Category Archives: TEOTWAWKI

Meredith Whitney About to Say I Told You So

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When Meredith Whitney predicted a muni bond meltdown people said it couldn’t happen even though many of our city and state governments are broke. When it didn’t happen in the time frame Whitney predicted people decided she was full of it. But she’s about to have the last laugh:

A “tidal wave” of defaults in the municipal bond market is still building and will eventually hit the United States, says Wall Street analyst Meredith Whitney.

Many U.S. cities, towns and municipalities are insolvent but are treading along similar to how Greece did for years before officially defaulting.

In late 2010, Whitney told 60 Minutes that municipal defaults could run up into the hundreds of billions of dollars although that hasn’t happened. Maybe not officially, but insolvency is a deepening problem, and defaults are still on the way.

“You have Stockton (Calif.) that is on the brink of bankruptcy. You have five cities, including Detroit, which is on the brink of insolvency. It’s fascinating, because there’s been so much back-room political maneuvering to keep these cities from going bust,” Whitney tells CNBC, pointing out how California is trying to pass legislation to prevent municipalities from declaring bankruptcy.

“So there’s been every effort on the part of the states to prevent this tidal wave of defaults, which is going to happen sooner or later. It’s happening at an accelerating pace.”

Taxes are rising, social services are being cut and fiscal shortfalls will keep widening.

“They’re not called technical defaults. It took how long for Greece to become a technical default, so they’re insolvent, they’re not paying their bills,” says the founder of the Meredith Whitney Advisory Group.

“You’re either willing to see it or you’ll shut your eyes, and if people want to tell me, ‘Oh, I was wrong,’ because this hasn’t played out, stay tuned.”

Get ready for America to look like a giant Detroit.

 

Food Inflation Update

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I was at Costco a couple of days ago and the price of honey stopped me dead in my tracks. I’ve been buying 5lb containers of clover honey there for a few years and since me and the Mrs. use it in our tea and I sometimes cook with it we do go through a container faster than you would think. So I always pick up one at Costco for the larder so we have a few on hand. About a year or so ago I was paying around $8.99 for one. The it went to about $10 bucks a piece.

This week it was $11.45.

I must have had some trouble keeping my dismay to myself because my reaction started a conversation with a nice gentleman who informed me that his popcorn had similarly spiked. We chatted briefly and conversation quickly turned to the dreaded “h” word – hyperinflation.  We had a nice conversation and my wife and I were heartened to meet people who understood the disaster we are heading into as a country.

Massive Fed printing leading to dollar devaluation, attacks on farming limiting food supply, increased global demand, peak oil – there’s a lot of blame to go around and this inflation we’re seeing s the product of a perfect storm that is sweeping across not only America but the entire industrialized world. The politics of whom to blame might be interesting but the reality of the situation is that we need to learn to live in a world where we will have access to less and less.

My wife and I went to a local diner yesterday and noticed that both the meals we go, while delicious, were smaller and skimped a bit on the meat. I no longer buy meat at my local grocery because it’s too expensive – I buy from Costco or Aldi.Gone are my veal chop dinners as I begin eating more ground pork and turkey which is always cheap.

Onions, peppers and potatoes have become staples of my diet and right now I’m starting a bunch of pepper plants so I don’t have to buy them. They too are too expensive.

On my site Hunter-Trader-Trapper I’ll be adding a frugal living category where I’ll be sharing with readers my tips on how to save money on food in these tough times without going hungry. I’m also looking for articles if anyone would like to submit.

But the warnings are there. We are heading off a cliff and there is nothing politicians or parties can do to stop this. It’s time for you to prepare for what is coming which is a long period of prices raising so much that only the very rich will remain unscathed. The days of dollar dominance are over and everyone know it. I just read a Daily Caller article dealing with drug dealers accepting bottles of Tide laundry detergent as payment rather than money. Think about that for a second.

Dealers are now bartering for drugs because they know Tide is now as valuable or more valuable than money. They are selling the Tide on the black market for half price as the prices in stores become too much for the inner city poor.

We’re partisans here at Red Alerts but right now it’s time to put away the partisanship and think about how you will feed yourself and your families. These warnings have been made for years but it still is not too late to put some food away and think about what to do when the bread is $15 a loaf.

Melissa Harris-Perry Believes in Organ Harvesting Blood Libel

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Too be fair she doesn’t specifically claim the Jooooos are harvesting Black people’s organs but she comes damn close. In a discussion on lack of organ donations among African-Americans and how that has consequences for African-American patients, Harris-Perry tells a host subbing for known anti-Semite Al Sharpton that fears of Black folk being given sub-par treatment to hasten their demise in an attempt to steal their organs (for other Black folk?) are justified.

Harris-Perry is a talking head on MSNBC these days, as is Sharpton. MSNBC does not care that both spread historic anti-Semitic blood libels in public. Somewhat related is the current announcement by The Nation of Islam that Glenn Beck is an agent of the “Synagogue of Satan” which is calling for Louis Farrakhan to be assassinated. They are threatening violence.

It’s odd. It almost seems as if the left is using radical racists to mainstream the hatred of Jews. I wonder why they would be doing that now?

The End Result of the Liberal Mindset: Amanda Clayton

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Conservatives often talk about the sense of entitlement that class warfare rhetoric and big government policies creates in people growing up in such a system. I have never seen a more apt example of this mindset than Amanda Clayton:

A young woman who won $1m on a state lottery has sparked outrage after she admitted to still claiming benefits.

Amanda Clayton of Lincoln Park, Michigan still claims $200 a month in food stamps and despite paying cash for a new home and car said, ‘I’m still struggling.’

The 24-year-old added that she is entitled to the welfare handout as she has two homes to run.

‘I feel that it’s okay because I mean, I have no income and I have bills to pay,’ she said. ‘I have two houses.’

Clayton won the $1 million in October after paying $10 for a series of tickets in the Michigan State Lottery.

The local news followed her around filming her “struggle”

Local 4 tracked Clayton down to her Lincoln Park home where cameras spotted her and a U-Haul truck, getting ready to move into a new house—that she paid for in cash—now that she has struck it rich. She also bought a new car.

These purchases are nothing out of the ordinary for someone who just won the lottery, however hidden cameras followed Clayton grocery shopping, where she admitted she uses a Bridge card to pay for her items. She said she gets $200 each month, from taxpayers, to foot her food bill.

Why should she have to buy her own food? That would mean having to dip into her new car and house money! That would be unfair! The news has video if you want to watch her actually say these things.

How different is this than Sandra Fluke’s demand we pay for her birth control while she attends law school? As shocked and dismayed as people are at Amanda Clayton she is simply living life as liberals told her she should. She isn’t doing anything Sandra Fluke, OWS or any other liberal isn’t advocating we all do.

Which is why America is collapsing.

h/t Verum Serum

“Mystery Virus” Killing Thousands of Lambs in England and Europe

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I put mystery in quotes because they know exactly what the virus is and are pretty sure how it spreads so there really isn’t mystery here. But it’s more pressure on the global food supply we don’t need. England’s Muslim population relies heavily on lamb to stick to their halal diets – when the prices of those lambs double than triple the Brits are going to have a problem on their hands.

From The Telegraph:

The Schmallenberg virus causes lambs to be born dead or with serious deformities such as fused limbs and twisted necks, which mean they cannot survive.

Scientists are urgently trying to find out how the disease, which also affects cattle, spreads and how to fight it, as the number of farms affected increases by the day.

So far, 74 farms across southern and eastern England have been hit by the virus, which arrived in this country in January.

A thousand farms in Europe have reported cases since the first signs of the virus were seen in the German town of Schmallenberg last summer.

The National Farmers Union has called it a potential “catastrophe” and warned farmers to be vigilant. “This is a ticking time bomb,” said Alastair Mackintosh, of the NFU. “We don’t yet know the extent of the disease. We only find out the damage when sheep and cows give birth, and by then it’s too late.”

It is unclear exactly how the disease arrived in Britain, but the leading theory is that midges carried the virus across the Channel or North Sea in the autumn. However, scientists cannot yet rule out transmission of the disease from animal to animal.

Infected ewes do not show any symptoms of the virus until they give birth, with horrific results. Farmers have described delivering the deformed and stillborn animals as heartbreaking.

The lambing season has only just begun, which means that the full impact of the disease will not be felt until the weather warms up and millions more animals are born.

On the Continent, some farms have lost half of their lambs. So far the worst hit in Britain have lost 20 per cent, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Approximately 16 million lambs are born in Britain every year and sell at market for about £100 each. The effect of the disease on farms that are already struggling in the downturn could be severe.

“For any business to lose 20 per cent of your stock would be a huge blow,” said Mr Mackintosh. “For a farmer to lose 20 per cent of your flock is catastrophic. If it was 50 per cent you would be put out of action.

“I was talking to one who has 10,000 sheep. If he loses even five per cent of the animals born this year, that’s a hell of a lot of lambs. I know another who says 10 per cent of his ewes have become barren. He has 6,000 ewes, so that is 600 animals producing nothing.”

The Food Standards Agency has sought to allay any fears about eating lamb, although little is known about the virus so far.

That last sentence is problematic. If they aren’t sure how it spreads why are we sure the lambs are safe to eat?

In a related note the British government has admitted it’s totally out of money. When people start demanding free lambs the Brits are not going to be able to provide and then the London riots will look like tea time.