Though the debate between inflationists and deflationists continues to persist, well known economist and statistician John Williams of Shadow Stats ignores deflationist warnings and reports to clients that a flight from the user dollar will be triggered in a matter of months:
Systemic Turmoil is Unthinkable, Unacceptable but Unavoidable. Pardon the use of the Aerosmith lyrics in the opening headers, but the image of tap-dancing on a land mine pretty much describes what the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Government have been doing in order to prevent a systemic collapse in the last couple of years. Now, as business activity sinks anew, much expanded supportive measures will be needed to maintain short-term systemic stability. Such official actions, however, in combination with global perceptions of limited U.S. fiscal flexibility, likely will trigger massive flight from the U.S. dollar and force the Federal Reserve into heavy monetization of otherwise unwanted U.S. Treasury debt. When that land mine explodes — probably within the next six-to-nine months, the onset of a U.S. hyperinflation will be in place, with severe economic, social and political consequences that will follow. The Hyperinflation Special Report is referenced for broad background. The general outlook is not changed.
source: Shadow Stats via Zero Hedge
In previous articles we have commented on John Williams’ hyperinflation warnings, and if Williams is right, we may soon begin to see Disruptions to Food Supplies and Normal Flow of Commerce, as well as a complete economic Armageddon and hyperinflationary depression.
Perhaps it’s time to finally consider hard asset investments, such as a wheelbarrow, with which you can transport not only your soon-to-be-worthless Federal Reserve Notes to grocery stores when a loaf of bread may cost bundles of dollars, but water and sand bags when the system collapses à la James Rawles’ Patriots.
Like pretty much everyone else, save the upper echelons of the New World Order conspirators, we really can’t say for certain how serious of a threat hyperinflation is, especially considering that the debate on whether or not inflation or deflation will be the flavor of the day is evenly split at 50/50. It’s anyone’s ball game at this point.
What we can suggest, with some level of confidence however, is that the US economy is about to tank yet again, and there is absolutely nothing that our federal government or the Federal Reserve can do about it – though they will assuredly try. This being the case, we are giving serious consideration to the thoughts John Williams puts forth, because if hyperinflation does set it, it will be disastrous for the majority of American families.
One point of interest is that John Williams does not claim that full-out hyperinflation will set in within the next six to nine months – only that we will experience the “onset” of hyperinflation resulting from a loss in confidence in the US government and US dollar. To better illustrate what we mean, consider that from the onset of hyperinflation in Zimbabwe to the out-and-out rampant hyperinflation where currency value was being destroyed by thousands of percent per day, took several years:
| year | rate of increase in prices | |
| 1999 | 56.9% | |
| 2000 | 55.22% | |
| 2001 | 112.1% | |
| 2002 | 198.93% | |
| 2003 | 598.75% | |
| 2004 | 132.75% | |
| 2005 | 585.84% | |
| 2006 | 1,281% | |
| 2007 | 66,212.3% | |
| 2008 | 231,150,888.87% (July) | |
source: Hyperinflation by Howard Katz
Thus, while we may experience the onset of hyperinflation, the short-term severity, though painful, may not necessarily lead to a complete breakdown in society.
As self-admitted preppers, however, we cannot simply rule out this possibility.
We’re going to continue to regularly invest a portion of our monthly income into hard commodity assets that include food, self defense, tools (like wheelbarrows), seeds, survival gear, and alternate currencies such as junk silver. We suggest our readers do the same because you never really how far this economic disaster can go.
As the Godfather of Survival James Rawles says in his book How to Survive TEOTWAWKI, “I’d rather be a year early than a day late.” Do you really want to be fighting over Ramen noodles at a grocery store as prices are appreciating exponentially before your eyes?
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I’d rather be ten years early than one second late…
I see so many who claim to be “aware” who will get around to putting in some food storage, getting a gun, or buying some silver….one of these days
Silver is $20.45 right now. Last year you could get it for $15.Â
Get busy folks. You just lost 25% of your silver money.
OOPS
Make that 33%
so if you had bought 100 oz at $15, now you can only get 73 oz for the same money.
No, that’s not inflation!!
NO, NO, NO.. We will never have hyperinflation. It will go strait to TSHTF.Â
Do you think the sheeple will just sit at home and starve, while the supermarkets are full of overpriced food……. NO
don’t get so worried. the republicans will win the next elections and then leaders boehner and mcconnel will get us out of this socialist economic mess. so have faith and vote republican..
everything is gonna be fine..
Comments….. sittinguy
September 14th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
NO, NO, NO.. We will never have hyperinflation. It will go strait to TSHTF.
Do you think the sheeple will just sit at home and starve, while the supermarkets are full of overpriced food……. NO
———————————
Â
Of course they won’t sit at home and starve, they’ll simply go in and take it – just like they did during Katrina. Then when they have emptied the stores and restaurants they’ll come to your home next. They aren’t shy about home invasions either. Lock and load.
Comments…..We will see both, inflation in food and energy prices, and deflation in home value, taking away what ever equity that is left so the bankers can own everything. As the people keep getting squeezed between a rock and a hard place, they will lose it. No doubt the onset of hyperinflation will set in, gold and silver will act accordingly, we can already see it starting, today gold broke the 1270 mark, might break 1300 by the end of this year and breach the 1500 mark next year. remember gold doesn’t really go up and down, it’s only the currency that falls.
The opposing  camps that debate the subject are bond holders and equity holders as both stand to gain if their senario plays out. Precious metal holders realise that it doesn’t matter either way, they are out of the paper money system.Â
The two opposing camps are very much tied to the paper money system, one hoping it plays out like the 1920’s. Hyperinflation, the other like the 1930’s deflation.
Both camps might get a surprise this time.
Mushroom, I think I just threw up a little in my mouth when I read your post. Yuk!
RESET!
Got guns?
Got groceries?
Got gas?
Got guts?
Got gold?
Got God?
You’ll need them all. Better get with it.
Mushroom…They may win some seats…even a majority if things go well but I wouldn’t expect much to come from it. There’s not a dimes difference between republicans and democrats. Both are big spenders…just different priorities. Effect on you is the same. Country Club Boehner and McConnel the Undertaker couldn’t lead a horse to water…let alone get him to drink.Â
I second the motion on the floor by Mr. NetRanger
I think we are seeing both deflation & inflation.
Fuel, food and doodle from china going up up up up!
Property, stocks some durables going through the floor.
Wages going down for the count.
My bet is we are going to have another severe energy shock in the next 2-3 years and then you may see something akin to hyperinflation as it touches off a series of events like what happened in 2008
Just my $.02 not worth much any more
Red
netranger, I think he “mushroom” was having a laugh’
As in mushrooms,  kept in the dark, and fed  shit.  lol
Mushroom….The government can NOT be your saviour, neither the Dems or Repubs. I think this house of cards will fall after November when the repubs are holding the deck.
Dear SHTF Editor:
Just read Hyperinflationary Special Report…Thank YOU! Wow, I was a little fuzzy on a couple of things but, Now….it’s crystal clear!
Does anyone still believe that republicans are much better than the dems when it comes to keeping a lid on the feds?
Sure, the dems are racing to socialist tyranny at 100 mph, but the republicans are getting there at 60.
Sarah Palin is just another whore for Israel, which will just enmesh us in more unending wars, hatred, debt and terror.
How about we learn from G. Washington when he said “foreign entanglements with none” regarding foreign policy?
History repeats itself Y2K bullcrap and now economic collapse bullcrap. I think that Doom and Gloom is hardwired into the brain.It must have something to do with the realization that we are all going to die.
Buy,buy,buy,hoard,hoard,hoard…..spend your “worthless” money. It will only help the economy. Ten years from now you will be throwing out your rotting food storage, and selling your junk to American Pickers and Pawn Stars for 10 cents on the dollar.
Wonder what new apocalyptic scenario the mathematically inept prognosticator of SHTF will come up with in ten years.
First or second quarter of 2011, look for some major changes coming to the United States. Life as you used to know it is fast coming to an end. How the f–k do you pay back the 14 trillion $ that our country currently owes with our economy in the sad condition that it is? You don’t!!! And the a–holes is the District of Criminals talk about adding another 9 – 10 trillion to the National Debt by the end of 2015? I want some of the ‘good-stuff’ that the Congress Critters and Senatorial Sapsuckers are obviously smoking! If they can honestly see any way that we as a country can ever climb out of the financial hole that they have dug for us, then they are obviously getting better stuff than we have available to us.
God Bless and good luck to all boys and girls; we are damn sure going to need it.
I agree with Red Gypsy, we will have an energy crisis which will cause hyperinflation. Other financial experts also agree. We have already “peaked out ” on oil early in this decade. All hope is gone, since our incompetent loser gov. did nothing over the years! They didn’t get with the high speed rail, electric cars, and more nuclear power plants! We’re finished folks!
Comments….. The problem with both pareties, is that they are really there for themselves and not necessarily for the people. Whatever the vote in, it doesn’t really apply to them–like the healthcare bill. Both parties think that they know what is best for us, but they don’t believe it includes them. Thus, they are the elitist class. A good example of that is Mulechelle Obummas latest intervention into our lives is telling us what to eat. I have picture after picture of Obumma and her eating ice cream fried chicken, hamburgers and fries. You can see how they are bringing us down all the while it doesn’t include them. Whether we have inflation or deflation, it matters not, as the natural law will always prevail. Cuba is a good example of that — 500,000 government workers to be laid off. Castro decided socialism does not work.
We already have HYPERINFLATION.
In the 80’s min wage was 3.35 an hour. Now it is 7.25.
In the 80’s I spent 40.00 a week at the grocery store to feed 2 adults and a baby (which we PAID for….formula and all. no free programs here).
NOW it cost me 150.00 a week to feed 2 people.Â
One more thing I want to mention.
I went to Wal-Mart the other day to purchase some can goods and such. Normal stuff. As I rounded the canned food isle I noticed huge gaps on the shelves. Of course they didn’t have any of the stuff I normally buy. Then I went to the coffee section…same thing. I managed to get a few things and went to the checkout. I mention to the cashier that the shelves looked naked, her response was †oh yea…it’s the first of the month and everyone just got their checksâ€
I guess I had a shocked look on my face because she continued with †it is like that the beginning of every monthâ€.
I pondered this for a while
1) is there THAT MANY people in the area (GA) on the “systemâ€
2). If it is like this every 1st of every month and Wal-Mart knows this why aren’t they stocking more????
3). If it is like this during a NORMAL month cycle then “what if†something serious was to happen.
I guess I have woke up to just how fragile our commerce really is.
I must also add that, to make matters worse I went to a local food chain after leaving Wal-Mart and found the exact same thing. Empty shelves!!!
This is why it JUST MAKES COMMON SENSE to be prepared.
We dont need hyperinflation for the shtf. Hyperinflation is just a likely part of the shtf.
John Williams of Shadow Stats, Â in MHO, is the real deal and should be listened too. Â He has been pointing to 2011, as the breaking point , Â for several years now.
Also, if you have not found FOFOA’s site , you need to read there.
FOFOA , again IMHO,  has best incite of coming doom and handle on inflation, as anyone you will find.
There is a train wreck coming…..everyone brace themselves.
Comments…..Tina, you’re right in your assessment of inflation over the past 30 years, but it’s not hyper, when SHTF around 2016 and the energy and food crisis set in you will see what hyperinflation really is, what took 30 years will only take 3 months. The US. army put out a report that I read a while back estimating that 2015 oil will almost dry up around the world. Sure there is alternatives, but to shift to a different fuel and infastructure takes up to 30 years to develope. As for the food supply it’s not hard to figure out the oceans are poisned so is our general food supply , fresh drinking water will be the most precious thing out there. “Precious things should be costly, and the most precious of all is water itself”(Plato). “We made water a prerquisite for all living things” Scripture. ” 200,000 in gold if you bring me water” (The good the bad and the ugly).
The precious metals run-up, particularly silver, has been impressive the past few weeks. I wonder, like everyone, how much farther it has to go this year. One source of mine is making a case for it to top out at $23 sometime this year (probably sooner rather than later), before retracing along with oil, possibly hinting at another major deflation scare that takes everything down with it much as it did in 2008.
Personally, I feel the markets and everything else are being trapped inside this vicious cycle only to finally bust up (or down) after some major catalyst. I therefore can’t project anything about where I think things will be – God knows I have been wrong more times than not. That being said, I believe Mr. Williams’ timeline of 6 to 9 months does seem a bit premature. We have endured almost 100 years of this crap and I am still astonished that even after 2008 things are still chugging, albeit sickly, along.
Still, as other commenters have posted it just makes sense to be prepared. Comparing what we face to today to Y2K is foolish at best. It is like comparing the impact of a 1-inch meteor in the ground to a mile-wide asteroid that is about to hit the Earth. The problems we face today are systemic and have been building for almost a century – there is no way around it. All the politicians and Fed Reserve chairmen have succeeded in doing is kicking the can further down the road. Well, it doesn’t take a genius to understand that eventually there is nowhere left to kick the can.
Those of us who understand economics knows that the Fed is out of traditional bullets. Will they invent new ones to use to try and keep kicking the can? Of course – but with every invention they only prolong the inevitable, and make the day of reckoning that much worse. This is basic common sense. Newton said it best – for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Well, the sum total of 100 years of central banking and enormous wealth generation will be met with an equal and opposite wealth destruction. The shorter duration of time it occurs, the more drastic will be the effect.
One thing that probably needs more discussion is where to go after the collapse. I am thinking we need to go back to the Constitution, but I also recognize that the Constitution, despite its genius, inevitably lead to the conditions that exist today. And if you reply that it it the evil of men that did this and not the Constitution, I will reply in kind that evil shall always exist. I have heard/read numerous court cases citing the commerce and trade clause of the Constitution. Perhaps we should start there.
Sam….do you really think it will take 6 years (2016) for the STHF? Very scary scenerio.
From what I see down here in Australia Tina the Shit is already starting to hit the fan up your way. 20%+ unemployment? 40 million on food stamps? Hundreds of banks failing and property prices collapsing for the last 5 years? I bet for many up in Detroit the worst has already come.
It’s like a frog in a pot of slowly heating water senareo I think, very hard to measure, very difficult to get motivated to real action as we all WAIT for the big day, the total SHTF alarm trigger to send up running to our retreats.
I remember stories of the English residents in Singapore as the Japanese invaders were coming down through the Pacific. Some fled early, seeing the writing on the wall, others sat on their verandas sipping drinks and planning. They would leave when the Japs got to this or that island.
But as the day grew close, the Japanese forces suddenly leap-frogged many intervening islands and landed. The English residents were trapped, subsequently sent to slave labor camps.
The same theme played out all over Europe in that war, has played out in every domestic and external conflict in every age.
The trick is to see the writing on the wall and get out well before the day of anarchy because the day can come sooner than you think or planned for.
Here in Oz it is still party time, like the year 2005 was for you people. But I still have a retreat, and while it is not completed, no bore pump, no proper living accommodation on site yet, I could shift there on a days notice and have the resources to live for years.
If I was living where you are it would be completed even now, at any cost! Your at the tipping point like in Argentina in 1999. When it tipped there it was instant anarchy and people fighting over packets of pasta in the supermarkets.
Comments…..Tina, my study into the subject shows a slow and gradual decline, we’ll see three times the  resets in the residental and commercial real estate market (2011-2012), more people will lose their homes and business, more unemployment and deeper debt both in the private and government sector. I estimate things won’t change much in the next 5-6 years, we’ll keep the same pace of economic slow death, then SHTf and it’s all down hill from there.
Chris, you’re right evil will always be around for what is man but the fruition of the contrary angels, the problem with today there’s not enough good around to oppose it, when the final battle takes place it will be held in check and ballance. ” The soul is pulled on it’s chariot with two horses one black the other white, the one evil and vicious the other pure and trusting, one can’t take over the other they must be perfectly ballanced” Plato.
I think that’s where we get the saying hold your horses from, anyways today the evil horse is way out pulling the good horse, after the SHTF scenerio there will be ballance again, the sad part few will survive at the end of it all.
NOW it cost me 150.00 a week to feed 2 people.
Wow! Steak every night? Tina, you need help learning how to shop. You could be saving a ton of cash to put into some silver or something.
Just saying…….
Chris C; Where do we go after the collapse?
The fault is the two party system and the operational rules in Congress that gives power to those that have been there the longest and have allowed incumbants to  become firmly entrenched in office and beholden to the lobbyists that finance their stay: not with the Constitution.
Both parties ingnore the Constitution to serve their purposes not ours.
The Dems want big government to micro manage US, and create wealth distribution; but the wealth that is “distributed” is distributed to larger and larger government bureaucracy at every level. They make sure teachers are financed to spread their gospel of a beneign big brother. They want open borders to integrate tens of millions of “new Americans” into citizenship to push the North American Union on US and then integrate US into the NWO. Imagine when your vote is equal to that of a mexican peasant who ‘s vote can be bought for some rice and beans, or the threat of being beheaded.
The Reps want open borders to collapse the income of the middle class and make them serfs for the NAU and then NWO. They want massive tax breaks and credits for massive energy projects that WE would have to pay for every month. They don’t care about Constitutional rights as long as they can plunder the American treasury at will. they want a global facism where everyone is a “renter’ of their products and services, funded in part by tax dollars and guarantees to eliminate their risk (OPM).
Recent upsets by the T-party movement in winning a growing number of Republican Primaries show me that the T party movement is our best hope for real change and hope we can still believe in. Everyone should get on board this train and see what we can do peacefully, before a new civil war breaks out.
I think Sam has the timeline about right, barring any unusual events.
Bill…appearently you do not grocery shop. Hell last week I bought toothpaste, bleach and soap to wash clothes, a couple cleaning supplies and threw down over 30.00. To answer your question NO we do not eat steak every night. Everything just cost so much more…sometimes you have to buy things that you can not eat.   Â
I do not see hyperinflation or a collapse of our currency until 5-15 years from now. they have all kinds of tricks to delay this as long as possible. I think the chain reaction will be interest payment on the debt. Sooner or later the interest must be raise,and if it is risen above 5% we are fucked! I believe what we will see is more banks failing,state economies collapse which will give more power to the govt,the second wave of foreclosures, and more spending whether Odumbo or Palin is in office. We will have deflation in the short term but when the time is right,the nations that hold our treasuries will drop them.
If you want to know what will America cities look like in the collapse. I present to you Amerika circa 2020 in this video of what is coming to a city near you
Comments…..M.A. add another video of the battle of Beirut and people will really get the idea of what’s coming.
Comments….The really sad thing is we are seeing the symptoms leading up to this kind of scenario, the economic and environmental factor that’s obvious to everyone, the hate imbedded in the black and white, and the most recent dividing factor that happened in the past in  bosnia and lebanon, the Muslim, Christian divide. It’s so subtle it just creeps up on everyone like a ghost, before you know it everyone is fighting not knowing how it all happened. Isn’t crystal clear that’s the intent, coincidently some Imam never heard of before decides he wants to build a mosque near ground zero, he declares his intention in the weeks leading up to 911, then some Christian minister from some back 40 congregation that has 50 followers decides to burn the Koran, both enraging people no just in the US. but world wide, 911 passes and the issues slowly dies off till next september of course when the hate has to be ignited again.  Then we have the spanish in the south who believe they’ve being robbed, and the native indian who feels the same way combine that with the huge disparity that has recently taken place between the really rich and extremely poor.These kinds of social symptoms is what transpired before the civil wars mentioned above, sad but true, being there seeing it happen.
Tina – your right, I don’t shop but I pay for the food and cleaning supplies that my wife buys and she spends on average $40.00 per week for groceries. I wish we could communicate somehow. She spends a lot of her free time helping others to do the same. It’s amazing how she does it. Sometimes she will send me in to pick up something and I won’t believe how little it costs. At Meijers the other day I left with 10 – 8 oz. pk of Kraft cheese for $1.67. Total. Not for one but for all 10.  Coupons at the right time are amazing. Sorry, didn’t mean to come across as a butthead………
Bill…no offense taken. I am one of a few that is very blessed with a FULL time job. Extremely busy Mon-Fri. I know that lends to some of the poor planning on my part. We could do better with a little planning. We currently do not have a garden…that takes too much time (time that we do not have right now) so we buy it all. Although we do buy local at the Farmers Market. Soon we will be looking at Winter and fresh fruits and veggies will sky rocket.Â
Tina:  I realize that a garden takes a lot of time that you don’t have right now, BUT there is knowledge you need and skills you MUST begin to acquire over time, in that process. Knowledge and skills that you must pass on to your children if they are to survive the changes that are coming.
I realize things are expensive, so go to your local food bank, there are at least 500 in the St Mary’s Food Bank Alliance across the United States. Food banks that are feeding 30 million Illegals (per SHTF America: Illegal Immigration). They may as well feed American families while they are at it.
Get a survival attitude NOW. Go there for whatever you can use. Figure out what this food and these products would have cost youÂ
and apply that money to your prep. Buy seeds. Plan for a garden next Spring. Apply to your prep.
Its’s not the potatos, carrots, and broccoli that you cannot afford. It is the knowledge, skills, and experience that is FUNDAMENTAL, which you cannot afford to be without. Good luck.
WOW…Thanks Durango. That is encourgement for all.
It’s not that I am completely without the “how to”. My husband and I live in the country and all my grown children have married into families that are somewhat farming families, although none of them currently do it for a living. Â
Prepping is definately a mind set that I’m having a hard time instilling in my children (without freaking them completely out). We have spoiled them…always wanting to give them more then we ever had…and we did just that. Now, we (I’m incl everyone in this) have raised a generation that does not know what it is like to do without ANYTHING.
I’ve been at this for about a year now. It started with the purchase of some PM that I’ve been building on, then with other preps. (I know that you are all going to tell me that I did it backwards but anyway…it was a start). At first my children thought that I was joking, then… when they realize that I’m serious…they then thought that I’ve lost my marbles.  My husband did the same thing but now realizes that it is important and has helped me organize and make list of what we have and what we need. Sometimes I think he looks at it like the Y2K thing (prep for nothing) but he humors me anyway.
Mardochee ,
It will happen much much sooner than that because there are certain people who want it to happen.
In a word,in a true:DEFLACTION.More hard that japan.I am sorry.
Comments…..Y2k,its okay man if you dont agree that we are on the edge,but why do you bother to get involved if you think its all BS? Just curious. I know things are always coming along and that there are some “crazies” who jump on every crisis,real or imagined,but one day something is bound to blow up we cant keep going down the road these people are on and not hit a wall sooner or later,better to be prepared than to wake up one morning and find out its already blown and you are stuck,even a natural/manmade disaster could happen in anyones neck of the woods,pays to be a boy scout and be prepared,just in case.
Hyper inflation can happen any time. The money managers in usa or around the world can start it. The over printing ( Eprinting) will cause loss of confidence in treasuries. They will look for the safest asset. That is commodities, anything we need each day, food and energy (gas). They will bid ask it up and we will have to pay at those prices.   The money will be nothing to them for that is what money will be, Paper or a electronic glick in a computer. Â
Comments…..The poster from Oz, where looking down over the waterfall now, and I haven’t done a dang thing. Got some ammo but will need more. Paul Ryan passed his budget for 2012 in the house just today. Harry reid says he’s got the votes to stop it. Wow its really over! Folks who have planned and will survive, I guess they have superior genes than I do. I will not survive the summer. I’m in a bad spot water and gardening-wise. I’m done!