Getting govt money

[Works4me]

Message deleted by sarahjese.

[movingforward]

Oct 23, 2012 13:41:21 GMT -5 @wrongsideof30 said:

If you are poor enough that the government will give you food stamps, I think you should spend more time worrying about your own financial collapse and not that of our currency.

[Sum Dum Gai]

If you're eligible for food stamps, go ahead and take them. The fact that you're eligible for food stamps means you have bigger fish to fry though. If our currency were to collapse, it would be replaced by something. Call it the Amero. So, people's wealth would now be counted in Ameros instead of dollars. However, the balance of that wealth won't change all that much. The rich will still be rich, the poor will still be poor. Whether we trade in dollars, some other currency, or shiny beads, if you're eligible for food stamps, you're on the poor side of the equation and changing the currency isn't going to change that. So focus on that. In the big picture it's far more important than whether or not you accept food stamps.

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

Really, I'm not sure why you spend so much of your energy worrying about possible scenarios of things happening in the possible future that you neither can nor wish to do anything about. If you want to practice a self-sufficient lifestyle, just go do so. Worrying about theoretical aggregate world economics just seems pointless for your situation and goals.

[Phoenix84]

I do think we're headed for a mojor collapse of some kind. It's a fact that the levels of spending we have are simply not sustainable. The sad fact of reality is we can't afford to feed all the poor and homeless and give everyone free medical care. I wish it wasn't the case, but it is. You can't have a system where 53% support the other 47%, I'm sorry, but that's just not going to work. The federal government spent over 1 trillion dollars on welfare benefits alone, and that doesn't even include social security, or state welfare spending, or private charity. There's a truely staggering amount of money being transfered to "the needy." And yet it never seems to be enough?

I'm not sure what will happen exactly. I think the U.S will default on it's debt, which will likely cause all forign nations to stop lending to us. We'll liikely end up being forced to spend what we take in from taxes, which cause serious pain for those receiving assistance.

I think in the future, when people study the history of the 20th century, the biggest mistake they'll say we made was thinking we could feed all the poor and give everyone free medical care. When people can vote themselves money, democracy is really over. You can't take from the productive areas of the economy and transfer wealth to the unproductive areas of the economy and have everything be ok.

[Sum Dum Gai]

The sad fact of reality is we can't afford to feed all the poor and homeless and give everyone free medical care.

Weird, Canada, Germany, and England somehow manage. The sad fact is we can't afford both personal welfare and completely out of control defense spending. You can reign in one or the other, and we'd be fine.

[needanewjob]

If you are solely basing your acceptance of food stamps on the facts that you want to hurry along the demise of our current government but still want to be independent from the government, then I would say to accept the food stamps and use them to buy items for your bunker/stockpile.

For me, there are charities and organizations that will provide things to me, but I won't accept their help because they have limited resources. But if I meet the government criteria for some assistance that everyone else is also eligible for, then I have no issue with accepting it.

[Deleted]

Replace our currency with what? The Euro?

[dannylion]

Maybe you spend too muich time listening to wingnuts on the radio. Just because they say it doesn't make it true, even if they keep saying it.

[thyme4change]

I thought this was going to be a thread about that guy with all the question marks on his suit.

[movingforward]

Oct 23, 2012 15:36:45 GMT -5 @bloomscuzzer said:

Oct 23, 2012 15:30:05 GMT -5 dannylion said:

Maybe you spend too muich time listening to wingnuts on the radio. Just because they say it doesn't make it true, even if they keep saying it.

So who should I listen to Obama? Romney? Pelosi? Reid? Boehner? Or Chris Wallace or Chris Matthews, or Rush, or HuffPo? Or Phil or Ten Horses?

The people I listen to preach more self reliance. Why do you listen to and what is his mantra?

Well, you could listen to...

Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide,
No escape from reality.
Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see.
I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy,
Because I'm easy come, easy go; little high, little low.
Anyway the wind blows doesn't really matter to me...
To me...
~ Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody

[Sum Dum Gai]

There has got to be some endgame planned for the debt problem we have.

Yeah, stop adding to it once the economy gets back on it's feet, then wait several decades for inflation to make the debt easier to manage. You don't actually have to pay it off. Just wait it out and make sure GDP and the money supply inflates 2-3% a year. It's like somebody that owed $50k for a house in the early 80s. That was a really large amount of money then. Now kids coming out of college might have that debt load and due to inflation aren't worried about paying it off. And they don't even get a house out of the deal.

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

Oct 23, 2012 15:36:45 GMT -5 @bloomscuzzer said:

The people I listen to preach more self reliance. Why do you listen to and what is his mantra?

Why listen to anyone who 'preaches' anything, or has a 'mantra'? Why not just inform yourself from many sources, then make your own decisions based on all the available and reasonable information?

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

Oct 23, 2012 16:26:53 GMT -5 @bloomscuzzer said:

The banks were bailed out, but there is no one to bail out countries.

Sure there are. For example, the IMF. The ECB. Pretty much any other country's centralized bank. Some are already doing the task of helping bail out other countries.

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

Your statement was this:

"The banks were bailed out, but there is no one to bail out countries."

I am simply pointing out that there are, in fact, international arrangements to help out countries financially in the same manner that private companies were helped out during the recession. You did not specify that you were speaking solely about the US. You instead made a blanket statement, which you should be careful about making because they are often untrue.

[Sum Dum Gai]

We have a debt based economy. If we don't increase the debt we contract the economy.
You won't have inflation without increasing money supply. The way we increase money supply is debt.
The endgame is not more of the time before 2008. All the bubbles are leading up to one last debt bubble. The banks were bailed out, but there is no one to bail out countries. 3% inflation for thirty years and everything is hunky dory is dreaming.

So raise taxes, and institute austerity measures. Not too many decades ago the richest Americans paid a top marginal tax rate in excess of 75%. It's less than half that now. It's not like there are no options. Some are more politically palatable than others, but we're not yet at the point that default is our only option.

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

Oct 23, 2012 16:48:02 GMT -5 @bloomscuzzer said:

I made a statement in context.

Sure. That makes it true.

[movingforward]

I am completely unprepared for any REALLY big disaster. I figure if something happens it will probably be on some random Tuesday when I am at work or at adult skate night something. It will come out of nowhere and will be something no one could have predicted or prevented anyway.

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

Oct 23, 2012 16:59:46 GMT -5 movingforward said:

It will come out of nowhere and will be something no one could have predicted or prevented anyway.

This is the reason why spending time and energy worrying yourself silly over a particular doomsday scenario (like the collapse of a particular currency) is a waste.

[Sum Dum Gai]

I'm getting off topic. To get back to your original question, if I honestly believed the currency was going to collapse, I really wouldn't be doing much different than I am now. Well, I'd radically alter my investments. On a day to day basis, I wouldn't really worry about it much. After it happens and a new currency is implemented, we'll still have the same mega corporations paying the same people to come in and make shit that they can sell. The skills that each person brings to the labor market will still be relatively as valuable as they were before. Instead of getting paid X in US dollars, you'll get Y in New Universal Currency, NUCs. Y will still buy what X bought previously, so really what changed for you? Not much.

It will be chaos in the bond market though. You definitely wouldn't want to be holding any US bonds of any kind. They'll price the NUCs in dollars and insist nobody is going to lose money during the transition, but only a fool would believe it. The whole reason you'd replace the currency is to wipe out at least some of the debt in the process.

[raeoflyte]

Oct 23, 2012 17:02:13 GMT -5 @wrongsideof30 said:

A water main broke in my neighborhood a few weeks ago and I didn't have one single bottle of water in my house. I bought the water jugs right after that.

That would be us. I need to at least have a decent enough pantry stocked that I no longer have to be the idiot at the grocery store in the blizzard.

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

I grew up in earthquake country, so I've always had at least a few emergency supplies wherever I've lived. So I guess that's a silver lining to living in CA!

[lynnerself]

I graduated from college in 1977, shortly after "Limits to growth" was published. We were all sure that the world would be over-populated and we would be out of all resources well before now.
DH and I lived on acreage and worried about self sufficiency.

We've mellowed a lot now. The world seems more resilient that we thought.

[movingforward]

Oct 23, 2012 17:07:47 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

Oct 23, 2012 17:02:13 GMT -5 @wrongsideof30 said:

A water main broke in my neighborhood a few weeks ago and I didn't have one single bottle of water in my house. I bought the water jugs right after that.

That would be us. I need to at least have a decent enough pantry stocked that I no longer have to be the idiot at the grocery store in the blizzard.

You should live here. If we get a single drop of frozen precipitation the entire city shuts down and people flock to the grocery store as if they are going to be snowed in for weeks. Typically it all melts by noon the following day. It is great though because it makes you feel like a kid again sitting around singing "snow day snow day" because you know your ass isn't going to have to go to work!

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

Oct 23, 2012 17:14:35 GMT -5 @bloomscuzzer said:

Oct 23, 2012 17:02:33 GMT -5 Rocky Mtn Saver said:

This is the reason why spending time and energy worrying yourself silly over a particular doomsday scenario (like the collapse of a particular currency) is a waste.

It would be a waste to worry yourself silly over your health, doesn't mean you shouldn't worry some and eat well and exercise.

Right. I think what you're missing here is the word 'some'. It's a healthy moderation, not an all-consuming obsession. Sitting around thinking of ways how civilization could break down is kinda like sitting around thinking about all the ways in which cancer could be eating away your insides right now without you knowing about it. It's not a healthy approach to living your life, it's not something you can control, and it's not going to bring you happiness.

So go live a self-sufficient life, nothing wrong with that philosophy to life. Heck, we could probably do with more of it. But spending time trying to figure out a doomsday financial scenario is just going to rob you of joy.

[Sum Dum Gai]

We live in earthquake country now, just had a little one over the weekend actually, and we still don't have any supplies. We keep talking about it, but we never actually get the stuff together. I've got some camping stuff in the garage, but we need to get some water and MRE's or something together, and get it all in one place.

[movingforward]

"So go live a self-sufficient life, nothing wrong with that philosophy to life. Heck, we could probably do with more of it. But spending time trying to figure out a doomsday financial scenario is just going to rob you of joy."

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

No one said it's any different than talking on P&M. I intentionally don't read P&M, so it doesn't make any difference to me.

And I thought my last response was quite respectful, and had some words of wisdom to help you find happiness. But that's cool.

[resolution]

Oct 23, 2012 17:51:38 GMT -5 @bloomscuzzer said:

Oct 23, 2012 17:37:51 GMT -5 @wrongsideof30 said:

I think if you need government assistance, you should take it. But don't call yourself "self sufficient".

My question is more, what if you are eligible for government assistance, but don't need it, should you take it? And can you still call yourself self sufficient?

I think it depends on how you view the government and its impending collapse. If you view the government neutrally and think the collapse would be bad, then you shouldn't take the assistance. That way you wouldn't feel that you contributed to it. If you think the government is bad and the the collapse would end up positive for the country in the long run, then take the benefits and hurry things along. Some religious groups do that and call it starving the beast, since they consider the government to be bad.

If I were convinced that a currency collapse was coming, I would change my investments and possibly my lifestyle. I would possibly move out of stocks and go for more real estate, because a home that someone could live in would still have value to sell or rent. If I thought things would become really bad really soon I might stock up more on food and weapons or tools to use in a new profession if my white collar job is gone, maybe even move to somewhere with more land a bit further out from the main cities.

[Sum Dum Gai]

My question is more, what if you are eligible for government assistance, but don't need it, should you take it?

Yes and no. Some people might be eligible and really not need it. They live a pretty normal life, have enough food, etc. Other people might say they don't need it, but they're living in substandard conditions, going hungry at times, etc. They're too proud to admit they need help, but are actually the people welfare was put in place to help. That second group should absolutely take the assistance, and I have no problem with that.

And can you still call yourself self sufficient?

No.