Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Is Wolf Crying Wolf?























Max said...

To me it doesn't look like this is being manipulated to bring in the police states of America, but they are definitely preparing for that contingency. This house of cards they built was bound to crumble under its own weight eventually. Anyone who didn't think so was living in a fantasy land. Like you said when you stop believing in fairies they go away. So much uncertainty is ahead of us. I have been preparing for what looks like hard times and also making sure those close to me understand and prepare too.

Harry Stottle said...

I'm intrigued.
a)What preparations have you been making and
b) how do your nearest and dearest react to these "forbodings of doom"?

Max said...

I've been keeping my family and friends up to date on all the things I have learned and current events since 9/11, so none of this has been a shock to them. They listen but I don't come out wild eyes screaming about the sky falling. Just pass on what I see happening and my worries in a calm manner.

Now as for preparations. Since I live in Florida many of these are common to hurricane preparedness only now I have been making plans for more long term. Trying to put away dry and canned goods for 6 months. Water filtration equipment. Extra fishing tackle, and made sure our cast nets are in good shape. Got stuff to make a rocket stove, and I have made a couple of these with some fuel for them. Extra bottles of rubbing alcohol for disinfecting.

Also something that I have always felt was key is increasing my knowledge base. I picked up a book that shows edible plants that are in my state. I am already pretty handy with plants, but I have been printing out organic gardening information. How to tie different knots and snares. Figure the more I know or have on hand the better off we will be.

Harry Stottle said...

Well it's good to know someone's going to be prepared!

Max said...

Getting prepared has helped me keep things in perspective. That's not always easy when I get all this doom and gloom from the various sources on the net, so I take a breath and back away to do something productive.

I like seeing your view on things for perspective too. You will have different ideas and catch things I missed. Thanks a lot for putting your thoughts out there for us around the world.

Harry Stottle said...

glad to be of service sir

Harry Stottle said...

This is informative. And reduces the potential scale of the problem considerably below the $516 Trillion story. Not only in overall size but in explaining that the bulk of the $54.6 Trillion is in the form of "outstanding contracts".

Which means that if, for example, there is a chain of 10 insurers such that I borrow $1 million from you; you take out insurance against my defaulting with a bank. They take out insurance against you needing to make a claim on them and so on, you end up with 10 contracts to insure slightly lower slices of the original million. So if I default, you claim your insurance from the bank, they claim from their insurers and so on.

The "real" money is limited to the original million dollars, even though the 10 contracts may add up to nearly 10 million. Hence (as we suspected but didn't understand why) the $54.6 trillion isn't real money. The real money is probably a tiny fraction of that - but still enough to trigger a financial collapse if it is defaulted...

Max said...

That's good to know. Because honestly those numbers were boggling my mind. Mostly for the fact that I couldn't figure out where and how this money came to be. Still something to be concerned about but at least more manageable on the large scale.