FVHorn: Yes the Afghanis were off the grid. The vast majority still are. And the occuppiers are having a bad time of it, just as every other invader has had. The Afghani population in general has never left the pre-industrial age, simply because the environment will not treat high tech very well.

Iraq used to be one of the Middle East's technological success stories. At leats as long as they toed the US/Corporate line. When they stepped out line is when the US started to bomb them back to the dark ages.

I know several people who live off the grid. Some of them in a major metropolitan area. The military cannot afford to go after every small family or community that is off the grid. They will expend their precious reserve of food, fuel and ammunition in short order, leaving their paymasters, the dwindling corporate elite, defenceless. Alone, more or less, to face the mob of newly underemployed and homeless who will be outrgaed by the wealthy trying to retain the lifestyle they ar accustomed to.

You couldn't make me be a Hilton in the coming years.

Conversely, the present population of the homeless wil actually be better prepared to survive the coming hardships. It is we who will have to adapt to their level of living, not the other way around.

Bet you can just taste that rat tartar.

the karate kid's teacher said it best:
"best defense- no be there..."

My father remembers eating cooked dandelion. He hated it.

Dandelion salad is considered a delicacy in Europe. On the the sense of being rich. I was able to retire early because I choose to live in a studio that is adorable on the coast of southern France and share a house with people in Geneva. I have everything I need and nothing I don't need such as a mortgage or a car^or credit card debt and I am happy happy happy

I also being raised poor and also in the same boat as Beth
but retired at 50 years old due to health reasons. What thought came to mind at the age of 4 or 5 I had made sandals out of oat meal containers due to being poor. The one phrase my dad used to say was we wouldn't go hungry and that was true. So Beth is right there is a blessing to being poor. I will be saving the oat meal containers just in case. Thanks for the memories.

There is a course that one can take on edible plants--you can make dandelion beer apparently.

I'm rich, too, in the same way. Once upon a time this was called "common sense" to not live above your means. A long recession may be a godsend to get Americans to re-order their priorities.

Got my axe, got my saw. Know how to build a house from tree to beam to siding. Know how to garden, how to light a fire with a flint and steel, how to make a snare. How to make a solar still for water. How to fish.

I'm set for life!

I look forward to seeing those poor saps with their luxury SUVs and soon-to-be worthless stock options sitting by the roadside looking like Katrina refugees...

The overseas stock markets are tanking as we speak.

I have a general question?
Does investing in stock, (retirement), make you part of the problem?

I mean if you invest, and are financially tied to the ups and downs of the market, and considering that much war has been waged in the establishing of new and maintaining of old markets, is that not buying into the machine of war ??

MeYouWeUs: YES!

Galen,

That's the spirit! When the system collapses, the people in demand will the ones who can create and build with simple tools as you describe. Bankers and stockbrokers will be out of work, wondering what went wrong.

Peaceman: My father survived WWII by eating the rabbits they raised as pets. He was a child evacuee, but was also part of the Dunkirk Boatlift, the evacuaction of Dunkirk. He saw the savagery of war very close and personal.

I come from a family of woodworkers, and my father was a teacher and jack-of-all-trades. He instilled in me a sense of being able to do it for yourself, cause no-one else can.

I actally look forward to the day that stockbrokers, and bankers are sitting on the window ledge of thier once fancy offices, wondering how they will tell their trophy wives, mistresses and coke dealers that they have no money.

Hienberg and Kunsler are right. M. King Hubbart was right.

Hard times are coming folks. Use this spring and summer to learn how to garden.

Galen: You cite some good people, but let's get their names right --

(Richard) Heinberg
(James Howard) Kunstler
M. King Hubbert

I do not hold any stocks, bonds etc. This is part of the problem as Wall Street is evil. Its all a race to the bottom and these folks make excessive profits without giving back at all to society at home or abroad.
I have no credit card debt or massive mortgage debt. When my husband and I noticed the insane run-up in housing prices we knew there was a bubble in the DC area. We found websites like www.patrick.net and noted the bubble would burst so we've waited and saved. When housing crashes back to reality we'll buy...and probably a foreclosure.
We avoid credit cards, we don't own one only debit cards. We have no credit card debt and we don't buy anything we cannot afford..we wait and save for it. Ursury is against our religious beliefs anyway.
I do owe grad school loans..sadley this was the only way I managed to afford education. I hope to pay this off in bulk at some point. This was worth it though.
We do not shop at Wall Mart, Costco, Target etc. These big-box shopping centers destroy local jobs and drive down wages in our general economy. They import too much from Chinese slave labor. http://tinyurl.com/37fybe
We try to shop local for food or we go to Whole Foods because at least we aren't supporting big agricultural chemical fertilizer Genetically modified foods.
We purchase Halal meat as animals are raised and then slaughtered more humanely then at factory farms.
We do not eat pork, dairy, or beef products and eat lots of soy helping the environment.
I work for a nonprofit. I could work for big defense with my skills and make plenty of money but I prefer to help society not hurt it even if it means making less money.
We try to live simply so others can simply live as the slogan goes.

Frankr29: Thank you.

An 85 year acquaintance of ours is normally a very up beat person. She came in one day last week very sad. When asked why she was so down, she said "well I'm 85 and I lived through the depression, we all managed somehow, but I just worry about the kids these days." She became very silent then said, "I don't think these kids today are prepared for what's about to happen, I feel very sorry for them."

Today is another day that I am not spending one dollar on consumer goods. It feels sooooooo goood! lol

MeYouWeUS asks...

I have a general question?
Does investing in stock, (retirement), make you part of the problem? I mean if you invest, and are financially tied to the ups and downs of the market, and considering that much war has been waged in the establishing of new and maintaining of old markets, is that not buying into the machine of war ??

Depends on what you invest in, of course, but the Stock Market is not funding the war. The money for the war comes from debt assumed by the government. (or taxes, in the bad-old tax-and-spend days). You may be helping prevent a nation from becoming bankrupt by participating in the markets, but if you look at nations that go down the path of war throughout history, you will notice that a crashing financial market does nothing to curb the squandering of resources on killing.

In fact, it often works the other way. A nation's gotta be pretty messed up to think they can war their way to wealth, usually already have a big economic mess by the time they get to that point.

But maybe you're more wondering how, if you feed the warrior, are you partly responsible for those he kills? Playing the markets is not the only way you can do this - you buy a car, or anything, the country that made it can go on longer doing whatever it is they are doing.

Personally, today I walked a long way to the next hardware store so I could buy light bulbs that were made by a company that doesn't specialize in building war machines and lobbying certain governments to spend more on war.

What a great little comment, very cleverly connecting micro-economics to macro-economics. Thanks, Beth.

If a person eats and eats and eats even when not hungry until they are morbidly obese, it's an eating disorder that requires both medical and psychiatric treatment;

If a person gambles away his savings, car, house, that person is labeled a Gambling Addict and treatment is recommended;

If a person drinks alcohol to excess - Alcoholic.

But if a person lies, cheats, steals and hoards more wealth than can be spent in 100 lifetimes with not a thought to the consequences of this behavior, it's called the American Way, or capitalism, or the entrepreneurial spirit.

Greed is a mental illness now pandemic in this country. Until it's recognized as such, we will continue to kill ourselves for every last penny.

Yes, you can all live simply... until the soldiers come to take it all away from you. This nation is now solely the Military-Industrial Complex with the 'stock market symbol' USA. So you may feel you are "off-the-grid" but how off-the-grid were the Afghanis? How off-the-grid were the Iraquis? How off the grid were the Dravidians or the Idaho survivalists? If you don't 'get with the program' then "you are not with 'us', you are against 'us'"... Gee Dubya Bush.

I wouldn't be so sure that the System will not crush individualists one way or another no matter where, no matter how poor. And the populations of cities cannot simply be turned out into the countryside. See PolPot's Cambodia, as an example of this, but America doing this would be even worse! Thus, it is vital to take back the US government from the NeoCons, moneygrubbers, and Repukelicans. Not just retreat. Anyway, the polluted, overheating atmosphere is everywhere, so there is no escape.

DCBeltway: The average CEO is paid 700 times what the average worker employed by his (or her) company earns. Not including incentives and stock options.

The disparity between rich and poor in America has never been greater. Ever.

I wonder why no-one has taken a pot shot at Bill Gates or the Ford family yet. Or whacked that waste of DNA Paris Hilton....

Frank, that is getting right to the true core of almost all ills..

Big_money, Nice point about other investments like cars.

But isn't the stock market profiting, form the war? Even if they're not funding it?

MeYouWeUs, the stock market does benefit from the war. War Corporations show huge profits (paid to build a billion bombs, etc.) Investors flock to these stocks in hopes of more killing-driven profits. (make a killing.. hmm... )

While I personally consider it evil to invest in companies that benefit from war, I'm not entirely sure those companies benefit from the investments - they could go private and still make bazillions of dollars on the so-called "sales".

All a stock price represents is the enthusiams of investors to have a piece of it's action. When the government chooses war, bidding up the price of those stocks doesn't help the war, just the folks who had the same idea previously. But I still think it's evil.

Anyway, these ideas of mine may only apply to an un-rigged market. I haven't the foggiest notion of how the so-called "Plunge Protection Team" does it's thing, but would not be surprised if someone were to discover a big money-pipeline straight to the defence contractors.

The preacher man says its the end of time
and the Mississippi River she's a going dry.
The interest is up and the stock markets down
and you only get mugged if you go downtown.
I live back in the woods you see,
my woman, and the kids and the dogs and me.
I got a shotgun and a rifle and a four wheel drive
and a country boy can survive. Country folks can survive.

I can plow a field all day long,
I can catch catfish from dusk till dawn.
Make our own whiskey and our own smoke too
ain't to many things these boys can't do.
We grow good old tomatoes and homemade wine
and country boy can survive, country folk can survive.

Because you can't stomp us out and you can't make us run,
cause we're them ole boys raised on shotguns.
We say grace and we say mam
and if you ain't into that we don't give a damn.
We came from the West Virginia coal mine's
and the Rocky Mountains and the Western skies
and we can skin a buck, we can run a trout line
and a country boy can survive, country folks can survive.

I had a good friend in New York City
he never called me by my name just hillbilly.
My Grandpa taught me how to live off the land
and his taught him to be a business man
He used to send me pictures of the Broadway Nights
and I would send him some homemade wine
but he was killed by a man with a switchblade knife,
for forty three dollars my friend lost his life.
I'd love to spit some beechnut in that dudes eyes
and shoot him with my ole forty-five
cause a country boy can survive, country folks can survive.

'Cause you can't stomp us out and you can't make us run,
and we're them ole boys raised on shotgun.
We say grace, we say mam,
if you ain't into that we don't give a damn.
We're from North California and South Alabam'
and little towns all around this land.
We can skin a buck, and run a trot line
and a country boy can survive,
country folks can survive,
country boy can survive,
country folks can survive.

Big_Money, so what kind of bubble does the war create? Is it big enough to effect the overall picture?
As I understand it a lot of retirement investments are invested all across the board, so does that mean people looking to retire stand to loss their ass if that bubble were to burst?

Bush as well as the Republicans and Democrats in Congress have mortgaged our future. They have taken sub-prime loans agains the wealth of we citizens and left us to secure the notes, now held by foreigners. We are not going to like making regular payments on this very thick coupon book for many years to come. Thanks, mr bush and cheney!

~Militantliberal~ Ya gotta soak the dandelions in salt water for an hour, then rince them well in very cold water before you cook them. __ If you have the salt.__ They still taste like slimey shit though, makes great tasting wine though.

When the depresion hits, and it will, the "rich" are gonna be those who have stocked up with a two year food and medicine supply, weapons and are able to well defend themselves from the maruading armed bands who will be frantically looking for food. The richest will be the once very poor, who live in areas like the isolated areas of Apalachia, the Mormons and people like GALEN. Of course the very rich will have access to the food supplies that our government will seize when the depression arrives.

"No Child Left a Dime" (bumper sticker)

KEM: And people like you, brother!

The more I watch, the readier I am to tell my lady it's time to head for the tall grass...

MeYouWeUs, It's not so much that the war created a bubble, but it is one of the big inflators of the credit bubble. I read somewhere that the USGovt has now made promises to pay out some bizarre amount of money that equals $175,000 per American.

Seen from an honest income/expenses perspective, every penny that has been spent on war, or promised to be spent on war, is part of that total. That total is nuts. Eliminating all war since 1950 would not fix that total. That total will probably annihilate most retirement savings, through inflation and debt maintenace expenses alone - it's just not going like they promised, surprise surprise.

The mechanisms are broad and complicated, but everything people need every day will become worth more - everything that people have stashed away hoping to preserve their purchasing power will become worth less.

Ever wonder if it's a coincidence that it's swinging this way, just as the bulk of Americans are teetering on retirement?

Thanks for the reminder! It is a well known fact of the -heart- that only the wealthy can afford homemade cookies! Time people start running their own life and run out of town the frauds on their t.v. screens. I learned long ago to run like mad when a large corporate entity claimed; we shortened our------to better serve you.

Marc Medler: My lady makes homemade cookies for her kids. She's on welfare and disability. And the first jackboot that tries to touch her won't live to try a second time.

Give me twenty minutes, some clothespins, a bit of cardboard, some leftover plumbing supplies, a box of rubber bands, some shotgun shells, and a spool of dental floss, and I can make a house a living hell for any US soldier or Blackwater goon who wants to come knocking...

I am married to an Afghans so its Afghans not Afghanis. Afghanis is the name for the currency sorry but I am always correcting people on this.

Yes they've been living off the grid for a while now but its really hard on them there's nothing romantic about living without electricity, clean-water, and sewage and yet must of the world has no choice but to do this. As I work in the international development field I've seen this first hand. My mother-in-law in Kabul complains often to my husband about the fact that electricity has been sporatic in the city since 2001.

I agree with everyone that Americans live way beyond thier means and at the expense of the rest of the planet. Its disgusting really when you think about it. When the depression hits its going to be ugly here. My husband and I really considering leaving soon as the signs are all around. If a depression does hit at home just like the 1930's I believe it will be followed by a world war.

Instead of pulling dandelion weeds from your backyard to put in your salad mix, we might consider getting guys like this to pay taxes at a rate that makes sense:

http://warongreed.org/

Uniroyal tire sandals anyone? I know where to find the insructions. I can do Firestone too.

If it was good enough for the Vietnamese, it's good enough for me. Recycles too.

DCBeltway: Thank you for the correction. Noted. And it wont be a world war, not in the way we think. More of an economic lipstand at 60mph for the entire world. Nasty, but not always fatal.

And I do not own a gun. Some bows, yes. But guns have the nearly always fatal side effect of making you think you are invincible. Better to know you are the rabbit, and run accordingly.

Hmm perhaps one world government, one world military (blackwater), one world currency with one world central bank. Scary thoughts.

DCBeltway: Waht a cheery thought. But you left out one piece of the formula. One world religon (Xtian).

I need a beer.

I keep wondering which is going to hit first - the fall of that super-top-heavy corporate rich conglomerate that teeters on the stem of the dwindling middle class and feeds from the roots of the growing very poor - or the catastrophic effects of global warming.

On the one hand I don't mind being at the age, and with ailments that could lead to my demise before any of it happens, but on the other hand, I hate to think of what I might end up coming back to!

Wilmoor: There is some serious debate amongst biologists as to whether human levels of intelligence is a survival trait.

Maybe coming back as a cockroach is a good thing...

Wait a second why the hell should we all suffer the Great Depression part II when these bastards are at fault? Tar and Feather them I say! Time to get the torches and sticks out.

Wall St execs collect $US33b bonuses
Business Day
January 18, 2008

The Wall Street gurus who presided over the subprime mortgage crisis currently shredding global sharemarkets have awarded themselves bonuses totalling $US33.2 billion ($38 billion).

In a concession to the crisis - which has forced America's largest banks to write off billions in bad investments and raise billions more to shore up their capital reserves - the bonuses were down nearly 5 per cent on the previous year.

The average bonus of $US180,420 ($206,088) in 2007 dipped 4.7 per cent from the previous year, New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a statement today.

The securities industry rewarded $US33.2 billion in bonuses to its New York City employees, two per cent less than the record $US33.9 billion ($38.7 billion) in 2006, he said.

The numbers are taken from the seven largest financial firms headquartered in New York City, which are tracked by the comptroller's office. The firms are Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers.

All except Goldman Sachs, which largely avoided the risky loans, have been battered by the financial crisis.

While the seven firms earned $US39 billion ($45 billion) in profits during the first half of 2007, a 41 per cent gain over the prior year, they lost $US28 billion ($32 billion) in the third and fourth financial quarters, DiNapoli said.

Total pretax profits for the seven firms totalled $US11 billion ($12.6 billion) in 2007, less than one-fifth of the $US60 billion ($68.5 billion) record set in 2006, the comptroller said.

Employee compensation, which includes bonuses, consumed 61 per cent of the firms' revenues in 2007, up from 45 per cent 2006. DiNapoli said this reflected the firms' efforts to keep high-performing employees.

Those working in mergers and acquisitions and in equities should be rewarded with bigger bonuses but employees in the fixed-income units that handle mortgages will be "dramatically lower", the comptroller said.

Compensation experts say those high-performing units will basically subsidise whatever bonuses are left to give to flagging parts of the banks' business. Because of the dismal performance of the Wall Street investment houses, Morgan Stanley chief executive John Mack and Bear Stearns chairman James Cayne gave up their huge annual bonuses.

Last year, they were paid about $US40 million ($45.7 million) in compensation.

AP

Depression probably knocks out mainly the lower upper-class, and the entire middle-class. The lower-class is always poor and propertyless, and don't have much to lose.

But the very upper-crust stand to gain. They can profit in times of stock decline (by "puts" or "selling short"), foreclosures, etc. Funny thing is that if they didn't have socialized force of arms (the law enforcement and court system) on their side, they'd be like kings of ages old -- except without the moat/castle/keep to keep themselves defended from the hoardes. That's their safety net.

The whole situation makes me very nervous. I guess I am not the only person.

With each economic downturn, I can at least feel a sense of relief that I've never used credit cards and have no significant debts. I'd rather live modestly than be at the mercy of every economic crisis. I don't have a big screen TV, but I also don't have an ulcer.

Incidentally,to militantliberal, dandilion greens really are good. You need to pick just the small, tender leaves, since they grow bitter as they get bigger. I, personally, like to eat them the same way as cooked fresh spinach. They're also a good source of fiber, vitamins, and iron.

I hope we can pull through this one. I moved from country, where I had more than my fill of dandelions growing in my lawn, to city, where I have concrete outside my stoop. I happen to be a fan of dandelion salad though, a bit like arugula.

Honestly though, even in a big collapse, I think the wealthy are still going to be better off than lower income people. The board members of these mortgage firms, etc, are probably up on how to make themselves even richer off others debt.

So what should I do? Having been in a bad car accident 16 years ago, I received a settlement that I thought would carry me through retirement. Being a kid, I didn't know where to put the money. My dad had me put all of it into equities. After the tech bubble, I lost a third of it. Then it was re-invested. Now, the value of it is half of what it was when I received it. Should I tell my portfolio manager to sell everything? All I want to do is buy land upstate NY now, and build earthships, and learn permaculture, and live a kind life with the earth. It's a vicious trap. Tomorrow, I go back to my lonely cubicle in NYC and wonder if my life is ever going to feel good.

Let them eat dandelions--actually they're pretty healthy, locally grown, not much of a carbon input but all that does not let that fool Bush and the rest of the free traders off the hook.

Impeach the bastards, take the country back, tax the rich, give to the poor, stop playing globo-cop and for godsakes, stop being this militaristic Sparta with its weird death cult.

Dr. Wu, the last of the big-time thinkers.

The BBC just called today's stock market meltdown the worst since since 9/11, maybe even worse.

I am so glad for all of you who are enjoying the dandelion cure for poverty. I assume that you and your families never had a sickness that bankrupted you; I assume that you never had a spouse that left you broke; I assume that you make a livable wage; I assume that you're fine in retirement; I assume that you have enough to provide for your children and their education; I assume that you've never lost a job, been jailed or been blacklisted; I assume that your health is still good; I assume that you have an affordable way to get to work and do other normal things in life; I assume that you're living in heaven.

For most of us who live on Earth, poverty is neither a matter of choice or unnecessary overconsumption. It's simply a matter of making less than the cost of living and we either have to borrow, beg or steal to make up the difference -- or die pretty miserably...

Now I'll go back to my Cadillac and head on down to the welfare office to pick up my check on the way to the bar where I'll look over the sub-prime loan that I just couldn't turn down because I was just too damned lazy and have too many large screen TV's to fit in my govt-subsidized penthouse...Oh, the life of overconsumption, what a Joy, Joy, Joy...

Just came back from our local sporting goods store and handguns (not rifles) were flying out the door, not the .22 type, these were 9mm and 45's with lots of ammo and extra clips added to the bill. I opted for a fishing license. Unless bushco applies for direct aid from the IMF and World Bank, we are in big serious trouble.