[PenultimateManStanding]

So I'm up at 1:30 in the morning. I look out my window and fog is on the land. The yellow sodium street lights have rings around them. I'm smoking cigarettes and wondering what the hell is going to happen. Whatever it is I'm pretty sure it won't be good. This whole situation sucks.

[Bas]

I've had an unsettling feeling about the near future on a semi regular basis for the last three months. All the stuff we've talked about in the past in a way seems closer now to me than it has before...

On another note, PMS, you are one of the few people here that gives this place a nice homely feel, I appreciate it

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', '
')On another note, PMS, you are one of the few people here that gives this place a nice homely feel, I appreciate it

[Jack]

I was looking at a chart for Starbucks (the coffee company). Along about August (Bas's three months ago) they were moving along, more sideways than anything else.

Other companies...defense contractors, oil services...moved up through November, and are now heading lower. The defense stocks are sharply lower.

So...Starbucks is a way to take the consumer's temperature. If the consumer can afford expensive coffee, the underlying economy is relatively robust; however, if the consumer must forego that pleasure, the economy isn't as good as it might be. The charts seem to say that we've seen the market hyped by the Fed, but the underlying economy isn't doing at all well. In the case of Starbucks, the company is sharply lower since the first of this month.

Bottom line, I think you're both correct. Our comfortable world is in for some change, most of it unpleasant. And I think the timing for such things to hit is close.

As I sit here, I notice something - or rather the absence of something. Traffic noise. A year ago, even at this hour, I could hear traffic - and now, I cannot. Another little sign of economic problems.

Tell me, Bas...is Europe ready for all this? Here in Texas, we most certainly are not.

[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', '
')
Tell me, Bas...is Europe ready for all this? Here in Texas, we most certainly are not.

[MD]

From a conversation with a transport company:

"We're surprisingly slow for this time of year. Normally we'd be having a hard time keeping up with Christmas demand. Our traffic now is similar to what we'd normally expect in January, our slowest time of year. I'm very worried about having enough business to stay open this winter."

I'm having a difficult time finding a positive outlook from any direction.

[Andrew_S]

I didn't follow the news much for several months this year (Feb-Sep). Now I have come back and so many of the things discussed here over the years are beginning to play out.

I think public perception in Anglo-Saxon countries will be masked by the downturn in the housing markets. The UK market has now turned, running about 1 year behind the USA. The "mania" is over and an economic slowdown, with many redundancies, negative equity etc. will happen due to the deflating housing bubble alone. Even in "normal" circumstances it would take 5 to 7 years to trough. So anyway, lots of scope to "spin" the news away from the fundamental energy problem.

What with grain prices and oil prices it feels more like '09 to me, sooner than I expected. But maybe I read too much bad news.

[jbrown]

Not a heavy fog but the weather report called it a "light snow mist", first time I've heard that one. It turned to snow and we ended with about 3 inches this morning.

As an Internet retailer for almost 10 years I am not seeing any real slow down yet. We had an excellent October with the standard slow down early November, well actually slowed enough for me to wonder if TSHTF. However now it looks like the holiday season is beginning already! We are selling like after Thanksgiving already.

[roccman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', 'F')rom a conversation with a transport company:

"We're surprisingly slow for this time of year. Normally we'd be having a hard time keeping up with Christmas demand. Our traffic now is similar to what we'd normally expect in January, our slowest time of year. I'm very worried about having enough business to stay open this winter."

I'm having a difficult time finding a positive outlook from any direction.

[IslandCrow]

There was once a wise man who talked about the value of building houses on rocks rather than in a flood plain...well I think of that when I look out from my house (which is on the side of a small rocky outcrop) over where the new houses are built in the fields of an old lake bottom and see that they are covered in mist but where I am is clear even if it is just a couple of metres higher. But the pleasure of a well sited house is diminished by the thought of the loss of good fertile ground going for ill-placed houses. Between my house and these houses is a field that I would like to buy...it is no longer farmed, but has been zoned for housing so unfortunately would not be worth the cost.

BTW Andrew, If England's housing bubble is one year behind the States, where do you think Finland's is? The only one of my contacts here who thinks a correction is coming soon also is well aware of PO.

[Andrew_S]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('IslandCrow', '
')BTW Andrew, If England's housing bubble is one year behind the States, where do you think Finland's is? The only one of my contacts here who thinks a correction is coming soon also is well aware of PO.

[eastbay]

My grandparents are from a small village near Oulu. Maybe that's why I am happy when the house is 58 degrees inside.

The housing market collapse will hit everywhere. Even Finland. Even Alberta.

[Madpaddy]

I'm unsettled because I have to do a 20 week military career course after Christmas, the broad objective of which is to allow me to operate in a Joint Operations Centre (JOC). After that my magic 8 ball tells me I could well be deployed with an EU peace enforement (don't you love that term) mission to Chad near Darfur in Africa.

I'm busy studying the job advertisements in the paper but to be honest, I'm outa time.

[frankthetank]

My problem is all the preps i've bought (not a lot, but i could've spent it on hookers and alcohol), thinking that in the end they won't be needed because i'll be rounded up into some camp or forced outside by neighbors with guns!

Sometimes i wish i would've just stuck money into a sailboat or moved down to Brazil or somewhere else in the southern hemisphere for a few years. Even then, sometime you've got to come out of hiding.

[Eli]

There will be no place to hide from what is coming.

By the prickling of my thumbs
something wicked this way comes.,


The way things are progressing I think the future is going to look a lot like the doomer porn we have seen posted on this site. The threads here have been much closer to the truth than anything out of the msm.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Eli', '
')By the prickling of my thumbs
something wicked this way comes.,

[evilgenius]

I hear the tin of the rain on the roof of the little house. My thoughts stray to the amount of wood we will need to keep warm if the nat gas either goes out or is cut off. My girlfriend thinks the wood we have will make winter, I don't.

I have been able to run a little test because of a gas leak as to whether the house can function without nat gas. It does, but not kindly.

As for the stock market, I am looking at undervalued stocks that pay dividends. Stocks that will continue to pay after TSHTF. Stocks that the zombie hordes will want when they realize how bad it is going to get.

[PenultimateManStanding]

The heat is not a problem here in So Cal. Water and food is another issue. I'm reading stories of truckers going out of business and it's beginning to get me bothered.

[oowolf]

Hey! I'm a direct descendent of MacBeth (Macbeatha MacFinley).

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('oowolf', 'H')ey! I'm a direct descendent of MacBeth (Macbeatha MacFinley).