Chapter 12
The next morning we were up early and quickly packed everything up and left. We headed back to the town of Trinidad that we had passed through just a couple days ago. On the road as we neared our destination everything certainly looked perfectly normal. Arriving in town we stopped first at a gas station where I filled the gas tank and asked for some directions.
First we went to a Farm and Ranch store where we each bought heavy duty work clothes, heavy work parkas, thermo underwear, gloves, warm pac boots and lighter insulated boots. Also a couple of heavy wool blankets. We each also bought a spare pair of hiking shoes. Next to a large Walmart store where we bought a lot of food (even though we had quite a bit left from our last shopping trip) but mostly dry things like a huge amount of rice that would not be harmed if it froze though we did buy quite a bunch of canned goods that we could use up long before winter set in and we had to worry about it freezing. They had many dry soup mixes that we bought along with many other items. Janet was surprised at how much salt I bought. She remembered to buy some spices that she had talked about earlier. And of course plenty of water. More large plastic totes to hold everything and two five gallon gas cans along with countless smaller items.
At the truck we had to now stack many of the totes into double stacks so everything would fit in the back. Securing the load was a little harder but not too much with the ratchet straps I had the foresight to purchase. Next we then stopped and filled the two gas cans I had bought and I added some fuel stabilizer to the two gas cans. The gas cans were sat on the back bumper and strapped down securely. That way if they leaked they could not contaminate any other of our supplies.
It was still summer and warm but winter would be coming and we both thought we should be ready while supplies were still available. We did not think we had enough food to last us both all winter but now we did have quite a lot.
We also had lunch in town and talked about where to go next. One option was back to the area we had just camped at. It was nice there and certainly off the beaten path. Or we could continue west which is what we decided to do. About three hours later after leaving Trinidad we came to a small town called South Fork where we only stopped to fill the gas tank before continuing our journey west.
The road atlas showed national forest for a long way on both sides of the highway now. We drove several miles farther before taking a small side road to find a place to camp; at least for one night.
There were plenty of likely camping spots and we just picked one where it looked like we could be alone. We set up a good camp but did not make it very elaborate because as yet we did not know how just long we would be staying here.
After our evening meal and clean up we again turned the radio on. We had also listened while we were on the road today. There was no good news at all. Many people were wondering when the federal government would step in with bail out money for all the local governments to keep their services going. At the very least to cover payroll for police and fire departments across the country. But there was again only silence from Washington. No one was even spouting that everything bad was all the other party’s fault. There was just silence.
And things were certainly bad. In several big cities many rioters had been shot and killed by the National Guard troops who had now been mainly assigned to protect grocery stores from looters. When the rioters showed up at the protected stores and did not halt their advance when ordered to do so by the troopers many shots were fired. In just one instance in one city thirty three people were killed and many more wounded before the crowd turned back.
Many complained that no one should be killed just to protect a store but were countered by the fact that in most cases the troopers were trapped between the store and the crowd of rioters and likely shot to really protect themselves and the store was only secondary. Plus the fact that in most areas where there had been many grocery stores now there were only one or two. If those were looted then all the people in those areas would have no place to get any food at all.
After several cases where grocery delivery trucks had been hijacked, most deliveries were now were being protected by Guard troops in Humvees for the entire trip. More troops were stationed at shipping terminals and food distribution hubs along with the factories producing and packaging the food. The whole food train from start to finish had to now be protected so that food could be available to everyone.
This was obviously taking a lot of troops and apparently they were not all just National Guard troops but also regular US Army troopers were often seen. Either Congress had repealed the Posse Comitatus Act of eighteen seventy eight or the federal government did not care if it was illegal. This act had made it illegal for the federal government to use military personnel for domestic law enforcement. This act could easily have been repealed by just another act of Congress and signed by the President but we were all left to wonder because Washington was still silent.
The term Martial Law was heard many times on the radio. If it had not been declared by Washington then most people thought it soon would be. No one was sure what that would all entail but it would give the federal government almost unlimited power over US citizens with the possibility of suspending all of everyone’s constitutional rights. It was a wait and see situation. In the mean time the nation was falling apart at the seams with things getting worse daily.
I was bewildered about things and so I asked Jan about it. She was a college graduate after all so she might have a handle on things.
“I just don’t see how everything could go down hill so fast.”
“It did and it didn’t go fast. You were in the military so you were shielded from what was happening here I suppose. But when we had the real estate collapse in ’08 is when it started.”
“But that was years ago. We have had a recovery from that.”
“No we didn’t have a ‘recovery’. A lot of stuff went on since then. First we had to bail out the banks immediately. Next was a couple of huge ‘stimulus’ packages. The bank bail out was simple, we just handed them the money but the stimulus deal was different; there was no one to just hand the money to. So all that huge amount of stimulus money was piecemealed out to many, many places and entities. There was basically no over sight of those funds. Like most government money it was given to cronies, political friends and donors, even foreign companies. It did nothing for our economy at all, just padded the pockets of a select few.”
“But a lot more than the stimulus was done and it helped.”
“Yes and no. The Federal Reserve then stepped in and screwed things up worse. They injected huge amounts of money into the banks through Quantitative Easing. And they also dropped interest rates to zero. Now banks could borrow money at or close to zero percent. So what to do with all that money? The banks looked at the stock market which had fallen a lot but was now slowly rising at that point. So the banks poured money into the market. With all the money going into the market it started to rise faster and faster. When the market went up the banks made huge amounts of money.”
“If they made huge amounts of money why did the banks just go broke again?”
“With the huge profits they paid their employees big wages and huge bonuses along with paying their shareholders. The CEO’s made many, many millions of dollars per year. Even with the big profits the banks wanted more and started to manipulate the markets. In at least some cases they were caught and while not a single person ever went to jail the banks were fined billions of dollars. Yes, billions of dollars in fines that had to come out of their profits. When the market reached record highs many started to get edgy but they still had money to invest and they wanted maximum returns on that money. In the old days the banks put a lot of money in US bonds but now those paid very little interest so the banks looked elsewhere. Foreign bonds were very risky but because of the risk they paid big interest rates. So the banks put a lot of money into them.”
“I see the banks made investments instead of making loans.”
“That’s right. When a bank makes a loan there is something tangible there, like real estate or a business or a car. Investments are often just bets, not much different than laying down money at a casino.”
“Then some of those investments started to go sour on them.”
“That’s right the economies both in the United States and in Europe never recovered at all, only the world stock markets went up thanks to everyone doing the Quantitative Easing not just the United States. But with bad economies just teetering on the precipice it took very little to push them over that edge. When it started to go it was a steep slope and things picked up speed fast. Europe was first and when Greece defaulted it really was a big down hill push. The banks here and there lost huge amounts of money from defaulting foreign investments at the same time the stock markets were falling and they were losing huge amounts in their market investments at the same time. Like they say the rest is history. It really was way more complicated than that because of the derivatives market but now you have the basics.”
“So it was the same old things greed and corruption that led to this?”
“I guess those two things where ninety nine percent the cause. Maybe add a little stupidity and just a tiny bit of bad luck into it. And now because of all that we are sliding into total chaos.”