(Gig Harbor, WA) One of our long-time readers is a hard working east coasterly fellow who works a good ways up in one of those NYSE-list companies that if I told you, you’d go “Sure, I use their stuff every day…”
He sent me an email last week that is more that sobering because it looks ahead to “America After””.”
After what?
Well, odds are fair that the S&P will crack 2,000 today or later in the week. And that (trigger effect) means that we could be in one last parabolic stock market blow-off for a few months to come. BUT then we expect the Mutha ofs All Crashes – the one that will dwarf the 1930’s and make us all broken and beyond.
Markets go Up and markets go Down. It’s just no one in “modern times of the nanny state” really plans on the Down part. Except for a few diehard preppers, like us, and the other 16 people left in America who live below their means and prefer being financial icebergs to being professional victims.
So read this carefully and think through what it means:
G- I was in the land of [redacted’s] Inc’s HQ the last week in meetings. Had several interesting things happen to me so I will number them in order.
1. Had a meeting with a Big Sales Exec here and told me that “They” fully expect economic implosion next year or so. I never ever heard that type of talk from someone here at [redacted] in my entire time here.
2. Met with a young sales rep that I recently placed with one of our [redacted] companies and she as a 27 year old was just as awake as me. Again I have never heard a [redacted]sales rep that was awake especially that young. She is actually prepping herself. Unheard of in the last 8 years of me glooming in this doom business haha.
3. Talked to a senior HR person who said that all of our roles within ten years will probably be gone. Again, I have never heard a senior HR person speak like that in my time here.
4. Driving home I had a real weird situation happen. I saw 5 different cars with advertisements on them that had the word revolution on it. As if the Universe was hitting me off the head saying duh. This is what is happening. And in fact somehow I saw the same car three times where finally the last time the guy waved to me. We must have passed each other a bunch of times or something.
Bottom line is I think the long talked about Crunch we have been running through over and over and over the last decade plus is finally really coming. I have this overwhelming feeling of Dread and sadness as well.
I don’t know man for the last few years I always had a feeling that even though the web bot was calling for death of dollar and it was constantly talked about. I always felt that it was years off. I no longer have that feeling anymore. I really do think the time is close. And it scares me that regular business folk are talking about it now. It’s not just us nut bags anymore lol. And that scares me. I was perfectly happy being thought of as crazy and wrong.
Chin up, old pard!
Nothing that a little exercise, a couple of week’s rest, and handfuls of ‘sunshine vitamin D” won’t lift!
What’s the worst that could possibly happen? Death? Over the long haul, that’s in the bag already…just a matter of when. Dying of thirst? Have some fresh water stored…
Life is a video game that can be as short (or long) as the players are good. Don’t live in fear…live in anticipation. Don’t cower from a scary future…ride out into battle.
There’s two ways to approach life: The Maximum Gain route, and my preference, the Minimized Downside route.
People prep because they don’t trust the status quo. And I bet if you took a survey of preppers in Napa, California today, you wouldn’t find a single one who regrets the preps they did.
We do what we can and life goes on. Like a big game of golf, we get up every Monday and tee off for another week. You play the game in as balanced a manner as possible, knowing that most people will be thrown under the bus over time. But that’s how we clean out the gene pool. Even in a high tech collapse, Darwinian principles will repeat.
It may not be pretty, but it should be pretty-interesting.
Speaking of Quakes
From a reader:
George, You might want to keep your eye on the solar forecasts by Tamitha (Mulligan) Skov, PhD.
https://twitter.com/TamithaSkov
She has plenty of knowledge and experience to make these predictions:
http://www.scieande.com/2.html
Be safe, Mike
Again, congrats to Grady at the www.nostracodeus.com project for teasing the quake hints out of Big Data.
That leaves just the problem of which Dallas that I mentioned Sunday – Dallas keeps popping up over in the www.nationaldreamcenter.com work…:
Gentlemen, I just want to clarify that The Dalles uses a capital T It is always two words. I was born in The Dalles. It is along the Columbia River and was one of the earliest settled and developed areas of Oregon. There is also The Dalles Dam and other dams up and down the river from The Dalles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dalles_Dam
Don’t forget, however, there is also Dallas, Oregon, in the Willamette Valley.
We’ll pay particular attention to the Big D, which neither of the Oregon cities could be considered.
Picking Up Sticks
What the hell was I thinking?
I said something incredibly stupid to the in-laws last night after swearing half a dozen years back to live a simpler life…a life without golf.
Instead, what I said was something like “Hey, with this kids busy this week, why don’t we grown-ups get together and play a round of (name the sport where you take a stick and hit a tiny ball into holes in the ground)?” They readily agreed.
# # #
Golf falls into a highly suspect group of human endeavors that are mostly pointless: Hobbies.
There are exceptions to linking the word “useless” with hobbies.
Right now down in the north Bay Area, ham radio operators are providing back-up and emergency communications in the earthquake impact zone.
Now, that is a useful hobby. It’s the back-up global wireless system that never sleeps.
Another hobby that is far from useless would be competitive lawn-mowing and lawnmower racing.
Again, getting a miserable household chore done better, faster, safer makes complete and total sense.
Even fishing and hunting have useful aspects to them: Fishing because America’s lakes and rivers can still turn out edible protein now and then. I’d look up my male cousin on the Ure side, but this is salmon season in the Northwest so I’d probably find him in Sequim, Sekiu, or West Port…honing his “Salmon Fear Him” skills; he’s way past “expert.”
It may be an unfair generalization, but hobbies that involve a ball get the brunt of my wrath; they waste time and energy toward questionable ends.
My other hobbies (gardening/hydroponics, shooting, metalworking, woodworking, flying, sailing) each provide alternatives that you can’t just buy at the store. Being able to create a whole home (including a hot meal) from nothing more than this and that makes sense in an overly complexified world.
Even my son’s hobby of high performance skydiving has a point: He’s an EMT and can jump into remote back-country with his med-bag and wilderness first aid skill set. You, know, makes sense, right?
I’m proud to say my hobbies (and those of our kids mostly make sense,. And they are cost-justified. Except this one I gave up half a dozen years ago. One that involves a ball.
At the family BBQ last night, I noticed the daughter-in-law had a slight limp. “Old ACL injury from playing soccer when I was younger…” she explained.
See? Case closed! If a “hobby” involves a round ball, I figure the odds are 99 percent that it’s a useless, over-commercialized, multiple-branding, hysterically marketed diversion from real life.
In a world where people make-up disabled stickers so they don’t have to walk 20-more feet in a parking lot when they go out to get groceries, how can they walk a mile pulling ball-hitting sticks and claim it’s exercise? I simply can’t fathom it. Why not simply walk to the store with a grocery cart…turn that exercise into a two-fer instead of a branding contest?
I’m ashamed of myself to suggesting a relapse to such course behavior, and this act of confession lifts the terrible burden of my awesome 7-iron.
A retired golfer’s commitment and repentance…it’s about par for the course. Bill W needs to open a golf division. But already, www.golfaholics.com is marketing shirts and a lot more.
Like conspiracy theories? My latest one that involves golf is simple: Michael Jackson’s Sequin Glove was a hint he needed more time on the course.
Bet you didn’t know that if you play Thriller backwards, there are three tips for straighter puts, too…who knew?
Write when you break-even (or par)
George george@ure.net
