The everyday SHTF: Are you prepared?
"What will SHTF be like?" Ask that on any prepper board and you'll get fanciful tales of EMP bursts sending us back to 1700, Obama seizing power as a dictator leading to civil war and militias saving the day, etc. About the only thing missing is zombies.
What's more likely is a SHTF affecting just you. For example, my cousin, who lives in Reno, got home after picking up her kids from school to find the fire dept at her apartment building. This was right after the big December cold snap, and a cheap water pipe had burst, flooding three apartments, including hers. Most of her stuff was ruined. Even worse, the complex had a 0% vacancy rate. Three families were dumped onto the street. My cousin, her hubby, and her two kids had to shoehorn themselves into a single bedroom of her mom's dinky house in Sparks. Crowded, you bet. She eventually found another place.
I was driving to downtown a couple weeks ago when the cars in front of me lurched forward, then stopped, at a red light. I stopped in time, but the woman behind me didn't. My car was gouged up pretty bad, and the front of her car was bashed in. Then, just this morning, my mom's van was almost totaled by a guy who didn't see her stopped at a red light in time. Fortunately, he swerved at the last second. I am not ready-yet-to live without my parents.
People get lost in the woods all the time, like the San Francisco family that got lost near Roseburg, Oregon, a few years ago. No cell phone service. So dad tried to hike out, and died, during winter. His family was ultimately rescued. Compare that to the Oregon native who took a wrong turn in the woods near Medford. Once she realized she was lost, she stopped, bedded down for the night using a blanket she had in her vehicle, then followed her tire tracks back to the main road the next morning, showing up at the command post set up for searchers, and startling them.
Are YOU ready for something like that? Losing your job, or house, or car? People collect guns to ward off attacking UN troops, then end up selling the guns at a discount for food. One guy and his wife got lost in the desert, and he decided to hike out. Wifey was ultimately rescued, but no trace of him was ever found. People get lost in Death Valley, and are swallowed by the desert. Maybe a bone is found years later. It's more likely that you'll get hit by lightning than that you'll be fighting in a new American Revolution. Are YOU prepped?
Monday, March 31, 2014
Monday, January 6, 2014
Neurodiverse and neurotypical talking past each other?
I recently read the following:
http://marlowefranklin.blogspot.com/2014/01/discrimination-and-bigotry-against.html
Now, as a "neurodiverse" individual, I can understand where the parents are coming from. Having an ASD kid means, for many, physical abuse, screaming, property destruction, etc etc until the parent loses it and starts fantasizing about killing their kid. It may not be so much evil as mental illness induced by PTSD-type events.
But you know what? Aspies also suffer. We are bullied in school, bullied to the point where "normal" kids are routinely doing physical and even sexual harm to us. Furthermore, the only response the educational system has to this bullying is to reward the bullies and tell us that it's our fault we were bullied because we are "weak" and need to "toughen up". We are told that our symptoms aren't real, that we are only doing them because we're jerks who are constantly seeking what one of my teachers called "negative attention". We can't succeed in life, we're told, so we seek attention in "destructive" ways.
Furthermore, once we graduate school-IF we do-we can't find a job. Nobody will hire us because "nobody likes a debbie downer"-an outlook formed by years of bullying. We aren't "team players", and thus are unfit to hire. When we try to get SSI, we are told to "find a job you lazy bum!". Do you see the double bind here? We are constantly told that we could become NT if only we tried hard enough. Autism is a defect in brain wiring-we CAN'T just shed it like a snake sheds its skin. After 40 or 50 years of this, we become bitter and hateful. Many of us had mentally ill families who abused us.
Yes, some parents are abused by their ASD kids until they snap. But we are victims of abuse too. The system doesn't care about parents OR sufferers, we are only there to be abused by bureaucrats so they can get more funding, which never seems to reach the people who need it, having been diverted into the pockets of some manager somewhere.
I don't pretend to judge Kelli Stapleton, or any other parent of a special needs kid. Christianity says that only God Himself has the right to judge. I don't know if God exists, but if He does, we need to leave the judging to Him, and start talking TO each other, rather than PAST each other.
Our current system is set up to reward sociopaths and cull the "weak". Billionaires routinely talk of culling the population, which means they want 90% of us to die. I don't mind dying, but the desire to wipe out all but the sociopaths should be called what it is: Genocide.
Genocide isn't like in The Turner Diaries where the undesirables march meekly into the mountains, never to be heard from again. Genocide is mass graves and gas chambers and ovens emitting horrible smells. Genocide is your friends and their families being rounded up by stormtroopers and "vanishing".
The word "genocide" is tossed around a lot in the ND community, by people who should know better. A handful of desperate parents killing their kids, while abhorrent, is not genocide. Genocide is a system where the weak are abandoned and sent off to die, not by their families but by bureaucrats. When aspies are told to kill themselves and that nobody would care if they did, that's genocide. When families are cast aside to save money, that's genocide. When nobody will help the Kelli Stapletons of the world, then those same people celebrate when they snap, that's genocide.
It's not Kelli's fault that she was put on a merry go round until she snapped. It IS the fault of sociopathic politicians and their Wall Street friends who think that the only good commoner is a dead one. Parents and kids need to stop hating each other and start hating the REAL evil.
I recently read the following:
http://marlowefranklin.blogspot.com/2014/01/discrimination-and-bigotry-against.html
Now, as a "neurodiverse" individual, I can understand where the parents are coming from. Having an ASD kid means, for many, physical abuse, screaming, property destruction, etc etc until the parent loses it and starts fantasizing about killing their kid. It may not be so much evil as mental illness induced by PTSD-type events.
But you know what? Aspies also suffer. We are bullied in school, bullied to the point where "normal" kids are routinely doing physical and even sexual harm to us. Furthermore, the only response the educational system has to this bullying is to reward the bullies and tell us that it's our fault we were bullied because we are "weak" and need to "toughen up". We are told that our symptoms aren't real, that we are only doing them because we're jerks who are constantly seeking what one of my teachers called "negative attention". We can't succeed in life, we're told, so we seek attention in "destructive" ways.
Furthermore, once we graduate school-IF we do-we can't find a job. Nobody will hire us because "nobody likes a debbie downer"-an outlook formed by years of bullying. We aren't "team players", and thus are unfit to hire. When we try to get SSI, we are told to "find a job you lazy bum!". Do you see the double bind here? We are constantly told that we could become NT if only we tried hard enough. Autism is a defect in brain wiring-we CAN'T just shed it like a snake sheds its skin. After 40 or 50 years of this, we become bitter and hateful. Many of us had mentally ill families who abused us.
Yes, some parents are abused by their ASD kids until they snap. But we are victims of abuse too. The system doesn't care about parents OR sufferers, we are only there to be abused by bureaucrats so they can get more funding, which never seems to reach the people who need it, having been diverted into the pockets of some manager somewhere.
I don't pretend to judge Kelli Stapleton, or any other parent of a special needs kid. Christianity says that only God Himself has the right to judge. I don't know if God exists, but if He does, we need to leave the judging to Him, and start talking TO each other, rather than PAST each other.
Our current system is set up to reward sociopaths and cull the "weak". Billionaires routinely talk of culling the population, which means they want 90% of us to die. I don't mind dying, but the desire to wipe out all but the sociopaths should be called what it is: Genocide.
Genocide isn't like in The Turner Diaries where the undesirables march meekly into the mountains, never to be heard from again. Genocide is mass graves and gas chambers and ovens emitting horrible smells. Genocide is your friends and their families being rounded up by stormtroopers and "vanishing".
The word "genocide" is tossed around a lot in the ND community, by people who should know better. A handful of desperate parents killing their kids, while abhorrent, is not genocide. Genocide is a system where the weak are abandoned and sent off to die, not by their families but by bureaucrats. When aspies are told to kill themselves and that nobody would care if they did, that's genocide. When families are cast aside to save money, that's genocide. When nobody will help the Kelli Stapletons of the world, then those same people celebrate when they snap, that's genocide.
It's not Kelli's fault that she was put on a merry go round until she snapped. It IS the fault of sociopathic politicians and their Wall Street friends who think that the only good commoner is a dead one. Parents and kids need to stop hating each other and start hating the REAL evil.
Monday, December 16, 2013
Mental illness and kids: one mom's story
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2013/12/health/mentally-ill-son/
I'll be honest, I couldn't bear to read the whole thing. I was a mentally ill kid too. Except in the 1980s, there was about zero help. I was taken to many different psychiatrists by my mom; it was either "he'll grow out of it" or "he's hopeless, if there were still institutions he'd be in one". In addition, my dad was mentally ill too, and there was little help for him as an adult as well.
I wonder if this kid's problem isn't related to schizophrenia-he hears voices, after all. I didn't start hearing voices until I was about 25 or 26, then they were suppressed for a few years by an antipsychotic I was taking for irrational fears, then I was taken off that drug and the voices ramped up. One thing normal people don't realize is that outside the voices are quiet. That may be why so many schizos choose lives of homeless wandering-it calms the voices.
Most schizos don't or can't realize that the voices have no power over them. They don't know how to fight back against the voices. It takes medication, yes, but it also takes determination when the voices are saying "we're real!" to say back at them "no, you're not, and I can prove it". The voices don't want you to take your medication, this is almost universal in schizophrenia, for some reason the voices are afraid of the meds.
The voices are bullies, but like every bully they're weak at heart, and they put on the tough guy act to make you THINK that they're authoritative, but once you start fighting them they back down. I want to say to everybody who hears the voices, fight them tooth and nail, tell them they're not real, google everything they tell you to prove they're lying. And, take your meds, even though they will tell you not to, set your alarms in the morning and take the meds.
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2013/12/health/mentally-ill-son/
I'll be honest, I couldn't bear to read the whole thing. I was a mentally ill kid too. Except in the 1980s, there was about zero help. I was taken to many different psychiatrists by my mom; it was either "he'll grow out of it" or "he's hopeless, if there were still institutions he'd be in one". In addition, my dad was mentally ill too, and there was little help for him as an adult as well.
I wonder if this kid's problem isn't related to schizophrenia-he hears voices, after all. I didn't start hearing voices until I was about 25 or 26, then they were suppressed for a few years by an antipsychotic I was taking for irrational fears, then I was taken off that drug and the voices ramped up. One thing normal people don't realize is that outside the voices are quiet. That may be why so many schizos choose lives of homeless wandering-it calms the voices.
Most schizos don't or can't realize that the voices have no power over them. They don't know how to fight back against the voices. It takes medication, yes, but it also takes determination when the voices are saying "we're real!" to say back at them "no, you're not, and I can prove it". The voices don't want you to take your medication, this is almost universal in schizophrenia, for some reason the voices are afraid of the meds.
The voices are bullies, but like every bully they're weak at heart, and they put on the tough guy act to make you THINK that they're authoritative, but once you start fighting them they back down. I want to say to everybody who hears the voices, fight them tooth and nail, tell them they're not real, google everything they tell you to prove they're lying. And, take your meds, even though they will tell you not to, set your alarms in the morning and take the meds.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Chaos in Cordoba, Argentina, as cops go on strike
From Argentine expat Ferfal:
http://www.themodernsurvivalist.com/archives/3128
I'm no friend of LEO's, I'll admit. But what happens in a devolved society like Argentina where suddenly there are no cops? PARTY TIME! Every conceivable store gets looted, residences are broken into, and people scramble to defend themselves against a total ungluing of civilization. A common meme in the survivalist community is that the planet is nine meals away from chaos. Actually, only one thing stands between "civilization", even a degraded form of it, and chaos: cops.
Considering how many cops are corrupt or burned out, how they tend to see everybody as a potential suspect, blah blah blah, that's a scary idea. It makes one wonder how Old Western towns got along without LEO's, but the towns had one thing that the world today lacks: Morality. Parents taught kids morals, the community reinforced it, and everybody got along. Today, the parents are absent, either at work or on drugs, and kids raise each other. Lord of the Flies time. Especially since the last people with morals are dying off. Once they're gone, it's likely that Western Civilization will bite the dust. The resources have been depleted, the population of the planet is grossly inflated far beyond carrying capacity, so now it's time to pay the piper.
Stephen Hawking, one of the smartest people alive today, recently said that humanity will likely go extinct by the year 3000, ie 1000 years from now. I would be surprised if it lasted until the year 2100, 100 years from now. We are 100% dependent on technology that in turn depends on resources that will start to run dry in about 20-30 years. Without our technology, we're goners. We have evolved to depend on it. First comes looting for TVs, then the electricity goes away so in the next stage people grab food, then there's no more food so they eat each other, then even that is depleted, so they will simply die. We are as amoral as Romans were in AD 400. By AD 700 Rome was a ghost town. Rome had a population of 1 million in AD 300. History does repeat.
From Argentine expat Ferfal:
http://www.themodernsurvivalist.com/archives/3128
I'm no friend of LEO's, I'll admit. But what happens in a devolved society like Argentina where suddenly there are no cops? PARTY TIME! Every conceivable store gets looted, residences are broken into, and people scramble to defend themselves against a total ungluing of civilization. A common meme in the survivalist community is that the planet is nine meals away from chaos. Actually, only one thing stands between "civilization", even a degraded form of it, and chaos: cops.
Considering how many cops are corrupt or burned out, how they tend to see everybody as a potential suspect, blah blah blah, that's a scary idea. It makes one wonder how Old Western towns got along without LEO's, but the towns had one thing that the world today lacks: Morality. Parents taught kids morals, the community reinforced it, and everybody got along. Today, the parents are absent, either at work or on drugs, and kids raise each other. Lord of the Flies time. Especially since the last people with morals are dying off. Once they're gone, it's likely that Western Civilization will bite the dust. The resources have been depleted, the population of the planet is grossly inflated far beyond carrying capacity, so now it's time to pay the piper.
Stephen Hawking, one of the smartest people alive today, recently said that humanity will likely go extinct by the year 3000, ie 1000 years from now. I would be surprised if it lasted until the year 2100, 100 years from now. We are 100% dependent on technology that in turn depends on resources that will start to run dry in about 20-30 years. Without our technology, we're goners. We have evolved to depend on it. First comes looting for TVs, then the electricity goes away so in the next stage people grab food, then there's no more food so they eat each other, then even that is depleted, so they will simply die. We are as amoral as Romans were in AD 400. By AD 700 Rome was a ghost town. Rome had a population of 1 million in AD 300. History does repeat.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
The Free Stuff Army, the decline of the white race, and the end of the Jewish Diaspora
I recently came across this article from a rabbi, from a link on Survivalist Boards:
http://rabbipruzansky.com/2012/11/07/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-american-empire/
Disclaimer: I don't know anything about this guy, nor is this an endorsement outside of the linked article.
Rabbi Pruzansky's point is, essentially, that takers outnumber makers in an America and world where Whites are in the minority, and eventually the takers will "redistribute" the wealth of the makers, then kill the makers, not realizing that the golden goose has been cooked and eaten. Jews are once again under attack, and in a country that many of them viewed as a safe haven. Assembling the entire body of Judaism in Israel only makes them easier to find and kill once the chaos after the fall of America reaches that corner of the world.
But what choice do they have? At least united, they can fight till the end, then invoke the Samson Doctrine and pull most of the Muslims down with them. Whites and Jews have always been the "makers", what happens when the whites and Jews have been eliminated? That day is coming. The only option that "palefaces" have is to take as many of the attackers out with them as possible.
The irony is that it is likely that we are in this sorry position because Jews were afraid of whites after the horrors of the Shoah (Holocaust), and wanted to prevent another one. They wanted to disenfranchise whites and lift up the third world. Instead, we have a Jewry that has painted itself into a corner. The third world wants free stuff, and they don't care where it comes from. The poor vastly outnumber the rich. The poor want the cash and goodies of the rich, and are willing to take them by force.
Margaret Thatcher once said, socialism works great until you run out of other people's money. The poor have learned that they can vote themselves the lucre of the rich, and then vote themselves their existences. Once the rich are dead and gone, what then? Likely the weirdest world war you've ever seen, more like Iraq than WW2, where there is no safe haven and danger can come from anywhere. Eventually, the bullets will run out, the knives will break, and the rocks too slippery with blood to hurl. Then, humanity will go extinct, or near-extinct.
The human population growth curve since 1946 looks exactly like a population bubble in nature. Once the bubble pops, numbers drop immediately to near zero. May your G-d have mercy on us, Rabbi. We will need it.
I recently came across this article from a rabbi, from a link on Survivalist Boards:
http://rabbipruzansky.com/2012/11/07/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-american-empire/
Disclaimer: I don't know anything about this guy, nor is this an endorsement outside of the linked article.
Rabbi Pruzansky's point is, essentially, that takers outnumber makers in an America and world where Whites are in the minority, and eventually the takers will "redistribute" the wealth of the makers, then kill the makers, not realizing that the golden goose has been cooked and eaten. Jews are once again under attack, and in a country that many of them viewed as a safe haven. Assembling the entire body of Judaism in Israel only makes them easier to find and kill once the chaos after the fall of America reaches that corner of the world.
But what choice do they have? At least united, they can fight till the end, then invoke the Samson Doctrine and pull most of the Muslims down with them. Whites and Jews have always been the "makers", what happens when the whites and Jews have been eliminated? That day is coming. The only option that "palefaces" have is to take as many of the attackers out with them as possible.
The irony is that it is likely that we are in this sorry position because Jews were afraid of whites after the horrors of the Shoah (Holocaust), and wanted to prevent another one. They wanted to disenfranchise whites and lift up the third world. Instead, we have a Jewry that has painted itself into a corner. The third world wants free stuff, and they don't care where it comes from. The poor vastly outnumber the rich. The poor want the cash and goodies of the rich, and are willing to take them by force.
Margaret Thatcher once said, socialism works great until you run out of other people's money. The poor have learned that they can vote themselves the lucre of the rich, and then vote themselves their existences. Once the rich are dead and gone, what then? Likely the weirdest world war you've ever seen, more like Iraq than WW2, where there is no safe haven and danger can come from anywhere. Eventually, the bullets will run out, the knives will break, and the rocks too slippery with blood to hurl. Then, humanity will go extinct, or near-extinct.
The human population growth curve since 1946 looks exactly like a population bubble in nature. Once the bubble pops, numbers drop immediately to near zero. May your G-d have mercy on us, Rabbi. We will need it.
Friday, November 15, 2013
Number of people signed up for Obamacare via "Cover Oregon": Zero.
I follow the news out of southern Oregon because I hope one day to be a resident of the area. Recently KDRV-TV in Medford reported that exactly zero people had signed up for health care via the state health exchange, dubbed Cover Oregon. The websites created for O-care are full of bugs and don't function properly. In addition, people are finding out that Obama lied, and millions are getting dropped from their previous plans, and told to sign up for new ones via healthcare.gov, which doesn't work. In January, people will face hefty fines for not having insurance.
Let's be honest here. It may sound like conspiracy theory, but O-care has likely been from the beginning a huge tax hike on Americans via the guise of "not having health care", which they can't sign up for but they will still be fined for. The offered plans have sky high deductibles and very low maximums. The government is looking for a way to keep up their spending habits, so they're wringing as much money out of the populace as possible. Once the American public has nothing more to tax, they will be eliminated. Don't forget that the American debt is backed by the labor of the American people. That means our creditors the banksters (50% of outstanding debt is held by the banks, China only holds 1/16th) will simply seize the people, aka the collateral, when default comes.
Look on a dollar bill, it says right on it that it is debt. What is the debt backed by? The full faith and credit of the US Govt. What is the govt? Well, the people. The American citizenry IS the debt, in other words. We are all collateral for the US govt's debt. The govt derives its right to tax us from the fact that we have an obligation to pay the govt's bills. When the govt can't pay, it is the people who get wiped out.
Anyway, the govt has to tax the people, and institute giant tax hikes, to pay its bills. O-care was a sneaky backdoor way of forcing the American public to buy govt bonds. That "penalty for not having insurance" will buy govt bonds. The insurance companies will buy govt bonds with the premiums they get from the people. Since they won't have to pay any claims, and stocks are "too risky", they will buy T Bonds. That money will fund the govt. The whole scheme is unraveling, and fast. The govt is desperate for cash. If you are "rich", a word with a definition written on rubber, you will pay. Your money and eventually your life.
I follow the news out of southern Oregon because I hope one day to be a resident of the area. Recently KDRV-TV in Medford reported that exactly zero people had signed up for health care via the state health exchange, dubbed Cover Oregon. The websites created for O-care are full of bugs and don't function properly. In addition, people are finding out that Obama lied, and millions are getting dropped from their previous plans, and told to sign up for new ones via healthcare.gov, which doesn't work. In January, people will face hefty fines for not having insurance.
Let's be honest here. It may sound like conspiracy theory, but O-care has likely been from the beginning a huge tax hike on Americans via the guise of "not having health care", which they can't sign up for but they will still be fined for. The offered plans have sky high deductibles and very low maximums. The government is looking for a way to keep up their spending habits, so they're wringing as much money out of the populace as possible. Once the American public has nothing more to tax, they will be eliminated. Don't forget that the American debt is backed by the labor of the American people. That means our creditors the banksters (50% of outstanding debt is held by the banks, China only holds 1/16th) will simply seize the people, aka the collateral, when default comes.
Look on a dollar bill, it says right on it that it is debt. What is the debt backed by? The full faith and credit of the US Govt. What is the govt? Well, the people. The American citizenry IS the debt, in other words. We are all collateral for the US govt's debt. The govt derives its right to tax us from the fact that we have an obligation to pay the govt's bills. When the govt can't pay, it is the people who get wiped out.
Anyway, the govt has to tax the people, and institute giant tax hikes, to pay its bills. O-care was a sneaky backdoor way of forcing the American public to buy govt bonds. That "penalty for not having insurance" will buy govt bonds. The insurance companies will buy govt bonds with the premiums they get from the people. Since they won't have to pay any claims, and stocks are "too risky", they will buy T Bonds. That money will fund the govt. The whole scheme is unraveling, and fast. The govt is desperate for cash. If you are "rich", a word with a definition written on rubber, you will pay. Your money and eventually your life.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Debt, dysfunction, and the end of the (financial) world
It's a dead man's party
Who could ask for more
Everybody's coming
Leave your body at the door
-Oingo Boingo
As I write this, the world is anxiously watching a standoff between Barack Obama and John Boehner over the US debt limit. Boehner wants to force an abandonment of America's new, badly designed health care system, dubbed "Obamacare", in exchange for raising the debt limit and reopening the federal government, which has been shut down since October 1. Obama is demanding a "clean" resolution, without conditions. Republicans are insisting that defaulting on the debt won't be so bad. Message boards insist that we need to walk away from our debt and "get it over with".
The world in general has been loaded up with debt, and eventually this debt will lead to nuclear war and the end. Nobody disputes that. The only question is, fast or slow? Do we default now, or do we drag it out, hopefully giving people more time to prepare? (Although I fail to see how you "prepare" for a total nuke war, but maybe it won't come to that. Conventional war is still bad-ask the Germans, who have huge mountains of rubble in their cities from WW2.) Right now, I'm not prepared. My mom won't let me grow a garden, or keep animals. She simply refuses to hurt any animal, even for food. I am working on paying down my dental bills, and hope to have them paid by December 2014. I hope to have my own land, all ready to go, by 2017. Defaulting now would mean that people who are aware but who can't prep the way they want will die.
Defaulting later means that maybe some will live. Even without war, a debt default means that currencies inflate heavenward, grocery stores run out of food, cities explode in riots. Eventually, crime becomes untenable as people with no future and no hope kill each other to survive. Argentina is probably the best example of this. In December 2001, the small middle class of that country found the banks closed one day. When they reopened, withdrawal limits were in place, dubbed "corralito" by locals. The same thing happened in Cyprus.
I have to believe that the politicians don't realize how bad it could get. Delaying the inevitable for one year, or five, or ten, won't help the majority, who will always be blind, stupid sheep. But maybe some will come to their senses, and prep. The game of chicken that is being played in Washington is already spooking the bankers. Last time that the politicians did this, interest rates for the undeveloped world stayed high for months, and buyers shied away from Treasuries for a while.
That brings me to another subject, the fact that Congress can't agree on anything except lining their own pockets. Democrats oppose everything Republicans do. Republicans oppose everything that Democrats do. Bipartisanship and compromise died unholy deaths in DC long ago, now each side wants the other to fail, just so they can point fingers and blame at each other. Republicans are so obsessed with destroying Obama that they're willing to play Russian Roulette with the human race just to achieve that goal. But hey, at election time each side can blame the other. Never mind that if one day they choose the chamber with the bullet, that there might not be a next election, or humans to vote in it.
It's a dead man's party
Who could ask for more
Everybody's coming
Leave your body at the door
-Oingo Boingo
As I write this, the world is anxiously watching a standoff between Barack Obama and John Boehner over the US debt limit. Boehner wants to force an abandonment of America's new, badly designed health care system, dubbed "Obamacare", in exchange for raising the debt limit and reopening the federal government, which has been shut down since October 1. Obama is demanding a "clean" resolution, without conditions. Republicans are insisting that defaulting on the debt won't be so bad. Message boards insist that we need to walk away from our debt and "get it over with".
The world in general has been loaded up with debt, and eventually this debt will lead to nuclear war and the end. Nobody disputes that. The only question is, fast or slow? Do we default now, or do we drag it out, hopefully giving people more time to prepare? (Although I fail to see how you "prepare" for a total nuke war, but maybe it won't come to that. Conventional war is still bad-ask the Germans, who have huge mountains of rubble in their cities from WW2.) Right now, I'm not prepared. My mom won't let me grow a garden, or keep animals. She simply refuses to hurt any animal, even for food. I am working on paying down my dental bills, and hope to have them paid by December 2014. I hope to have my own land, all ready to go, by 2017. Defaulting now would mean that people who are aware but who can't prep the way they want will die.
Defaulting later means that maybe some will live. Even without war, a debt default means that currencies inflate heavenward, grocery stores run out of food, cities explode in riots. Eventually, crime becomes untenable as people with no future and no hope kill each other to survive. Argentina is probably the best example of this. In December 2001, the small middle class of that country found the banks closed one day. When they reopened, withdrawal limits were in place, dubbed "corralito" by locals. The same thing happened in Cyprus.
I have to believe that the politicians don't realize how bad it could get. Delaying the inevitable for one year, or five, or ten, won't help the majority, who will always be blind, stupid sheep. But maybe some will come to their senses, and prep. The game of chicken that is being played in Washington is already spooking the bankers. Last time that the politicians did this, interest rates for the undeveloped world stayed high for months, and buyers shied away from Treasuries for a while.
That brings me to another subject, the fact that Congress can't agree on anything except lining their own pockets. Democrats oppose everything Republicans do. Republicans oppose everything that Democrats do. Bipartisanship and compromise died unholy deaths in DC long ago, now each side wants the other to fail, just so they can point fingers and blame at each other. Republicans are so obsessed with destroying Obama that they're willing to play Russian Roulette with the human race just to achieve that goal. But hey, at election time each side can blame the other. Never mind that if one day they choose the chamber with the bullet, that there might not be a next election, or humans to vote in it.
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