Sign up before Midnight to watch our video,
“Biggest Ponzi Scheme in U.S. History to Crash,”
and get our daily e-letter Investment Contrarians.
We respect your privacy!
We will never rent/sell your e-mail address.
That’s a promise! And you can opt out at any time.
Once a bastion of European success and center of tourism, the country of Greece has become the harbinger of things to come for the rest of the world’s developed nations.
Not long ago Greeks were enjoying high paid
salaries, early retirements, excess cash, and seemingly never ending economic
growth.
Today, just a short time after a financial
collapse that rocked global financial markets, Europe’s
darling has turned into a frightening example of what happens when governments
and their people take on more debt than they can ever hope to repay.
The end result is a warning to the rest of us.
Hundreds of people jostled for free vegetables handed out by
farmers in a symbolic protest earlier on Wednesday, trampling one man and
prompting an outcry over the growing desperation created by economic crisis.
Images of people struggling to seize bags of tomatoes and
leeks thrown from a truck dominated television, triggering a bout of
soul-searching over the new depths of poverty in the debt-laden country.
“These images make me angry. Angry for a proud people who
have no food to eat, who can’t afford to keep warm, who can’t make ends meet,” said Kostas Barkas, a lawmaker from the leftist Syriza party.
Other lawmakers from across the political spectrum decried the
images “of people on the brink of
despair” and the sense of “sadness for a proud people who have ended up like this“.
People have seen their living standards crumble as the country
faces its sixth year of recession that has driven unemployment to record highs.
…
The free food handout in Athens
began peacefully as hundreds of Greeks lined up in advance outside the
agriculture ministry, where protesting farmers laid out tables piled high with
produce, giving away 50 metric tonnes (55.11 tons) of produce in under two
hours.
Tensions flared when the stalls ran out of produce and dozens of
people – some carrying small children – rushed to a truck and shoved each other
out of the way in the competition for what was left.
One man was treated for injuries after being trampled when he fell
to the ground in the commotion.
“I never imagined that I would end up here,” said Panagiota
Petropoulos, 65, who struggles to get by on her 530-euro monthly pension while
paying 300 euros in rent.
“I can’t afford anything,
not even at the fruit market. Everything is expensive, prices of everything are
going up while our income is going down and there are no jobs.”
Watch:
Desperation,
sadness, poverty, disbelief – these are the horrors that await the unprepared.
While European (and U.S.)
officials would have us believe they’ve mitigated the crisis in Greece, the
fact is that this experiment in centralized governance is, in its entirety,on the brink of collapse.
We’ve chronicled the desperate situation in Greece for the
last few years.
Personal accounts from some of our readers express their fear and uncertainty as political and socioeconomic
conditions have deteriorated.
Shortages of life savings medicines and food have led to widespread riots and looting.
Food has become so expensive in Greece
that it has become unattainable for many, prompting the Greek government to
authorize grocery retailers to sell expired food at discounted prices.
On a national level, Greece’s manipulation of
economic health numbers and their ability to repay loans has left them unable
to meet their financial obligations and has led to talks of their exit from the
Euro, a move that has the potential to destroy the European currency system
altogether.
The debts have gotten so high that the country faced the possibility of a complete collapse of their
power and gas infrastructure when
local utility companies were unable to settle their agreements with regional
suppliers – an effect caused by their customers’ inability to pay their monthly
bills.
This is what it looks like when a system
collapses. Sometimes it happens overnight in a waterfall event. In the
case of Greece,
a country that has the backing of the world’s two largest central banks, it’s
been a slow but steady process of grinding down all aspects of life.
A similar grinding down should be apparent in
other Western nations, namely the United States, where we’ve seen employment
decline unabated over the last decade and tens of millions of people added to
government funded social safety nets like food assistance and disability.
Make no mistake. We are Greece.
Now is the time to prepare for the desperate situation that will
soon be in America.
For millions it’s already here.
§
Have reserve foods – or at the very least, learn how to grow your own food. Raiseyour own livestock and poultry – it’ll be the difference between
survival and strife should prices rise to extreme levels.
§
Have reserve money – real money like gold and silver that can be used as a medium of
exchange. At the height of panic, gold was selling for nearly double its value on the Greek black market than it was
anywhere else in the world.
§
Learn key skills and services that you can
provide when
traditional jobs dry up. In Greece,
thousands of people have moved to black market barter for goods and services to make ends
meet. What option, other than depending on your own skills and
labor, is there when there is no work to be had?
§
Consider self defense as a priority. When the looting and rioting
for essential goods start, you’re going to need to be able to protect yourself and your reserve
stockpiles.
§
If you have the means to do so, relocate out of major cities and into areas that will afford you
the ability to produce your own food, trade your skills, and stay out of the
way of the madness that comes with large population densities.
Every day we edge closer to disaster. Life in America as we
have come to know it is in the midst of a massive paradigm shift.
It will no doubt be difficult. But despite the
challenges, with the proper mindset and preparation, perhaps we can avoid being
one of the many who will be depending on handouts when the worst comes to pass
Sign up before Midnight to watch our video,
“Biggest Ponzi Scheme in U.S. History to Crash,”
and get our daily e-letter Investment Contrarians.
We respect your privacy!
We will never rent/sell your e-mail address.
That’s a promise! And you can opt out at any time.