Social Chaos, Are You Ready For It?

I was just reading an article by NewsMax and it brings up some things I'd like to write about. Please note that some of the article below was taken from NewsMax who authorized us to forward this information to others.

The article is talking about some things that have happened in recent months that the general public was not made aware of. Did you realize that as economic times get harder, people start acting in ways that perhaps they normally would not?

For instance, when the gas prices started soaring, gas thefts or drive-offs became much more rampant. People start panicking and people start doing things they know are wrong. Last year, platinum and copper prices skyrocketed, so people started stealing anything with even a trace of platinum or copper, such as copper pipes out of empty houses, catalytic converters (with trace elements of platinum), were stolen right out of parked cars all over this country.

No matter how high gas prices or metal prices or any prices go, does it make it right to steal? Of course not! The 8th Commandment in the Bible tells us that we "shall not steal". It doesn't say thou shall not steal, except when prices get out of hand. It clearly says "thou shall not steal". That commandment is as right for today as it was back in the Old Testament days.

This is one of the many reasons that the government should not make people dependent on them for food, shelter, health care, etc. Right now there are tens of millions of low income people who are dependent on government. People that have become dependent on government have a sense of entitlement whereby they think that they are owed something just for being alive. These same people are more prone to violence and crime, especially when they don't get their way.

For instance, NewsMax.com says, "For example, in response to financially-troubled New York State making minor trims to its budget, an ugly 50,000+ mob took to the streets around city hall to demand higher taxes against the "rich." (Similar protests were mounted in Albany, Buffalo, and White Plains.)

Dire Unemployment Picture Foreshadows Social Chaos

John Williams of the authoritative Shadow Government Statistics notes that unfudged, un-manipulated government statistics suggests a whopping civilian unemployment rate of 17% — with a projected total to exceed 30% (during the Great Depression, unemployment approached an historic 25%). In the U.S., job-shedding has now exceeded post-World War II levels and the January 28 Wall Street Journal warned: "One troubling sign is that the states that were first into recession — those with a heavy concentration of home building and manufacturing — are getting worse, not better..." In December, the International Monetary Fund's managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn warned of riots and unrest sweeping through Western countries as lower-income households are beset with credit constraints and rampant unemployment. (Such riots have already caused the government of Iceland to fall and triggered riots in Greece.)

Today's Americans Don't Resemblethe Hardy Depression-Era Generation

Not to be politically-incorrect, but the simple truth is millions of Americans who've never known anything but prosperity and easy-money have a militant expectation that society "owes" them something. And with so many families on the margins of survival already, the speed of the downward unemployment spiral is downright ominous (and unprecedented). Worse, there are few signs the taxpayer dependents of today have any of the self-reliance skills that saw the hardy Great Depression generation through the tough times.

The Wheels Almost Came Off the Cart on September 18

Just last September 18, for example, the entire U.S. financial system nearly collapsed — coming within hours of unprecedented panic withdraws from U.S. banks and money market accounts totaling $5.5 trillion (well over a third of the nation's entire annual economic output). The chairman of the House capital markets subcommittee, Rep. Paul Kanjorski, recently spoke on the record about the little-known episode, noting "Five-and-a-half trillion dollars would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the economy of the world... it would have been the end of our political system and economic system as we have known it". During the September 18 crisis "episode", the Treasury Department's emergency pumping of $105 billion into the financial system failed. It was only after Treasury abruptly announced it would extend existing federal guarantees of $100,000 deposit insurance to $250,000 that the crisis abated (which is fortunate given the feds are already so awash in red ink they would have trouble covering such large losses no matter how many dollars they print). Rep. Kanjorski's nightmare scenario almost became reality: Suddenly inaccessible ATMs, frozen bank accounts, retirement funds, savings accounts, and small business payroll bank accounts. This near-total collapse of the U.S. banking system happened right under the nose of the media. Almost no one even knew anything out of the ordinary was going on — the point being you can't count on the media to give you early warning of things to come!

Systemic Collapse is a Real Possibility:Other Shoes Are Getting Ready to Drop

It is far too dangerous to ignore the growing signs of impending national social chaos. Even after absorbing some of the unsettling facts in this briefing, you need to act calmly and decisively make sure you can get the things you need and protect what’s yours — with undertones of frantic — while you still can. The signs of trouble abound. Congressional Quarterly notes that pension fund losses are about to spill out onto the front pages — with nearly as much financial exposure as that which brought down America's banking giants. It has not made much news yet, but the pension funds of millions of retirees is down by a whopping $1.9 trillion. This is why cities such as Philadelphia are quietly seeking federal money to bolster pension funds which CQ notes are 60% invested in the stock market — which itself has collapsed by a catastrophic 50% in just the last 18 months. Not to scare the pants off you, but the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has quietly informed Congress that the "insurance" agency for private pension funds, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, is at high risk of failure. (This will not become a "crisis" until desperate people start trying to tap early retirement money that is not there — for now the looming pension catastrophe remains a "dormant" threat). Worse, the former head of the U.S. Comptroller General Office, David Walker, essentially told Congress (before resigning in disgust) that the Social Security "Trust Fund" is a vault of IOUs; and Medicare will soon be effectively bankrupt.

State Governments Are Becoming Too Brokefor Law-Enforcement

The American Association of Architects' historically-reliable construction index has plunged 34.7% — a grim indication the commercial real estate market is the next shoe to drop, which analyst Mike Larson forecasts will lead to an "unstoppable chain reaction of bankruptcies." The reason I bring this up is because 46 states are already experiencing major budget shortfalls. And yet it is taxes from U.S. commercial real estate on which local and state governments depend to fund fire, police and social services. (Not to mention major insurance carriers — many of which are going to go belly-up when the full extent of the commercial real estate bust hits their reserve portfolios.) States such as California and Kansas don't even have enough money to send out tax refund checks (much less properly fund police departments) and are coping with the biggest annual job loss in a single year since 1945 (down 2.8 million jobs in 2008 alone). The Washington Post notes two out of three large police departments in U.S. cities are already reporting budget cuts and hiring freezes, even as 233 departments told the Police Executive Research Forum that they are noticing a major "uptick" in property crime which they attribute to financial unrest. The National Center for the Victims of Crime reports a whopping 24% increase in calls from October 2007 to October 2008 as "job losses and economic stress factor into increased violence." In addition, cash-strapped states have been forced by collapsing tax revenue to release hardened criminals back into society, noted the Post. On February 21, The Charlotte Observer reported on a disturbing trend which is going on all over the country: Major budget cuts for jails even as criminality is on the rise. The Observer story cited the closing of a youth detention center for violent offenders, an all-too-common "low-profile" budget-cutting practice going on all over the country.

More Evidence the You-Know-What is Going to Hit the Fan

Think about the widespread collapse of order and emergency services in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina — except on a national level. The implementation of gun-confiscation laws, looters and thugs terrorizing the elderly with impunity, besieged hospitals without power, doctors and medicine. People forcibly herded into "containment zones" and denied access to food, water, and medical attention. At least 45 patients died in one city-run hospital after being abandoned by doctors and staff. More recently, a simple fuel pipeline break in America's barely-functioning, antiquated energy infrastructure spawned major gasoline delivery disruptions throughout the entire Southeastern Seaboard region. For over six weeks, drivers could not find gasoline except by standing in line for hours to get just a few gallons of fuel. The recent regional collapse of the U.S. fuel infrastructure is a major warning sign that the energy supply chain is stretched dangerously thin — which combined with financial unrest has the strong potential to create major disruptions in the food supply chain (most population centers have only three days of food available to the public through supermarkets — meaning panic runs on food are a distinct possibility as the potential for social chaos continues to mount). If you think these scenarios cannot happen in the United States of America, talk with anyone who has ever been in the path of a hurricane. They will confirm that by the time the general public catches on to the danger, getting everyday items such as gasoline, batteries, plywood, medicine, water, and food becomes next to impossible. Social services, police protection, public transportation, and highway systems become next to useless.

When the Police AbandonLaw-Abiding Neighborhoods to Mobs

And don't even get me started on police protection. Past riots in Washington DC and Los Angeles portend a disturbing pattern when social chaos overwhelms order. The police almost always "pull back" and abandon entire neighborhoods to vicious mobs. In the case of the 1992 Los Angeles Rodney King riots (as Caucasians and Asians were hunted down, robbed, and slaughtered), the police hunkered behind their defensive cordons as the murderous racist rage unfolded — the only outside contact law-abiding victims had in the riot zone were with intrepid news helicopters hovering overhead, broadcasting the racial pogroms on live TV. You may even remember the only community to come out unscathed were sections of Los Angeles populated by Asian merchants — who fended off the mobs by placing shooters on the roofs of buildings within their defense perimeter. These heroic Korean merchants successfully protected their families, shops and homes. All because they knew how worthless bureaucrats truly are and made their own preparations. Where are you in this process? The coming social chaos will magnify these problems a thousand-fold. In short, it is extremely important to be one step ahead of the general public during an unfolding crisis. And at least three long steps ahead of the government's draconian, blunderbuss, freedom-stealing response.

Government Deliberately Keeps Public in theDark About Multiple Threats to Public Order

Some Americans have learned from past history and are quietly making basic emergency preparations for social chaos. Private gun sales at all-time record highs. Safe makers and alarm and generator installers have never been so busy. Not even close. Highly successful financial players such as commodities genius Jim Rogers now openly says the U.S. is heading for an inflationary holocaust. Which is why, for over a year — as confidence in the U.S. financial and political system continues to evaporate — physical gold and silver have been flying off the shelves — not just in the United States but all over the globe. The unavailability of physical gold and silver has become so acute that major U.S. mints have either curtailed or stopped taking orders for new coins.The Washington Elite Are QuietlyMaking Themselves More Self-Reliant
Now I want to share an important personal insight with you that will probably never make the news. You see, I belong to two Washington, D.C. membership organizations which date back to the 1800s — with members that include a smattering of cabinet officials, members of Congress, mid-level federal managers and many, many, retired former insiders. This is how I first learned that many top-level Washington insiders — many of whom have been directly involved in developing the Homeland Security Department, do not have confidence in government preparations for social chaos. I know this for a fact, not just because of my conversations with club members. I am also an acquaintance with a private contractor who has a booming specialty business which does nothing but work in posh DC neighborhoods, installing emergency back-up generators, freezers for food, and safes (Even a quick review of the DC yellow pages suggests that installing emergency generators and other survival precautions has become a prospering cottage industry in the Washington area.) As one of my very best Hillsdale College professors would have mused: "What would lead so many influential Washington insiders (who are in a position to know) to seek out ways to become so much more self-reliant than the average citizen?"

Outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney’sChilling Prediction

Of course, financial mayhem may be the least of America’s problems. Right after leaving office, Vice President Dick Cheney warned of the possible deaths of "perhaps hundreds of thousands of Americans" in a terror attack using nuclear or biological weapons. "I think there is a high probability of such an attempt," the straight-talking Cheney warned during an interview with Politico. An important item buried deeply in The Washington Post recently noted there are already 20,000 commercially-available labs in the world where a single person could synthesize any existing virus. In those same 20,000 labs, five people with $2 million can create an advanced pathogen—meaning a virus that will be able to infect even those people who have been immunized with conventional vaccines, and kill perhaps a million of them. Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson confessed to a reporter he "worries every single night" about a possible bioterror attack on the U.S. food supply. "For the life of me," he said, "I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is the easiest thing to do".

Two Categories of People: The Prepared vs. the Clueless

Whatever form the "triggering event" takes, not only will millions of Americans suddenly discover they are completely on their own, they will be completely unprepared for the government’s draconian response to social chaos. So there are two categories of people in America right now: Category 1 are the millions of clueless who blissfully assume their political overlords are going to take care of them. These are the people most likely to get caught flat-footed when all hell breaks loose. Category 2 are prudent, savvy people who are taking basic steps toward making their families and their households more self-reliant. You should know most people in "Category 1" probably don’t agree with me. After all, reliable polling suggests some 70% of Americans have a bliss-like faith our new President Barack Obama and his top Congressional allies (like Barney Frank) are going to stop the unfolding depression. Forgive me, but I am not drinking the kool-aid. There was no shortage of people who disagreed with me in 2007, when I warned my subscribers to get out of the U.S. financial sector on grounds it was destined to collapse. At that time, millions of people were reassured by their Wall Street-paid brokers and Wall Street advertiser-dominated TV financial "news networks" — such as CNBC — that all was well. In fact, in those days anyone who dared suggest the mighty U.S. financial system is a house of cards took a big chance of being dismissed as "perma-bears", nay-sayers, and yes, even unpatriotic!

Confession Time: This Information is NOT for Most People

Look, if you are among the 70% who believe Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats are going to "fix" the U.S. financial system with their trillion-dollar+ special-interest spending orgy, then you should stop reading this letter right now because there is little or nothing I can do for you.

Be Prepared for Chaos and Food Riots

You know already that we are in the End Times we have been forewarned about in the Bible. If you are already a born again Christian you know that Jesus told us that we will not know the hour of his coming back to get his church. However, that does not mean that we should not at least be prepared for what may well be going to happen while we are still on earth. My next comment will be about HOW to prepare for the coming hard times.

May God bless and keep us all, AMEN.