Better to have a hidden stockpile of water and food to last a few months if you don't live on a farm

Hidden compartments and secret rooms would come in handy

Invisibility will be of paramount importance to avoid conflict. Beyond that, defense will be required to maintain better than a subsistence lifestyle. Silver coins will be important for barter. Solar power and solar hot water will be important as well as a full pool for water. Life will be very difficult for awhile

All despotic governments have done that. Venezuela is doing it now. They call it "hording" and confiscate the goods. Sometimes they've shot people for that. Remember, America used to be exceptional; not anymore...

I think there would likely be a civil war between the entitled welfare babies and the people who have prepared. The government will be overwhelmed and unable to supply what the entitled people want. The government will turn on the people who have supplies and try to expropriate them

If the economy collapses, similar to Baltimore, there will be a possibility of a civil war. In that case, the paper currency will be essentially valueless. But stocking up on food, etc., will really not get you very far. Unless you have a warehouse of food, fuel and everything else, a few weeks of supplies is about all that is reasonable to keep around. If you have a warehouse, you better have a small and reliable little army to defend it. Until that happens, if you're wondering what will the Chinese do with our paper? - buy American real estate. A very effective control mechanism and a good strategic investment.

Very scary scenario. Value of the dollar could literally disappear overnight leaving me bankrupt instantly I suppose. Perhaps I should stock up onfood, water, and toilet paper...

Yes, if the dollar was properly valued, OR we actually had to back up its value.

The problem is that until the chinese stop accepting our paper dollars, it makes sense to just buy from them and cancel our american jobs. At some point, they would want to sell off their dollars at some discount I suspect to at least get something for them. That could collapse the value of the dollar and instantly raise chinese prices in terms of dollars and make manufacturing here more feasible (at higher consumer prices of course reflecting the inflation that should have happened because of the fed printing money).

To do it slower, I suppose the government could institute tariffs on chinese goods and use the money collected as an offset to federal taxes. This would be hard to do, and politically unpopular of course, so it probably wouldnt work.

I suppose to soften the landing,

Do you mean if the dollar was valued lower than it is now?
Back to my point - how would making foreign products more expensive be helpful to the economy?

I buy a lot of Chinese parts and sub assemblies for my company. I can tell you the Chinese workers are educated, careful, and produce goods equal to those made in the USA, but at 1/3 the cost. And there is no regulatory hassle. We trade worthless paper dollars for Chinese goods and labor and the dummies accept them. I have a feeling that if we backed our dollar properly, Chinese goods and services would be priced more in line with our costs. It's a very distorted market.

There are very few issues on which Trump is specific. Punitive taxes and tariffs are. What he either does not realize or is refusing to admit, is that shutting out cheap foreign products will hurt American economy and the American consumer. To illustrate this, let's say someone wants to sell your son a car. But you step in, declare that the car is under priced, add 50% to the cost of the car, take the extra money from your son and give half to your daughter so that she can continue to sit at home and keep the other half to yourself for the trouble that you had to go through in order to keep peace and fairness in the family. Now, please tell me how did this enrich the family? Oh, just a reminder - macroeconomics consists of lots and lots of microeconomics. The economy needs to grow by being able to effectively and efficiently produce, not by shutting out competition I do not buy the crap about cheap labor - the reason that a one dollar / day farmer in Africa is not a threat to ten dollar / hour American farmer is because the American tractor produces 1000 times more than the African"s sickle. With a higher educated, better motivated and computer assisted workforce, we should be way outperforming semi-illiterate Third World competition, but we are not. Perhaps the solution is not more Maduro, but more Adam Smith and Bastiat.

Amazing! Right out of Directive10-289, Point No. 2. (Page 538 in the original edition.)

The only reason my small company is in business is that we have held prices the same by transferring 75% of our parts and assembly labor purchases to china. American workers are too expensive and the american customers dont want to pay for it. This is happening everywhere, and is a major contributor to net inflation staying low. The $15/hr wage will mean we have to cut our existing manufacturing workforce by 50% in favor of china and automation. We are madly working on automation to protect against this.

I cant see Trump actually putting huge tariffs on buying from china- too many big companies are buying from china to withstand that. He is grandstanding with china to get them to open THEIR markets to us.

He is proposing a lower corporate tax rate, which will be a good thing, and is saying there shouldnt be a national minimum wage (leave it to the states who will drag their feet no doubt in a race to be competitive businesswise). He does know that if you want business to remain here, we have to be competitive (which we definitely arent now).

I can understand the desire for the quick death, BUT I dont think the death will be quick. There is just too much wealth in the USA to be expropriated by the statists quickly. Also, there are the fools like me who want to invent things that will be successful and keep them in power longer. The only way to bring down statism is NOT to prop it up by working in their system- I understand that now.

Completely agree with XenokRoy's assessment: "Either are likely to provoke an economic crash." Trump's stated method of "Making America Great Again" is to penalize and tax producers who look for cheaper or less regulated markets overseas. That will necessarily result in more expensive, shabbier American production. Same path as Venezuela. Trump's disembowelment of America will take longer than Bernie's, but with the same result. Perhaps a quicker death is less painful?

Hi O.A.,
True, but usually those in charge are not so blatant about what they're doing. It's almost like Maduro has read Atlas Shrugged and is doing his best to emulate the villains.

Hello CBJ,
The sad truth is that there are people everywhere that still believe production and prosperity can come from the point of a gun... that producers will go on doing their best as serfs. History repeats.
Respectfully,
O.A.

Yeah, its a shame we have to cut back OUR lifestyle in order NOT to fund theirs.

term,

I have spent the last 15 years in director level positions in the software industry. I would say that my actions have created 200 jobs or so over that time span. It makes me a bit sick that I have likely added around 60 million to the tax coffers between myself and those that have worked for me over the years between federal and local taxes.

I am currently looking at a job that pays about 1/3 what I make working for a state university, one of the reasons for this is that I no longer wish to fund the beast that attempts to make a slave of me.

I will be subsidised by the state, as all workers as the university are) for about the same amount I will pay the state/fed in taxes. Keeping only the part that is funded by people who pay for their education. It will equal no increased tax base from me. It's the closest thing I can see to a strike where I can still take care of me and mine while no longer funding the state or federal systems.

I can see no way forward to resolve the current problem, but I also do not wish to fund it any longer. So I hear what you are saying and agree.

Absolutely. Its stealing, really. The government (and the wall street people who buy off the government) gets to spend the printed dollars first, while they are valuable. Then as the prices rise, the rest of us have to fend for ourselves with less valuable dollars.

Another factor to consider which has worked to our government's advantage is the shift to buying things from china. This has saved companies (like ours) many dollars so we dont have to raise our prices and further hide the real inflation. Without inflation, we could lower our prices after saving money on purchases from china. The government has cheated us all by depriving us of lower prices. In fact, they hate what they call deflation, even when its caused by buying from china or increased efficiencies that we achieve through our own efforts.

Yeah, when I was reading this site and looking into how these things are actually calculated, part of the way they used to calculate inflation was based on the increase in price to buy particular products compared to the price change over time. They then changed it so that they could substitute other lower quality - similar products in place of more expensive one's to maintain a flatter cost. So, like you said, if you buy premium coffee grounds for your coffee and the prices just keep getting higher, to stay in budget you give in and a buy a mid-grade coffee ground. Since you kept the same cost in place and still got your coffee, no inflation is shown. Yet, your quality of life has dropped. I see this too. We keep lowering standards, cutting things from the buy list, etc... and are spending the same. So inflation by current measures is flat and near zero. Of course this benefits the government as they don't have to pay more in SS wages due to inflation - but it is stalling pay increases in work places and keeping interest rates low - which is double hitting the elderly on SS and anyone else trying to save. It's a mess.