Every week we're "through the worst of it".

I've seen a lot of panic. I'm a good judge of where I am within a bad situation.

In this one, we're not going to see the worst for 6-18months.

The end will not come with a bang, but with a whimper. Slow and painful like cancer.

The financial disaster will be with us for some considerable time. This will be compounded by the increasing worldwide food shortage, and increasing racial tensions as politicians seek to find scape-goats in foreign agents.
With free flow of information, we'll be able to survive it. But with these distractions who will pay attention to closing communication lines?

When there's not enough food to go around, you can't save everyone.

same thing happened in germany, 1920's. they mints printed more money to offset the massive debt, money became worth less than the paper it was printed on.

Also, Marrill lynch got bought out by bank of america link:  http://www.cnbc.com/id/26708319

Times are bad, and they're going to get worse. Stockpile food and ammo, my friends. I Know I am.

ACTUALLY, if they didn't bail out these companies, then they would fall, and several other companies with large holdings in them would fall, and then more companies would fall, and we'd be in december 1929. This is WHY the government is just bailing without question, if they hadn't we'd have the largest market crash, possibly larger, since the 30's. The problem I see now, is this was only a temporary solutions, once people get taxed so hard they can't afford anything, the companies will fall anyways.  They have some weird bailout plan now, which i REALLY hope works, because I have no idea what I would do. the problem with an economic crash, how do you bug out for that? how do you bug in for that?

How do you bug in for that? The way you bug in for everything: water, food, fuel and ammo. ;-)

Everything is temporary. There is no level of bug in preparedness that can totally replace society. But economic collapse is likewise temporary. It doesn't mean that efforts that help should be discounted because they can't fix everything. Bugging in is one tool in the toolbox to stack the deck in your favor (as I've said before). A hammer isn't defective if it doesn't also make a good saw, it's just not designed for that.

Nothing is going to do everything, but that's not an excuse to avoid doing anything.

Every bit of food you store is one more day you can eat.

One wog, one kit.

After the US govt reaction to Katrina, there is no way in hell I am expecting them to help me and mine.

Good link there Enki. It absolutely boggles the mind that they can get away with this and that there is no rioting in the streets. People are so uninformed that its scary but then I guess you can't strike at someone with the lights out and man, do they ever have the lights out. The LA Times just said that they are going to "start printing real news again..." in order to get back all the customers they lost since 11/07.

It is in the best interests of the banks and insurance companies... and the financial monster as a whole if we all keep together as good little citizens and keep banking as normal until the final days. This allows them to make all of their smash and grabs complete before things get really ugly.

The thing that is different about this bailout of AIG and others is that they are using our tax dollars to bail out a private company with out asking us for our approval. This can be contrasted against the new bankruptcy laws, that I have seen first hand, cripple the average person who needs them. AIG, an insurance company, made many bad investments and unlike us, they didn't have, and were not required to have any insurance.

The big thing is, we can all see this coming, but what do we do about it? What can we do to prepare for the nightmare that is a couple of months away? The real rock bottom may not be for another 1-2 years but even the main stream media is talking about it so you KNOW its coming. But what do you do?

I don't really have that plan formulated yet and that makes me really nervous. Whether or not there is a financial collapse, a societal collapse, or even a dictatorial regime marching in militarily, you have got to have a plan.

Communication is very liable to be effected so you gotta have a back up for that. What would you do if standard post went down? What if the internet also went down? We gotta have a backup for our backups and then another. I try to always have three plans: the main plain, a back up plan, and a last case scenario. At the very least it helps you to feel a bit secure.

I think we are headed for the same fate as Brazil 2001. Check that out for info... I think 'build an ark.com' has stories and suggestions for that type of scenario.

Assuming we all make it through the storm, what is left for us afterwards? We will probably have "officials" move in and rebuild everything with the system (or solution) that they have planned. Probably something along the lines of 'a new world order.' That kind of order out of chaos is very profitable for people ready to take advantage of it but I doubt they need any more money, they have enough. I think they want power, but then again, I am a bit paranoid.

We can't fight that kind of force with force. If the man came after us all individually we would stand no chance, no matter how many guns, weapons, or what kind training we have. SK was right when he said a couple of weeks ago that we need to learn how to deflect it instead of direct resistance. Just like Tai-Chi. Go back and listen to the first episode of Newsreal for September and he recommends two books that explain how to do this. I don't remember which books they were but I'm gonna go check tonight.

By 'our own systems" are you referring to a Wog economy?