More Trials & Tribulations in Next Four Months
- Presidential Election
- Natural Disaster
- Economic Collapse
- A Worthless Dollar
- The Coronavirus Continues
The first eight months of twenty-twenty have been a crazy roller coaster of politics, civil unrest, economic declines, a worsening coronavirus pandemic, and much, much more. Just when it appears we are about to turn a corner, something else appears in our news feeds. After so many negative things this year, we have to ask ourselves what the rest of twenty-twenty is going to look like. It’s hard to be prepared for all the possible outcomes and to lose focus on what is important. We have just a few short months until twenty-twenty-one. Will things be better then? What should we ready ourselves to face? How can we prepare to survive this year and into next year?
In this blog, we will examine the five most pressing issues facing our country and world today. The good news is that we can prepare ourselves to survive even worsening conditions, and that there are actions today that can influence our ability to have a better outcome tomorrow. If these negative trends continue, we will need these valuable remaining months of twenty-twenty to hunker down and prepare ourselves for possibly even more turbulent times ahead. There is the strong possibility that twenty-twenty-one could be even worse.
- Presidential Election
Just like every four years, the news is full of this president said this and that presidential candidate said that. Everyone has an opinion on how your vote will be a vote for one thing or another. Regardless of who is elected to the position of president or which party ends up controlling the House or Senate, this election year is very different than any in recent memory.
Without a vote being yet cast, there are already doubts being cast upon the voting process, the fear of foreign intervention, vote tampering, and the validity and security of mail-in ballots. When asked if President Trump would accept the election results of 2020, President Trump responded “I have to see. No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no, and I didn’t last time either.” Rising protests, and in some cases riots, in the streets, as well, and it is safe to say that we may be heading toward a Constitutional crisis in America within the next one hundred days.
How does this play out in the Constitution? The Twentieth Amendment, commonly known as the “Lame Duck Amendment” to the United States Constitution moved the beginning and ending of the terms of the president and vice president from March fourth to January twentieth. At noon on January twentieth, the person carrying the nuclear football launch codes accompanying the incumbent president either sticks around or walks off to the new president. Either the incumbent president presides in office for another four years, or he is escorted from office and then it gets really grey. The amendment reads: “If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.”
It is true that President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence would be out of the office at that point. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would be next in line. However, she would also be out of the office on January third, if federal elections were delayed. Next in line would be the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, which is Sen. Chuck Grassley.
Confused yet? That’s exactly the point. We’re not a constitutional lawyer, so we can’t definitively say how this would or should play out. America has always prided itself on its ability to peacefully transfer power from one president to another. It is very possible that this year’s election may have complications and question marks or be delayed entirely. The resulting constitutional crisis is what we should be worried about. Whatever the election’s outcome, the less than eighty days leading up to the election will be wrought with continued protests and mudslinging. Tempers will continue to rise and flare and will, in many ways, boil over in the media, the government, and in the streets. The thirty days after the results of November third will stress the system even more, and the days after that will boil over into some conclusion. What conclusion, we cannot know, but we can reasonably suspect from the indicators now that a smooth transition of power may not happen this year. If that’s the case, you can expect increasing civil unrest, possible looting, and increased criminal activity. Be prepared for the complete disruption of any normal routines. Even going to the grocery store may be a challenge. To be safe, be alert and physically move away, immediately, from any conflict areas. It is one thing to have a political stand, but you also need to ensure your personal safety and survival. If you are required to travel frequently or need to move around in public, you may want to consider getting a concealed handgun permit if your state allows it. Things may get dicey post-election when tempers may flair the most.
What do you think will happen?
2. Natural Disasters
Don’t get too distracted by the politics. While all that craziness is happening, it would be easy to drop the ball on our normal preparedness activities. If you live in a hurricane zone, hurricanes aren’t going to just skip us this year. Hurricanes on the East coast peak in September but are highly likely in August as well. If you live on the West coast, fire season runs from around May to October. The usual firefighting inmate infantry, by the way, has been hit hard by COVID-nineteen, and that will continue to stymie efforts to mobilize an effective fighting force. The virus could exacerbate the aftermath of a hurricane or relief efforts too. Also, earthquakes occur year round, and even though we are leaving tornado season, we are entering winter. As radical as weather patterns can be, don’t lose sight of preparing for the eventual natural disaster and not just the probable natural disaster.
Any natural disaster in the next one-hundred-twenty days will be complicated by politics and stymied relief mobilization efforts. FEMA won’t be able to help you if there’s also civil unrest in your area. Prepare yourself and your loved ones for the possibility that you may need to be self-reliant for a long period of time. Use this relatively calm time before a potential storm to make sure you are prepared. Please check out our other blogs on emergency food, water, and other supplies you will need to have ready.
3. Economic Collapse
Number three on the list of things to expect in the rest of twenty-twenty is economic collapse. The numbers are in and GDP has shrunk to historical lows, unemployment remains extremely high. The CARES Act also placed a moratorium on certain evictions but they expired on July twenty-fifth (after which renters should get thirty days notice of any eviction proceedings); many states also enacted evictions bans, but nearly half of those have already expired. Are a wave of evictions and foreclosures on the horizon or will a polarized congress provide economic relief to individuals in an economy seemingly in free fall?
Whether you agree or disagree with the closures, you have to prepare yourself and your family for a deepening economic depression. The economies of many countries have suffered greatly and there are not clear signs of significant corrections in the market.
We may well be living in the days and months preceding a massive economic depression. We have recently done a number of blogs about this, so we encourage you to watch those to understand what you can do now to prepare yourself for this possibility. We will include links to those at the end of this blog, or you can see them by clicking the CityPrepping icon below this video. Remember, being prepared goes beyond ideology and to the core of your self-reliance, your independence. You can prepare now to survive an economic depression.
Are you worried about the economy collapsing?
4. A Worthless Dollar
The U.S. dollar has been a global currency because of the strength of our economy. A global currency is simply one that is accepted for trade throughout the world. Another way to refer to a global currency is reserve currency. Although the US dollar, Euro, and Yen are the most popularly accepted transaction mediums, the US dollar is the most popular and makes up over sixty-four percent of all known central bank foreign reserves. This has made the American dollar the de facto global currency, even though it’s not an official title. The value of the US dollar is supported by the relative strength of the American economy. America’s supremacy as the world’s largest economy makes its currency the strongest as well.
For many years now, the Federal Reserve has printed money to bail the economy out. Currently, the Federal Reserve is creating dollars from scratch at an unprecedented rate, one of many tools to rescue the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic. One possible outcome of this creating money at the push of a button are overheated financial bubbles fueled by too much easy money in the system – a bubble that could burst with painful fallout. Creating too much money that chases too few goods also leads to price inflation, decreasing the purchasing power of the dollar.
If the US does continue to fall into a deepening economic recession or depression, it is possible that countries that do not suffer as badly and recover more rapidly will see their currencies strength and value increase substantially over the US dollar. A slashing of America’s credit rating and worthiness or too many dollars in the system diluting the strength of the dollar along with low consumer confidence and reduced spending, could cause the larger global markets to flee to more solid currencies, precious metals or crypto currencies. Precious metals and crypto currencies allow people with money to rapidly move their funds from country to country and aren’t tied to a fiat currency. Gold and silver prices have already sharply risen, and crypto currency prices are showing signs of entering a bull market. In a deepening, lingering economic crisis, the US dollar could very well lose its stature in the world. This would further stymie any recovery efforts and significantly stretch out an economic depression.
If you have a portfolio, you may want to take a look at our other blogs on precious metals and our future blog on crypto currencies which we’re currently working on. Having some, maybe ten percent of your dollars invested in this direction may prove valuable to you. We are not an investment counselor, by any means, so do your own research, but do take from this the possibility that the once highly valued dollar could lose it’s number one spot in the world, and have a plan if it does. We would encourage you to also study more about the dollar index to understand what’s happening. You may want to take a look at my other videos on skills you can develop now, how to barter, or items to have during an economic depression.
5. The Coronavirus Continues
Finally, and we could have led with this, the coronavirus, SARS-CO-V-TWO, will continue through next year. There are many, many theories on this: that there will be a second wave, that we can return to normal and open everything up, that we should wear masks, that we shouldn’t, even that it doesn’t even exist. There’s a lot of information out there and a lot of misinformation as well. What we know we can expect are some schools opening and then closing again. We can expect outbreaks and closures. We know we are many months away from any vaccine, and we know that a large percentage of Americans have indicated they won’t be vaccinated. We know the virus can mutate because of its RNA replication. That means it could become more dangerous to us, or it could become less dangerous to us. It means that there are multiple strains of the virus out there right now.
Some people in the prepper community who have warned about a possible pandemic for years, continue to downplay the significance and danger of this virus. At one-hundred-fifty-thousand deaths in the US and no flattening of the curve appearing in the data, it is at least safe to say that we may not have even crested with this first wave of the virus. And that assumes that this virus functions like viruses from previous pandemics. Being a novel virus, there are still a lot of unknowns.
Wishfully thinking this virus will disappear in February, or with Summer’s heat, or in November, doesn’t seem to be a good plan. Arguing over the lethality, methods of spread, drugs used for treatment, or whether businesses and schools should open or close, won’t change the inevitable fact that SARS-CO-V-TWO will be with us and the effects of it will be with us through the rest of twenty-twenty and probably into twenty-twenty-one and beyond.
Will there be a second wave? Has the first wave crested? We don’t know. Is the virus becoming less or more virulent? Are we becoming better capable of treating it? Are children safe? These will be the questions we will have answers to in the next few months, regardless of whether we want those answers. We are going to have to science the heck out of this until we get some relief.
You should prepare for the lasting effects of this pandemic. Prepare your supplies. prepare yourself physically to endure the virus should you become infected, and prepare yourself for the economic impact of the virus.
Conclusion
Twenty-twenty has been a crazy year, but we are not out of it yet. With greater political conflict, a possibly highly contentious election, a worsening economic climate, the normal natural disasters we are still to face, and a relentless virus, there has never been a more important time to prepare yourself and the ones you love to survive.
What do you think 2021 will bring? What do you see in our future?
If you found this blog useful and informative, please feel free to share on social media. We learn a tremendous amount from you as well, and together we stay prepared for whatever the world throws at us.
As always, stay safe out there.
