I'm very happy to meet all of you folks!
Macumazahn, there is literally so much going on economically that I don't know where to start. I'm just a student, not an economist, but what I know is still enough to terrify me. Here are some good resources I regularly use:
Read anything by Peter Schiff (YouTube him or buy his books)
www.shadowstats.com
www.safehaven.com
I subscribe to the Austrian School of Economics, and it is a philosophy that is probably what most of you would naturally lean towards; free markets, small government, government waste is bad, competition is good, etc. Libertarians pretty much always agree with these guys. Their website is pretty heavy sometimes, but check it out at
www.mises.org
I'm just seeing that the North American economy especially is extremely unstable right now and the politicians are doing exactly the wrong thing to fix it. Because of our globalization, the rest of the world is being affected, even China, whom many thought would be immune because they are largely closed off (but not really, since they do so much business with us). China is doing the right bailout, in that they're investing in infrastructure. We're buying bad mortgages (delaying and compounding the inevitable damage) as well as giving massive bribes to banks which are supposed to be used for loans, hoping that if our banks keep loaning money to consumers, the consumer will spend us out of trouble. That's insane. It works a lot of the time, but the consumer has just about had it with being in debt. I don't think we're ready to take on a lot of new personal debt to finance our plush lifestyles (although Christmas is coming, and we always max out the Visas in order to flood the children with material goods). If the masses start shopping smart, the economy is dead. We (the government and economy) rely on the masses living beyond their means. Imagine what would happen to Future Shop (I think it's called Best Buy in the States) if the menfolk didn't upgrade their already huge entertainment systems for Christmas this year. Then spread that scenario out to every company out there. And what's worse is that consumers don't buy North American made products. We buy Asian goods, so we're not helping our own companies and economy by shopping as much as we are helping theirs.
On a survivalist front, once the markets stabilize somewhat and people stop selling stocks and thus putting their money back into cash (which supports the dollar), the US dollar is going to continue its slide down into oblivion, as the government waters down the money supply by printing mountains of new money to pay their huge bills. Eventually the economy as a whole will collapse when the US can no longer pay the minimum payments on their debt and they have to renege on paying interest on their bonds and T-Bills. Then everyone stops dealing with the US as they basically go into receivership and I guess the UN or someone will buy them for two cents on the dollar. I hear rumours about the North American Union, the Amero, and the SPP and all that, but I have a friend who worked on the SPP agreement and he tells me it's nothing to be afraid of and that we're not merging into one trading block similar to the EU. He might not have been told the full truth, however. In any case, if the US dollar or economy collapses, there will be military in the streets and people getting thrown into FEMA prison camps for protesting. I may be wrong. I hope I am.
It's just best to have the ability to get off the grid and disappear when it is necessary to do so. I'd rather that my family and I watch the world destroy itself from the sidelines than the centre of the storm, if you know what I'm saying.
Welcome to the forum, I'm from Yorkton, SK 
