Who could have seen this coming? Besides me and every other survivalist out there:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The capital city Pennsylvania is broke and will be skipping this month’s multi-million dollar bond payment.

On Sept. 15, Harrisburg, Pa., was scheduled to make a $3.29 million payment on the bonds it issued to build a trash plant. But, the cash-strapped city doesn’t have the dough.

“The city’s budget is in deficit,” said Chuck Ardo, spokesman for Harrisburg Mayor Linda Thompson. “We’re looking for ways to trim the budget just to keep services going.”

“Now the chickens have come home to roost,” the mayor said in a statement released Wednesday.

In May, Moody’s knocked the rating on its general-obligation bonds three notches to B2 — five steps below investment grade. To put that into perspective: Moody’s rating on Greece’s government debt sits at A3 — still investment grade.

“It’s a warning to holders of bonds issued by financially stressed state and local governments,” said John Lonski, chief economist for Moody’s Investors Services. “Credit crisis is still with us.”

And in, fact, many on city council have been floating the idea of bankruptcy.

The worthies of Pennsylvania are, of course, claiming that if only they can raise taxes they could plug the whole. I guess they never heard of the Laffer Curve.

Harrisburg is not the only city in trouble obviously. This is just the first of many defaults to come, and the problem with that is that investors will begin to see municipal bonds for what they are: a bottomless money pit from which you will never get your returns. They are literally ponzi schemes where people make money by getting out before the last few suckers are left holding the bag.

If you’re in muni please do the research. There are very few cities which have the goods, financially speaking, and too many of them have financial problems that make them unreliable long term investments.

CNBC has a list of 12 cities that are the worst investments.

Market Watch has this to say about the default:

The decision by Harrisburg, Penn., to default on some of its general obligation bonds coming due raises questions for bond insurers more than municipal-bond investors, said Domenic Vonella, a municipal-bond analyst at Thomson Reuters. The city has well-known financing issues so it wasn’t a surprise that caused waves in Wednesday’s muni market, he said. Also, the bonds were insured, meaning investors will get paid anyways. But it could raise questions about how issuers choose which debt to default on — and if they favor defaulting on insured debt, he said. “The market wants some clarity on whether there will be some repercussions from insurances agencies,” though it’s unclear what those may include, Vonella said.

In a way Harrisburg was smart to be one of the first defaults because it can rely on the insurers to bail them out. Forbes’ Marilyn Cohen says the larger muni bond market may stay afloat, but not for reasons that will make most investors comfortable:

So with sales tax, income tax and property tax revenues declining, can we expect more defaults like Harrisburg, Vallejo and Central Falls Rhode Island?  As long as the municipal bond market continues to be so forgiving and allow refinancing and new issuance to come so cheaply—and—as long as the retail feeding frenzy continues, then defaults will continue to be rare.

And that’s not a sure set of circumstances. The article also speculates on what other major cities will default:

The City of Los Angeles – Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riodan has said in Wall Street Journal  editorials that the only way out of its financial difficulties is for the City of Los Angeles to file for bankruptcy sometime in the future.

The Metropolitan Pier & Exposition Authority of Illinois has seen revenue deterioration and according to Moody’s is “no longer able to meet debt service requirements and has caused the authority to tap into sales tax revenues.”  But all sales tax revenues throughout the county are deteriorating;  that’s not a sure safety net.

San Diego, CA, – San Diego’s name continues to float in and out of the bankruptcy banter but always loudly protests.

As more cities default bond insurers will be unable to pay everyone so if you’re investing keep that in mind.

The Environmental Protection Agency is taking steps to do what Democrats have wanted to do all along but were afraid to – undermining the 2nd Amendment. Banning guns has cost Democrats elections and power so their strategy is to allow us to keep guns but attack ammunition, making it unaffordable. Many will remember that Dems floated exorbitant taxes and “smart’ bullets which were both programs designed to limit access of ammunition to the wealthy. When those efforts failed we have Obama kicking things to his Czars.

From the National Shooting Sports Federation:

With the fall hunting season fast approaching, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Lisa Jackson, who was responsible for banning bear hunting in New Jersey, is now considering a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) – a leading anti-hunting organization – to ban all traditional ammunition under the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976, a law in which Congress expressly exempted ammunition.  If the EPA approves the petition, the result will be a total ban on all ammunition containing lead-core components, including hunting and target-shooting rounds. The EPA must decide to accept or reject this petition by November 1, 2010, the day before the midterm elections.

Today, the EPA has opened to public comment the CBD petition. The comment period ends on October 31, 2010.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) — the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industry — urges you to submit comment to the EPA opposing any ban on traditional ammunition.  Remember, your right to choose the ammunition you hunt and shoot with is at stake.

The EPA has published the petition and relevant supplemental information as Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OPPT-2010-0681. If you would like to read the original petition and see the contents of this docket folder, please click here. In order to go directly to the ‘submit a comment’ page for this docket number, please click here.

NSSF urges you to stress the following in your opposition:

* There is no scientific evidence that the use of traditional ammunition is having an adverse impact on wildlife populations.

* Wildlife management is the proper jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the 50 state wildlife agencies.

* A 2008 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on blood lead levels of North Dakota hunters confirmed that consuming game harvested with traditional ammunition does not pose a human health risk.

* A ban on traditional ammunition would have a negative impact on wildlife conservation. The federal excise tax that manufacturers pay on the sale of the ammunition (11 percent) is a primary source of wildlife conservation funding. The bald eagle’s recovery, considered to be a great conservation success story, was made possible and funded by hunters using traditional ammunition – the very ammunition organizations like the CBD are now demonizing.

* Recent statistics from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service show that from 1981 to 2006 the number of breeding pairs of bald eagles in the United States increased 724 percent. And much like the bald eagle, raptor populations throughout the United States are soaring.

They go on to urge you to submit a comment, write your congressman and even contact EPA administrator Lisa Jackson directly. All well and good if you think political pressure will work, but that supposed that Democrats and the hard Left Obama administration care about political pressure. Chances are they actually don’t. If Obama, Pelosi and Reed have proven anything it’s that the cause is, to them, more important that the election of Democrats this cycle. They are putting in a frame work to “fundamentally change” society and limiting access to firearms for the protection of your self and your property as well destroying the hunting sports (which help people be self-sufficient) is key to the process of changing America from a country of rugged individualists to one full of the European style neo-peasantry that the Left wants Americans to be.

This is going through, just like the EPA’s ruling that what your exhaling right now is a poison that should be regulated. What you should really do is prepare. It’s time to take up reloading if you haven’t. Beginner reloading kits can be found on Amazon for cheap, books like The ABCs of Reloading take the mystery out of the process and sites like Chuck Hawks.com have reloading sections that offer a wealth of information. You can cast your own bullets from scrap lead.

Some non-gun folks may be asking what the big deal is, as there are bullets made of metals. As Snowflakes in Hell points out most other metals are considered armor piercing by law and the most commonly used metal replacement for bullets is copper which is expensive and inefficient. Copper bullets are simply not as effective as lead, and copper is so expensive that our pennies haven’t been made of them for decades.

You need to think about how you will be getting ammunition next year.

Motivational guru Tony Robbins is very de-motivational in this presentation he put up. Long but worth it. He puts a positive spin on it but basically he’s saying we’re about to go into a economic collapse, although he seems to have full faith that civil society will remain after your money is gone. I’m not so sure but his warning to get prepared should scare you not just with it’s well researched explanation, but because a guy who makes a living getting people to think positive is telling you it’s over.

And I’m not paraphrasing here, Robbins literally claims the financial world as you know it will drastically change. Soon.

Part I:

Part II:

Via Survivalblog

Those 401ks aren’t going to be worth the paper they’re printed on.

From CNBC:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average  will lose about half of its value over the next couple of years as it follows a Nikkei-like pattern of several sharp rallies in an overall decline, according to Charles Nenner, founder and president of Charles Nenner research.

Stocks are currently in a bear-market rally, and looking at charts and past trends, unemployment and leading indicators suggest the Dow will drop to 5,000 in the next two to two-and-a-half years, Nenner told CNBC in an e-mail.

Deflation will arrive, along with a sharp double-dip recession, pushing the Dow lower, although, like the Japanese market, stocks will see several jumps of 30 percent to 40 percent, he said.

He goes on t say investors should look into “soft commodities” which are things like Wheat and soybeans. Unless they come in long lasting food grade buckets you can store in your fortress I’d think hard about that advice.

A man hunting rats with an airgun (one of the only kinds of hunting you can still get away with in England I guess) was surprised by cat sized rats who have caused a panic in the sleepy hamlet of Ravenscliffe. From The Sun:

HORRIFIED neighbours told yesterday how their homes are being invaded by giant rats – including a 30-INCH LONG monster that was shot dead.

The rodents, twice the size of common types, are plaguing an estate in Bradford, West Yorks, often appearing in kitchens and lounges.

It is feared some could be “super rats” from South America.

[...]

But the shaken man who shot it in the head – 31-year-old Brandon Goddard – yesterday revealed FOUR others of the same size scuttled away to safety.

And he said: “They were more like Ratzillas than rats.

“I got out of there as fast as I could. Who knows how many there will be if they’ve been breeding?”

The shot rat, feared to be from a species native to South America, is TWICE as big as common British types and the largest seen here.

The residents of Ravenscliffe estate in Bradford, West Yorks, are used to seeing massive rodents that sometimes appear in their kitchens and lounges.

[...]

Brandon toted an air rifle as he went “ratting” with pals on the edge of the estate – which they had heard was rife with rodents.

The group heard “rustling and scrabbling” before the five huge rats shot out from behind a wall. Brandon, a manager at a cleaning firm, said: “The first went right past but we got the second one. Then three more got away.

“I’ve seen thousands of rats during the course of my work and go shooting a couple of times a week. But I’ve never seen any as big as this. The one I shot was absolutely terrifying. I was shaking. Goodness knows where the others went. I’m glad I don’t live there.”

After taking the photo, the ratters dumped the shot rodent in undergrowth. It is thought it was eaten by a fox.

The estate has long had a monster rat problem. Rebecca told how her cat Marie cornered one in her lounge. But it stood and fought as it was just as big as the moggy.

A neighbour clobbered it with a baseball bat.

And he and Marie took five dead rats to the local council’s offices, tipping them over a desk to demand action.

Rebecca said: “They came quickly, blocked holes and put down poison. But people still see them outside regularly.”

Neighbour Julie Briggs, 28, told how she and partner Andrew Denton, 24, hear rats fighting and squealing in the walls of their rented semi, which stands opposite open countryside.

Mum-of-six Julie said: “I find droppings on the cooker when they get into the house. I’ve seen them in the lounge as we watch TV.

“At night you can hear them chasing each other in the loft. They sound like drag racing cars as they screech across the rafters.”

Last night experts called the shot rat “extraordinary” and said the colony was worth investigating.

I should say so. There’s been much talk of this being an exotic South American species but the picture looks like a regular rat to me. When I heard about this story I thought it could be a muskrat, but that looks more like a Bronx sewer rat … on steroids.

About 60 miles away two large rats were caught in a East Midlands factory that were identified as common brown rats. Each was two feet long, approximately twice the normal size.

Britain isn’t alone however. In 2009 a giant rat was caught in China that weighed about six pounds. It was tentatively identified as a Bamboo Rat and six pounds would be it’s normal size, but the creature was found far outside it’s natural territory.

Are Britain’s giant rats hybrids of exotics with native species, or evidence of a crumbling empire whose sedentary urban populace has allowed vermin to grow to brutish proportions? Either way a hunting season should be declared before these filthy beasts spread a disease or eat a baby.