My frustration and disillusionment with a world gone mad has begun to affect my mental state. I’m losing my sense of outrage which has driven me to write for the last nine years. It isn’t worth the expended energy when it will change nothing. I’m resigned to the inevitability of economic collapse. It’s just a matter of when. Bloggers and writers who make a living at it, must write daily articles of doom to generate page views. Since no one can reliably predict the timing of the collapse, I’ve grown tired of reading and writing the same old shit.He's an advocate of the concept of Fourth Turnings, and argues that we're in one. It will take however long it takes. I've written about it several times, too, although tending to use the terms from Kondratiev Waves rather than Strauss and Howe's "Fourth Turning". Another column by either one of us isn't going to affect that.
I think we all agree that an economic collapse just seems unavoidable, but none of us know when and exactly what it will look like. I think today's failure by the Stupid Party to get rid of the nightmare of Obamacare makes it more likely. Things that can't go on won't go on. I'm frankly tired of beating on the Federal Reserve, their servants in the Federal government, and the phony money they've imposed on us. I'm especially sick to death of seeing virtually no one in power, very few in the media and no one with political influence harping on it.
Likewise, Adaptive Curmudgeon put up a piece 10 days ago talking about making the transition from a serious blog and to using much more humor.
Some time year ago (with many fits and starts and personal failures en route) I began to steer away from “serious” commentary. The world had enough overwrought hand-wringing. I thought it was good for the soul (in particular my soul) to let most of it go.Longtime readers, I mean really long term, will probably have noticed that over the years I've tended to writing more about the shop, technical subjects and other lighter fare that I find more fun and interesting. More and more, I find myself getting to the time of day when I sit down to write and can't think of anything to talk about.
Maybe it's time to write a story about ducks or squirrels or something. Nah... I was never any good at fiction writing.
I can't say about others but I too appreciate your not discussing the serious issue of the day and talk about simple man things, shop, cars, engineering, guns and girls sometimes. We need the diversions so we don't go all jihidal and kick the dog, beat the other significant in our life. One of the reason I will stay a long time reader.
ReplyDeleteHow about advice on preparation for the upcoming disaster? I think we all agree it's on the way. But what should the patriotic American do to get ready. I'm sure the globalists have already planned it out.
ReplyDeleteI'm not talking about "preppers". Most of us are either too old or think the "year zero" scenario has no chance of occurring. To me, it's more about how the individual can maintain his personal wealth, freedom, security, and well-being when the hammer finally hits.
For example, I think we'll see something along the lines of 1930-38 America. Banks will fail and along with them retiree annuities. The stock and bond market will fail and along with them public pensions. Tax revenues will crater. The govt will inflate the currency while simultaneously banning the sale/holding of precious metals. And all the other crap that went on back then.
What's the strategy for the ordinary guy?
Tomfrompv
I get the same way, too, SiG.
ReplyDeleteI started the blog with great intentions of being a 2nd Amendment stalwart, but then I just let it drift into things I'm more comfortable with, and wound being kind of an on-line diary of what's going on.
I enjoy reading your shop escapades, and seeing how you work out the problems.
Mine will probably take a decidedly Western/rural approach after we get out of here. There's a lot of history in the Fort Collins area, and I'm hoping the local radio club can get access to WWV. They don't do public tours, but since the place is crawling with Hams, they might do a special tour.
I've been following your blog since I found a link to it over at Western Rifle Shooters a few years ago. The thing is, I've spent most of my life with that nagging feeling that things are going to come crashing down - economically, or (in the 80's) the Russian invasion, or a natural disaster. I was a hardcorps survivalist - not a "prepper". While I had the good sense to avoid joining any of those "militias" that were so popular, I did make friends with similar views and my family felt the same.
ReplyDeleteThe point I'm getting to is that I let preparing for whatever disaster that never occurred get in the way of getting out and really enjoying life. All the negativity wears one out. While I'll never be able to go out and be a grasshopper, there has to be something besides being an ant.
Ducks and squirrels! Do it!
ReplyDeleteDon't worry if you suck at fiction. It hasn't stopped me.
Or maybe you need to post about how you built a homemade thickness planer with parts fabricated on your CNC coupled with an old lawnmower. I'm in the market for something like that.
Anyway, thanks for the mention. Carry on and smile; don't let political bullshit get you down while we all wait for the other shoe to drop.
This is a feature! You've finally stopped fantasizing that government is going to reform. Instead you're shifting to talking about how to create actual personal power in actual reality, such as your machine tool setups. Let's count your results: years of column advocacy gained you zero legislative improvements, but several weekends' shop work gained you an actual weapon. It was a lot more fun, too.
ReplyDeleteHere's what I wish you would write about: plans for an open source handheld encrypted voice radio whose design ignores all the government mandates which say you can't do that. What frequency band would it use? What modulation? What crypto? How much bandwidth would it use? Would it be as clear as a cell phone? Would it frequency hop? You know where the legal lines are, stay on the correct side of them. You can design it, and talk about the design. Wouldn't that be fun? Wouldn't that make a difference?
I'm curious where you got the idea I was "fantasizing that government is going to reform"? That's kind of the opposite end of the spectrum from where I think I've been coming from for 7-1/2 years. I think I've been harping on "they're a bunch of corrupt morons" and "it's going to collapse, I just don't know when". I've beaten on Bernanke, Yellen and the fed like rented mules. I can't think of a single positive thing I've said about the Fed.gov, but maybe there was one or two. I 7-1/2 years maybe I said something positive.
DeleteSo Graybeard, have you done anything to cope with this coming collapse? A methodology or strategy tpo deal with it? If so, can you elaborate?
DeleteMy switch was thrown sometime in 2016. There is no way out of this collapse; the country has gone ballistic on that course. So I don't bother to read any more warnings -- but geez am I looking for help to develop a strategy for coping with it.
Yes, your blog helped a lot in forming my opinion! The news media, Comey, Fed, et al, continue to confirm the collapse has to come. To me, the whole Comey saga was like a kick in the belly. I don't see how even Trump can fix this now.
As I said above, its not going to be like a Ray Milland Year Zero. Its going to like the 1930s. There will a universal loss of faith in everything from our money to stocks to economic well being.
But some families did escape the ravages of the Depression. Others did not. I want my family to be among the ones that maintain their standard of living, security, etc as those days come upon us. Is there a strategy for that?
Tomfrompv
That's clearly a deep question, and I need to collect my thoughts a bit. This will probably become long enough to become a whole post, but I'll be back with my 2 cents worth.
DeleteThis is Anonymous from 9:41 PM
ReplyDeleteI agree that's what I've been reading for 7 years. I think you spent all that time writing it because you hoped those politicians would either change their ways, or be replaced with other politicians who were better. Which is not going to happen. I think the reason you are bummed out now is because up until last week you thought it would be fixed. Otherwise you would have been bummed out 7 years ago, then finished your grieving and written politics off.
As for a coping strategy, does your public image from the street serve as a defense against envy? From the outside you look poor, wearing thrift store pants and repairing an older car, but from the inside you are wealthy in the necessities of life like food, shelter, and medical care. Is your backyard a food garden? Do you have gold coins to give to the sympathetic veterinarian who will X-ray and set your broken bone without reporting it?
Are you the center of a radio kit ecosystem which sells better the worse the news gets? You can't retire, that is not going to work. Social Security is bankrupt, and will continue to decline 10%/year forever. Those big company pension funds are going to be swept into Social Security to keep it going another year; the only portion of it you own is the last check that cashed. If you can withdraw any of that paper wealth and turn it into coins, do it.
Hard coin money fixes almost anything. With money, if WWIII breaks out you could take a "long vacation" in Mexico, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Italy, Germany, South America, the Pacific rim...it's a big world out there, and it will never all be involved in war at the same time. You can't fix politics, not even a little bit. But it's practical to prepare to step to the side as the stupid goes charging past.
I think you spent all that time writing it because you hoped those politicians would either change their ways, or be replaced with other politicians who were better. Which is not going to happen. I think the reason you are bummed out now is because up until last week you thought it would be fixed. Otherwise you would have been bummed out 7 years ago, then finished your grieving and written politics off.
DeleteNo, this isn't even remotely close to what's going on. Not one idea here is accurate.
I didn't just come to the realization this wasn't going to be fixed last week. I never thought the "bad politicians" would change their ways or that they'd be replaced with better politicians. The reason I've been writing for the last 7 years is that I've been watching this get closer since about 2003 and back in 2010, I thought that maybe I could teach. Maybe I could help other people. That's all. I've been trying to help people.
Did I hope that people would wise up and start asking the right questions of their congresscritters? Sure - but that's not expecting them to, and I didn't suddenly get bummed out because it didn't happen. Likewise, I hoped that idiot socialists would realize their problems are being caused not by "the 1%" but by the massive government they keep asking for. I didn't expect that either.
While I don't think it seems this way from the reader's seat, putting a blog post together every day gets to be work. It's hard to come up with new content and saying the same old things, no matter what the topic, gets boring. Putting up nothing but links to other people or putting up pictures of pretty girls is easy. Generating content isn't.