I would say definitely stock up on food! Get a years supply if you can. When the shit hits the fan, the price of food is going to go up fast.
I seriously doubt that! Food prices are already sky rocket high because it is the by far most regulated “industry” in the world. It is the single sector which is more regulated than finance. It is more difficult to import food, than to import weapons! Food is as expensive as it gonna get. It is grotesquely overproduced and often deliberately destroyed by government edicts in order to keep prices absurdly high. This is true throughout the ‘politically developed’ world, from the US to EU, Japan and even Switzerland where the government pays over $20,000 per year in subsidies for every cow! Canada and Australia may be the least regulated food producers in the world. Obamanomics will certainly lead to even more tax and inflation money being spent on unprofitable agriculture. The two pet industries of all governments are agriculture and construction (and has so been since the Pharaos…)
A collapse of the government would DECREASE food prices because it would at last make it possible to import cheap food produced by hundereds of millions of today politically boycotted farmers in poor countries!
However, in some medium term, when the government still wields some power, its reflex will most likely be to order most of the food produced in the US burned. In the starvation which this “anti-deflationist keynesianism” creates, food prices could indeed soar.
Soda at the local Albertson’s just jumped from $4.50 a case to $6.50 a case. Yes, food prices are high, but no, they are not sky rocket high. The U.S. is going to see hyper-inflation, and wages will not keep up. You should pay more attention to Ron Paul and Peter Schiff if you want to know what is coming.
And no, the U.S. government is not going to “collapse”. If ten years of a great depression did not end it, then neither is the next one.
The great depression was deflationary and the dollar had more purchasing power not less. If there is a hyper-inflationary depression most of the purchasing power held by americans will be gone. Inflation above 20% to 30% will be devastating and ten years of this will effectively collapse of the dollar. The US government itself probably won’t collapse but it is times like these where things could change dramatically for good or bad. Hopefully this will lead to a more limited government and not a more statist government like what FDR did. I just hope people realize that statism is the problem but if history is any indication the statist will be praised even though they did nothing but make things worse like FDR.
It will be very bad, but not as you think. The Great Crisis will be postponed by another 5-10 years: by printing money like there’s not tomorrow, overregulation, overtaxation, industrial scale lying, massive propaganda and cashing on people’s ignorance and sloth governments will ignite another period of false prosperity. Bankers, politicians and assorted fraudsters will toast to people’s stupidity and live to rob another day.
The only thing that could precipitate a large scale crisis is perhaps, and I am still very dubious, inflation: I have no idea how fuel and food prices are in the US but around here they have skyrocketed since early January: despite crude quotations considerably lower than last year and a significant drop in refined oil products consumption and export gasoline and diesel fuel have almost reached their peak values. This should ring an alarm in most peopleìs minds but they are simply blaming the Chinese, the Arabs, speculation or whatever. Food is becoming so expensive as to defy belief: luckily I grow some vegetables (tip: if you haven’t got a garden most vegetables do well in ordinary and cheap plastic vases, contact me for details) and shop directly at the producer on most items but I still have goosebumps each time I see foodstuff prices. And I cut expenses by a considerable margin.
What to do about gold and silver? Buy well known denominations from gold and silver producing countries (Krugerrand, Mexican Pesos etc) from reputable sellers, store them in a safe place and do not tell anybody except your immediate relatives. Avoid denominations from the US or the EU, just out of caution. Either way gold and silver will save your skin.
Near term: prices will gradually rise, but come unnoticed by comparison to the ungradual shift in unemployment, legal limbo-zation of properties (thanks to craptacular laws vetted by ACORN scum), and an increase in the generally unlikeable manworship in the form Barack Obama.
Medium term: further devaluation of the dollar, possible emptying of urban sprawl, possible mass abandonment of houses prior to formal foreclosure proceedings, ‘mysterious’ loss of car inventories that sit derelict(sp?) in many fleet lots, rural communities finally feeling the big pinch in the form of farm foreclosures (as no loans for next season crops will be possible, so no payments on their properties will be possible).
Long term: further politicization of market mechanisms, overall price rise due to inflation and other interventionalist factors, possible ‘terrorist’ groups forming out of desperation, and possibly legal suspension of Habeas Corpus for even in-land (non-Constitution Free Zone regions) rural communities.