[Pops]

...come on...stop acting like a bunch of losers and remember where we came from and who brought us up. So things look grim...who cares...get it together and do something. Get out of your damned bunker...

Armageddon, it won't be. Those of you who are looking forward to that are going to be disappointed. That'll come much later, when we run out of oil.

1 point to each of you.

[AgentR]

*raises hand...

No fleeing here. We got a long way to go before anything interesting enough to prompt that action comes about.

[hope_full]

When I posted this several months ago, the leading question was, "What are the canaries in the coal mine" that you'll be paying special attention to as the markets deteriorate?

I'd love to hear any new and updated answers. It's my hope and goal to flee this traffic-clogged, tunnel and bridge-laden metropolis ahead of the two million others...

[hillsidedigger]

I've been 'in the hills' for a long time.

[Hawkcreek]

I'd love to hear any new and updated answers. It's my hope and goal to flee this traffic-clogged, tunnel and bridge-laden metropolis ahead of the two million others...

I think notification of a bank holiday or overall bank restructuring would be a good time to leave. Of course that is assuming you had already taken your money out of the banks and bought tangible goods with it.

[careinke]

I think when the Government stops my military retirement the show will be over.

[vtsnowedin]

I think when the Government stops my military retirement the show will be over.

What if they just cut it ten percent? To cover your healthcare or whatever !!! Six months later another fifteen percent? Then maybe. A couple more cuts and tax increases and it will be all gone but by then we will be used to it like the boiled frog.
I'm glad I'm already in the hills but I'm not looking forward to turning away excess uninvited quests that show up on their way out of the cities.

[careinke]

What if they just cut it ten percent? To cover your health care or whatever !!! Six months later another fifteen percent?

Which is exactly why I have been working (and Living) on the doom stead for the last five years. I'm getting close to self sufficiency. No debts, no mortgage, 30 acres of forest with beach front.

If a collapse does not come, I'm still very happy where I am at right now.

You are right they will probably do it in incremental steps. But the first cut will be my canary in the coal mine.

[Ferretlover]

If everyone who will eventually head for the hills all went at the same time, then....

If you are preparing to head for the hills (or other pre-determined safehouse) if & when it is needed, but, not yet panicking, you are doing well.

If you did raise your hands because you don't understand what is going on and you think everything is "going back to normal" and will be hunky-dory, what the blanketly-blank are you doing here at PO? You certainly don't know how to manage your real-life time very well.

[davep]

I'm in the hills and in the town (the doomstead is mine, all mine, mwahahaha!). It requires lots of miles, but I'm transitioning and earning good money as I go. All the better to get more heirloom seeds, lathes, guns, farm equipment etc.

Anyone who thinks they can make it in the city and then just waltz into the countryside is taking a big gamble with their future, cos we're ready for you

[thuja]

Anyone who thinks they can make it in the city and then just waltz into the countryside is taking a big gamble with their future, cos we're ready for you

Correction- anyone who thinks they can live in the countryside, lose their job, and then think they can just move back in the city and find another one easily...

is taking a big gamble.

[patience]

thuja,

Very important point. It's a lot harder to find a job out in the country, especially if you are new to the area and situation, and thus have no "connections". It is possible to make a buck in the country, but you almost have to be born there to be acclimatized well enough to spot the opportunities. I had to invent my own "job" out here, because the shop where I worked was dependent on the auto industry. We know what happened there.

So, I started a repair shop for farm and garden stuff, do some welding, some sheet metal, remove broken bolts, and generally whatever comes in the door. I have to do a wide variety of things, because it is a very small market. Only someone who lives here could know that there was any work available, let alone how much of it. Also, if the folks out here don't know you, they won't show up. Everything is word of mouth. Advertising doesn't do very much.

So. Keep your day job as long as you can!

Most of the people I know here have at least 2 or 3 ways of making money. They commonly have a day job of some sort, not necessarliy a very high paying one, but it pays the bills. Food is something they grow, not buy, to a large degree.

My day today:

An industrial customer picked up a small job I did Sunday. (Only place that could get it for him first thing Monday morning.) A neighbor came by and left his tractor/mower rig to get the mower blades sharpened. He's getting old and doesn't want to crawl under it to take them off, so he paid me to do it. He and his wife came by to get it, paid me the $25 for about 45 minutes work, and left me a couple grocery bags full of fresh picked sweet corn. We talked for half an hour. A farmer came in and left his 3 pt. grader box to get welded, we shared some ice cream, and he moved a tractor for me that I didn't know how to start. Phone call--"You got a piece of aluminum such-and-such size?" Yep. That finished paying for the corn I got from him for chicken feed last month. I left the shop and worked in the garden. A pickup came and went before I could get to the shop, but when I got there I found the $7.50 he owed me under my computer mouse. I finished in the garden and came in to cool off a while. Soon, a friend came by and asked if I had his wood planer blades sharpened yet? No, but I'll do it now, and show you how it's done. (He gave me a load of firewood when he was cleaning up windstorm damage last Spring.) No charge.

Did I make money today? Not much. But I have chicken feed, firewood, sweet corn, some cash, and work for tomorrow. It's a bit different from the city paycheck, but I grew up here and know how it is. Works for me. And I got the last of our potatoes dug, too. Great food for lunch tomorrow, and some for next winter, too.

[Pops]

Like my neighbor said, them hills sure are purty but what do ya do with 'em?

T is right but so is patience, we've been here 5 years and are lucky to be getting by with advertising in the crapper, beef prices down, not a lot of money around to remodel with and not many people stopping to buy whatever we have in the driveway.

Still, if you are flexible, persistent and frugal you can do it - I know where you can buy 4ac and a house for $25k in a nice little commuter-country town, but if you are waiting for the last minute you better get a different dream because you'll never make it.

[careinke]

I think when the Government stops my military retirement the show will be over.

Well my canary seems to be a little wobbly on that perch. Although it will not affect me, those who retired shortly after me will start having their retirement purchasing power cut by one percent per year, indefinitely. I've been grandfathered in because I will be 62 by 2016.

This is wrong on so many levels, and I am very surprised our politicians pulled it off. Basically, the retirement contract as I understood it was, your retirement was tied to inflation. Inflation goes up (based on CPI), your retirement goes up, so you keep the same purchasing power as the day you started collecting retirement.

My new understanding is now, when the CPI adjustments are calculated they will subtract one percent from your retirement CPI raise. For example, if the CPI is 3%, under the old system your raise would be 3%. Under the new system the raise would only be 2%. Over a twenty year span that reduces the purchasing power of your retirement by 1/5.

Some other info:

1. The Govt says this will save 600 million per year
2. The Defense department budget is increasing by two billion next year.
3. Only about 2% of all military members stay in long enough to retire.
4. The average military retirement is around $21,000 per year.

To me this is a deliberate slap in the face of our military by the ruling elite. In addition, it is class warfare where additional money goes to purchase systems to spy on US citizens, supply military equipment to local police, and completely trash the constitution while at the same time abandoning promises given to military members who kept up their end of the bargain.

Oh, did I mention these cuts are also applied to vets on disability for wounds received in battle?

It's not so much the money, it's the broken trust between service members and the government. If the government can't even honor this commitment, why would you trust it to do the right thing on any other issue?

[Loki]

It's not so much the money, it's the broken trust between service members and the government. If the government can't even honor this commitment, why would you trust it to do the right thing on any other issue?

The private sector has been doing this for years. Local governments are also doing it (see Detroit). Military retirements are ridiculously generous given the times, no one gets a pension for 20 years work anymore. People "retiring" at age 38 is not sustainable

Given what those of us in the low-level private sector face (zero retirement bennies of any kind), I have a hard time feeling sorry for those facing slightly slower increases of military pensions.

On private pension defaults:

Nine of the 10 largest pension defaults in history occurred since 2000, leaving the PBGC with a deficit of $11 billion at the end of 2008. That gap could swell to more than $100 billion over the next few years, amounting to a backdoor bailout for big corporations, and a bitter pill for abandoned retirees.
- See more at: http://labornotes.org/2009/09/pensions- ... MHOpm.dpuf

[careinke]

It's not so much the money, it's the broken trust between service members and the government. If the government can't even honor this commitment, why would you trust it to do the right thing on any other issue?

The private sector has been doing this for years. Local governments are also doing it (see Detroit). Military retirements are ridiculously generous given the times, no one gets a pension for 20 years work anymore. People "retiring" at age 38 is not sustainable

Given what those of us in the low-level private sector face (zero retirement bennies of any kind), I have a hard time feeling sorry for those facing slightly slower increases of military pensions.

On private pension defaults:

Nine of the 10 largest pension defaults in history occurred since 2000, leaving the PBGC with a deficit of $11 billion at the end of 2008. That gap could swell to more than $100 billion over the next few years, amounting to a backdoor bailout for big corporations, and a bitter pill for abandoned retirees.
- See more at: http://labornotes.org/2009/09/pensions- ... MHOpm.dpuf

You expect those evil corporations not to keep their promises. When your government breaks them it brings into question your governments Integrity. Without integrity, you have nothing. A government without integrity is no longer a legitimate government.

Like I said it was not really about the money. However, I resent your implication that the solider is the person at fault here because you think he is getting to much.

[Quinny]

Cutting pensions when bailing out banks to the degree they have simply demonstrates the class war is alive and kicking. TPBTPTB are simply taking back any wealth that has moved to the working class over the last 50 years. Unfortunately I think the only way to get it back to the workers who created it is by violent revolution.

On the main topic, we're in the hills (eventually & literally) and loving it. Talk of violent revolution here seems totally acceptable - les bonnets rouges are a cause celebre - Communist mayor - Viva la revolution!

[vtsnowedin]

[Like I said it was not really about the money. However, I resent your implication that the solider is the person at fault here because you think he is getting to much.

I'm with you on this Careinke, twenty years of being available for deployment to places where snippers land mines and IEDs ,or loading bombs into planes on the deck of a carrier is a lot different then a cop getting his daily doughnut fix. What I as a tax payer owe to our soldiers and vets is the first bill I want paid out of my taxes. It is a small price indeed for what they do and have done.

[Newfie]

Whether you agree with the retirement system or not is not material. It was a contract executed by the employee in good faith. Changing the contract after the fact is not ethical. What it does is to break down trust in the system.

Our fiat currency functions solely because of trust in the system. So when you wack pensions, you wack the pensioner, the legal system, our monetary system, and our government.

Enough small whacks and the tree falls.

One of my kids is a corrections officer, prison guard. You think he's not watching this stuff out of the corner of his eye?

So are your police and fire fighters and para medics and county clerks and prosecutors and teachers and......

[KaiserJeep]

I'm watching the system as well. Although I am not yet retired, I am close. Within the last decade, the Housing Bubble stole half the value of my home, which was my major asset. Then the Financial Crisis of 2008 stole half the value of my 401K retirement account. Now the ACA is rapidly removing any possibility that my increasingly expensive medical care and prescriptions will be affordable for long after I quit work. (My problems are chronic, not acute, but drugs are not cheap.)

My anger is smoldering, and I find myself looking at lamp posts, and thinking that it is a shame that there is not the carcass of an elected politician dangling from each. Then we can start on Wall Street Bankers and Insurance Company CEOs.