April 3, 2016

'Prepare For The Empty Shelves And Coming Mayhem' - Warnings Of Approaching 'Financial Armageddon' As Nearly 1 Out Of Every 3 Americans Are Unable To Cover Basic Necessities 

Just days before Franklin D. Roosevelt's inauguration as President, the United States was in the middle of a banking panic. On March 3, 1933, Washington Governor Clarence Martin closed all Washington State banks and declared a three-day “bank holiday,” working with other state governments to pushing for the passage of a federally mandated bank holiday. The banking system was unable to keep up with the panicked withdrawals that customers were making from their bank accounts, rendering banks incapable of providing money many customers had deposited. With the passing of Washington State Senate Bill No. 185 on March 2, 1933, Governor Martin was able to force a temporary closure of all state banks.

This holiday lasted longer than three days, however, after newly elected President Roosevelt declared a nation-wide bank holiday from March 6th until the 9th, which would later be extended to March 13th. This was a period of economic stress, inability to effectively use earned money, and difficulty in buying goods. Seattle residents' survival tactics during this time provides a window into understanding how the United States as a nation was able to weather the bank holiday and financial panic using checks and credit as currency, exhibiting the interdependence and creativity that the financial crisis required of ordinary people. 

The state of American banks in 1933 was unsure, and there was widespread fear, based on previous closures, that banks funds were mismanaged and that hard-earned deposited money could disappear overnight.

We should also keep in mind that 1933 was only years before the outbreak of World War 2 and happened during the years of the Great Depression that wiped out millions.

I work for a major U.S. railway carrier. Just got informed that the number of units being "laid up", or being taken out of service, is now being increased from 1650 to 1800 motors.

With an average of 3 motors per train, that's 600 trains that no longer need moving about every other day. About 50% of this power is for moving coal to power plants, and the rest is for grain trains and moving product from the coast to distribution centers. People are not buying as much so there is less to move.

Just wanted to possibly help confirm about the reduction of semi truck traffic, it's simply because there is a lot less freight coming in at the ports. Drop in freight shipments is about 6 to 8 months lagging the BDI. Shipments seem to have followed the BDI, almost to a T.

Engineer's and conductor's furloughed have reached approx. 5000 employees. Seriously not looking good since the railroads are pretty much the start of the distribution of goods in the U.S.

Plan for the worst, but pray for the best. Thanks for all you do and have done for everyone, including me. It is much appreciated and received.

Did you know that when you take the number of working age Americans that are officially unemployed (8.2 million) and add that number to the number of working age Americans that are considered to be “not in the labor force” (94.3 million), that gives us a grand total of 102.5 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now?  I have written about this before, but today I want to focus just on Americans that are in their prime working years.  When you look at only Americans that are from age 25 to age 54, 23.2 percent of them are unemployed right now.  The following analysis and chart comes from the Weekly Standard.

In the transcript, the IMF staffers are caught on tape planning to tell Germany the organization would abandon the troika if the IMF and the commission fail to reach an agreement on Greek debt relief. 

More to the point, the IMF officials say that a threat of an imminent financial catastrophe as the Guardian puts it, is needed to force other players into accepting its measures such as cutting Greek pensions and working conditions, or as Bloomberg puts it, "considering a plan to cause a credit event in Greece and destabilize Europe."

According to the leaked conversation, the IMF - which has been pushing for a debt haircut for Greece ever since last August's 3rd Greek bailout - believes a credit event as only thing that could trigger a Greek deal; the "event" is hinted as taking place some time around the June 23 Brexit referendum.

As noted by Bloomberg, the leak shows officials linking Greek issue with U.K. referendum risking general political destabilization in Europe. 

The videos below help to tell what's not being told in the stories linked above. Europe appears to be headed towards Civil War and a collapse of their society as also detailed in the 1st video below. In the 2nd video we learn of the catastrophic levels of corporate debt not seen since the last financial crisis. In the 3rd video, we learn more about what ANP told you about just days ago, potentially millions of the poorest Americans going hungry due to changes in the food stamp laws that took place on April 1st. Will that soon lead to civil unrest? In the final video we learn more about what may be in America and the world's future if we continue to head down the dark road we're now on.