and they will all be in Israel laughing at you people
Your irrational racism is unbelievable, and speak volumes about your uneducated ignorance.
Christ was a jew.
I am amazed how anyone can possibly blame Israel for the economic issues that we are facing. This type of hate-blame speech matches that of Hitler’s Nazi regime in disseminating this kind of rhetoric which led to the holocaust. The blame boils down to the simple fact that greedy people who love money create the root of all evil which is something that we all have to live with the consequences of.
o yea alanisimus, check this webpage out. its from a few years ago so surely the numbers have increased.
http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/how-much-money-has-the-american-taxpayer-spent-to-support-israel-since-1948/
Until 2003, Israel received approximately
one-third of the annual US foreign aid budget.
In 2005, the US gave Israel more than $2.6 billion
in aid, a budget exceeded only by US aid to Iraq.
By comparison, Jordan received $683.6 million,
Rwanda received $77 million, and the Occupied
Palestinian Territories received $348.2 million.
The US also lends money to Israel, but these loans are
frequently waived before any repayments are made.
The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs has
estimated that from 1974-2003 Israel benefited from
more than $45 billion in waived loans from the US.
bruno,
I only wish that all the money the US is spending (as the trillions in bailing out the likes of AIG and the dead broke too-big-to-fail banks) was spent as wisely as assisting our only real ally in that part of the world!
Comments….. Your ally in what stealing peoples land murdering woman and children, throwing people out of their homes that they’ve lived in for a thousand  years, bombing the hell out of civilians, in the name of democracy and freedom. Please don’t make me sick. And please don’t give me the holocaust anti semite bullshit.
Comments…..One more comment for the quest up top. First of all christ was not a jew, you would know that if you study proper scripture , and embryology, he was born from the breath of God and sent to the world as the direct word of  God to man, no human interaction took  place in his birth, and his mother  the Holly virgin was chosen by god for this task. But you go ahead and keep defending the children of Cain.
Denninger is a straight-up guy from what I can tell. The only real question here is how much longer can we keep pretending everything is OK?
It’s like we’ve jumped off a 50-story building, but we haven’t hit bottom yet, so hey, we’re still alive and everything’s great. Some of us are actually looking at the ground however.
To Sam. Jesus was born a Jew, was circumcised, had a Bar Mitzvah, kept Kosher, and died a Jew. His Mother was a Jew. His Father was a Jew. His 12 disciples were Jews.
When all of you Jew haters here meet your JEW GOD the CHRIST you will be cursed and sent to Eternal Hell.
To Mac Slavo. Shame on you for allowing this racist hate on your website. Hope you join the Jew Haters in Eternal Hell.
Pete, I realize that the debate in this particular group of comments has gotten a bit heated, but I have allowed comments from both sides, including yours. Admittedly, I have difficulty allowing many of these comments to be approved and have had to remove some as they did cross what I would consider to be the anti-semitic racism line.
“hate” is a matter of perception, but that is a conversation I will forego for the time being.
On a personal note, I am part Jewish and part Christian. If you feel it necessary to judge me and damn me to hell, you have every right to do so. Luckily, you won’t be the one making the ultimate decision on the matter.
The SHTF Plan web site often posts controversial material, and we often get a variety of thoughts, opinions and controversial remarks in our comment section. Everybody has the right to argue their point, as you did above.
If you take issue with previous comments suggesting that “jews” are to blame for certain problems, then please feel free to argue those points.
In my view, comments attacking “jews” in regards to this article are no different than comments that attacked ‘christians’ in regards to articles posted about abortion, or those that attack “muslims” in reference to terrorist acts, etc.
My personal opinion is that individuals of jewish decent certainly had something to do with our current global problems. But so did did christians, muslims and buddhists… People can claim a religion or a cultural practice, but to be perfectly honest, that makes no difference to me.
Are some of the people that post a comment here racist? Yes, some are. I do my best to filter the racist comments.
Are some of the people that post a comment here prejudiced or bigots? Yes, probably. But I personally do not feel that restricting their speech is necessary, even though I may not agree with a single thing they say and may be appalled by the direction in which they have taken a particular argument.
There is a fine line between prejudice, bigotry and racism and all I can do is the best I can do.
Thanks.
Mac
In the old testament God told the children of Israel that He would bless those that bless Israel and curse those that curse Israel. God bless Israel! God is still the same God, He does not change.
Thank you, Don!  I utterly believe in free speech, but the neo-nazi knuckleheads that post on this site piss me off to no end!
What will you neo-nazi scum do when one day a Jew, Yahweh bless their hearts, comes to your aid?  I would never strike you for such hatred, but would readily puke on your shoes!
Comments…. I am amazed at some peoples ignorance regarding this issue of jews and christ. First of all I am not a jew hater, I am only stating facts. I am not saying that all jews are bad either.I am a semite my self and study scripture in its true form be it Hebrew,Armaic,or Arabic unlike you idiots that get your education from the zionist schools of thought.
This is the first time I’ve commented, although reading the site for a while now.
We are facing a list of colossal disasters, and all anyone wants to do is argue about some dead guy, and his imaginary friends. Â Organized religion (in any of it’s forms) is the main cause of the worlds problems. Â It gives people the right to feel “saved” (special), and when people start feeling special, then they look down on others who aren’t special, and after that, they start hating. Â Once the hate starts (typically a week or so after being “saved”, there is no turning back. Â christians have a built-in excuse for every nasty thing they do; “god will forgive me….”. Â There was nothing special about Jesus, and his death was not remarkable or even especially violent for the time. Â Indeed, many tens of thousands of people in Dark Ages Europe (coming again soon) suffered far more horrific deaths.
I do have to agree that we face a meltdown on the financial front, and with three major earthquakes in the last two months, I’m worried about the Cascadia subduction zone in my area. Â It’s apparently due to let go of a 8.5-9.0 sometime in the near future.
On to the topic at hand;
Has anyone come up with a cohesive SHTF plan? Â What about different scenarios (infrastructure intact vs destroyed)? Â Pros and cons of moving vs staying put? Â Also, in New Orleans, the cops were sent in to shoot peoples dogs. Â Anyone factored in the family pets with their plans?
Jonny, great comment.
I am working on an update to this web site which will include a new section with different disaster scenarios ranging from natural regional disasters like hurricanes/earthquakes to worst-case infrastructure collapse like EMP. The new site should launch shortly and we should have that new section populated over the following several weeks.
In regards to pets: our cockatiel has his own bugout food prepped. My sister-in-law has several dogs/cats and she currently cooks some of their “meals” for them.. actually, it is primarily baking dog biscuits and such. But an excellent point — your pets will need to eat so the decision on how they will be fed needs to be made now. Will they eat your food and use up your caloric reserves or do you have specific foods in reserve or in your plan for the pets?
we started making our own dog food a while back. Â Much better for the dogs, and just as cheap as the kibble. Â However, I have some high quality kibble (no grain) vacuum packed for the dogs and cats. Â Watching the video of the cops in Katrina made me sick, and in fact, our local authorities had to deal with it when a local river flooded last year. Â The majority of people would not leave their pets, and so the rescuers had to allow them into the boats. Â It was on the news and everything.
I will be especially interested to see the scenarios. Â The EMP thing strikes me as remote, more likely from a solar flare than a nuke. Â Earthquakes are real however, and the cascadia zone is in the news now. Â From my 20+ years of commercial construction, I can say with out doubt, that an 8.5 will level most of Seattle (meaning that the Space Needle and most high rise buildings will be brought down. Â Additionally, the roads would be shattered, and my sparky friends tell me that power would be out for at least three months. Â This is the current scenario that I’m trying to work.
Mac – I really enjoy the daily readings from your site.  When I start reading negative, nasty comments or arguments in the comment area I usually move on. There’s enough of this junk around on a daily basis without looking for more.  The world is filled with hate. As a Christian I have a hard time with my own hate filled thoughts. It’s amazing what I catch myself thinking sometimes.  Your comment above is excellent. You do a great job of explaining your thoughts. We all have “logs” in our eyes at some point.  It’s impossible to put the blame on any one or two specific events or a particular group for where we are in this universal mess.  We all tend to be greedy, sinful and self centered. The end results is the mess we’re in right now. We’re all in it together, what difference, really, does it matter how we got here.   Your doing a great job. You have a great site. Keep up the great work.
Mac, I ditto Bill’s comments. I enjoy reading the many opinions your site offers and have learned much from them. We all have a responsibility to be respectful to others. One of God’s characters is that “it is by His kindness that leads us to repentance”. Â He loved me before I loved Him. Loving our neighbor as ourselves is the 2nd greatest commandment given to us all. Â This is easy to read but hard to follow at times!
Thanks folks, I appreciate the feedback. I want everyone here to have a good experience and insightful discussions, and I will continue to do what I can to keep this a friendly and informative place for people to come.
Thank you to all the commentors here — without you this website would not be where it is today!
“Those who forgot or disregard their history…are doomed to repeat it”-George Santayanna
Those who know the meaning of the above quote, read it and weep. Those who don’t, will rant. they’ll blame others, and they’ll assign it all to everyone but themselves for why “they” are miserable. If it works…by all means keep doing it.
Allowing the emotive issues of religion and racial profiling on this website is an effective way of killing well-reasoned argument and critical analysis. Replacing it with irritating name-calling and specious, puerile invective cheapens the process of debate or discussion.Â
Comments….After reading all the comments above it makes my heart cry. How many of the above really know my Savior Jesus, who was a man of love and compassion who loved you and I so much that He gave His life freely so that someday we could have eternal life with Him and His Father in heaven. I have lived 89 years on this earth and it is not an easy time lots of heart breaks which we do not understand why here on this earth but GOD is faithful and is always there to comfort us, this I know. So do not judge anyone people let GOD be the judge. Merry Christmas the day we celebrate our Savior’s birth..