"I see nothink!"

I don't follow the daily ups and downs on the stock market -- after all, we don't own stocks -- but of course there are people who watch constantly. They chart, they predict, they explain, they apologize, and they analyze every wobble, every peak and valley, every move.

One such website is ZeroHedge. I dip into this website a couple times a week because it's interesting to read explanations about what the financial world is doing. And ZeroHedge, unlike other financial sites I've seen, tends to look at the overall picture. In other words, they tend to see the forest and the trees.

A couple weeks ago they put up an article entitled For The "Nothing Is Happening... Everything Is Awesome" Crowd in which they gave their views on why "nothing" happened to the financial world in September.

September, it seems, was considered a significant month. Many financial signs appeared to be coinciding in a way that made preppers and investors alike nervous. The stock market made wild swings, then straightened out. Stocks tanked and recovered.

But nothing earth-shattering happened. The month came and went, and we're all still here. This, of course, allowed the "See I told you so" types to say, well, "See I told you so."

But ZeroHedge saw it differently. To quote some portions (and leaving out some of the financially technical parts, which are well worth reading):

A lot of people out there expected something to happen in September that did not ultimately happen. There were all kinds of wild theories floating around, and many of them had no basis in reality whatsoever. But without a doubt, some very important things did happen in September.

As I warned about ahead of time, we are witnessing the most significant global financial meltdown since the end of 2008. All of the largest stock markets in the world are crashing simultaneously, and so far the amount of wealth that has been wiped out worldwide is in excess of 5 trillion dollars.

In addition to stocks, junk bonds are also crashing, and Bank of America says that it is a 'slow moving trainwreck that seems to be accelerating.' Thanks to the commodity price crash, many of the largest commodity traders on the planet are now imploding.

So I honestly do not understand the "nothing is happening" crowd. It takes ignorance on an almost unbelievable level to try to claim that "nothing is happening" in the financial world right now.

What we witnessed in September was not "the end" of anything. Instead, it is just the beginning.



Make of this what you will.

Me, I'm glad we haven't invested in the stock market. I'd rather invest in the "livestock" market.

Now what?

Well, as many people predicted, today's stock market was a wild and volatile ride.

(Source)

Stocks dropped over 1000 points moments after opening, then went wild all day, finally closing down around 560 or so points.

These events have generated endless online chatter, as you can imagine. A lot of people are suddenly becoming more interested in preparedness, thinking, "So much to do and so little time!" There's a sense of urgency in the air.

I don't believe today necessarily ushered in the start of the next great depression (history will tell), but it certainly illustrates the kind of mad, rapid changes that can occur between one week and the next.

Which begs the question -- are you doing anything differently in light of the last few days' worth of volatility on Wall Street? Are you adopting a "wait and see" attitude or a "let's hurry up?" position?

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(Husband of the boss addendum: I actually do think this is a sign of the coming depression. One of many signs. This "hiccup" had a cause and it wasn't just bad news from China. The equities market has become nearly severed from the real world due to fiat cash infusions, swaps that raise stock prices artificially, and the ever-bewildering and pretty much unregulated derivatives market.

Today wasn't the first sign. It won't be the last. But this I tell you true -- it's all coming down. Soon. No election will change it. No injection of additional monopoly money will stop it. Prepare. Please.

Now back to your regular and much prettier blog poster.)

Wild day on the stock market

It's times like this I'm so grateful we have nothing to do with national or international finances. Because my goodness, today the stock market got slammed.

A lot of people lost a lot of money, and people around the world are feeling jittery and unsettled.

No one knows what Monday will bring, of course. But one thing's for sure, those jars of peaches I canned up this week are looking better and better.

These are the kinds of events that explain why we've spent the last few years investing our money in tangibles. Bees, cattle, garden, chickens...at the moment they're more stable than the stock market.

Just sayin'.

What if a financial crash happened this fall?

A couple of days ago, Don and I were discussing the myriad projects, improvements, and tasks we want to accomplish. We kept piling on more and more until we realized it was necessary to write them down in order to keep track. Within five minutes, the list had 26 items, and we're keeping it handy to add to it as more ideas occur to us.

As usual, it's always a factor of time and money to figure out which of these projects we'll accomplish, and in what order. Our next step is to divvy the list into A, B, and C categories, with A projects having the highest priority (either because they're important, or because they're cheap or easy to do) and C having the lowest priority.

Then yesterday we had an interesting conversation, a friend-of-a-friend exchange. We heard of a financial "insider" who said she expected the financial system to crash this fall. Of course lots of people are making predictions about the economy, and while this insider seems well-placed to have solid information, her prediction is just that: a prediction.

But it did provide fodder for an interesting mental exercise.

Let's just say, for the sake of argument, this person is correct and America will experience an economic collapse this fall. What would you do?

I sometimes like to ask people this hypothetical question: If your great-grandparents had known in 1928 what was waiting for them in 1929, what could or should they have done to brace themselves for the impact of the Great Depression?

Well here we have the exact same scenario -- except, of course, we're looking into the future instead of harvesting wisdom from the past. But they say those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

So -- if you knew an economic collapse was going to happen five or six months in the future, what should or would you do to brace yourselves for its impact?

And more importantly, will you follow through and do these things?

Echoes of the past?

Lately a graph has been making the rounds on Wall Street as well as the internet which depicts the similarities (or “rhyme,” some people call it) between the current Down Jones Industrial Average, and the DJIA during 1928-29.

Here's the article on Market Watch. To quote: “To be sure, as McClellan acknowledged: “Every pattern analog I have ever studied breaks correlation eventually, and often at the point when I am most counting on it to continue working. So there is no guarantee that the market has to continue following through with every step of the 1929 pattern. But between now and May 2014, there is plenty of reason for caution.”

As the adage goes, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

I don’t pretend to understand the stock market, much less economics in general. But I do know there are endless precedents in history which should give us fair warning that things are not as stable and cheery as our government would have us believe. That’s why we prep.

Preppers often are students of history. They’re read about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. They know about the fall of Greece. They’ve studied the Black Plague. They’re aware of the French Revolution. They’ve studied the American Revolution. They know the Great Depression inside and out.

And above all, they know that history has an annoying habit of repeating itself.

The history of humanity is one of struggle, strife, bloodshed, famine, competition for resources, and other discouragements. It’s a cycle. It’s happened again and again. But most people tend to think that anything that hasn’t happened since the time they were born hasn’t happened before, but of course that’s patently untrue.

In the last hundred years, most Americans have not had to deal with these difficulties on our soil. We’ve fought wars, but those have been overseas. We’ve competed for resources, but we’ve always won. Our innovation as a nation has meant we’ve been blessed with untold material comfort and food safety.

But this doesn’t mean we’ll never have to handle challenges. When we refuse to learn from history, or think history cannot repeat itself, or think we are immune to historical precedent, in our arrogance we are therefore doomed to repeat it.

People often deny that history could ever repeat itself. “This time,” they assure us, “it’s different” – without ever being able to specify what “it” is and why it would be different this time.

We like to think we live in unique times. To some extent, we do. At no other time in history has our knowledge of technology and medical skills been higher. But human nature never changes, and it’s our human flaws as well as unforeseen environmental or natural disasters that can bring even a mighty civilization to its knees.

Besides being a fascinating study, history offers a useful guide for how to handle current or future events. Being prepared to handle crises (both personally and as a nation) such as hunger, loss of resources, and other catastrophes is never a bad thing.

But rather astonishingly, some people DO look upon this thoughtful regard for history as just that – a bad thing. History has shown that governments of even the freest nations eventually turn rogue, grow cancerously large, become increasingly paranoid and suspicious, begin to steal liberties from citizens, and eventually become tyrannical, oppressive, and mistrustful of anyone who seeks to recapture individual independence and freedom.

We are currently in that state.

Our nation has come to view those who prefer to NOT depend on the government as everything from lovable crackpots to domestic terrorists. This is shortsighted in the extreme, but that’s the nature of government and its useful idiots.

That is why I urge people to study history in conjunction with preparedness. Take a look at prior civilizations and note the nature of the calamities most likely to affect us, and think what you yourself can do to mitigate the possibilities.

Naturally, preparing in no way guarantees we can avoid calamities; it simply means we try our best to minimize the impact.

“You may still be inclined to dismiss this,” notes the Market Watch article. “But there were many more were laughing last November when this scary chart began circulating. Not as many are laughing now.”