Greer moves to Cumberland, Maryland

A contrarian move indeed! Betting on the Rust Belt

His reasons for doing so are fairly reasonable, but it seems to me that the food/population ratio will stay better in the region west of the Rockies as compared to the region east of the Appalachians for some time to come.

Pouring Gasoline on the Fire

Big Banks Don't Want California's IOUs. The public is already none too happy with both the financial system and the various governments. As banks who have been bailed out of public expense now refuse to help the government (or more to the point, the citizens whose public debt supported by taxes is financing the bailouts), expect the social mood, which is already bleak, to darken further. It's getting very hard to see how this will not all end badly.

A personal anecdote: I saw a guy asking for money yesterday with a sign that said "recently forced into unemployment". Looks aren't everything, but this guy had the look of somebody who has, up until very recently, been adequately educated and continually employed. Clean cut, decent clothing, etc. He was definitely not a member of the perpetual underclass that our society has created.

When these kinds of people find themselves on the street begging for change, things are getting bad indeed.

The Times We Live In

"The Great Recession" no longer is an adequate description. "The Greater Depression", anyone?

Drawing alarming parallels with the past is Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, writing The unemployment timebomb is quietly ticking.

Even the Amish Are Not Immune

A Bank Run Teaches the 'Plain People' About the Risks of Modernity

In Amish country, a bank run is about as familiar as a Hummer or a flat-screen TV. For decades, the more than 200,000 Amish in the U.S. have largely lived apart from the mainstream, emphasizing humility, simplicity and thrift. Known as "the plain people," they travel by horse-drawn buggy, wear homemade clothing and live with very little electricity.

. . .

Over the winter, rumors began to circulate that the trust was running out of money. The run, as Mr. Bontrager describes it, began in April. It lasted about six weeks. Mr. Bontrager says about 100 depositors made significant withdrawals, and some emptied their accounts. The $1 million reserve fund was wiped out. The trust hasn't yet resumed lending.

They might have done better if they had adhered to their traditional values better.

FDIC Thursday

This has become so common as to barely be worth considering as news, but the tally for this Friday is three:
John Warner Bank Seized; 46th Failure This Year
Winchester bank fails, regulators turn it over to First National Bank of Beardstown
Illinois' Rock River Bank year's 48th bank failure

A bad day for Illinois.

Perils of Unemployment

Since the Depression, one vital piece of the social safety net has been unemployment insurance. Now, that piece of the safety net is getting shredded. It may not be too long before the financial disaster that is becoming unemployed is not mitigated at all by help from the government. If you currently rely on a job to pay the bills, now is the time to be making contingency plans in case unemployment insurance and your job both go away.

Eating Locally Year Round

I'm glad to see articles like this one: Learn how to can foods

If you garden for food or shop in bulk at farmers markets, you can enjoy the bounty all year long by canning fruit, vegetables, seafood and meat.

Learn how through "Preserving the Harvest," a series of summer workshops through the Washington State University Snohomish County Extension, now accepting registrations.

I would obtain equipment for food preservation (including canning equipment) now, while the economy is somewhat intact and such things can be still relatively easily found. Acquiring a canner after economic collapse has occurred and after it has become blindingly obvious to everyone why one would be needed is going to be extremely difficult.