Category Archives: TEOTWAWKI

S&P Warns of New Downgrade for United States

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Via Palmetto Finance:

Concerns over the size of United States debt reared their head once again as ratings agency Standard & Poor’s warned that health care costs for a number of highly-rated Group of 20 countries, including the U.S., could hurt growth prospects and harm their sovereign creditworthiness from the middle of this decade.

S&P downgraded the United States credit rating for the first time ever in August of last year.

“Governments’ fiscal burdens will increase significantly over the coming decade, with the highest deterioration in public finances likely to occur in Europe and other advanced G-20 economies, such as Japan and the U.S.,” S&P said in a statement on Tuesday.

Health care costs for a typical advanced economy will stand at 11.1 percent of gross domestic product by 2050, up from 6.3 percent of GDP in 2010, S&P said.

“Population aging will lead to profound changes in economic growth prospects for countries around the world as governments work to build budgets to face ever greater age-related spending needs,” said Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Marko Mrsnik in the statement.

The August downgrade of the United States rating was an embarrassment to the country, but fears that the move would hurt investors’ confidence in the country proved unfounded.

The only reason the downgrade didn’t hurt us more was the implosion of Europe which made people flee to U.S. Debt for safety. But a couple of more downgrades and no one will be able argue that buying our debt is safe.

Cattle Herd at Lowest Levels Since 1958!

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I hope you like pork and chicken, because beef is about to get a lot more expensive:

The cattle herd in the U.S. may be the smallest since 1958, when McDonald’s Corp. had just 79 hamburger restaurants, signaling tighter beef supplies and higher costs for companies including Tyson Foods Inc. (TSN)

Ranchers held 91.24 million head of cattle as of Jan. 1, down 1.5 percent from a year earlier, according to the average estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. That would be the smallest since Dwight Eisenhower was president. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is set to release its herd report at 3 p.m. in Washington.

A record drought in Texas last year and rising feed costs prompted ranchers to cull herds, even as beef exports surged from the U.S., the world’s largest producer. Cattle futures are up 15 percent since the end of June, reaching a record seven times this month, and the Livestock Marketing Information Center says retail-beef prices that reached an all-time high on an annual basis in 2011 will keep rising through next year.

“The drought certainly was the game changer of 2011,” Jim Robb, the director of the Livestock Marketing Information Center, a Denver-based researcher, said in a telephone interview. “Feedstuffs were record-high costs. The herd on a national basis declined.”

Cattle futures rallied to $1.29675 a pound on Jan. 25 on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the highest for a most-active contract since the commodity began trading on the CME in 1964. Prices may reach $1.399, said David Kruse, the president CommStock Investments Inc., a commodity broker in Royal, Iowa.

That’s good news if you’re a rancher, not so much if you like a burger on occasion. Beef prices were up significantly last year and will continue to increase this year according to the report. More troubling, breeding stock is also decreasing:

The herd of beef cows held for breeding probably shrank to 30.05 million head as of Jan. 1, the lowest since 1962, according to the average of 10 estimates in the Bloomberg survey. The calf crop should be smaller than last year, marking the 17th consecutive year of declines, said Ron Plain, a livestock economist at the University of Missouri at Columbia.

“Fewer calves being born means ultimately fewer cattle will be slaughtered,” Plain, who has studied the industry for three decades, said in a telephone interview. “That means the tight beef supply is going to get tighter as we go through 2012 and 2013 and 2014.”

Once the herd starts to expand, it will take more than two years before beef supplies increase, Plain said. Calves have nine-month gestation periods and take about 20 months to reach slaughter weight, he said.

In other words we’re looking at four or five more years of steady increases in beef prices at the very least. Learning some preservation techniques (and buying a deep freezer) sounds like a great idea if you haven’t already. It is indeed possible to can beef by the way and other preservation methods will save you money in the long run. Learn them now before it’s too late.

California to Run Out of Money in Early March

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From the Sacramento Bee:

California will run out of cash by early March if the state does not take swift action to find $3.3 billion through payment delays and borrowing, according to a letter state Controller John Chiang sent to state lawmakers today.

The announcement is surprising since lawmakers previously believed the state had enough cash to last through the fiscal year that ends in June.

But Chiang said additional cash management solutions are needed because state tax revenues are $2.6 billion less than what Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers assumed in their optimistic budget last year. Meanwhile, Chiang said, the state is spending $2.6 billion more than state leaders planned on.

Chiang has outlined some kick the can down the road maneuvers like delaying payments to universities and Med-Cal and “borrowing from existing accounts” which sounds like paying a credit card bill with another credit card. But even that will not be enough:

With such actions, Chiang believes the state would not have to use IOUs or delay tax refunds, maneuvers that have been relied upon in previous years. But Chiang also said that “more cash solutions may be required if our revenues continue to erode or if disbursements significantly exceed estimates.”

California borrows money early each fiscal year because the state has regular monthly expenses but receives the bulk of its tax revenues in the spring. The state borrowed $5.4 billion last fall for this purpose.

Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-Woodland Hills, downplayed the significance of the new borrowing in a hearing. He said $5.4 billion was small relative to the $10 billion state leaders were prepared to borrow last year.

Some Republicans raised questions about when the borrowing from state accounts from would be paid back and why the state is spending more than expected.

Gee, I wonder.

The point is that California is circling the drain and the government there is doing everything they can to slow the decent but there’s nothing they can do to stop the ultimate collapse. You Californians need to get prepared for the day the locals give IOUS to the millions on welfare there. That will look something like this:

That was rioting over the Rodney King verdict. Imagine when California tells people who are getting benefits that they are going to have to wait a few weeks for their food stamps and other benefits.

Guess I Was Right to Stock Up – Double Digit Inflation Ignored by Media

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Via CNS News we have some inflation numbers that the government has left out of their bogus CPI and the media studiously ignored. But the rest of us don’t have that luxury:

(CNSNews.com) – So far, during the presidency of Barack Obama, the price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 83 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

During the same period, the price of ground beef has gone up 24 percent and price of bacon has gone up 22 percent.

[...]

The U.S. city average retail price for one pound of 100 percent ground beef was $2.36 in January 2009. As of December 2011, that price had risen to $2.92—a 23.7 percent increase and a new peak.   (Ground beef prices have risen every month since November 2009 – 26 months of price increases.)

Whole wheat bread prices from January 2009 to December 2011 increased about five percent (5.02 percent) from $1.97 to $2.07. (The inflation rate in December 2011 was 3.0 percent.)

[...]

Other refrigerated items like ice cream and bacon have increased by substantial amounts.

Ice cream prices, for a half-gallon, were $4.44 in January 2009 and $5.25 in December 2011, an increase of 19.1 percent.

One pound of sliced bacon in January 2009 was $3.73 and in December 2011 had climbed  $4.55, an increase of 22 percent. The price hit a high in September 2011 at $4.82 per pound.

Whole milk prices averaged above three dollars 33 out of the 36 months since Obama took office. In January 2009, the price for one gallon of whole milk was $3.58; but by December 2011, milk prices had slightly declined less than one percent (0.28 percent) to $3.57 per gallon.

The average retail price of Grade A eggs per dozen from January 2009 to December 2011 increased by less than two percent (1.30 percent) from $1.85 to $1.87.

Inflation is a stealth tax and right now it’s being caused by leftist loose money policy. How long can you afford to ignore these costs?

People laughed at me when I launched a survival blog and Hunter-Trader-Trapper with the message of becoming more self-reliant, especially when it comes to food. Who’s laughing now?

Ann Bernhardt on Banks Refusing Cash Withdrawals in California

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I’m going to reprinting this piece from Ann Bernhardt in it’s entirety because her site has, as far as I can see, has no permalink function for individual posts. To bad she has some great blog posts. It comes from NC Renegade:

I have received enough calls and emails on this within the last few weeks to A.) cause concern and B.) merit a post.

People are having difficulty withdrawing cash from banks. I just received the SECOND call on this from California this week. The question is, do banks have the right to deny you cash withdrawals?

The answer is NO. They do not. And both of the men I have heard from in California were obviously being bee-essed by their bank. The bank couldn’t cite statute, and then started haggling over the amount of cash withdrawals they would allow. That’s your dead give-away. If there were ANY statute or actual rule, the bank wouldn’t set up a conference call and then start haggling. You don’t haggle over laws and rules.

What banks can do is ask for up to 7 days notice on a large cash withdrawal just so that they can order the cash in special and not completely drain their cash on hand. This is very logical and sensible. For transactions over $10,000 the bank also does have to file a transaction report. Again, this is standard. We may not like it, but that has been the law for a very long time.

Also, one chap in CA reported that his bank told him that if he took more than $20,000 out of the bank in cash that he would have to hire an armored vehicle and security. This is an abject lie. $100 bills are bundled in 1/2? stacks. a 1/2? stack contains 100 bills. Therefore $20,000 would be two standard 1/2? stacks of hundred dollar bills, which would fit in ANY purse or easily into the inside pocket of any men’s sportcoat. We aren’t talking bags and bags of cash. Cash is still shockingly compact.

For now, what I would recommend is setting up your new destination bank account FIRST, and then simply closing the old account with the mega-bank and taking the deposit in the form of a cashier’s check. Then drive the cashier’s check directly to the new bank and deposit it. BUT, if for whatever reason you want or need cash money, no, banks have no right to deny you cash provided you give them the sufficient 7 day notice.

Limiting cash withdrawals is a sign of an insolvent or failing banking system. These sorts of limits are happening in Italy as we speak. It is very telling that banks in the U.S. are now lying and dissimulating in order to avoid and thwart cash withdrawals by their customers.

I’m wondering if anyone else is having these problems. The banking system is basically insolvent so I’m betting there are lots of you out there having trouble withdrawing large amounts of funds.