Maggie's Farm

Zero coupon bonds are a symptom, an indicator, a warning. Something is wrong, it has been wrong for years, it is getting worse. It is like 100 school busses sitting in 3 feet of water in New Orleans while 1000's of people are stranded in a hurricane. It is like a firestorm approaching a city with 35 mph winds. It isn't "just" time to pay attention it is past time. We have all seen videos of over loaded grandstands that collapse in slow motion; that is what zero coupon bonds are. It is a sign of something drastically wrong. It is like gun shots in a crowded mall; a signal to take cover.

My grandfather and mother lost everything in 1929 and afterwards. My parents married in 1933 and toughed it out through the great depression. The talk around the dinner table often was about the depression and the effects on my family. I had many questions and found many answers inadequate to understand what it really was. I once asked why they did certain things that in retrospect seemed foolish and my mother said something that has stuck with me: "We didn't know how bad it would get or that it would last so long. The government kept telling us that things were getting better and everything would be fine. If we had known then what we know now we would have done things differently." Well!! The indicators are there if you look for them and our government is covering up the problem with phony job stats and economic reports. They are printing and borrowing money in the trillions. Why doesn't that scare us and why isn't that shouted by our news readers and reporters. When you see someone from the FED on TV I am reminded of that saying about a duck; "calm and serene on the surface but paddling like crazy underneath. The FED is scared, the bureaucrats are scared they have used everything (Keynesian) at their disposal to reverse and hide this collapse since late 2008 and it isn't working. There is nothing left, nothing else up their sleeves to turn this around. Never before in our history have interest rates been this low and they have been this low for years. This is the fifth horseman of the apocalypse. This is serious.

In my grandfathers case he owned a small store, something that would be the equivalent of a 7-11 today. As a child I was able to see his ledger book where he gave credit to families who would buy a can of soup or a loaf of bread. The ledger goes on page after page until it was all gone. He of course thought like everyone did that it was a blip in the economy and not a "long emergency". In that time he gave away enough food to feed the extended family for months.

He stayed in that house with the store downstairs for almost a year with no income and little to feed the family. He had access to and after the crash purchased a piece of land about 1 acre. It had a few outbuildings on it. He after awhile decided to abandon the city property (he couldn't keep up the payments on the mortgage and move to the rural acre. But again he was fooled by the reports into thinking things were getting better and he spent the Summer building a small house to live in. That winter was cold and hungry. My father and three of his sisters lived at home and two brothers had their own family. They worked together to get through it. The following year, the Summer of 1931 they put in a vegetable garden, all of the land was planted. Lots of work and the entire family worked together on it. This was another example of how they could have acted faster if they knew it was getting worse and food would be an ongoing problem.

There was a daily food line at the city hall but at first the family was too proud to take handouts. Eventually they realized they would need this but they had to get through some rough months before they understood this.

My father applied for some of the government jobs (he was 24) but he was frustrated by the process because it was controlled by the Democrat party and he was not a registered Democrat. So they wouldn't tell him outright that they would never hire him but eventually he figured it out. My father and others would walk the railroad lines with burlap bags and pick up coal that had dropped from trains. They had a wood stove but during the worst weather (we lived in New England) the coal would burn all night and was a blessing. The extended family was held together by my grandfather who by all accounts was a wonderful man (he died before I was born).

My parents married in 1933 and they moved into an old chicken coup on the rural acre. I have seen the chicken coup and it was about 12'x16'. The extended family was now 10 adults and 5-6 children. The little house wouldn't hold everyone and they had been using the chicken house in the summer for a bunk house for the kids. By now (1933) people were beginning to understand that this was not going to end soon.

There was some work, my father would work on the garden and cutting/finding wood when he was home but if he was working it was often miles from home so the sisters and my mother worked the garden.

Money was another example of missed opportunity. My grandfather had money in 1929 to run his business and some in the bank. But trying to stay in place paying the mortgage took a lot of that and they should have moved earlier but again had no idea it was so bad. He also lost some money when a bank closed. It was at that point that he withdrew his money and stopped paying the mortgage. If he had done that on the first day things would have been much better.

What could you do today? In one respect we are very lucky. That is today you can go to one of the big box stores and buy 25 lbs of rice for $8, 3 lbs of pinto beans for $2.50, 10 lbs flour for $3.50, etc. Today if you wanted to prepare for the next long emergency everything you could want is available at a store close to you for prices that are historically low. You could plant a garden and learn how to can and preserve the food you can grow. Assess your life and needs and plan to meet the essential needs in the event of a economic crash or even something worse. Save money, pay off debts, buy some PMs, create a plan B just in case. There are many things you can do today that you may not be able to do after the SHTF.

Do not believe all you hear from the government, the MSM and the talking heads.

I too peruse the prepper sites and the videos on Youtube. There is actually some good stuff there. Lots of people with lots of good ideas. Yes there are some crazy conspiracy theorists too. I can honestly say I have never seen "racist" stuff on the sites I choose to look at regularly. I have seen rants on a few sites that were off color, full of anger and even racist but typically they were comments aimed at the preppers and thus appeared to not be made by the preppers. Just some random trolls and Zach type shills. Some of the videos are a lot of fun to watch even if you aren't interested in canning or building a chicken coop.

I certainly don't disagree that what you describe is possible. But I believe at heart most people are good. Not the gang bangers and druggies but the majority are good and I think we will come together when things get bad. I also think most people in government are good too (even though I often rant against the bureaucrats) and when things get bad they will step up and do what the government should do in that situation. My hope is that if it is 'just' an economic collapse that it is certainly survivable even for the older people and those who need medical care and prescription drugs. I don't know what will happen, no one does. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.