The Dollar In Turmoil

In "1913: A Masterstroke Against Liberty," you learned about the fraud that is the federal income tax.  You learned that a private entity has the power to create unlimited money out of nothing.  You learned that, when compared to 1913, the dollar today is worth about 4 cents.  What you have not yet learned is the full extent of the damage the dollar has suffered and what is knocking on our front door as a result.

The choices our policy makers have made over the last several decades have taken us from a prosperous productive nation (circa WWII) to a poverty-ridden, crime-filled, government-dependent wasteland:

• Since January of 2009, America's manufacturing industry has laid off an average of 129,855 workers per month
• Last year, Detroit began proceedings to file for the largest municipal bankruptcy in history for debts totaling about $18 billion
• In California alone, 3 cities have successfully declared bankruptcy, and another 10 are on the verge
• Because they cannot afford to build more prisons, California is currently pushing criminals back onto the streets before they have served their full sentence under the Prisoner Realignment Program
• In 2001, there were just over 17 million people on food stamps - about 5.4% of the population.  Today, there are almost 47 million people on food stamps - about 15% of the population (or more than 1 in 6 people).  This is an increase of almost 300%
• Today, 4 out of every 5 Americans struggle with near-poverty, joblessness, or reliance on wellfare for at least part of their life

There are many more examples of the results of poor decision making by our leadership, and there is one common undercurrent running through all of these issues: The dollar is sick.

While the situation is bad for individual cities and states, it is far worse at the federal level.  At the time of this writing, our national debt is in excess of $17.5 trillion.  It is difficult to comprehend this number, so lets put it into perspective.  If you stacked 17 trillion one dollar bills on top of each other (not end-to-end), they would extend for 1,153,722 miles.  Yes, that is over one million miles.  Put another way, the US national debt could  make 2.4 round trips to the moon.  This must not be enough insanity: our leaders are - once again - working on raising the debt limit so they can borrow even more.  At this point, it has become a mathematical impossibility to repay the US national debt.

Currently, the US dollar is used as the worlds Reserve Currency.  This means that most other countries trade in dollars: If Japan wants to make an exchange of goods with Australia, Japan will first buy dollars, which they will then exchange for Australia's goods.  It has been this way since World War II.  However, because of the irresponsible treatment of the dollar by US leadership, many other countries are quickly moving away from the dollar as a medium of exchange, opting instead to trade in their own currencies.

This may not sound like such a big deal, but what will happen when the world no longer trades in dollars?  What will happen when other countries do not want our dollars, so they no longer buy our debt?  What will happen when the only source of additional dollars to fund our government is the money created by the Federal Reserve?  In short, the 2% per year inflation rates we have seen will become a bittersweet memory.  America will experience something that can only be described as Hyperstagflation.  We will wake up one day and find that a gallon of gas costs $50, a loaf of bread $75.  While our leaders could stop this by declaring bankruptcy and guiding the ensuing crash, they will not.

What will this mean?  Unfortunately, we live in a nation full of people who are struggling so hard to keep food on the table, they cannot pull their attention out of the endless cycle of bills.  They suffer from a perceived normalcy bias and vehemently refuse to accept that a collapse of this scale could happen.  Case in point: You can blast on the news, 24x7 for a week straight that we are going to have the worst storm in recorded history strike the East coast, and you still have people digging through dumpsters for food and physically assaulting each other over gasoline.  When the dollar collapses, it will be far worse than the aftermath of Katrina, and it will be on a national scale.  During the Great Depression, 80% of the population had access to a family farm, so very few people had to go hungry.  Today, only 2% of the population has this access.  If We the People do not adequately prepare, this will mean nothing less than the death of America as we know it.

We can get through this.  And when we do, the world can be a much better place to live.  But right now, it's time to prepare.  Get to know your neighbors and build a solid community.  Stock up on food with a long shelf life.  A year supply for you and your family is a great start.  Stocking up on heirloom seeds so you can grow more food is also a great idea.  The best deal I have found on these (and other survival) items is from www.mypatriotsupply.com.  It's also time to stock up on clean drinking water - at least 50 gallons - and a way to filter more.  Medical supplies are also needed.  Most importantly, it's time to stock up on protection.  There will be hundreds of millions of people who are trying to feed themselves and their children, and your survival will mean little to them.

There's a storm coming, and it's time to lay out the sand bags and board the windows before it hits.