FWIW, the local economy in my area is built mainly on apples, tomatoes and tourism. Tourism was pretty good this year. A lot of Florida folks own second or third homes here. Apples got wiped out by frost earlier this year and the farmers face still competition from China. Oh, what? You didn’t know that most apple juice is made with Chinese juice apples? Tomatoes were wide open. This time of year we see a lot of box trucks with no back door from Florida, full of mexicans, who harvest the tomatoes.

Housing is flat here for the most part. Anything over 200K generally sits while homes under 150K are gone within a week or two. The area is way too dependent on folks from Florida, New York and Michigan to support the real estate industry. For some reason, a lot of locals think that the area is immune because of the outside folks that retire here. Not so, say I. After all, if they go broke in those places, they won’t be buying anything here.

Nonetheless, noone should consider eastern TN to be some kind of safety place. The mestizos are not that far away. Oh, and google Channon Christian and you can see that Knoxville is not the nicest place in the world.

I was good to hear that you may come up to our neck of the woods in the event of a bug out. Four members of my family still live down in your (Tampa) area. They have had 3 houses (not the ones they live in) on the market for over a year now and it still doesn’t look very promising. I have warned them for years about what is to come but all they have done to prepare is to buy a few thousand dollars of precious metals because the price was so low a few years ago.

My family in OH and MI have done absolutely nothing to prepare. Both my FL family and Northern family say (tongue in cheek because they don’t really believe me) if things get really bad they will come here to Upper E. TN and live off my preparations. As a pastor, I make half, a third and even a quarter of what the rest of my family makes in income. Most of them have ten times the assets I have because I try to give to other’s needs and prepare for the future. What can I do to get them motivated?

I can’t think of anywhere I would rather be in a crisis than Upper E.TN but I have a large family and could not take care of all of them in a pinch. If and when they bug out they will not be able to bring that much with them. Do you have any recommendations for someone in my situation?

Last year the MLS had fewer than a dozen small multifamily units for sale. Duplex’s triplexes and fourplexs. There are now in excess of 200 with the prices dropping. People bought the units at such a high price that they had no positive cash flow, hoping for appreciation to make any money. I am waiting for the prices to drop enough that the rent will generate a positive cash flow, then I will shop.

Gas prices have been pretty flat, our farmers are getting $2.00 per lb for almonds still on the tree, they are pulling out peaches and planting almonds.
Will keep you posted on further changes.

I live in southeast Michigan, The economy really sucks here. Gas prices run from 2.91 to 3.09 as of this morning. There are more people with there homes for sale than ever before.The foreclosure rate is at an all time high and it is not just a sub prime problem, people with prime mortgages are just walking away from there homes. These are high end homes.Unemployment in July which was reported at 7 percent is more like 10 to 12 percent. The reason for this is the fact last years Nov and Dec.job losses are now out of unemployment insurance has run out and now not being counted in the numbers. New job postings in state run jobs bank today was 22 and 170 for the week. It does not look to get any better any time soon.

mikeb

The fifty dollar US gold coin contains one ounce of gold, valued by the US law at 42 US dollars. This coin sells today at approximately the market value of one-ounce pure gold, or about 700 dollars in notes of the Federal Reserve, referred to as FRNs. Therefore the US dollar is worth 700 FRN’s divided by 42 or 16.67 FRN’s.

Therefore a half-dollar US coin is valued at 8.33 FRNs. and similar for other US coin. Notice, it matters not what the US coins are made of, if the US mint made them they have that value which is stamped on them.

It is only out of ignorance that the public views FRN’s as money because it is NOT. It is merely a note stating (poorly) that the US govt. owes the Fed Reserve so many dollars in US money. It actually is not even a lawful note for it does not contain the mandatory information which the US statute of frauds says any note must have written on it, to be exchangeable in commerce or be enforced in any court. It’s a fraud, like all the tranched junk investments now collapsing, and which threaten to destroy the FRNs.

Do get a FRN out and read it, for I have never yet run into another person who has actually read the things. It’s wording is a legal mess, hence a fraud.

It is possible, that when the FRN is dead, US coins will assume their true worth under present US law. Bear in mind that US coins are like treasury bonds, etc. They are true US money, and will have their value so long as the US govt. exists.

The quarter coin, is US government money, and proclaims its value to be a quarter dollar. It does NOT say a quarter of a dollar note.

So a $500 box of say quarters, which you can obtain from your bank for 500 FRNs today, may have a worth of 500 US dollars one day soon, and be equal to 10 ounces of gold, whatever the price of gold in other nation’s currency. That may be a lot more than just 7000 dollars, which is its true, value today. A box of coins now selling for 500FRNs, by existing law is equal to 10 ounces of gold, which may soon be priced at thousands of dollars per ounce. Those who can cipher will see that there is chance of an enormous increase in the value of presently near worthless US minted base metal coins.

When the FRNs are gone, those US coins may again circulate as money, at their real value compared to gold. Stranger things have happened when a failed state tries to restructure to survive.