@Kevin
Do you think there is any currency that is a relatively safe alternative instead of gold or commodities? I follow a few. It seems to me having an account in, for instance, Brazil might not be so bad. Their currency has appreciated well against the dollar. Their banks also seemed to avoid most of the MBS/CDO/CDS foolishness. It is one of the countries I am considering for retirement. Some others would be South Africa, Indonesia or Argentina. They don’t seem to be as interested in participating in the race to the bottom, for various reasons. I am curious about your opinion.
@jburke6000 The R$ (Brazilian real), is a huge commodity play.
If that next dollar support gets taken out… I doubt whether ‘this currency or that currency’ is going to be very germane to the discussion at that point. As I’ve always said, diversification, diversification, diversification, but we are now, in my opinion, not only looking at the cliff, we are sliding toward it. The whole world has strapped itself to the mast of the doomed U.S. So, if the slide continues, all these other countries, that rely so heavily on the U.S., can’t unload their stuff in America anymore.
America done gone busto.
Then what? Is China gonna take up the slack, with most Chinese making penury and living on top of each other in dorm rooms?
We’re watching the collapse of the most powerful state that has ever existed on this planet. I don’t feel bad in admitting that I can’t forecast through to the other side of this one. I’m pretty sure, though, that there is nowhere to hide.
That next support holds, or it’s going to have to be a new show. New actors. New set dressings. Same fascist BS, but more of it. “Ordo ab chao,” as Cybele said above. I don’t know what, with any precision, the new ‘order’ will be, except that it won’t be good.
There are a number of market participants who don’t want to see the U.S. go down, because their realities will end at that point.
I just wrote to someone in email that:
“They are going to be throwing their grandmothers, wives, husbands, lovers, children, small pets, etc. under the bus to stop that from happening.”
That’s why I wrote that I was less sure about the ~70.7 zone than this hard pivot level that just got taken out tonight. Some number of market participants, including some with possibly hundreds of billions of dollars in drug profits, are going to chew their own arms off to try to get that thing to rally now.
Just watching it go below 73.965 at 15:37 GMT, and thinking that my money is on it sliding into this ‘chaos zone’ below 71 but a previously unforeseen miraculous element comes into play and everything carries on, nothing to see here (yet). My fingers are crossed for this outcome because frankly, I have not yet got everything ready to assume ‘crash positions’! Fingers crossed and kiss my ass goodbye?
there really aren’t any preparations that will be valid. at that point you will have only 2 real choices: 1) assume full battle readiness, a thing very few people will have the requisite resources to achieve or the the hard-hearted discipline to enforce, or, 2) hide successfully.
if this event occurs, you will see an almost instant full-on surge in the costs-of-living, especially foodstuffs and energy, which will propitiate a financial collapse, which will instantly decimate the 2 lower quintiles of american society. they will not starve quietly, nor peacefully … and their are 132 million of them.
just as an aside, ordo ab chao means: order from chaos. ordo a chao means: order into chaos.
and I mistyped it, which makes the joke infinitely worse.
the reason I said what I did about having had a nice life in the event of this occurring is because post-collapse, I see no way that we avoid nuclear-armed feudalism. They will burn me as a witch, for sure.
Thanks Kevin. I don’t like currency trading. Too risky. I am just thinking about alternatives to the stocked basement/gold/silver. I was just thinking last night, were on Earth are there no tentacles from the Squid. I couldn’t come up with a place. I like some of the talk I hear from the BRICS nations, but it’s hard to trust any gov’t in the current world environment. I’m moving back to Amish country in PA by August. I have family and friends there, so it will be my best place. Anyway, the Amish are good neighbors and they grow/make great stuff to eat.
Yup. My advantage is I know how to fix machines, electronic, and electrical devices. I’m pretty fair with plumbing and heating as well. I’m jumping off the corporate wagon and going home to fix up houses and install solar systems (mostly hot water). I’ve lost my ability to work in a corporate structure. Making some pig rich just so I can buy gold and fill my basement with freeze dried food seems like giving up. Additionally, as I get older my definitions of wealth and success have changed. I’ve seen too many unhappy morally destitute retirees in Florida to take that path. Sustainability and co-operation may still be the difficult path, but is the only path to the future. It will get easier. I just hope I live long enough to see it.
I don’t remember the name of the film, but the movie Harrison Ford did some years ago where he plays the eccentric inventor that moves his family to the jungle doesn’t seem all that crazy to me anymore, even though the movie had a sad ending.
Thoughts from the 5am brain of a financial noob:
A world of diminishing expectations. Dragging a leg behind you is the new limping is the new walking. Slowly dying is the new ‘business as usual’. Looks like the elves have been at work since opening…A zombie resurrection for Easter weekend?
So, presuming it holds (for at least a little while longer), and you were able to get your family out of the US, what country would you target? Knowing of course that the repercussions of the US going down in flames would be felt everywhere, but that some places have a better chance of remaining stable throughout the ensuing unrest. And also assuming that your goal is a peaceable agrarian existence where you grow a lot of your own food and get by on a very modest income.
I know there are plenty of people who say: “Just stay in the US and tough it out”, but if this comes to pass, I expect the ensuing ugliness to be very bad here, and if there’s someplace not so obviously headed towards oblivion, culturally and economically, I’d far rather cast our lot in with them.
I know I’m probably delusional in hoping that such locations exist, or that we can get there from here, but I know it’s a question a lot of us are asking ourselves. I’ve spent a far amount of time staring at statistics and reading, trying to answer this question, but just talking to myself about it is driving me nuts.
Good question Zeke. I have been pondering that one for a while. At one point, I thought a country that has its own natural resource independence would be good. However,the globalist creeps and their goons can’t keep their hands off of anything they don’t already control and that they have identified as useful. Sort of like the Borg.
The U.S. may still be good. It’s a huge place. A Soviet style collapse would make it possible to live OK in the right location. I’m partial to the North East, myself. It’s were I have lived most of my life. Economically, it can stand on its own. It’s been hit hard environmentally, but there is a lot of us who know how to fix it and are working on it. The one thing that would remain as a blight would be Wall St. The Vampire Squid and its minions would be difficult to manage. A smaller, more agile and responsive nation composed of the North East states may be able to contain or remove it. Hard to see, the future.
South America has shown some promise, but even there, the Borg signature is evident.
Tough call.
Kevin’s current home isn’t too bad. Could it stand isolated and survive?
So ya know,we gotta watch out here. This could be a huge sucker play, let it drift down to 73 or 72 and blammo. Look what happened the when the Euro went too low like 1.23 was it, a lot of people got hurt by the bounce and now it’s a bit too strong.
Don’t get me wrong I am a Gold and Silver long just like any bug but these stories take time and this would put too much hurt on the Treasury market.
If I could pick anywhere in the world to go, it would be right here in NZ where I’ve been for the last five years. I find that I don’t think much about all the metrics one might use to try to guess at where the best place is anymore. Becky and I did all of that years ago and came up with NZ. The fact that she was from here made our decision that much easier. I just like it here. That’s about as complicated as it is for me now. A couple of days ago, I stood in a paddock with my sons and my father in law as Charlie the homekill man did in our steer. Every time this happens, though, it reminds me of why we’re here. Clean food, clean air, plenty of rain, not many people.
Yes, NZ is a tiny, heavily indebted country. Yes, since Europeans have been here, NZ has aligned itself with whatever empire was on the scene; British, American and more and more, Chinese. Yes, what remains of the topsoil is washing out to sea with each heavy rain. Yes, NZ is a Fonterra company town, with the price of milk solids being a matter of grave national significance. Yes, there’s a picture of the Queen of England on the money… Yes, NZ is doomed. On and on… I get it. I’ve also been to some other countries, and a lot of the U.S. and, overall, NZ is BY FAR, the best place I’ve been.
And, as my chiropractor likes to say, “The mountains are high, and the emperor is far away.” Man, that’s the truth. I’ll start to worry if they figure out how to keep the roads from washing away and the power on out here.
Just watched a PBS show about NZ. Very nice. Good work, Kevin. You chose well. I love that line from your Chiro. Wise man.
By the way, have you seen that the Amazon “cloud” has been down all day? The Netflix junkies will be out of their minds.
my dream (10 years ago) was to live near Motueka. now that my current life is being mangled by nuclear insanity, i might need to get that plan back on track. until two months ago my plan was to move to Minami Izu, but that is not looking very wise nowadays.
a sucker rally bounce is indeed quite possible from here, Mr. Marks. indeed, we should all hope for one.
@kevin:
I, too, have ceased doing any comparisons of where to go and what to do, I have made my home here in these beautiful mist-covered blue ridge mountains. <y people are here, my communities are here, my support is here, my gardens are here, my love is here, and, if I have to make my stand, I shall do that here, too.
fortunately, the mountains are high, because, the emperor is not as far away as I’d like.
Kevin – I know there’s no shang-ri-la to flee to. NZ and Australia have been on our list of possible targets for some time. We’ve spent several months in each, and I’m sure we could be happy in either. Not to say that there aren’t strong differences, but both felt like an improvement over the US.
At one point I worked on a list of metricisable qualities and started building an enormous spreadsheet of countries in hopes of seeing more clearly the possibilities. It didn’t take very long for me to realize just how absurd a task I had undertaken. Besides the fact that it’s very difficult if not impossible to put numbers to all the factors that would matter to a person, none of us can do better than just guessing about what the future holds, so on some level a decision comes down to a gut reaction.
For me, it pretty much ended up boiling down to what you enumerated:
(1) the availability of clean food, air, water
(2) not too many people, which (1) is probably largely dependent on.
I’d also add:
(3) decent availability of other natural resources. (timber (and yeah, I know about the logging industry in NZ and the decimated native forest), hydro/wind/solar power feasibility, enough mineral resources to support at least some industry).
(4) geographic isolation from places expected to be worst hit in any economic meltdown. This is the factor that makes me very hesitant about moving to Canada or Mexico. I expect proximity to the US to be a serious problem if things get bad here.
(5) economic isolation from places expected to be worst hit in any economic meltdown. It might be better to say ‘lack of overwhelming economic dependence on places that will be worst hit in any economic meltdown’. If a country derives 40% of its income from exports to the US, then that country will really suffer should the US’s economy tank. I expect China to be an ugly, ugly place if/when the torrent of US dollars dries up. Obviously they’re working as fast as they can to build up an internal consumer economy to take up the slack, but I kind of doubt they’ll make it before the dollar goes down in flames.
(6) An internal agricultural industry that supplies a significant percentage of the country’s needs. Not because I love modern food production, but because I think that any place which has to import most of its food is going to be hit really hard. Hungry neighbors == bad neighbors.
(7) And, finally, a legal and cultural pathway for us to become residents, citizens, locals, and landowners. I acknowledge that ‘local’ is probably the hardest to quantify.
The reality, though, is that a lot of places will probably be better off than the US in the years to come. Picking the absolute best is a lot less important than picking one which is a decent choice and getting there ASAP.
The isolation of someplace like NZ makes it both appealing as a refuge and disheartening because of the distance it will impose between us and the rest of our family. (For those of you not living in NZ, try pricing a RT plane ticket starting in NZ and going, well, anywhere, then ask yourself how often Kevin gets to see family in the States.) I expect that if TSHTF, we’ll be lucky to exchange letters or phone calls with our extended families. This, more than anything, has made us hesitate on committing to some of the further-away possibilities. But I don’t feel like we can debate much longer. At the very _least_, the longer we wait, the smaller our pile of start-up funds becomes as the dollar devalues against other currencies. At the very worst, the door out will close.
jburke – best of luck to you! I’ve never even been to the NE of the US. My experience is all with the midwest and the west. I suspect that the US going down will be much more painful than the collapse of the soviet union, but it remains to be seen.
@dagobaz
I wanted for so many years to know the meaning of
“ordo ab chao (which) means: order from chaos. ordo a chao means: order into chaos.”
Thank you for explaining and clarifying.
And yes I feel the same about making a last stand wherever one is located geographically.
Is there an Eden where we can live out our days here without pain, angst,or not have any sorrow? I don’t think so. There is nothing to escape from. Hah, Hah. I say this as I hear (I think) a thunderstorm on a COLD night. Yes, I think anymore that there are some huge weather wars going on and it doesn’t matter who you are or where you live.
I wouldn’t spin my wheels about getting out of dodge, wherever you live in the world. Me, I think its time to hunker down and build the best fortress for yourself and your loved ones wherever you may be, but thats just me.
For those of you investigating places other than the US to live I recommend you add my home South Africa into the investigation mix.
While we are by no means int he clear here there are a number of advantages…
* A mix between first and third world. Many of the advantages of western society but missing a lot of the opressive controls.
* English speaking
* Unaligned
* Far enough but Not too far from Europe/South America
* We are a large food exporter
* Plenty of natural resources
* For those of you who know about orgonite the whole country has been extensively busted (including the whole coastline) by my mate Georg http://www.orgoniseafrica.com/
* You can pick up land affordably. Check this out an operational 50 acre organic farm for USD130 000 http://easterncape.gumtree.co.za/c-Flat-House-Real-Estate-other-Organic-farm-with-fertile-soil-water-beautiful-views-for-sale-W0QQAdIdZ274840548
If any Cryptogon reader buys it you need to invite me to visit!!
* Emigration is not too hard if you have money/skills
* The people are awesome
* The economy is growing strongly in almost all sectors so if the show continues for a while there are many opportunites to make money. Especially for you USAians there is much less competition here than in the US and if you have skills and can offer good service you will find a hungry market
The downsides
* Large wealth disparity
* Hangover from apartheid still causing some racial tensions (The change from 10 years back is staggering though)
* Crime is still relatively high (while having dropped dramatically in the last few years – I also expect the frekonomics proven abortion crime drop to kick in here in the next few years – abortion was legalised in 1994)
Ultimately though I’m with Dogobaz – be where your people are. Strong ties with friends, family and community are going to be the best way to get theough an coming crises.
Having done the “bug out” research myself many times over many years, I finally gave up when I realized that “globalization” means THE ENTIRE GLOBE. There’s not even a remote island in the middle of the pacific that is immune to what is coming.
However, there’s obviously worse places to be unless you live in a slum on the outskirts of Rio, West Bank, or Gaza. My wife and I realize that our presence in the US is needed. Someone with the truth has to stay behind, and we know that that is our lot in life.
Meanwhile, we do have a place in far-off remote Alaska. Yeah, in a subdivision. The road from Tacoma, WA to our place near Soldotna, AK is all paved highway except for the last 1/4 mile of county maintained gravel road. My point is, “Wherever you go, there you are.”
Guess we all better learn to get along in the bad times, because with the value of Federal Reserve Notes being collapsed deliberately, there’s not much chance of all of us being welcomed into the social strata of the “elite.” (I was once given such a welcome at a dinner party. I had to refrain from getting up and walking out). I work for a living when I have a job- and I currently don’t.
Survival simply means waking up tomorrow morning in a state of anything but dead, and that isn’t nearly as difficult as people seem to think it is. Your circumstances might suck, but that’s the way it goes. So use your head a lot and your mouth very little (I fail that one) and IMHO, forget the guns and ammo to “defend yourself against the demon hordes of FEMA stormtroopers that are coming to bury you alive in a pre-made plastic casket that is stored in Georgia when they send you to the world’s biggest concentration camp just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska where they will have you and at least a million other people”…where it’s 70 below zero in the winter and there aren’t any buildings. Sheesh- just be kind (because “they” will shoot assholes just like you will), discreet with whatever things of value you have and simply blend in- and as a dear friend used to say, “hang on for the ride.”
This sounds kind of silly, I guess, but last night I used the Solari gold/silver calculator to send my brother-in-law coins instead of dollars for his birthday gift. Since I only watch the weather on the TV powered by an antennae- I didn’t hear the story about Osama being killed and (oh laughing my butt off) dumped from a plane to “respect” his religion. My gawd.
This is amateur news from a wanna be comedy club. Its not funny. Its stupid.
What’s not funny is the dollar crashing. Untold pain to billions on the planet by who cares about that? Those stones in Georgia say their should be only 500 million of us anyways.
So I guess its full throttle attempts to wipe us out time. Yes, Japan, the tornadoes in the U.S. etc. I don’t think we’re going to be wanting to eat popcorn while this all goes down.
Its very good for me to have Cryptogon to go to where there are people aware of those in power doing their last bit gambit to stay where they are. And watching their slow, winding demise. I might believe in good endings after all. I think that people who do well unto others and the Earth will prevail. And that they do is my goal and prayer.
P.S. I think I watched Avatar a gazillion times because through watching it, I learned how “the people” took back their planet from a small segment of humanoids (a corporation) who only wanted the resources. That movie has been a great teaching tool for me.
A criple, maimed by fighting the PTB wars who fought in wars as a killer, replacing his twin brother on a “science” mission. Good story. You can’t keep the people down. You might succeed for awhile, but the good energy prevails.
Defense.gov News Photo 110426-A-7597S-183: U.S. Special Operations service members with Special Operations Task Force South board two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters following a clearing operation in Panjwa'i district in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, on April 25, 2011. Source: Wikimedia.
is there anywhere to watch the action live?
http://www.fxstreet.com/rates-charts/usdollar-index/
http://www.netdania.com/Products/live-streaming-currency-exchange-rates/real-time-forex-charts/FinanceChart.aspx
73.740. New low.
@Kevin
Do you think there is any currency that is a relatively safe alternative instead of gold or commodities? I follow a few. It seems to me having an account in, for instance, Brazil might not be so bad. Their currency has appreciated well against the dollar. Their banks also seemed to avoid most of the MBS/CDO/CDS foolishness. It is one of the countries I am considering for retirement. Some others would be South Africa, Indonesia or Argentina. They don’t seem to be as interested in participating in the race to the bottom, for various reasons. I am curious about your opinion.
on to the final frontier, the lows of the first week of march, 2008:
70.698
if that goes, well, it’s been nice. I have had a good life.
ordo ad chao.
– cybele
this is not trading advice and should not be construed as such.
si #f tgts: 46.875, 48.437, 50.00
then ??? uncharted territory.
– good trading
@jburke6000 The R$ (Brazilian real), is a huge commodity play.
If that next dollar support gets taken out… I doubt whether ‘this currency or that currency’ is going to be very germane to the discussion at that point. As I’ve always said, diversification, diversification, diversification, but we are now, in my opinion, not only looking at the cliff, we are sliding toward it. The whole world has strapped itself to the mast of the doomed U.S. So, if the slide continues, all these other countries, that rely so heavily on the U.S., can’t unload their stuff in America anymore.
America done gone busto.
Then what? Is China gonna take up the slack, with most Chinese making penury and living on top of each other in dorm rooms?
We’re watching the collapse of the most powerful state that has ever existed on this planet. I don’t feel bad in admitting that I can’t forecast through to the other side of this one. I’m pretty sure, though, that there is nowhere to hide.
That next support holds, or it’s going to have to be a new show. New actors. New set dressings. Same fascist BS, but more of it. “Ordo ab chao,” as Cybele said above. I don’t know what, with any precision, the new ‘order’ will be, except that it won’t be good.
There are a number of market participants who don’t want to see the U.S. go down, because their realities will end at that point.
I just wrote to someone in email that:
“They are going to be throwing their grandmothers, wives, husbands, lovers, children, small pets, etc. under the bus to stop that from happening.”
That’s why I wrote that I was less sure about the ~70.7 zone than this hard pivot level that just got taken out tonight. Some number of market participants, including some with possibly hundreds of billions of dollars in drug profits, are going to chew their own arms off to try to get that thing to rally now.
Use it if you got it, boys, this is it.
Just watching it go below 73.965 at 15:37 GMT, and thinking that my money is on it sliding into this ‘chaos zone’ below 71 but a previously unforeseen miraculous element comes into play and everything carries on, nothing to see here (yet). My fingers are crossed for this outcome because frankly, I have not yet got everything ready to assume ‘crash positions’! Fingers crossed and kiss my ass goodbye?
@williamspd:
there really aren’t any preparations that will be valid. at that point you will have only 2 real choices: 1) assume full battle readiness, a thing very few people will have the requisite resources to achieve or the the hard-hearted discipline to enforce, or, 2) hide successfully.
if this event occurs, you will see an almost instant full-on surge in the costs-of-living, especially foodstuffs and energy, which will propitiate a financial collapse, which will instantly decimate the 2 lower quintiles of american society. they will not starve quietly, nor peacefully … and their are 132 million of them.
just as an aside, ordo ab chao means: order from chaos. ordo a chao means: order into chaos.
and I mistyped it, which makes the joke infinitely worse.
the reason I said what I did about having had a nice life in the event of this occurring is because post-collapse, I see no way that we avoid nuclear-armed feudalism. They will burn me as a witch, for sure.
Thanks Kevin. I don’t like currency trading. Too risky. I am just thinking about alternatives to the stocked basement/gold/silver. I was just thinking last night, were on Earth are there no tentacles from the Squid. I couldn’t come up with a place. I like some of the talk I hear from the BRICS nations, but it’s hard to trust any gov’t in the current world environment. I’m moving back to Amish country in PA by August. I have family and friends there, so it will be my best place. Anyway, the Amish are good neighbors and they grow/make great stuff to eat.
I have family and friends there, so it will be my best place. Anyway, the Amish are good neighbors and they grow/make great stuff to eat.
Yes! You get it. Sounds much, much better than anything to do with blinking numbers on a screen.
Yup. My advantage is I know how to fix machines, electronic, and electrical devices. I’m pretty fair with plumbing and heating as well. I’m jumping off the corporate wagon and going home to fix up houses and install solar systems (mostly hot water). I’ve lost my ability to work in a corporate structure. Making some pig rich just so I can buy gold and fill my basement with freeze dried food seems like giving up. Additionally, as I get older my definitions of wealth and success have changed. I’ve seen too many unhappy morally destitute retirees in Florida to take that path. Sustainability and co-operation may still be the difficult path, but is the only path to the future. It will get easier. I just hope I live long enough to see it.
I don’t remember the name of the film, but the movie Harrison Ford did some years ago where he plays the eccentric inventor that moves his family to the jungle doesn’t seem all that crazy to me anymore, even though the movie had a sad ending.
Thoughts from the 5am brain of a financial noob:
A world of diminishing expectations. Dragging a leg behind you is the new limping is the new walking. Slowly dying is the new ‘business as usual’. Looks like the elves have been at work since opening…A zombie resurrection for Easter weekend?
“Oh won’t you staaaaay…just a little bit longer?”
dagobaz,
Ordo a chao: “order into chaos”…that actually IS funny!
Or maybe even to put it another way: Novus ordo seclorum a chao – “New World Order into chaos”.
Gah.
So, presuming it holds (for at least a little while longer), and you were able to get your family out of the US, what country would you target? Knowing of course that the repercussions of the US going down in flames would be felt everywhere, but that some places have a better chance of remaining stable throughout the ensuing unrest. And also assuming that your goal is a peaceable agrarian existence where you grow a lot of your own food and get by on a very modest income.
I know there are plenty of people who say: “Just stay in the US and tough it out”, but if this comes to pass, I expect the ensuing ugliness to be very bad here, and if there’s someplace not so obviously headed towards oblivion, culturally and economically, I’d far rather cast our lot in with them.
I know I’m probably delusional in hoping that such locations exist, or that we can get there from here, but I know it’s a question a lot of us are asking ourselves. I’ve spent a far amount of time staring at statistics and reading, trying to answer this question, but just talking to myself about it is driving me nuts.
Zeke
Good question Zeke. I have been pondering that one for a while. At one point, I thought a country that has its own natural resource independence would be good. However,the globalist creeps and their goons can’t keep their hands off of anything they don’t already control and that they have identified as useful. Sort of like the Borg.
The U.S. may still be good. It’s a huge place. A Soviet style collapse would make it possible to live OK in the right location. I’m partial to the North East, myself. It’s were I have lived most of my life. Economically, it can stand on its own. It’s been hit hard environmentally, but there is a lot of us who know how to fix it and are working on it. The one thing that would remain as a blight would be Wall St. The Vampire Squid and its minions would be difficult to manage. A smaller, more agile and responsive nation composed of the North East states may be able to contain or remove it. Hard to see, the future.
South America has shown some promise, but even there, the Borg signature is evident.
Tough call.
Kevin’s current home isn’t too bad. Could it stand isolated and survive?
So ya know,we gotta watch out here. This could be a huge sucker play, let it drift down to 73 or 72 and blammo. Look what happened the when the Euro went too low like 1.23 was it, a lot of people got hurt by the bounce and now it’s a bit too strong.
Don’t get me wrong I am a Gold and Silver long just like any bug but these stories take time and this would put too much hurt on the Treasury market.
If I could pick anywhere in the world to go, it would be right here in NZ where I’ve been for the last five years. I find that I don’t think much about all the metrics one might use to try to guess at where the best place is anymore. Becky and I did all of that years ago and came up with NZ. The fact that she was from here made our decision that much easier. I just like it here. That’s about as complicated as it is for me now. A couple of days ago, I stood in a paddock with my sons and my father in law as Charlie the homekill man did in our steer. Every time this happens, though, it reminds me of why we’re here. Clean food, clean air, plenty of rain, not many people.
Yes, NZ is a tiny, heavily indebted country. Yes, since Europeans have been here, NZ has aligned itself with whatever empire was on the scene; British, American and more and more, Chinese. Yes, what remains of the topsoil is washing out to sea with each heavy rain. Yes, NZ is a Fonterra company town, with the price of milk solids being a matter of grave national significance. Yes, there’s a picture of the Queen of England on the money… Yes, NZ is doomed. On and on… I get it. I’ve also been to some other countries, and a lot of the U.S. and, overall, NZ is BY FAR, the best place I’ve been.
And, as my chiropractor likes to say, “The mountains are high, and the emperor is far away.” Man, that’s the truth. I’ll start to worry if they figure out how to keep the roads from washing away and the power on out here.
Just watched a PBS show about NZ. Very nice. Good work, Kevin. You chose well. I love that line from your Chiro. Wise man.
By the way, have you seen that the Amazon “cloud” has been down all day? The Netflix junkies will be out of their minds.
my dream (10 years ago) was to live near Motueka. now that my current life is being mangled by nuclear insanity, i might need to get that plan back on track. until two months ago my plan was to move to Minami Izu, but that is not looking very wise nowadays.
a sucker rally bounce is indeed quite possible from here, Mr. Marks. indeed, we should all hope for one.
@kevin:
I, too, have ceased doing any comparisons of where to go and what to do, I have made my home here in these beautiful mist-covered blue ridge mountains. <y people are here, my communities are here, my support is here, my gardens are here, my love is here, and, if I have to make my stand, I shall do that here, too.
fortunately, the mountains are high, because, the emperor is not as far away as I’d like.
😉
cybele
Kevin – I know there’s no shang-ri-la to flee to. NZ and Australia have been on our list of possible targets for some time. We’ve spent several months in each, and I’m sure we could be happy in either. Not to say that there aren’t strong differences, but both felt like an improvement over the US.
At one point I worked on a list of metricisable qualities and started building an enormous spreadsheet of countries in hopes of seeing more clearly the possibilities. It didn’t take very long for me to realize just how absurd a task I had undertaken. Besides the fact that it’s very difficult if not impossible to put numbers to all the factors that would matter to a person, none of us can do better than just guessing about what the future holds, so on some level a decision comes down to a gut reaction.
For me, it pretty much ended up boiling down to what you enumerated:
(1) the availability of clean food, air, water
(2) not too many people, which (1) is probably largely dependent on.
I’d also add:
(3) decent availability of other natural resources. (timber (and yeah, I know about the logging industry in NZ and the decimated native forest), hydro/wind/solar power feasibility, enough mineral resources to support at least some industry).
(4) geographic isolation from places expected to be worst hit in any economic meltdown. This is the factor that makes me very hesitant about moving to Canada or Mexico. I expect proximity to the US to be a serious problem if things get bad here.
(5) economic isolation from places expected to be worst hit in any economic meltdown. It might be better to say ‘lack of overwhelming economic dependence on places that will be worst hit in any economic meltdown’. If a country derives 40% of its income from exports to the US, then that country will really suffer should the US’s economy tank. I expect China to be an ugly, ugly place if/when the torrent of US dollars dries up. Obviously they’re working as fast as they can to build up an internal consumer economy to take up the slack, but I kind of doubt they’ll make it before the dollar goes down in flames.
(6) An internal agricultural industry that supplies a significant percentage of the country’s needs. Not because I love modern food production, but because I think that any place which has to import most of its food is going to be hit really hard. Hungry neighbors == bad neighbors.
(7) And, finally, a legal and cultural pathway for us to become residents, citizens, locals, and landowners. I acknowledge that ‘local’ is probably the hardest to quantify.
The reality, though, is that a lot of places will probably be better off than the US in the years to come. Picking the absolute best is a lot less important than picking one which is a decent choice and getting there ASAP.
The isolation of someplace like NZ makes it both appealing as a refuge and disheartening because of the distance it will impose between us and the rest of our family. (For those of you not living in NZ, try pricing a RT plane ticket starting in NZ and going, well, anywhere, then ask yourself how often Kevin gets to see family in the States.) I expect that if TSHTF, we’ll be lucky to exchange letters or phone calls with our extended families. This, more than anything, has made us hesitate on committing to some of the further-away possibilities. But I don’t feel like we can debate much longer. At the very _least_, the longer we wait, the smaller our pile of start-up funds becomes as the dollar devalues against other currencies. At the very worst, the door out will close.
jburke – best of luck to you! I’ve never even been to the NE of the US. My experience is all with the midwest and the west. I suspect that the US going down will be much more painful than the collapse of the soviet union, but it remains to be seen.
May the emperor remain far away for all of us.
Zeke
@dagobaz
I wanted for so many years to know the meaning of
“ordo ab chao (which) means: order from chaos. ordo a chao means: order into chaos.”
Thank you for explaining and clarifying.
And yes I feel the same about making a last stand wherever one is located geographically.
Is there an Eden where we can live out our days here without pain, angst,or not have any sorrow? I don’t think so. There is nothing to escape from. Hah, Hah. I say this as I hear (I think) a thunderstorm on a COLD night. Yes, I think anymore that there are some huge weather wars going on and it doesn’t matter who you are or where you live.
I wouldn’t spin my wheels about getting out of dodge, wherever you live in the world. Me, I think its time to hunker down and build the best fortress for yourself and your loved ones wherever you may be, but thats just me.
For those of you investigating places other than the US to live I recommend you add my home South Africa into the investigation mix.
While we are by no means int he clear here there are a number of advantages…
* A mix between first and third world. Many of the advantages of western society but missing a lot of the opressive controls.
* English speaking
* Unaligned
* Far enough but Not too far from Europe/South America
* We are a large food exporter
* Plenty of natural resources
* For those of you who know about orgonite the whole country has been extensively busted (including the whole coastline) by my mate Georg http://www.orgoniseafrica.com/
* You can pick up land affordably. Check this out an operational 50 acre organic farm for USD130 000 http://easterncape.gumtree.co.za/c-Flat-House-Real-Estate-other-Organic-farm-with-fertile-soil-water-beautiful-views-for-sale-W0QQAdIdZ274840548
If any Cryptogon reader buys it you need to invite me to visit!!
* Emigration is not too hard if you have money/skills
* The people are awesome
* The economy is growing strongly in almost all sectors so if the show continues for a while there are many opportunites to make money. Especially for you USAians there is much less competition here than in the US and if you have skills and can offer good service you will find a hungry market
The downsides
* Large wealth disparity
* Hangover from apartheid still causing some racial tensions (The change from 10 years back is staggering though)
* Crime is still relatively high (while having dropped dramatically in the last few years – I also expect the frekonomics proven abortion crime drop to kick in here in the next few years – abortion was legalised in 1994)
Ultimately though I’m with Dogobaz – be where your people are. Strong ties with friends, family and community are going to be the best way to get theough an coming crises.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13256943 Aha! The real reason why they chose this moment to bring Bin Laden out of cold storage!
Having done the “bug out” research myself many times over many years, I finally gave up when I realized that “globalization” means THE ENTIRE GLOBE. There’s not even a remote island in the middle of the pacific that is immune to what is coming.
However, there’s obviously worse places to be unless you live in a slum on the outskirts of Rio, West Bank, or Gaza. My wife and I realize that our presence in the US is needed. Someone with the truth has to stay behind, and we know that that is our lot in life.
Meanwhile, we do have a place in far-off remote Alaska. Yeah, in a subdivision. The road from Tacoma, WA to our place near Soldotna, AK is all paved highway except for the last 1/4 mile of county maintained gravel road. My point is, “Wherever you go, there you are.”
Guess we all better learn to get along in the bad times, because with the value of Federal Reserve Notes being collapsed deliberately, there’s not much chance of all of us being welcomed into the social strata of the “elite.” (I was once given such a welcome at a dinner party. I had to refrain from getting up and walking out). I work for a living when I have a job- and I currently don’t.
Survival simply means waking up tomorrow morning in a state of anything but dead, and that isn’t nearly as difficult as people seem to think it is. Your circumstances might suck, but that’s the way it goes. So use your head a lot and your mouth very little (I fail that one) and IMHO, forget the guns and ammo to “defend yourself against the demon hordes of FEMA stormtroopers that are coming to bury you alive in a pre-made plastic casket that is stored in Georgia when they send you to the world’s biggest concentration camp just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska where they will have you and at least a million other people”…where it’s 70 below zero in the winter and there aren’t any buildings. Sheesh- just be kind (because “they” will shoot assholes just like you will), discreet with whatever things of value you have and simply blend in- and as a dear friend used to say, “hang on for the ride.”
This sounds kind of silly, I guess, but last night I used the Solari gold/silver calculator to send my brother-in-law coins instead of dollars for his birthday gift. Since I only watch the weather on the TV powered by an antennae- I didn’t hear the story about Osama being killed and (oh laughing my butt off) dumped from a plane to “respect” his religion. My gawd.
This is amateur news from a wanna be comedy club. Its not funny. Its stupid.
What’s not funny is the dollar crashing. Untold pain to billions on the planet by who cares about that? Those stones in Georgia say their should be only 500 million of us anyways.
So I guess its full throttle attempts to wipe us out time. Yes, Japan, the tornadoes in the U.S. etc. I don’t think we’re going to be wanting to eat popcorn while this all goes down.
Its very good for me to have Cryptogon to go to where there are people aware of those in power doing their last bit gambit to stay where they are. And watching their slow, winding demise. I might believe in good endings after all. I think that people who do well unto others and the Earth will prevail. And that they do is my goal and prayer.
P.S. I think I watched Avatar a gazillion times because through watching it, I learned how “the people” took back their planet from a small segment of humanoids (a corporation) who only wanted the resources. That movie has been a great teaching tool for me.
A criple, maimed by fighting the PTB wars who fought in wars as a killer, replacing his twin brother on a “science” mission. Good story. You can’t keep the people down. You might succeed for awhile, but the good energy prevails.