Thursday Jan 20th 2012
It’s been awhile since I’ve written here. So much going on and I’m not sure how to process it, so I am back here writing to my diary to try and make some sense of it all. You’d think that after all the shit I’ve done to get ready for this, that I’d be OK. But to be honest I am really just as scared as everyone else around, probably more scared, because I know what comes next, and knowing is so much harder than just blindly following the path and hoping that things will be OK.
The TV is just regurgitating the same old crap at this point; no new news has come out since yesterday. After they closed the banks and they called a national holiday on Monday, you would have thought it was the 4th of July or an extension of Christmas. People were pretty jubilant to be quite honest. I guess they just didn’t know what it all meant, guess I can’t blame them. Most people have their heads so far up their asses that they can’t see the forest for the trees. So Monday kind of came and went and people were all abuzz about how crazy it all was, there was a sense of fear, but it was mixed with a kind of excitement, kind of like when we were all snowed in during the Blizzard of 78’.. Kind of brought us all a bit closer, finally got to talk to the neighbors down the way and got to know them more in an afternoon than we had in the 10 years we lived there..
It had that same sense of camaraderie. But I unfortunately knew this snow wasn’t going to melt and that the Guard wasn’t coming to dig us all out and bring food and supplies. But Monday was fun while it lasted. I went out to the stores Sunday night after the president’s address and picked up a few items that I knew I was short on, stores were pretty crowded, but things were pretty orderly. The President was on the TV Sunday night and told the nation that due to circumstances beyond his control, they were forced to make this drastic move. Made a comparison to the days following 9/11 and how they made the extraordinary steps to close down the airspace and the markets to protect us all from the unknown. I knew he was lying, but hell what else could the man say? I am guessing that the people I saw at the stores all saw what I saw, a scared shell of a man trying to look confident and fooling only the fools. And seeing as that the store wasn’t being ripped down to the studs following his address, I would guess that the nation is full of a bunch of fools.
I was easily able to fill up both my cars gas tanks (after a pretty long wait) and to get all my propane tanks filled and even bought a few extras. Even the Wal-Mart was easy to navigate, though it was unusual for that many people to be there at 10:00pm on a Sunday night. Monday morning was beyond strange; most of the businesses decided to just close for the day as it was too hard for them to do business without the banks being open. The ATM’s still worked though, but most were limited to 300 buck withdrawals in a 24 hour period. But when I signed on to my Bank of America account online, it said “down for maintenance” and gave no indication as to when this maintenance would be complete. The news Monday was a lot more intense than what we got from the president; the pundits were in full swing by mid-morning and were making comparisons to the Great Depression and FDR.
I think people must have started to wake up by Noon as the news started to report on heavy activity at the stores and people were being limited to their daily max on their Cash Cards, the credit side of their cards were not functioning. This little tid bit is what I think started the panic towards the end of the day on Monday. The morning was all nervous laughs and jokes with the neighbors and friends on face book, but as the news started reporting on how many people were going to the stores, it started to feed on itself.
My town seemed to be OK, the stores were getting really crowded, or at least that’s what I saw on the local news casts, but the crowds were subdued and went about their business. They paid with whatever cash they had on hand or what they could get from the ATM’s.
I went to bed Monday night dreading what the morning would bring. I awoke really early to get online and see what had happened over night. I was stunned to find that other countries were following suit with the US and were closing their banking centers and were calling general holidays for their workers, telling them to just stay home. In the US and even in my own backyard it seemed pretty intense. The stores were getting rushed in the morning and the delivery trucks that came in were being cleared out almost as soon as they unloaded. By Tuesday afternoon most of the major stores were under a full siege and watching from my comfy spot on the couch, I could see from the TV reports that things were getting out of hand, people were grabbing everything they could get, and similar reports were coming in from all over the place.
I was watching CNN and there were 5 split screens from different cities where the police were trying to stop looting in some areas as people were just grabbing everything they could off the shelves and in some cases they just started rushing out the door with their carts. The police were helpless to stop it all. But in most places it was chaotic but people were abiding by the rules and were still paying what they could.
By Tuesday night most of the deliveries had been dropped off and most of the stores were reporting that they were out of most of the staples and canned goods and just about anything else that could be eaten or drank. They were even reporting brisk sales of DVD’s and video games. I guess some people had enough extra money to splurge on a 45 dollar video games.. God people are just fucking daft sometimes. Well I’m going to sign off for now, getting a bit tired. Tomorrow is Friday and this is the day that the President said that they would have some “new” plan ready to unveil and to get the country ready for business as usual for Monday morning. We’ll see, he’ll be on TV Friday at Noon… Not holding my breath.
Friday Jan 21st 2012
Ok, just got done reading online and talking with some of my friends from the chat rooms. They are all freaked out and they are freaking me the hell out. The online buzz seems to be pointing towards a continuation of the Holiday and that the president was out of options. The stink is that the EU has decided to break with the US on their monetary approach and are siding with China, Japan and Russia. They have lost all confidence in the US.
Since most of the markets are closed, I have no way of knowing whether the rumors are true, nothing is happening and it is really scary. I am just so used to hitting refresh and seeing all the little numbers on the screen tell me whether things are OK or not so good. But seeing *.* in all the columns is even more scary to me than the reports from all the stores that the trucks are holding off till Monday to re-stock things. The stores are stripped clean at this point and though gas is still available, they are limiting people to 10 gallons of gas. But to be honest the lines started dying down on Wednesday as people really had no place to drive to, and you can only fill your car up so full.
Man if only I had a 50 gallon gas tank somewhere, I could make a killing filling it up right now… But I have 10 gallons in the Kia and another 18 in the Jeep and about 5 gallons in the garage. I hope that’s enough… But enough for what? What the hell is it enough for ? What if things aren’t better next week, is that enough gas to get me through next week or the week after? I guess since I’m not going to work and my kids are home from school and my wife Is staying home (still out of work after 8 months!!) that we can just save the gas for an emergency. Gonna stop writing for awhile and listen to the news and the president, he’s supposed to be speaking in an hour or so.
Wow, that was a whole lot of FUCKING NOTHING. I waited the whole damn week for that crap?! Seriously? OK so he told us all to have a stiff upper lip and that America’s brightest days were still in front of us, but we had a dark road to walk through to get there. The great “plan” was taking longer than expected and that they were working with foreign leaders to straighten out the monetary system and to get the wheels of commerce rolling again… And as usual I knew he was going to say something to this effect (thanks online friends!!) and this leads me to believe that the stink was correct and that the rest of the word has decided to break with the US, consequences be damned. I mean really what did they have to lose? After Ireland and England started rioting like Greece and France, it was just a matter of time before the rest of the European countries started to follow suit. By Christmas most of the EU was dealing daily with Union strikes and protests and the occasional storming of a city building by radical students. WHILE WE WERE just coasting along and riding a wave of bailouts and other Fed actions (remember QE2??). I guess the rest of the world didn’t like the fact that Oil prices were over 100 bucks again and that food prices were skyrocketing.
I guess the EU had enough when the new Republican majority and President Obama were able to sign into law ANOTHER 18 weeks of unemployment(making the 99’ers, the 117’ers?? Doesn’t have the same ring. Lol) in exchange for more tax cuts and an increase in the federal budget deficit yet again. So the EU burns and riots and in the US we just keep kicking the can further down the road while the EU suffers massive “austerity” measures.
I can’t blame them. My guess is that they finally had enough and stopped buying our debt. I remember a news story last week sometime, saying that the Treasury Auction was a bust and that it was being postponed until this past Monday, the day the banking holiday was called.
Last Friday was one hell of a day on the markets.. DOW closed up like another 350 points and broke through the 13000 mark as Gold and Oil and Food and everything else was breaking records as well. Even the US Dollar was holding up pretty good, considering all that was going on. So that is where all the little blips on the computer screen are stuck. The DOW is at 13011 and gold broke another record at 1534 and oil actually dropped below 100 bucks for the first time in weeks. Since the markets aren’t open gas prices have been stuck at 3.75 a gallon round here and since they can’t change prices, the signs have been the same for almost 5 days now. Kinda weird to see gas prices actually stay the same for more than 10 minutes LOL…
Well I’m going to sign off, maybe I’ll get back on later and write a bit more.
10:00pm addition
Yea pretty much same ole shit on the tube. They are just dying for some real news, they are on 24/7 rotation on the majors and the only way to get away from the doom is to switch over to a DVR or one of the specialty channels.. And even channels like Discovery are “coincidentally” playing histories of the Great Depression and stuff like that… I expect to switch over to AMC and see them playing the Grapes of Wrath…lol… Weekend coming up, not sure if people will attempt to just go back to business as usual. The wife and I and the kids are going to blow a little gas and go up and see my parents. I’ll try and stop for gas on the way home.. Good thing I had that 3,000 in cash in the firebox… Good thing I did all the things I did, not sure if it will help, but it sure makes me feel good for now. Night ..
Sunday Jan 23th 2012
Things seem to be somewhat normal today and yesterday. Went up and saw my parents and they were very upset. We all shared ideas and leaned on each other for strength and we all seem to be doing pretty good. My brothers showed up and we all made a pact to pull back to my parents house should things get totally out of whack.. Not sure if I want to do that though.. I have everything setup at my house, it would take at least 2 or 3 trips to get all my food and preps torn down and moved over there… I know they wouldn’t consider coming to my house, but man it makes all the sense in the world. We have a small village and lots of police. With the guns we all have combined, I don’t think we’d have a problem. Mom and Dad’s is just too far away from everything, I just wouldn’t feel safe up there.
Oh well, we aren’t there yet, so no use worrying. I think my wife is thinking the same thing as I am. We are worried about her dad who lives even further away from my parents house but closer to us, he is completely dependent on that Nursing home for everything and my wife Is about the only one visiting these days. She is actually up there visiting now.. To be honest(and I won’t say this to her EVER), I was very reluctant for her to blow the gas going up there, and I was very worried about her safety. She is texting me every ½ hour and everything is OK up there. But food is getting to be an issue she said. For now they are rationing a little bit. They said if they can’t get their deliveries on Monday that it’s going to get kinda scary.
God please forgive me for even thinking this, let alone writing it, but he CANNOT live here with us! I have always had this fear in the back of my head. He is just too unstable and the Alzheimer’s is really starting to take its toll on him.
I said a prayer at church this morning to help me, should we be forced to make this decision. Oh and BTW church(as expected) was freaking jam packed. Noticed a lot of packed cars and I assume there was a lot of car pooling and walkers.. Just something I noticed. Anyways, tomorrow we are planning on trying to run production at work so we are reporting in, and most of the other big employers are doing the same. Banks are still shut down and the government offices are open, but there is supposed to be a lot of extra security on hand. Just to be safe they said.. Whatever… Good night diary.
Monday January 24th 2012
All I can say is WOW… Went into work(got to work 1st shift for once) at about 7:30am and I wasn’t sure what to expect. The roads were for the most part empty, and when I got to work only ½ the people had shown up. The most cited reason was, NO GAS or they didn’t have money to get the gas.
To be honest, I think this is kind of a crock of shit. Payday isn’t until this Friday(that could be interesting) and for the most part, gas is still available at the pumps and the prices were still stuck at 3.75 a gallon. I think people are just looking for any excuse to stay home. Hell their getting paid at full rate, so why the hell not.
To be honest GM is shutting down at noon anyways as half their shipping fleet isn’t available due to problems with insurance and bills of lading. Most of GM’s truckers are independents and they rely on getting money transfers from their banks to pay for gas. Its not that they don’t have any diesel fuel, they just can’t pay for it right now…. Same goes for us. We deliver JIT to GM and seems that without the banks working in between us, that our MRP systems are freezing up and we can’t bill out what we are making(what little we made). Can’t get the trucks loaded without the manifests and the paid for OK from the computer systems. What a cluster fuck. Its not even that there is a good reason we aren’t shipping today, its all because we are so wired in to everything.
Talked to my dad and of course they are doing just fine. His machine shop is old school and there is only him and my brothers and a couple of other guys. They are pushing out parts and they are paying cash to the delivery guys to get rush parts out at least…. Got to wonder if he shouldn’t be hoarding that cash though.. Glad he listened to me at least.. Said he routinely kept 5 or 6K in cash in the vault. Figured it could keep him going for a week or two.
Haven’t had a chance to really dig in online to see what’s happening. Going to stop typing and get home and watch the news and see what my online friends are saying. Laters.
6:00PM
Looks like Obama is going to try again tonight. Says he will address the nation at 7:30 sharp.. This seems to have a very somber feeling about it. Got online and talked to some friends. And just an aside, the net was freaking SLOW as molasses. Figured that everyone and their brother was online and trying to get information. So anyways, talked to some friends and they don’t have a clue, not even any good tin foil. Everyone is stumped as to what he could possibly say. Evidently most of the stores went unstocked for yet another day and the banks were even having to renege on their promise of ATM’s being able to dole out 300 dollars cash a day. They are backtracking now, saying THEY DID NOT SAY THAT. They said 300 dollars, which they meant to say was “when using a Cash Card”.
Cash is going to get really hard to get soon if they don’t do something. Well I’m going to sign off here and play a little Battlefield and maybe watch the Pre-game show, err I mean the political commentary.
9:15PM
Stunned…. Honestly I don’t know what to say here. He actually was being blunt with everyone. I expected lies, I expected rah rah cheerleading, and lots of hyperbole. But for him to lay that much truth on everyone, I am absolutely floored.
He actually came out and said that at least for another 4 days, that the banks would be closed and though he wasn’t making any official declarations to enforce it, he was asking that all business operating in the US be closed down if at all possible for the rest of the week. They were making funds available to all employers who could not afford to pay their employees, but he said(and this one I think he inferred WAS mandatory) that all paychecks should go out as scheduled and for the same amount(regardless) as the previous check.
Had a chance to get online(getting slower, and lots of refresh errors now) and talk it over with everyone. NOW the tin is flying and people are making some pretty scary predictions. But in regards to the payroll thing, I am hearing that anyone who is using Direct Deposits from the employer side, that their accounts will AUTOMATICALLY make the same deposit to their employees, regardless of the wishes of the employer. They will not have a say in it, and if the account is overdrawn to do it, then the bank will cover for now, penalty free . Not sure if that is true, but it sure sounds like it would be. Got to ask my dad as he just switched over to Direct Deposits for his 5 employees…
President also said that the reason for the length of this “inconvenience”(yes he actually said that) was due to the inability to come to an arrangement with the EU and China on some monetary policies. Though he was careful not to get too testy in his language, he made no bones about the fact that this was and still is, EUROPES fault and China’s fault. So he said that Treasury secretary Michael Barr(man his name is so hard to remember, I miss little Timmy) is working in conjunction with the Federal Reserve to get cash out to the banks and to unfreeze the money market accounts and to try and get commerce working again. He said “BE PATIENT” and to not panic…
I don’t know, but I can feel the panic starting to rise around me… I think he made a positive move towards reducing panic at least. He said that the trucks that are stuck because of paper work problems or insurance or even a lack of funds are hereby ordered to complete their shipments and that the whole mess would be figured out later. Another special fund was being setup to deal with any financial hardships that this caused.
He was also asking that all police be called into to duty on Tuesday to make sure that there was order at the grocery stores. But he didn’t make any mention of the Guard or even of any kind of Martial Law or curfews. Don’t know, in this case he probably should have just went for it all and called Martial Law, hope I’m wrong… Just glad I don’t have to go out of the house tomorrow. I know its just my macho gun loving side coming out, but the shotgun is loaded and my pistol is sitting on a high shelf near the door. We aren’t leaving the house tomorrow, and we are planning on watching movies and playing games. Night.
Tuesday January 25th 2012
It’s quiet and its been quiet all day. Just noticed that the air traffic going in and out of Express Airport is almost non-existent. And the train tracks down the road which usually has 50 to 60 trains roaring past in either direction is silent. Net has been down for a good part of the day, called Cable System and got a recording that said that traffic was causing problems and that to ensure the stability of their network they were forced to intermittently knock certain segments off line. Guess my segment is at the back of the line. I can’t even get my online tinfoil fix, so we have just been hanging around the house all day. Actually had enough time to make a few loaves of bread, made a really good breakfast lunch and dinner. Was really cold out today, first really cold and blustery day of the winter; seems fitting.
I am BORED to be quite honest. Don’t get me wrong I love my kids, but I can only play the same games over and over again so many times. My favorite video game is an online game(as is my wife’s) and I can’t GET ONLINE!! GRRRR. At least the Cable TV is still working. Its amazing how much you can get done when you don’t have distractions.. Since cable is down, I decided to get an antenna hooked up to the digital converter in case we lose cable. I got up and tested the generator and made sure the lights and everything else on that circuit were working OK… Fired up on the first pull and all the lights are working. There has been no talk of power outages or anything of the sort, but I don’t want to take any chances. Other than that… BOREDOM!! Signing off, kids want to play another game…
Thursday January 27th 2012
BOREDOM.. ROFL… Just re-read my post from Tuesday. Amazing how slow life gets when you don’t have to work and you have no place to go… Not even sure why I bothered posting today, nothing happening. TV has been reporting that some food is again making it to the stores and the gas lines are not nearly as bad as I would have thought. The internet has come up and down periodically over the last couple of days. Caught some tinfoil(when am I going to stop saying that. Its usually more right than wrong) that oil shipments have halted from a lot of our importers. Haven’t heard that on the news yet and the price of gas Is still stuck at the same place. Even the news has tired of hearing itself and they have gone back to programming, though its mostly re-runs right now. I guess things are just too “serious” to have a new episode of the Office, the old ones will have to do for now hehe.. BOREDOM…. LOL…
Friday January 28th 2012
Well I’m not bored now, scared shitless is more like it, just got my first real confirmation about that tin from yesterday. Reports are being confirmed that Saudi Arabia and a few other OPEC nations are demanding that western countries pay for oil going forward with something other than the US Dollar. They have agreed that they would accept the Euro for now, but at greatly increased rates and likely there will be some component of gold involved. Not sure where this is going to leave us in the States? I think I remember reading that the strategic reserves could keep us in gas for about 3 months or so, hope we don’t find out. Obama has been strangely absent, but lots of Senators and Reps and talking heads on the TV today. Seems like the paralysis has worn off and people are getting really pissed off.
Just got done watching CNN and both the Repug and the Dem were unanimous in their condemnation of Saudi Arabia and were calling them back stabbing cowards(the Repugs words not mine). The Dem was a little more diplomatic, but no less blistering calling them ingrates and fair weather friends. Are these guys for real, course the pebes will just eat it all up. Even heard more than one talking head suggest that we use our Navy to “escort” any oil tankers in US Territorial waters to US ports just as a show of our displeasure. Hate to say it, but that might not be a bad idea at this point… Things are getting really tense. Just glad that for now, the grocery store chaos has somewhat abated. The police presence at the stores has seemed to at least have calmed that cauldron down.
Been hearing online though that some major cities are seeing a lot of small scale looting and riots, hard to know if its true or not. YouTube and lots of other media sharing sites have been knocked off line by most of the major internet providers. The band width that they use was just too much evidently and to make sure that regular usage could continue they made that decision. Can’t blame them, and I am just glad that I can get online for short burst of time.. Once I see that we are up, I open open 20 or 30 pages of posts and news stories and save them to my hard drive.. At least it gives me something to do.
One good thing about all of this, I have lots of time to cook and bake, actually made some cookies last night.. BUT DAMN I HATE CONDENSED MILK!! Just isn’t the same. We ran out of regular milk almost a week ago and I haven’t wanted to try my hand at the stores just yet. Most milk was gone before it even made it too the shelves anyways. VULTURES Lol…. God I want some milk …
Saturday January 29th 2012
I’m up early this AM and was hoping to get back online and get some more information. Weekend is here and I thought that if I got up early enough that I could beat the morning internet rush hour and not get kicked off right away. No luck, and no luck since yesterday around 6:00pm. This is the longest stretch of outages since this all started. Got to remember to call Dale over at Cable system and hopefully he can give me the real skinny as to what is happening. Plus I haven’t talked to him in a few weeks; maybe I should have him over tonight and talk things over. I’ll add that to my list of to-do’s.
The news is saying that President Obama will address the nation again this afternoon at 4:00pm. This is being hyped as a very important speech, one that could make or break his presidency. Was watching late night news and was listening to the talk radio guys on WSPD and it seems there is a new meme taking shape and it rotates around the Rupubs wanting to impeach President Obama for gross negligence and dereliction of duty. God that is all we need at this point, I hope this is just the rabble rousers just trying to fill air time. But the Mainstream press is certainly putting a lot of pressure on the president to sound presidential and to stop using those damn Teleprompters and just talk to us all and try and instill some confidence.
Seeing as that he is broadcasting from the oval office, my bet would be … Teleprompters for sure. He better have some good speech writers and something real to say. People are getting really scared and that fear is going to change to anger really soon if he doesn’t put something out there that could actually make people feel good. We’ll see.
Without my internet connection I am reduced to typing to myself and asking question and trying to answer them. Kinda pathetic diary… I am now speaking to myself AND answering myself… Does this make me officially crazy…. I’m going to call Dale right now and see if I can expect my internet to be back up and running any time soon.
6:00pm
OK President finished speaking a while ago and I was lucky enough to have lunch with Dale over at his place. He had just pulled an all nighter evidently and his explanation would have been pure tinfoil had I not just heard the president tell me the same fucking thing. Dale told me this afternoon that all private internet connections were being temporarily turned off at the nodes. Meaning they are selectively knocking certain non commercial or backbone connections off their networks; he couldn’t tell me why, but that it was a federal mandate from the FCC and that this was a nationwide mandate from all accounts.
He was up all night with all the other engineers re-routing the switches and turning off alarms as they disconnected nearly 95% of their non-commercial account holders. He couldn’t tell me how it was all going to work or WHY they were told to do this, as this was way above his pay grade, but he said that I should not expect my home internet connection to work for a while. He said the best bet would be to go to work and try there. He said at this point they were not blocking anything on the commercial side, so most business account holders had full internet access. But he warned that there were engineers working on blocking certain segments of traffic even within the business sphere. This was a lot more difficult to do, but it was certainly possible.
This was just crazy, until I heard the president speak just an hour or so ago. It was a pretty to the point speech and he made a direct response to the lack of internet access. He said that as of 6:00pm EST last night, the FCC had ordered internet providers and backbone providers to halt internet access to the millions of non-commercial residences in anticipation of a very heavy load that was to be placed on the internet on Monday.
The president said that America was going to be open for business on Monday and that everyone should put their working boots on and get ready to go back to work. The president said that as he was speaking, thousands of trucks were delivery Billions and Billions of hard currency to the nations thousands of banking institutions. He said the banks and the government would be open for business and he anticipated that the majority of employers would be open as well.
He said that “he hoped we all enjoyed our little vacation”(said with a slight grin) but that it was time to get back to work. He alluded to having made some arrangements with Americas debt holders and our trading partners.
Now here is the messed up part to me, but it seems it just went right over the heads of the MSM I was listening to. He said that for the next 30 days, that the strategic reserve would be supplying the nation’s refineries with oil at current market prices of 98 dollars. But he warned that oil prices would necessarily go up as the country is weaned off of the strategic reserves and brought back online with the global oil supply. I SCREAMED AT THE TV and my wife was just staring at me like a mad man. HOW MUCH of an increase!! And what were the details of the “arrangement”??? Jesus, the press is just a bunch of ass clowns. Even though he took no questions, the after speech commentaries were all about the internet situation or how certain employers were going to be able to ramp up production on such short notice.
Evidently the internet thing is in anticipation of the next step of Obama’s plan and that is to resume trading on the various exchanges on Wednesday, assuming that Monday and Tuesday see no major problems. The assumption of the nations private internet connections was in anticipation of a MAJOR increase in internet traffic and it was deemed necessary to free up as much band width as possible to deal with the anticipated rush of trades and information requests by the nations business’ and traders.
It was imperative that these trades go though and that internet outages or lag not be a hindrance to normal trading operations. He warned that we should expect some gut wrenching moves on the market, should they re-open on Wednesday. Especially on the commodities markets he warned.. I can only guess what that means… The echo’s of him saying “for 30 days we will be supplying oil to the refineries” is still RINGING in my ears. God what kind of deal did he make???
On a side note, I finally broke down and went to the grocery store today and picked up a gallon of milk. Surprised that the stores were still stocked, though the place had the look of a recent bomb explosion.. ROFL… Employees looked really rough and the store was very messy. Lots of carton laying in the aisles and most of the merchandise wasn’t faced correctly(sorry, being an old merchandiser, I can’t help but cringe when I see merchandise turned backwards or upside down). But I was actually very surprised by how well they had coped. I even had a chance to talk to one of the stock guys and asked him how they were getting shipments. His response didn’t make me feel all warm inside. He said that trucks were just showing up at this point. They didn’t know what they were getting from hour to hour, but that the stuff was getting here… He just didn’t know FROM WHERE. Most of the truckers are independents and they are being loaded up at the central depots and are being told where to go. Wish I could talk to the truckers and find out more, this seems very important. The stock guy seemed very frazzled and concerned about what he was telling me.
Another quick point and I am getting off the computer, I used my personal stash of money today as I didn’t have time to stop at the ATM and I didn’t want to use my card. I used one of my 100 dollar bills to pay for about 19 dollars in stuff. THEY WOULDN”T TAKE IT!! They said they were running out of 5’s, 10’s and 20’s.. Lucky I had a 20 dollar bill and they were able to make change easy enough for that.
REMEMBER, if the banks open Monday, get there early and start changing those 100’s in for 20’s 10’s and 5’s if at all possible. DO NOT FORGET…
Night.
Went to church as usual and stopped and got gas for the first time in over 13 days. They were still limiting gas purchases to 10 gallons, only need 5, so no big deal. They are STILL charging 3.76 a gallon. Actually had to go inside to pay and I was stunned to see the inside almost picked clean. No Pop in the coolers and no beer, all the snacks were picked over and the Big Gulp drink dispenser had hand written notes on all the nozzles “out of order”.
I sheepishly handed the attendant a hundred dollar bill for less than 20 dollars in gasoline. He said he would normally not be able to take it(this pre-dated the emergency) but seeing as that he was closing up at 4:00pm today, and was not going to re-open any time soon, he figured what the hell. He changed my 100 and gave me a big wad of smaller bills in return. I asked him why he was closing and he said that they were not going to be getting re-filled any time soon. So as soon as he could close up shop, he was going to turn off the lights and go home.. Pressed him further to explain and he gave me a haphazard response that I think I understand. He said that his local gas station was not on the list of approved gas stations and that the DOE had made the determination that the remainder of his supplies would be bought from him and sold to another national reseller down the street. Evidently this was going to be the case until they get the supply lines figured out after the 30 day emergency oil plan ended.
For now he said, he was out of business… Just like that. Couldn’t help but notice as I walked out of the store that his pickup was full of 10 gallon gas cans and what I assume was his son was putting a tarp over the whole explosive mess. God I hope he doesn’t get hit by someone on the way home, he was a veritable moving bomb. Other than that, another boring day. I am getting ready to go back to work in the morning. We are limiting ourselves to one shift of production today, and we have called in only the most trust worthy of our employees. We don’t want a re-play of last Monday. OH and BTW, it kind of came and went without comment from the MSM, THEY DID JUST PULL MONEY from the employers and auto deposit it in the employees bank accounts. I guess the banks have been busy behind the scenes making that little miracle happen so seamlessly. My dad was really pissed off. Not that his guys got paid(he would have done it anyways), but more that he had no say or control. Makes you wonder what else they will just “decide” to do in the coming weeks and months.
Church was busy again and the Deacon and Father were uncharacteristically unstructured today. Being a Catholic you kind of get used to the rigid pace of a mass. For once they just sat and talked to us. They talked about how we need to look after one another in these trying times, and that it was very important that we look after those that cannot look after themselves. Lots of requests for volunteers to do everything from chain prayers all the way to donating food to the many nursing homes that were not faring so well.
And on that note I am again going to have to ask for some divine intervention here. Wife has been hinting that we have to do something about her father. The nursing home has been chronically understaffed these past 2 weeks and though the residence are getting fed, it is mostly canned stuff and nothing fresh. I am still hesitant to have him live with us. But I am seeing the eventuality of this and if things do not improve in the next week, I mine as well accept it. Should have seen this one coming a mile a way.
Going to bed. Tomorrow should be another interesting day.
Got to work about 3 hours ago and I am pleased to find the internet working just fine. Since I work in the IT group I can bypass all the firewall bullcrap and surf freely. Man if I thought the roads to work were eerily void of traffic jams, the internet was a veritable ghost town. Got onto my favorite sites and found like 2 or 3 others online with me, where it was usually 20 or 30. Guess others don’t have the luxury of having an open work connection. I did get to read some good information though from some of my favorite commentators.
Seems I was right to worry about the deals that the administration has been making. But I guess they really had no choices. WE NEED OIL and if they are not willing to part with it for the price we are willing to pay, then I guess we are at an impasse. We can’t invade everyone, so it seems the US is frantically making individual deals with anyone and everyone they can in an attempt to restart international trade with the US. I am assuming that the people I am reading are NOT in the know, but they are assuming that a lot of the grease that is being applied by the US is military in nature. They are making guesses that the US is selling armaments to our trading partners who have the oil we need and or food deals, such as corn and grains. Man I can see where all of this is going to go. We starve so that we can drive to work in the morning, makes a lot of sense.. We’ll have to see how this all shakes out.
Got to get back to work, just wanted to quickly jot these thoughts down while they are fresh; production started up about 45 minutes ago. It took us a few hours to get all the servers back up and running and for the maintenance guys to get all the machines fired up and all the problems ironed out… I think if this shut down had lasted any longer, we might have had a huge problem on our hands. A place like this is not meant to sit inactive… I just got a text from my buddy Rob. He says the glass furnaces are not going to be able to be restarted this week. 2 of them are down because they needed parts for the furnace and they are made overseas and they are having problems getting them on order and shipped. Seems no one understands the new rules yet as to how we are supposed to get things done. The president said “GET BACK TO WORK” and didn’t tell us the new rules of the game. Lucky we have lots of spare parts here for now. Maintenance is pretty good about stock piling. Anyways, got to go, seems 2 computers are down on the line and holding things up…
7:30PM
Got back from work awhile ago and production actually put product on the trucks and shipped them out to GM and our other customers. Can’t tell whether they got there or not, or whether they actually got put into any cars or not, but we did our part. ONLY ONE SHIFT today and we usually run 24/7/364, not sure how the math is going to work here. I asked a few of the head honchos today about staffing levels. I’m the new guy and I’m supposed to be working 3rd shift. But for now there is no 3rd shift, I asked if that meant we are going to lose our jobs? He had no answer, and he said that HR is working with the Labor Department on some new rules that are coming down from the Administration. I didn’t get a warm fuzzy feeling from the conversation. Not sure what the Labor department can do to keep 2 more shifts of people working at my place, if demand is just not there. I am not feeling very good about all of this. Tomorrow is the day my wife’s UE benefits are to be deposited, last week we weren’t sure if they got deposited because the banks were closed and we had no idea what our balance was at the moment.
This morning I showed up at the bank before sunrise and saw at least 100 people waiting in lines. I knew I was never going to make it to work on time, so I just bagged it and continued on to work. Seems that the withdrawal rules were modified to keep people from emptying their accounts; people were limited to 1000 dollars cash and at least for now, credit cards and other credit mechanisms were still inactive for almost all private citizens. If you have a cash card, they will still work, but will be limited to 1000 daily use for at least another week. I just wonder what the big ticket sellers are doing today. At 1000 dollars, how can someone sell a car or a high end washer/dryer set… And since my company makes washer/dryer parts and car parts, how the hell are we going to stay in business???
I was watching the local news and I caught a few minutes of news concerning GM/Ford’s production today. They were also limited to 1 shift and it seems that most of the production they completed just ended up in the parking lot across the street at the old mall. Seems that most of the dealers that had put these orders in before the chaos don’t need them right now and have canceled 95% of their orders. And 100% of overseas dealers have canceled for now until some new rules are figured out about international trade.
National news came on and said that all in all, it wasn’t as bad as they had anticipated. People showed up for work, gas was available at the pumps and though there was a very limited selection of some things, the stores at least had product on hand and that gouging had been kept to a minimum. Ohio only had 25 cases of gouging reported in the last 7 days. Which to me was pretty remarkable, and or people are just not reporting it, I am going to guess it is more the later. Got to go, kids want to play monopoly, which is kinda cool, I actually like that game. I kinda wish I was the banker in real life and I could just dole the money out as I see fit… Seems kind of fitting we are playing this game tonight, I think I should use this as a life lesson for the kids. DO NOT LET PEOPLE CONTROL THE MONEY, how the hell do you know they aren’t slipping 100 dollar bills under the table… Never too young to learn.
Night.
The macro picture of what had happened in my scenario is this. I had aluded to the story that Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations had started asking for something other than US Dollars to denominate their oil.
THIS is a key point to understand. Were the above scenario to transpire and the OPEC nations sided with the US, the economic coup would likely fail. Without getting the oil producers on board, any move to unhook from the USD would be moot and DOA. But it is likely that any move away from US debt, would by neccesity be followed(or in conjunction with) by a break with the USD by the oil producing nations. They are the lynch pin
In my scenario President Obama says that he is “temporarily tapping the Strategic Reserves”. IN the background this would be crucial to keeping the trucks moving and product flowing to the stores and keeping up at least a visceral appearance of normality. With the gasoline and other distilates that are already in the pipeline and ready to be delivered, plus the above ground reserves of the refiners and oil companies, we could probably go for several weeks at a greatly reduced demand level(the National Holiday), and then several months if need be working off of the Strategic Reserve.
The scenario I am envisioning is that the Obama administration is kicking the can just a little bit further down the road. He is supply the refiners with oil NOT from imports, but directly from US reserves and of course our own production ability. But this obviously won’t last very long, but it could paper over some big problems while the US uses its “influence” to try and get things back on track. You’ll have to wait and see if the US is able to get everyone to play ball again or not.
Robert
The average person, even ones like us, are not going to be privy to the inside story. In the event of something as severe as the scenario I painted above, you can expect a complete and utter stone wall of useful information to save yourself with. You will be forced to act as if the worst case scenario is upon you, as you will have nothing to tell you otherwise.
Were the Government to call, NOT A BANK HOLIDAY, but a national holiday(which to me makes much more sense, akin to the days after 9/11, which was almost a national holiday in essence), it would come with a complete blanket on as much real information as possible, and the average person would be left hanging much of the time and probably even actively lied to, to keep them from panicking and more than likely hurting themselves and those around them.
As I will try and show in coming days and weeks, this type of governmental behavior will have tragic unintentional consequences. They are lying to keep the worst case scenario from occurring, but in the very act of lying and obfuscating, they will likely guarantee the worst case scenario as people left in the dark will do very unpredictable and dangerous things.
In my scenario I am basing the initial panic on a collapse of the bond market sales, of which the US Federal Reserve has become the largest purchaser of US Debt, surpassing even the Chinese at this point. But right now there are still massive amounts of debt being sold to entities other than the US Federal Reserve. I am imagining a situation where even those that are still buying, decide to drastically cut and or completely stop buying US Debt. This would be telegraphed to those at the top, of that I am fairly certain. In my scenario, there was an auction held the week before and the results were going to be disastrous, so the delayed the auction. I allude to this(the ME character that is) in that I heard about a failed auction, in the diary. In the background I imagined that the Treasury Dept and The US Fed would be leaning heavily on our debtors to pony up.
In the past when we’ve had bad auctions, the next one almost always has brisk sales and all debt is easily covered. You can bet that there was some kind of deal struck between the US and those buying the debt. Possibly arms sales(like India) or a loosening of import tariffs or any number of other off the books type, tit for tat moves.
In my scenario I imagine where the biggest purchasers tire of the back room deals and decide that this is it, they are not going to fund the US’s largess anymore. This would lead to the Obama speech on a Sunday night, as they would know that the failure of a 2nd auction would have severe repercussions. I imagined that instead of taking that type of a physiological beating, that they would call a national holiday as a way to keep pure panic from taking hold. A holiday would be very bad, don’t get me wrong. But in comparison to a 1000 point drop in the markets, or a doubling of oil prices in a week or any number of catastrophic economic events, the Holiday would be tame in comparison.
And it is in line with the “kick the can” mentality that they have displayed up till now. The can was kicked 30 years into the future by Regan, it was kick 5 or 7 years by Clinton, it was kicked another 3 or 4 by Bush and we are currently kicking the can on the order of maybe 18 to 24 months at a time. I can see where kicking the can on a time scale of WEEKS will be preferable to the real truth spewing forth and all over the electorate.
I imagined that in this scenario that CASH would become a very hard thing to come by. I imagined that if banks were closed that the use of ATM’s versus the very visual images of hundred queued up at banks withdrawing money would be a much easier way of allow SOME cash to enter the system and keep panic buying to a minimum. Most people keep very little cash on hand, and without access to large amounts of cash(once credit cards become inoperable) people cannot panic buy on a large scale.
The problem with shutting off Credit Cards and credit lines is that I feel it is an ALL OR NOTHING affair. You either turn the credit machine off or you don’t, you can’t selectively allow some to work, especially on a very short time frame. So I imagined that most of the stores and business would just close out of necessity at first as there would very little they could do in the absence of credit mechanisms.
This again would play into the hands of the government as this would have the effect of freezing people in place and making them immobile and more prone to stay at home, where they are isolated from one another for the most part. Remember that the large majority of people live in areas where they rarely even speak to their neighbors, let alone have in depth economic conversations or talks about violence of riots. This would also lead to the ending of the internet for most non commercial needs. It would never be admitted to, but there would be a move to shut down the rabble rousers on the net, my ‘excuse’ was probably a little to weak, but I’m sure they would come up with something.
So going forward I am not going to give you any more information at this point. I will interject at some point again and try and fill you in on the WHY it is happening from the macro point of view, at least the one that I am imagining. This will allow people to poke holes in it, and or get some good conversations going about what others feel might happen were this or that scenario were to play out. Hope you continue to enjoy.
Robert
Tuesday Feb 1st 2012
Getting ready to go to work today. We made a stop last night at the grocery store to just top off a few more things again. Pickings were again getting thin. We talked to some of the baggers and stockers and they said they had a huge rush of people from the banks, they all came in with wads of cash and started another buying spree like last weeks.
All the milk was gone again (DAMNIT!!!) and there was no bread and most of the good canned goods were picked over. Luckily we were there late and I had brought about a 1000 bucks in 100′s and sheepishly asked(I find that acting sheepish gets me stuff I think I would otherwise not get, LOL) if I could change my 100′s in for a bunch of assorted 10′s 20′s 5′s and 1′s… To my amazement he said “what the hell”. He said that they were getting a good flow of cash from the bank now and breaking bigger bills was not a problem.. I asked if I could stop by again tomorrow night and do it again… He wasn’t quite as sure about that. I probably won’t ask again. No sense in pushing the issue. Anyways, I have to get to work. Was watching a little bit of CNBC this morning and they are on track to re-start the markets tomorrow at 9:30am. There will be no futures trading until the markets open up and we see where they land at the end of the day. So there is no indication of what will happen.
I think it is going to be a freaking blood bath if you ask me. But what the hell do I know. I would have thought at this point, people would be rioting in the streets and stopping cars on the street and bopping old ladies in the head for their tank full of gas and a few bucks. But that wasn’t happening, at least not that was being reported. Off to work.
7:30pm
Production was light again today and we had a meeting with the upper management guys, not the ones who run our plant, but the guys from Corporate. Since we were given no warning about it and it was right in the middle of production, we assumed it was nothing good. They didn’t disappoint. They told us that if things don’t improve by next Monday, they are going to put the majority of the facility on a shutdown notice. Only those personnel that are crucial to keeping things working and functional are to report to work on Monday, unless otherwise directed. We are to use the next 3 days(Wednesday through Friday) to get the place as clean as possible, finish up what production is needed and to shut down and mothball the machinery. I was instructed to continue working as we are going to have to get the servers backed up and move the tapes off site. Do all the updates and purge all the databases. This didn’t sound good at all. Everyone was scared and the only positive was that they were making unemployment benefits available without a one week waiting period. Those laid off could expect a check as soon as next week.
We’ll see, sounds awfully ambitious if you ask me. I am guessing that things are faring about the same at all the other assembly plants and factories in the area… Are they being promised the same thing?
Listened to the news again and it’s amazing how starved you get for information when you don’t have an internet connection (I was too busy to get online at work for any meaningful length of time). And the general consensus is that the markets are going to take a really big hit in the morning, probably worse than after 9/11. They said they are not going to mess with the limit down numbers and will let the markets go where they go and if they trip the circuits, then they’ll deal with it when it happens. I told my co-workers that I would be in after 10:00am cuz I want to see the fireworks LIVE. Plus most of the stuff we have to do has to wait until after production is done.
Just some random thoughts as I am getting sleepy. It is amazing how quiet it still is. Living next to train tracks and an airport gets you so used to ambient noise. You don’t even hear it anymore… EXCEPT when it isn’t there. Seriously the lack of noise is sometimes deafening. I made a point to call my friends at the village hall to see how things were going. They are reporting a SERIOUS plunge in all crimes across the board. Seems that with people at home and on such edge, no one is robbing or beating anyone up right now. They haven’t had a call in 2 nights, other than domestic violence type stuff. No violent crimes and no car thefts and no reports of break ins since last week some time. Would have never anticipated that, wonder if it will hold. Still miss Milk. Kids are back in school, but they are nervous. They are asking questions only intelligent 11 and 9 year olds could ask. Have to remember to tell them about this diary at some point as this information will be really interesting 25 years from now. But for now it is about the only thing keeping me sane. We are caught in limbo and for now there is no escape, neither normality nor chaos, just a deafening in between. Like the deep breath before the sneeze… Going to bed.
Wednesday Feb 2nd 2012
Getting ready to take off for work, but wanted to jot down my initial reaction to market open. Didn’t disappoint one little bit. Markets sold off from the minute they opened and dropped close to 1200 points from its opening just over 13000, amazingly they came just short of kicking the first circuit breakers on the major US Exchanges. As far as I know, most of the other major indexes like the DAX and FTSE and the NIKKEI were still closed and were waiting to see what happened to our markets. This is not a good way to start, but they were claiming victory at 10:00am that they were still trading. I am typing and watching right now and they are still down over 1000 points on the DOW.. They just said that the commodities pits were hitting their first circuit breakers as Oil went over 115 dollars a barrel and gasoline future went straight to 3.00 a gallon. Most of the grains and other things I rarely watch all tripped out near 10:00am. Got to go, hope they’ll have the TV’s on something other than fucking ESPN. Kills me that even during all this shit, some of the major sports are playing on TV. And the Super Bowl is going on as scheduled at Cowboy’s Stadium in Dallas. Haven’t watched much football since the Browns finished 6 and 11 and didn’t make the playoffs yet again. But should be a good game though, Jets and Eagle’s, who would have thought. Michael Vick in the Super Bowl?? I’ll just let that one go. Got to get to work. Probably won’t have time to write over the next couple of days. Meeting with my family tonight to go over some plans and contingencies. Will be working late several times this week as we get ready for the shutdown. Talked to my boss last night and asked him how long I could anticipate working and he said that for now it will be at least several weeks. That’s really good!!!
Sorry bout not getting back to you. I know whoever may be reading this at some future point is thinking “WHY THE HELL is he apologizing to a freaking diary”. I am writing this TO YOU, whoever you are. I envision that it is one of my kids or some scholar who is going to publish my fascinating first person perspective of the Great American Unraveling®(I am going to copyright that term).
So much to write and I apologize up front for how long this will likely be(again with the apology LOL). I’ll start with the markets as I have so much to say. I was able to watch at work every day as the Super Bowl actually took a back seat to the play by play of CNBC and the markets. They ended up tripping most of the circuit breakers on Wednesday, but in the end the markets were open and they ended down like 1700 point. Oil ended at just over 115 and gasoline was one of the few that halted trading at like 3.20 a gallon. Thursday was more of the same and the DOW was down another 1100 and oil hit 135 and gasoline stopped again at 3.75 a gallon. Thankfully for everyone involved they decided to limit trading on Friday going into Superbowl Sunday to a half a day and surprisingly we were only down a modest 350 points and oil actually lost a few dollars. Gasoline once again topped out at over 4.00 a gallon.
Gold was surprising to me. And so was the dollar. They actually played in a very tight range throughout the week. Gold hit another record, but nearly as bad as I would have expected. It hit just over 1600 and that seems to be the ceiling for now. Silver went nuts again and has been hovering around 35 bucks. What worries me is the gasoline futures. That is one of the few commodities that limited out every single day, including Friday. WHERE IS IT GOING TO STOP?? We left gasoline prices before the crisis at 3.76 and they are already well over 4.00 dollars. If I pencil out a 4.00 futures price, we could be looking at well over 5.00 in no time. And we still haven’t found the top yet… Kinda scary.
But what is really scaring me now is the stores. They are once again out of everything and people are getting scared again. I went by the parents house and we had our “meeting”. Lucky for them they had done some prepping, but nothing like my crazy stash o’doom. We talked about where we would fold back to, if things went postal. I “sheepishly(ROFL)” threw out that my home should be our fall back position. I think they at least listened to me this time. I told them about the Rail near my home and the fact that crimes reports were way down in the village. I asked my Dad about what he was hearing up at his place. And they had heard of break ins at a lot of homes. Nothing yet in his neighborhood, but they have heard of more than one violent break in and food and other things being stolen.
At his work they had they’re truck broken into and all the gas was siphoned out through a hole in the bottom of the tank. Bad enough they took the gas, but they left the truck unusable. I guess with gas prices climbing, people are getting desperate. They listened and they are getting stuff ready just in case it comes to that. My older brother lives even further up, but he said they would stay put. And I agree, his in-laws own a lot of land up there and a lot of Gun people live up there. They will be OK for now. Younger brother is bringing over his Ammo and his Lead bullet forge and his press and most of his other heavy stuff now. I am glad he is so on board with me. Good to know I have one person on board who will not be hamstrung by the “old” bullshit rules. A new world is forming and we will adjust long before most of the others.
Felt bad for the people at work. Friday came and went and the plant is now in mothballs(not literally of course). People left quietly and I have no idea how most of them are going to fare. I feel really bad for them. I am going to report in on Monday for now and we’ll finish a long laundry list of Computer related things to make sure that the computers will be OK if this turns out to be a long shutdown. For now they are saying a minimum of 2 weeks. But given the extent to which they went to close this place down, I think they are planning much longer.
Things of note before I sign off, food is getting to be an issue for a lot of people. I am trying to keep a very low profile, but it is becoming apparent that a lot of people had no clue how long this could go. Most of the soup kitchen type places are completely full when they open. Went to church last week and I plan on going again tomorrow. But there is a desperate plea from the diocese for anything and everything. I showed up at church on Friday to drop off some of the older canned milk I had in the pantry. I didn’t really care for it and I had plenty of powdered(which I hated less, and yes I KNOW I AM MILK CRAZY!!). When I got there, there were a lot more people working in the kitchen getting things ready. Lots of families hanging around, doing what they could.
I talked with some of the old timers and they were kinda of pissed off. I had worked with many of them during my unemployment. They worked the kitchen so that they could get the first dibs on stuff as it came in and they got a free meal for each shift they worked. Now of course EVERYONE wants to help and get in on the action. This is causing a lot of friction from what I can tell. I dropped my cans off and talked to a few people and got out of there.
Don’t know if I was being a scared tin foiler, but I made sure no one was following me home. I actually did a double back once to see if anyone did a U-turn.. Course no one did, but I felt very strongly about making sure I wasn’t followed… Paranoia, it’s not just for the crazy anymore.
Night…
Wednesday February 9th 2012
I’m probably going to be doing less typing in my diary for awhile as things are just so slow. I could just keep posting day after day of “I’m bored” comments followed by the market numbers, but to be honest it bores me. So I expect that I’ll be spending more time in the kitchen with my wife and more time with the kids trying to get them OK with this situation. The kids are just amazing as they just keep asking questions about the power and the food. I think I taught them too well before all this happened. They are making very logical leaps of thinking. They are hearing things and they understand how much depends on oil and electricity. They keep asking if the lights are going to go out or if we are going to have to start walking everywhere.
To be honest I told them “we could be” and they were OK with that. I think if I had said that to most of the adults I know, they would have freaked out and told me I was a loon. Seems like these entries are getting to be just a regurgitation of what the markets were doing today. 10 years from now, am I really going to give a shit that the market sank another 1000 points over the past few days or that gold was nearing 1600.. LOL, there I go again… Well I’ll just finish it up while I’m at it. Oil is now at 120 bucks and gasoline finally found a top it seems…. This is why the kids are probably talking about it so much.. I was a little animated while watching the close today as gasoline finally made it to the close without a limit down halt. Seems that 5.75 is the top. Yes I did write that correctly, 5.75 on the RYOB futures exchange. This will likely mean a nearly 7 dollar a gallon gas price…
But I am going to try and stop commenting on the markets. Honestly, whoever is reading this in the future, I’m sure you want more of the on the ground real stuff. So I hope I can paint a good picture. But here is the problem though. My world is getting smaller by the week. First it was internet, then it was the people I worked with(the majority are not working with me anymore) and now with gasoline prices getting ready to skyrocket, I am finding that as a family we are retreating in on ourselves.
Good things that are happening though are that people in the village are getting together this week at the shelter house. Some of my friends who are pretty civic minded, decided to print up some flyers and started handing them out through the school and anywhere else they could. They want people to start talking about contingencies and fears and the future. I think this is a GREAT idea as people are getting frozen with fear at this point. People I can see are just numb. The only comparison I can think of in my limited life is 9/11. Those shell shocked days and weeks after 9/11, for me at least, was just walking through the motions of “regular” life. You could just look at another person’s eyes and know they were hurting inside and you would just give a little nod and they would know you were right there with them.
Seems like there is a lot of that going around these days. President Obama spoke again a day or so ago, can’t even remember what day it was. But he said that all foreclosures were being suspended and all payments for credit cards, cars, RV’s, and any other commercial credit lines were also being suspended until further notice. The only things people are still having to pay for are the utilities and even for the next 2 weeks, all turn offs are to be suspended.
Again, I can’t help but feel like we are all being suspended in animation. Neither chaos nor normality. How long can this fucking breath hold for. I know damn well that a sneeze is coming and the longer it’s held off, the worse I feel it will be. For now, so many people are not working that I think a better judge of the employment picture would be the EMPLOYMENT NUMBERS, as in only about 40% of the people are really going to work every morning. But the others aren’t actually unemployed; they are just on a “temporary emergency leave”. Talked with the HR guys at work and this is being classified in the same way as a FMLA leave (Family Medical Leave Act). The people on furlough will get close to 60% of their pay for now, is what Steve our HR guy told me a few days ago. And a 2 week shutdown is not even close, for now we are looking at a minimum of Mid March before things will be active enough to call people back.
Fingers are hurting so I’ll wrap it up here. Just some other tid bits of information; the Super Bowl went on as scheduled and the Jets won it pretty handily. First half was kinda exciting but the Jets pulled away at the end. Sorry Michael Vick. Was weird to see noticeable empty seats at a super bowl game, but at least 10% of the seats were empty by my reckoning. The commentators made no mention of it though. The stores are getting sporadically re-stocked and people are waiting out over night for their spot. Police are working round the clock still and I wonder how sustainable that will be? My guess is that the Guard will be called in to help local police keep order. More than one report of fights breaking out in the lines as people are getting desperate for the staples. I am trying my best to keep a low profile for now and not draw attention.
I would love to share a loaf of fresh bread with some of the neighbors, but until I get a good feel for where they are and how they are going to react, I am going to play it safe for now and not let them know about my pantry and other preps. Also started carrying my gun to work in the mornings, I keep it in the Jeep during my shift under the seat. I am so glad my wife isn’t working right now and that the kids are close enough to school that she can walk them there. Just wish she would re-think carrying a gun. There have been some reports on the news of violent break-ins in other parts of the city. And the reason I am now carrying a gun and driving the Jeep exclusively is that at least 2 people have been pulled from their vehicles and beaten nearly to death in areas near where I drive to work. Just wish work wasn’t so damn far… I am now wondering if me keeping my job was a BAD thing and that the others have it better for now, as there is nothing they have to pay for except food and gas… I have to drive on the nearly empty streets early in the morning while its dark and come home after 6:00pm in the dark… It is a bit unnerving if I have to tell the truth… I have actually started altering my route to work, but to be honest there is very little I can do to alter my path. I am leaving at 10 or 15 minute spaces each day. Sometimes 6:45 and other times 7:15. Just cannot help but shake this bad feeling I have that I’m being watched when I drive… I never even considered it 10 days ago, but there are so few cars driving on the road, that you stick out like a sore thumb when you drive… I can imagine that gas usage is WAY down these past few weeks, probably a really good thing. Also last thing, police have started to escort delivery trucks over the past few days. Same reason as above, several delivery guys got beat up pretty good, and in typical form, one of them was lying his ass off. He took the truck filled with canned goods to a friend’s house and parked it in the garage and had his friend beat the shit out of him and they called the police..
Dumbasses actually parked the panel van in the dudes garage…. LOL… Neighbors saw them on the news and called them in.. Surprised they didn’t just go over there and beat the shit out of both of them and take all the food… LOL… Old West rules may be making a comeback soon…..
Night.
Been about a week since I last checked in, lots going on, but I am really busy today.. Actually been busy almost every day this week. Where to start, where to start….. OK I finally finished up at work on Monday and none too soon… Seems like my paranoia wasn’t misplaced. Went into work Monday morning at 6:30am and tried to really mixed it up a little. I got off the expressway at the exit I generally get off and there was a minivan stopped at the top of the ramp. As I approached they threw it into reverse and actually tried to ram me as I came up the ramp. I threw it in reverse and the fuckers were actually chasing me in reverse back onto the freaking expressway. Luckily as I slammed the brakes and threw it into forward they just missed me and I whipped It onto the grass and drove back up the off ramp in the grass and mud and snow(good thing I was in 4 wheel drive) and went through the red light and went as fast as I could to work.. They didn’t follow as far as I could tell. I let my boss know about it and he said he understood that I didn’t want to come back for now.. We were 95% done anyways and we were just stretching things out as long as we could.
The internet at work is now completely useless for me. Most of the good places on the net are getting blocked by our provider or further downstream and we can only hit the big ones like CNN or Foxnews.com. Just the same shit I get on the news at home. They are still on re-runs for now and the news has turned into a big cheer leading section for the government. WE ARE NOT GETTING ANY NEWS!! If I am getting jumped on I75 off ramps in the morning, WTF else is happening out there? It’s like we are back in the days before the freaking telegraph. We don’t have a whole lot of friends that live outside our area. My Sister in Law lives in Memphis and my wife talks to her quite a bit. They are reporting the same stuff. His downtown restaurant is closed for now and they are holed up at home and they were lucky enough to have lots of food leftover at the restaurant, so they just threw it in the back of the van and brought it home with them on day 7 of this….. Whatever the hell you want to call it..
So far there has been no cutsie name given for this “event”. By now you’d expect the news talking heads to be proclaiming “day 21 of the Great American Unravel(being my personal favorite)”.. But nothing of the sort, its almost like this is normal now and though most people aren’t buying it, the government/MSM seems to think it is working. At least if you are buying the bullshit they are peddling on the nightly news. Nothing but shit about the markets actually stabilizing around the 9K mark and that gasoline prices will likely plateau around the 8 bucks a gallon mark. No talk about the fact that people are STILL standing in lines every day for a meager amount of canned goods and breads. No mention of the crimes that are starting to get more violent by the day. I am getting stir crazy and I can feel it starting to eat away at my patience and my mood. I am getting snappy with the kids way too much. I am pissed at myself for not doing simple things that would make my life a lot easier. If only I had done them BEFORE!! My tooth is hurting and I knew I should have just had the fuckers pulled out of my head while I still could. I had 2 of my wisdom teeth pulled 3 years ago, he told me the other two were fine… For now… But that I should pull them anyways as they’ll be trouble later on.. I decided he just wanted to charge my insurance another 3k and decided that they were fine. Good thing I have a lot of aspirin stored in the pantry and I’m glad it is still good… Looks like their expiration is coming up soon… Going to spend the rest of the day going through my stores and figure out where my shortages are likely to be. Might try hitting up the stores again while I can and while there is some order.
Figure if push came to shove I could feed the family till Spring and not even have to use the same recipes more than a couple time each. After that I think I have enough basics to last us till summertime. Got enough seeds to get a lot of the neighbors and their yards planted. Ducks seem pretty happy and she is still putting out nearly and egg a day. Just wish I had a few more of her putting out eggs.
But that is out in the future. For now I am concentrating on the day to day stuff, which is hard in the dead of winter. Which leads me to some other developments. We heard from PUCO(the public Utilities people) yesterday though their mouthpiece on the local news. They said that because of recent events and problems with suppliers, that they were going to be raising gas rates and electric rates by over 50% in the early spring. When pushed to clarify “early spring” she relented and said “March 3rd’s billing cycle”. Which is still actually WINTER!! So our next heating bill is going to go up quite a bit. Because we are only in February and it is still bitter cold. We had a few decent snow storms, but nothing too bad. But the cold is getting to me as we’ve been turning the furnace down a lot. With the news we got, we spent the past few days blocking off vents to the upstairs and we are just using one bedroom up there for the two of us. The kids are in a sealed room in the basement and we’ve moved their bed down there. Glad we had decent CO2 alarms down there. But we are spending more of our time in the basement bedroom as we can keep it pretty warm with a small electric heater.
I am just so consumed with all the things going on in my own back yard that I am almost forgetting all the big macro things that are likely happening out there. But without a window to that world, I find it hard to even think about it, but I figure we are on about day 14 or 15 of the “temporary draining of the strategic reserves” and if I remember we can only operate for a limited time on that reserve. Gas prices have been going up and up. But to be honest, there isn’t a lot of driving going on right now.
I just start to wonder who is actually working out there? The police for sure, and the ambulances seem to working as I hear them at night, not much else, but we hear them a lot lately. Obviously the electric guys are working and the gas guys and the water guys. But I cannot help but wonder if any of the parts they rely upon to fix problems are in stock and readily available.. Can’t help but think about my buddy Rob and his glass furnaces and their inability to get replacement parts…. Got to call him soon. Funny how far away they seem now. Its only been a couple of weeks since this all started and driving the 20 minutes to his house now seems almost out of the question. We would regularly do it 2 or 3 times a month before.
Anyways, getting late and I have a lot to do tomorrow…. OH OH last thing… This is actually a small ray of light.. We had our community meeting this past Monday and the turnout was GREAT.. Had about 350 people show up and it was standing room only. At the time I thought the village building this big brick building was a big assed waste.. But it was well built and they actually though to keep the wood burning fireplace like the old shelter house that once stood in its place. This will work really nice for the future me thinks… Nice and cozy and safe feeling… Anyways, the meeting went well and all the socializing felt great. One of the few days I wasn’t crabby and getting short with the kids. Everyone brought their kids and they all tore around the place and the whole place was just buzzing with conversation. The fire felt warm and optimistic to me. Seeing the kids running around the big common room really made me feel good inside. I actually decided that I would bake a bunch of loaves of bread and some ginger cookies.
It went fast, but I was surprised many others had done the same. My friend Marty who called the meeting and his wife had brought eggs from their small chicken flock. Not sure what they hoped to accomplish with only 13 eggs, but I think they just wanted to start the meeting with a positive note of giving. Almost all in attendance were thankful for the small treats. The meeting was just a way to get people together and to start talking. I was thankful that the Mayor showed up with his Chief of Police and was doubly thankful that he took the opportunity to ask for volunteers for a beefed up neighborhood patrol. He was careful not to spoil the good mood and just asked for those interested to sign a paper in the back and that we would meet Wednesday night(tonight actually) at the police station. I signed up as did many of the other fathers, and not surprisingly, quite a few mothers.
Got to get going to that meeting. Time flies when you type.
Cya./
Been a week or so since I last posted; so little and so much has happened since my last entry. I just re-read my entire diary up to this point and I am stunned at how quickly things have happened. It has been nearly a month since this whole thing started and the whole event has taken on a very permanent and almost normal nature.
Last entry talked about my going to a meeting for a beefed up neighborhood patrol and that was very fortuitous. The night after the meeting a largish group of armed men entered one of the neighborhoods on the Toledo side of the village and started kicking doors down, in a kind of smash and grab operation.
Took only 2 or 3 minutes per house and it was done in less than 10 minutes; mostly a lot of bloody noses and bruises and no one died, thank God. But it clearly showed everyone how vulnerable we all are and the importance of this citizens patrol. We decided that anyone going on patrol should be armed and they were duly deputized by the Sherriff. So now it seems I am a Constable of the Village.. Who would have ever thought of such a thing? We have to supply our own ammo and guns, and for those that didn’t have one, they are currently borrowing from others.
The Sherriff wisely decided to barricade the streets on the Toledo side of the village with old cars and some buses from the school motor pool and placed several people as sentries. We are communicating with the greatly reduced Toledo Police department and are trying to help them on the fringes where we can. They are telling us that Toledo is falling apart at the seams. They are down almost 50% on their patrols and they are finding that they are spending more time holed up at their stations like a fort or something. The neighborhoods are falling apart on a street by street basis. Some are pulling together and are doing like we are, barricading the streets and keeping everyone out. Others are just falling apart as those with the means and will to leave, are already gone. Those houses are being torn apart by looters.
Not surprisingly, the gang situation is completely out of hand. The gangs are spreading out into the suburbs and violent break and entries are a nightly occurrence. The TPD are helpless to stop all but the most brazen perpetrators at this point. They told us the Ohio National Guard is supposed to be coming but right now they are too busy helping the Big C’s and that old T-Town might be on her own for a little while longer(The Big C’s are Cincinnati ,Cleveland and Columbus).
We have taken a few shots at people as they came close to trying to break through our lines, but so far no one has been hurt. TPD is telling us that we are building a pretty strong reputation for being someplace to stay away from. This is good…
All in all it is boring as usual. The TV keeps saying that things are getting better and they are pointing to the stabilized markets and such. But the DOW was down to 8200 and gasoline prices are set to hit 7.50 a gallon around here. The police are about ready to throw in the towel and all but the most ardent shop owners are shut down. The only grocery stores open at this point are the big national chains and they are pretty much an armed camp as National Guard troops and police man the stores 24/7 and armed shipments come in about once every 2 or 3 days. They are delivering only the staples at this point. Bread, bottled water, some meat/cheese and the like. People start lining up at dawn in some cases and after hours of waiting they are being rewarded with food that 6 weeks ago they would have probably returned to the store as inferior.
We had our first intermittent power outage 2 nights ago. Only lasted 15 minutes but it was VERY unnerving. I talked to some of the neighbors about saving gasoline and we decided to “loot” the Interstate battery warehouse across the street from my house. The place has been basically abandoned at this point. We left a large note on the counter with our contact information and our willingness to make a mends when and if they decide to contact us. But what a treasure trove; hundreds of batteries of every shape and size. We took the large 6 volt golf cart batteries and took them to my house. I have a largish inverter and a 2400 watt Yamaha generator and I started using the gas from the neighbors and started charging batteries for them. In my house we should be able to keep a large part of the house electrified during these outages.
The others will have to live with the dinky car type inverters they may have had from before the emergency. But it will run a few lights a fan probably. Better than nothing. But I already have the battery array hooked up in the basement and while the grid is up I am charging the batteries. Not sure if that outage was a harbinger of things to come or not. Not taking any chances.
So far the NG supply has been constant and I used the time I had on my hands to finally extend my NG lines out to the back of my house and tested It on my generator and it works great. So now I have THREE independent (actually four counting the electric grid) power sources to keep the light on. I am building a small shack to go around my generator to protect it from the elements and prying eyes. It is really quiet and shouldn’t attract too much attention if I have to run it. My plan is to only run it during the day and run the house off the batteries at night.. If it comes to that…
Anyways. Got to go, hands are hurting. Hope I will check back in a little more frequently
Didn’t keep my promise. Sorry things have just been so busy/boring. Sorry for the mixed metaphors there. I am busy with all the normal things that life can throw at you, but they are just so boring and normal(at least this new concept of normal) that I didn’t feel they needed comment. But as I think about it, some of it is pretty exceptional.
Well its March 1st and though spring should be around the bend, the weather is just cold and snowy. Lots to relate to you, not sure where to start though. I’ll start with the small and work my way out. I got the greenhouse planted today with seeds and am using my precious propane to keep the greenhouse heated for now. I only need to run it about 3 hours a day. Actually as I think about this, I am being stupid.. I should be using the grid while I still can and save the propane… See this diary is worth something. I’ll just keep the propane heater in there in case of an emergency. Lucky I had all the pots and potting soil I needed to get this done. All the seeds are from last year and I hope they sprout.
We are living almost 100% off of our pantry at this point as I am not willing to risk mine or my families life at the government run grocery stores(my description). One good piece of news for the people of Toledo. The National Guard finally showed up in force and has restored order to the city. They are not giving official numbers but if our friends at the Toledo Police Department are to be believed they have killed in excess of 100 or more people they caught looting. They are showing zero tolerance at this point. And though there is no official declaration of Martial Law yet, for all practical purposes, THIS IS MARTIAL LAW… If the guard catches you out after dark, you better have empty hands and a very good reason.
They evidently have turned Mud Hens stadium in downtown Toledo into a holding center for the hundreds they have detained. It took a week or longer for them to beat down the armed gangs, but in the end the gangs gave up and went back underground. Some people we hear are purposely trying to get themselves detained so that they won’t have to live n their cold homes and risk being killed by criminals and to get a couple of square meal a day. From what we are hearing they have nearly 1000 people “detained” at the stadium already. And they are adding hundreds by the day.
But all is not horrible. With the Guard finally making its presence felt, people are getting around more during the day light hours. Many of the small shops have opened up again and they are selling again. I had to make a mends with a VERY pissed off manager at the Interstate battery store and had to part with over 500 dollars from my personal stash of cash. But it was worth it as the electricity is going out on a regular basis almost every night now. The story from the press is that they are having difficulties with the Canadians’ and much of our NG supply in Ohio comes from Canada.
So they have taken to shutting parts of the grid down at night. Some of the bigger suppliers are starting up production again next week we hear. The government has a plan to start producing small armored vehicles that are going to be sold to Saudi Arabia and some of the other OPEC nations. Seems we actually have something they want. We build jeeps here and it should be pretty easy to convert the factories over to building these lightly armored 4 x 4’s.
We understand that oil is slowly trickling into our refineries as OPEC nations are extending their good faith to us and we have pledged a certain amount of the US Grain harvest to certain countries. Along with an increase in some military hardware. Toledo is very well situated to benefit from this as we have a long tradition of building military vehicles going back to WWII.
I just don’t like the long term implications of this though. The last time Toledo was building military vehicles like they are talking about, was in the run-up to World War 2. Makes me think they will deal with this economic catastrophe like they did back then. War is the ultimate economic stimulus you know.
Some of the cool things happening are that the small shops that are opening up are dealing in trade and barter in lieu of having cash money. That is an encouraging sign. But for the most part it is getting dark again. In the village people are squabbling about sharing everything. Of course the ones squawking the loudest are the ones who have the freaking LEAST to contribute. They are the ones without any thing in their pantries and no guns and 3500 square foot abominations that they can no longer heat or keep lit at night.
Those of us who were reasonably prepared are having a hard time dealing with them right now. I will share where I can, but not at the expense of my own family. I keep my pantry to myself to this day and probably will from here on out.
My family finally relented at they are planning on moving in this week and they are bringing their pantry and guns and the rest. I will feel much better when they get here. My wife’s father was moved in last week and he is in the back computer room. He will likely have to share with at least one of my kids. My parents will go upstairs and will get one of my other kids. My brother and his girlfriend will get the basement for now. Its gonna get tight in here really fast. Can’t wait for spring, because this many people cooped up in one place is going to get old really freaking quick.
Not expecting any real turn around on the economic front any time soon. It will take weeks if not months for the change over at the GM/Ford plants to happen, so we are just going to have to hunker down.
Been hearing from my brother up in Michigan that there is renewed interest in the forest up there. China and India are making noises about wanted to invest up near where he lives and they want to start up a few mills to process the trees in the area. 3 years ago they proposed the same thing, and they were told to take a flying leap. Now they are bending over backwards to clear the way for them to get started. No talk of EPA or DNR paper work blocks of any kind this time around.
Anyways, got to go.
