In keeping with the times, I thought I’d just share my preparations for the Black Swan / End Times / Kamala election victory [some overlap] :
Of course, there may be a substitution or two…
Category: SHTF
Unsurprising
Our economy is sick. I’d spend a lot more time doing an in-depth analysis, but I don’t think it’s necessary because the signs are all there for anyone to see: high inflation, high unemployment — both shielded behind the usual lies and statistical sleight-of-hand tricks — and let’s be honest, the flood of illegal immigrants is not helping matters. The housing market is circling the bowl. Add massive overspending being subsidized by money-printing by the federal government, and it doesn’t take an idiot to see that there’s a reckoning a-coming.
Small wonder, then, that the money boys have taken notice:
Wall Street nosedived on Monday, as fears of the United States tipping into recession following weak economic data last week rippled through global markets.
The bloodbath began in Japan as the blue-chip Nikkei index saw its biggest one-day rout, plunging 12.4%, since the infamous Black Monday meltdown in 1987.
It soon cascaded to the US on the heels of Friday’s troubling jobs report and growing concern that the Federal Reserve was moving too slow in cutting decades-high interest rates.
The Dow Jones Industrial Index plunged more than 1,033 points, capping a drop of nearly 10% since hitting a near-record 41,183 last Wednesday afternoon when Fed Chair Jerome Powell hinted that rate cuts were “on the table” for September.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq slid 3.4% as Apple, Nvidia and the other so-called Magnificent Seven companies that used to be the stars of the stock market continued to wilt.
I don’t have to say that electing a socialist president and vice-president in November will not help anything — in fact, that could be the tipping point into a black swan scenario.
Frankly, I’m not even sure that President Trump Part II will help matters, although it could make the stock market rebound a bit. Our economic problems, however, go far deeper than the stock market, which is driven by institutional investment and the wealthy anyway. They would be largely inured from economic collapse; but the rest of us? Draw your won conclusions.
I’m assuming that all my Readers have emergency supplies and -contingency plans laid in, because the next few months are not going to be pretty.
Vote Of Confidence
…or not. No sooner have the Commies won the UK election when we see articles like this one appearing:
Escape from Keir’s Britain with the experts’ definitive emigration guide: The best places for sunshine, big houses, high wages, no crime and top-notch healthcare – plus the hotspot with NO income tax
Of course, the smart money has already made that plan and the moolah has long ago flown over the white cliffs of Dover. But on to the list. Some of the countries are a lot more difficult to gain entry to, especially for permanent residence so getting there requires a lot of wishful thinking. I’m also assuming that the target market folks are either well-off retirees or else have remote-friendly work-from-home jobs where location is irrelevant.
European countries: Spain (a favorite already), Portugal (close second), France and Italy. Never been to Spain, don’t care much for Italy (except in the north, which is spendy) but I could certainly do southern France. Which is Mediterranean, as are Greece and Cyprus. I would have a serious problem with either, because I have a problem with non-Western European alphabets, and unlike many others, I would never insist that the host people have to learn my language. My problem, not theirs. (I should point out that this is not the typical attitude of most Brit expats.)
Sweden: what? I mean, winters, dude. Not to mention taxes (from the article: “Income tax varies depending on the local authority, ranging from 29-35 per cent. Earners above a certain income pay an additional 20 per cent.”
Canada: see Scandi countries above. And speaking of socialist countries…
Oz/New Zealand: no language barrier (more or less), but fleeing Starmer’s nascent socialist regime for the established (and venal) ones in the Antipodes doesn’t seem like a decent exchange. (Hello, Covid lockdowns.)
South Africa: someone has a sense of humor. Except that South Africa is way beyond a joke. There’s a reason that Zimbabwe, Malawi and other African paradises aren’t on the list, and putting Seffrica on the list is simply a stupid nod to what the country used to be, and not what it is. A really smart guy once said to me, many years ago, “If I went to my CEO and suggested investing in South Africa, he’d fire me.”
Texas and Florida: leaving aside the almost impossible-to-crack legal difficulties of establishing U.S. residence, I am amused that only two states made the “cut”. (No Tennessee?) Whatever, I think the author has woefully underestimated the cost of living in both states. Then again, of aaaaaaallllll the countries on the list, once you’ve established residence in either TX or FL, you can buy a gun and protect you and yours without any problems at all. Which has to count for something.
So much for the Mail’s list.
Conspicuous by their absence from the list are some other countries.
Of course, one would think that Switzerland and Monaco would be obvious options, but they aren’t: cost of entry, cost of living, and some really high barriers to residence take them right out of the running. Basically, the guys who could afford to move there already have.
When it comes to bang for the buck, so to speak, the Caribbean or Central American countries like Domenica, Belize and the Virgin Islands stand out way ahead of, for example, Sweden. I’m amazed they weren’t on the list.
Your thoughts in Comments.
Here They Go Again
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, from Britishland:
Supermarkets today urged against panic buying as the Government launched a ‘preppers’ website warning families to gather an ’emergency kit’ of tinned food, batteries and bottled water for use in a crisis. Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden will today advise people to make contingency plans for dealing with potential emergencies to help build ‘national resilience’ and ease pressure on emergency services.
Dowden wants to encourage families to stock up with enough food and water to survive for three days in the event of an emergency like a flood.
All very sensible.
Naturally, everybody should build up some kind of reserve supplies of food and so on, and I’m pretty sure that all my Murkin Readers have already done so, with the judicious addition of guns and ammo in place so as to protect said emergency supplies against predation from those who haven’t.
And speaking of Americans:
While British ministers believe it is wise for people to take precautions, they will be keen to avoid imitations of the elaborate preparations for ‘doomsday’ scenarios made by US survivalists.
Of course they will, because the whole concept of self-reliance is anathema to politicians — and especially so in Britishland. So while the BritGov encourages people to have some emergency supplies on hand (three days? FFS), they don’t want their peasants to have too much of a supply, because… actually, I don’t have the faintest idea why they wouldn’t, other than malevolence or spite.
Feel free to enlighten me.
For those who may have missed them, or who are recent visitors to this website, here are a few from the archives:
Quote Of The Day
From SOTI, about SHTF-prepping properly:
“Stockpiling all the preserved food and medical supplies in the world won’t help when the first person to show up with a 12-gauge pump shotgun can take them all away.”
I know I’m pretty much preaching to the choir on this website, but it’s nevertheless a warning to pass on to others you may know who haven’t taken all the proper precautions. (I myself can’t think of any of my own acquaintances who aren’t armed to the teeth properly prepared in this regard, but that’s just me.)
Hell, I don’t even know any liberals where I might engage in a little impromptu property redistribution in a SHTF situation, but there must be a few out there, even in suburban north Texas. I’m just not willing to try to find out, for obvious reasons.
Even if I saw a “Guns Are Murder” lawn sign, they could just be hunting over bait (which is legal in Texas).
Yeah, Pretty Much That
From a realistic perspective, this is going to happen:
Around 2030 all Americans are going to have to turn on each other and carve that missing million out of their fellow citizen… This might be millennials becoming even greater debt slaves, this might be boomers kicked out of nursing homes to beg in the streets, this might be ethnic conflict to either make the white middle-class pay 2x the income tax forever, or a violent assault on the black inner-city to destroy the millstone of welfare America once and for all and free up millions in real estate in now unsafe cities… This might take the form of a communist revolution, the confiscation of all real estate, and the forcing of Americans into work camps, this might take the form of the mass slaughter of Federal employees and IRS agents so that no federal insurance schemes can ever be paid out and no pensions because the government employees are dead… This might take the form of mass Euthanasia of cancer patients, drug addicts, and the non-working… Everyone who shows up at hospital and isn’t expected to be net profitable, axe em.
My estimate is that 2030 is an optimistic forecast. And we’re not going to be able to spend our way out of it, either.
Cataclysm.