[AA]

I knew we were facing massive parrallel collapses, from out of control government debt and promises. Regulation stopping most economic growth. Baby boomers about to retire, which there is a 0% possibility the system could handle it for even a few years.

Then peak oil, which I was ranking down the list. Then finally a growing world war which there is no escape from, and which will continue to escalate dramatically around the vast muslim world, and probably outside of it with the vast diasporas.

I knew we were in massive short term trouble because of this and it would take brilliant leadership to get around. I thought we had some more time though, probably past 2011 before things got bad. And maybe 2008 with speculation in the market as these trends became more apparent to the large investment people. I realize I have always been ahead of the trends by multiple years, I knew about peak oil in 1997, and I knew about the threat of militant islam in the late 90's. Still I may have been overestimating how long we could hold out.

Anyway what has got me scared is the price of food where I live. And the price of rent. The price of food has risen 25-100% in the last 2 months depending on the type of food. Some things like meat products has more then doubled.

I used to spend 60 canadian dollars a week in food. However each week it is buying notably less food. At first it was lasting the full week. But about 3 months ago it started lasting less and less. First 5.5 days, then 4.5 days, now only 4 days. Last week I didn't have food for the whole week, I got so hungry I had to take money out of savings.

Now this week comes along and I only had a small amount of groceries, the bill came out to $55.00 though. Now it is only the second day and I am almost out, I only have about 1-1.5 days of food left.

As for rent it has massively increased. Just over one year ago it was 550$. Now next month it will be 625$, with more increases they say expected. You see I am going to school at the moment so I dont' have enough money, I will have to stop school or ask my parents for more.

The problem is for them, they suddenly aren't making ends meet either. Since everything has increased in price so much in the last year they are having to dip into their savings. And this is a family that has its house paid for and is in the top .5% of canadian wage earners. About 200k a year.

Car insurance increased so much I had to uninsurce my car, but then bus fair rapidly increased as well. 75 cents in one year each way, or 40% in one year increase.

Anyway all in all I am a little scared as things are starting to happen sooner then I expected and prices are rising scarily out of control.

Yet all the time wages are dramatically falling off. Infact many are lucky to even get part time work where I live. So really I'm not sure what to do. Just last month all the health employees where I live got a 15% wage cut and benefits cut. And this is while prices are rising. I know multiple people having to sell their homes because they can no longer cover the mortgage!

And people are starting to move into tiny apartments sharing with other people, all the while there is no new apartments allowed! Something really big is going on I can feel it.

[Barbara]

Don't cry for us, Argentina...

[Rasmus2]

AA - just for you http://www.superlaugh.com/1/behappy.htm

[AA]

hehe thanks. I must admit the key for me was paying the grocery bill this week and being out of groceries already!

I'm not scared for my life or anyting but in the next month i will have to move somewhere to share a room with some roomates. Change especialy negative change does make one a little anxious!

I can only imagine what it must be like for other people and single mothers in my city! Welfare payments have actualy gone down over the last year.

At least for me because of my family's high incomes we are talking about not getting my own apartment, and having to stop driving my car and leave it uninsured as I have already done. Ultimately I will be able to pay for food even if they double again, it will just mean having to share a tiny place with a few people. For other people like a single mother I dont' think they would be able to afford food right now!:( They would have to start rationing, there is only so far one can cut out luxuries!

Has anyone else been having problems with price rising? Maybe it is mainly just the canadian economy is collapsing and other places are doing better? And of course just so you guys know our government pronounced that we grew by 3% last year. And that there was deflation.

Remember that next time your leader wherever you live tells you everything is fine, even as you see your wage dropping and prices rising! Just like the soviet union they lied until their very last day! And Baghdad Bob too!:)

[Cool Hand Linc]

Times are getting tougher for everybody.

Food is going up here too. Cost of everything is going up! Don't give up. Somebodies got to make it through. Get rid of your internet connection. That will save money you can spend on food!

[AA]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MissingLink', 'T')imes are getting tougher for everybody.

Food is going up here too. Cost of everything is going up! Don't give up. Somebodies got to make it through. Get rid of your internet connection. That will save money you can spend on food!

[k_semler]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AA', 'I') knew we were facing massive parallel collapses, from out of control government debt and promises. Regulation stopping most economic growth. Baby boomer's about to retire, which there is a 0% possibility the system could handle it for even a few years.

Then peak oil, which I was ranking down the list. Then finally a growing world war which there is no escape from, and which will continue to escalate dramatically around the vast Muslim world, and probably outside of it with the vast Diasporas.

I knew we were in massive short term trouble because of this and it would take brilliant leadership to get around. I thought we had some more time though, probably past 2011 before things got bad. And maybe 2008 with speculation in the market as these trends became more apparent to the large investment people. I realize I have always been ahead of the trends by multiple years, I knew about peak oil in 1997, and I knew about the threat of militant Islam in the late 1990's. Still I may have been overestimating how long we could hold out.

Anyway what has got me scared is the price of food where I live. And the price of rent. The price of food has risen 25-100% in the last 2 months depending on the type of food. Some things like meat products has more then doubled.

I used to spend 60 Canadian dollars a week in food. However each week it is buying notably less food. At first it was lasting the full week. But about 3 months ago it started lasting less and less. First 5.5 days, then 4.5 days, now only 4 days. Last week I didn't have food for the whole week, I got so hungry I had to take money out of savings.

Now this week comes along and I only had a small amount of groceries, the bill came out to $55.00 though. Now it is only the second day and I am almost out, I only have about 1-1.5 days of food left.

As for rent it has massively increased. Just over one year ago it was 550$. Now next month it will be 625$, with more increases they say expected. You see I am going to school at the moment so I don't' have enough money, I will have to stop school or ask my parents for more.

The problem is for them, they suddenly aren't making ends meet either. Since everything has increased in price so much in the last year they are having to dip into their savings. And this is a family that has its house paid for and is in the top .5% of Canadian wage earners. About 200k a year.

Car insurance increased so much I had to uninsured my car, but then bus fair rapidly increased as well. 75 cents in one year each way, or 40% in one year increase.

Anyway all in all I am a little scared as things are starting to happen sooner then I expected and prices are rising scarily out of control.

Yet all the time wages are dramatically falling off. In fact many are lucky to even get part time work where I live. So really I'm not sure what to do. Just last month all the health employees where I live got a 15% wage cut and benefits cut. And this is while prices are rising. I know multiple people having to sell their homes because they can no longer cover the mortgage!

And people are starting to move into tiny apartments sharing with other people, all the while there is no new apartments allowed! Something really big is going on I can feel it.

[Pops]

On the subject of inflation and the money supply, from Safehaven.com:

Snip...

"...the Federal Reserve has confirmed our Stock Market Crash forecast by raising the Money Supply (M-3) by crisis proportions, up another 46.8 billion this past week. What awful calamity do they see? Something is up. This is unprecedented, unheard-of pre-catastrophe M-3 expansion. M-3 is up an amount that we've never seen before without a crisis - $155 billion over the past 4 weeks, a $2.0 trillion annualized pace, a 22.2 percent annualized rate of growth!!!

http://www.safehaven.com/article-1597.htm
-----

I’m no expert in finances and these people seem to be somewhat pessimistic as a rule, but it still makes me want to get my house sold FAST.

Going to work now.

[WaterBearer]

You know pops, occasionally this site can be SUCH a downer.

(Pun Intended)

Seriously, though, just browsing through this forum over the last two weeks is bringing me to a state of paranoia; the ever-present sensation that the *#&$ is just about to hit the fan.

[TheSupplyGuy]

Yeah, things seem really bad, I hope things work out for the best, but I'm starting to doubt it. Is there a solution to our economic problems? I can't seem to find an answer to off-shoring,etc. in our current system. Except completely switch over our economy from manufacturing to services or something. You can't offshore services, can you?

[Pops]

Like Call Centers?

[Aaron]

Fully half my staff last year were physically in India. Software is software, and @ $50 per hour, can't pass it up.

[MattSavinar]

Even the legal proffession is being outsourced now.

Many people think, "But wait - you can't outsource an attorney - you need them to make court appearances, right?"

Well, the truth is most attorneys - particularly young ones - do nothing but research and writing. That can be outsourced very easily, and it is.

Patent attorneys are getting very nervous as that is the type of work well situated to outsourcing. It is very ironic because 4 years ago, patent and intellectual property law was the big rage amongst folks starting law school. Going into patent law was a guaranteed 250,000 year income.

Now, it's not even a guarantee of a job.

I was telling somebody the other day, that it now makes no sense to borrow $100,000 to become an attorney. There is an excellent chance you would be better off learning to be an auto-mechanic, as that can't get outsourced. (At least, I don't think it can. But these days, you never know.)

Matt

[MattSavinar]

BTW,

As far as the manufactured home goes:

My dad sells them. If any of live in Northern Cali, I can give you his info. Now obviously, I'm a bit biased - but he's as honest and straightforward a custom manufac. home salesman as your going to find.

I told him the other day that if my book takes off, I want to use the money get a CMH on a few acres of arable land ASAP.

Matt

[hank]

Well, outsourcing has gotten rid of jobs repairing clothing (throw it away, buy new), appliances (disposable, buy new), and almost everything else. I looked under the hood of a new car the other day and confirmed with a mechanic that there's less, and less, and less that can be repaired. Automobiles too are rapidly becoming disposable-buy-new.

Only when it's become impossible to fix anything will this start to worry people.

BUT NOTE the "Safehaven" topic is fairly well debunked at Metafilter as beomg from a one-note-bugle source, with links to other references for comparison. MeFi authors are consistently pretty good on this kind of looking into things

http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/33440

[OilBurner]

Sadly, I don't think it will worry anyone - most will not even notice. People are so pushed for time in their daily lives they simply do not have the time to fix anything anyway. Increasingly, people don't have the time to take a broken item to be repaired or have somebody come fix it (during working hours)..

My wife dropped a phone handset the other day and broke it, it turns out you can't just buy another phone - you have to buy the whole package of two phones, plus bases and accessories. I can't say I was surprised.
It just the norm these days, and yes, it is an incredible waste.

[Leanan]

Ironically, peak oil may solve the outsourcing problem. Transportation is probably the industry most dependent on oil (along with agriculture). If oil costs go through the roof, suddenly it won't make sense to move your factories to China any more.

[Pops]

Hi, Hank.

I got about half way down the page. Could you snip or link to the “debunk” part. I’m more worried re; mortgage interest rate increases or other economic wobble in the near term than which conspiracy is the wackiest.