The United States is Just Five Days Away from Crisis
“TOKYO—Food and gas supplies are rapidly running out in parts of Japan, leaving people not only in the earthquake-stricken northeast but also in Tokyo scrambling to grab what's left on the emptying shelves at groceries and convenience stores.”
By day 5 of the earthquake/tsunami/meltdown disaster, significant parts of Japan are experiencing shortages of food, fuel and water.
This isn’t Chile, China or even Haiti. We’re talking about one of the world’s most advanced economies with arguably the best distribution networks in existence. Japan also exhibits among the most law-abiding and orderly cultures in the world.
This disaster underscores the dire circumstances every Westerner could find themselves in with even a minor sustained disruption of food, gas or water supply.
Simply put, almost no one living in the United States or Europe is at all prepared for more than a few days of slowed or halted supply of staples. That’s the nature of the modern consumer based distribution system we have in place. And while that system isn’t necessarily broken, it’s hard to say the same thing about the fiat currency system that it runs in tandem with.
But we don’t have to turn the pages of history too far back to see that Westerners in general and Americans in particular are not so well behaved when normalcy becomes disrupted.
My point isn’t for you to run out and buy supplies to earthquake proof your home. My point is that the same circumstances we see in Japan could easily replicate themselves in the United States or in Europe even without a natural disaster.
People don’t have to start going hungry in order to start getting rowdy or panicky.
What might cause a supply squeeze? Well, it doesn’t take too much imagination to figure that food and fuel shortages might arise in the event of a reserve currency crisis.
As I’ve pointed out many times, over 40 million Americans are currently on food stamps. That’s over 10% of the population that ostensibly already can’t afford to feed themselves. What happens if food outlets stop accepting food stamps and instead demand ever higher amounts of cash for their goods?
What happens if civil war continues to spread from Libya and Bahrain into Saudi Arabia? What happens if just one or two of the countries in the OPEC decide they’d prefer to settle oil contracts in Japanese Yen or Chinese Yuan – or maybe even gold instead of dollars? It’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility. Any new regime that would replace a current regime in almost any of the OPEC bloc would be comprised of people who hate or at least distrust America.
A token speech from President Obama probably has done little to assuage the upcoming Egyptian leadership – people who until very recently were being dispersed by Made in the USA tear-gas canisters.
I wrote about normalcy bias a couple weeks ago.
It seems as though every week another normalcy bias is shattered by some new and terrible news. I don’t think many people expect the dollar to lose its reserve status anytime soon, but we’re really just one somewhat minor civil war, disaster or unpredictable chain of events away from seeing the dollar dethroned.
I just hope that you and I have de-leveraged ourselves out of the dollar enough if that chain of events should come to pass.
In that light, I just recently completed a full report that details exactly how I buy my silver and gold bullion. It’s a must-read for anyone who plans on buying gold and silver anytime soon.
I’m not making this report available to everyone, and I’ve put a lot of work into it, so I can’t give it away for free either.
If you’re interested in receiving this report, please send me an email at editorial@resourceprospector.com and I’ll send you details on how to receive it.
Good investing,
Kevin McElroy
Editor
Resource Prospector
