Gloom, Boom and Doom

There was an interview on yahoo business with Marc Faber and Mike "Mish" Shedlock, the later being the editor of a publication called "Gloom, Boom and Doom". They discuss, in essence, our economic world collapsing in the not too distant future and that there's nothing the government can do about it. They want you to do some of the typical things to protect yourself like investing in gold. They also want you to do some less conventional things such as: move away from major cities (crime will go out of control), buy farmland (you'll need to plant something to eat) and buy assets outside of the U.S. Pretty radical. They, especially Shedlock, have been espousing Chicken Little like collapses for some time and since they've been right once, now they are getting lots of press coverage.

While I give them very little credence, I do find it an interesting supposition. What if our monetary system began to collapse and inflation went out of control and unemployment hit 25% (not actually espoused by Marc and Mike but it's implied)? What if the major cities had crime that tripled in frequency and significantly in degree? What if gold went to $5,000 an ounce?

Again, I don't see these kinds of things happening, but we can get a glimpse of some of what we might look like if we watch the news out of Greece. Granted, there are many, many differences between our country and theirs both economically and historically, but the environment I think would look similar if these things came to pass. The police get paid so poorly because their state equivalents are broke too, that some of them are crossing the picket lines!! You could easily see that happening in Chicago or NY or LA. There is more rioting in the big cities than elsewhere in the country and they are being led by students who don't have jobs and not a lot of options connected to a lot of frustrations. It's very interesting to keep an eye on.