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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Good Cents, post: 8497531, member: 100720&quot;]IMHO, the most interesting and frightening thing about today&#039;s economy is that the way the U.S. Economy is set up and manipulated today is so different from the way economies of the past were set up, that we almost can&#039;t learn much from the past. </p><p><br /></p><p>The way stocks trade, options, futures, derivatives, REITS, etc. The Federal Reserve playing around with all of it, manipulating it while Europe and all of our trading partners around the world are doing the same. The fact that the world economy goes into turmoil when Russia - a country with a GDP smaller than California - goes to war with Ukraine - a country with an even smaller GDP. The fact that our economy is so extremely dependent upon other countries and Global Markets for so such a significant percentage of our basic everyday needs (grain!). </p><p><br /></p><p>The fact that Gold, Silver and other precious metals are traded on a futures market and in stocks and mutual funds. The fact that everything is electronic and one major &quot;Solar Storm&quot; can knock out half the country for an inordinate amount of time.&nbsp; The fact that every stock market in the world, but especially the U.S. Stock Market - all of the indexes - has billions of dollars of &quot;Wall Street Betting&quot; moving the markets in both directions, and tens of millions of people can invest and divest in mass quantities in seconds.</p><p><br /></p><p>All of the above has never been going on before and therefore we have almost no idea how a SHTF (shxx hitting the fan) event will play out if or when a SHTF event happens. We have nothing to compare it to. The &quot;Preppers&quot; believe we will revert to Silver and Gold for trading. But there aren&#039;t enough Silver and Gold coins to do the everyday business that 400 million Americans will need.</p><p><br /></p><p>We&#039;ve never been in this type of situation before in history with the complexity in which our world operates. I wonder whether that is a good thing and that we can therefore weather it better because of all the tools at our disposal. Or if that is a bad thing because things have become SO complicated, that when the SHTF things will be that much worse.</p><p><br /></p><p>Darn if I can only get my crystal ball to work! <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie2" alt=";)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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