Does anyone else see an economic crash coming?

[Mountain trapper]

You seem to forget we the people are funding and going in debt to pay the salaries and retirements of "civil servants".

Land management? I have seen lots of "land management" over the years by forest service and park personnel.... Most of it to thwart honest tax paying american citizens from accessing and using our own public lands...
Since I live right between yellowstone and glacier parks in montana which has millions of acres of "public land" I know personally people in the government beau acracy that are there solely to further their own tree hugging private interests...
No access except for those jogging in their natural colored spandex while on vacation from san francisco.... No hunting and let the forests burn thru miss management...

Chop the payroll (just like any private business has to do when they have over spent and live with the income generated....

This country will surely sink....if we keep spending like a government employee on a "educational" conference trip to las vegas.....

I own a ranch that is completely inside of the national forest. I have to pay an annual lease to the FS to access my own land. I've heard some lowlife federal employee threaten to cancel my access lease, just because he could. He couldn't but I still had fight it. A couple years ago I heard a rumor that "they" were going to "take" my land because supposedly some "rare" ground squirrel is found on my land. I'm pretty sure that a lot fewer of them live there now. These kinds of examples prove to me that there are far too many government slackers in these agencies. And they need drastic cuts in budgets, responsibilities and manpower.

 

[Dave V]

There ain't no free lunch....
Interesting post but I am a little slow .......where does the federal government borrowing and inflating the money supply come in to the inflation picture?

The Federal government doesn't directly "print money" when borrowing, but rather the Federal Reserve, the central bank, increases the money supply through various mechanisms, which can potentially lead to inflation if done excessively. When the government borrows money, it can indirectly contribute to increased money supply and potentially inflation by influencing the Federal Reserve's actions.
More money chasing the same amount of goods = inflation.

 

[Dave V]

The US needs the rare earth minerals, not just Musk and his company's. Yes, of course private companies would do the mining. This mining would create good high paying jobs. That's kind of a strange statement, like it's a bad thing for private companies to do the mining?

Of course we need them. I was just commenting on the mistaken belief (by my 3 shelf stockers) that Musk or any other user of rare-earth minerals would be sending out checks to the American people from their profits! It's NOT going to happen!

 

[Mountain trapper]

Of course we need them. I was just commenting on the mistaken belief (by my 3 shelf stockers) that Musk or any other user of rare-earth minerals would be sending out checks to the American people from their profits! It's NOT going to happen!

We'll see. Personally I'd rather see the savings go to pay down the debt. But when the checks are sent out we'll just invest it, like we do with our SS checks.

 

[elkhound]

I know that Forest Rangers do not clean bathrooms.

That's left to lower level employees--technicians and seasonal hires. Most of these were fired this week, and seasonals aren't funded for fiscal 2025 in the Forest Service...so it may very well become a Forest (or Park) Ranger duty.

you did see my post seasonal were not going to be hired for year 2025 and decision was made in oct 2024 right....you also seen this funding for other stuff has been reversed right?



some states call employees rangers and the ranger term is not reserved for head of a district like in usfs...i knew a guy who is dead now and his title was ranger but he was far from head person...he and others were called rangers.

 

[poltiregist]

I am for cutting all government agency down to non-existent, with the exception of a reduced military remaining and mail delivery . Full preppers need not some arrogant person with a uniform and a hat telling the rest of us what we can or should do . Guns and amo will sort out the wheat from the chaff . " freedom " ------ Just think we are just seeing the preliminary cushy job cuts . This is just the beginning . I suppose the arrogant will be homeless or have to get a real job . Some may want to explore the life style of the poor and the homeless . There are videos on You Tube that homeless post on a regular bases in an attempt to prepare the future homeless . One such video maker goes by " Friar tuck " .

 

[Haertig]

Nobody is guaranteed a job. Not in the private sector, not in the government.Government employees are now starting to get a bit of a taste of what's been going on in the private sector forever. I can't count how many times I was almost laid off, but survived in the end. I have had buyout offers where I could quite for cash. Ultimately I was laid off and since I was well enough to do, that became my early retirement date.

I am of the impression that government employees have seen a lot less of the kind of turmoil that I describe above. And that is hitting them hard now. Every single person who gets laid off thinks they are indispensable and should be immune. Everybody who gets laid off thinks it was unfair when it happened. Everybody who gets laid off worries about how they will provide for their family. Everybody who gets laid off thinks the people who are doing the layoffs are out of their minds and have no concept of the "big picture", which ironically the laid off person thinks they know this.

This is the real world. I think government employees have been insulated from it but now the insulation is falling off. Government has just gotten too big. It's gotten to the point that they are doing useless stuff and calling it work so they can justify the size of government. It's got to be cut down. It has to be. Unfortunately, that means laying off people. And there is no way you can lay off people without hurting them. That's the way it works. Because someone will be hurt by a layoff is not justification to keep paying them to do something useless. Especially when it is the tax payers that are footing the bill for useless work.

Not all government work is useless. But if government employees with the potential to be laid off get to decide what is good and what is useless - well, we will be waiting a couple hundred years for that report to come out.

So how does one handle the need to get rid of excess if there is no realistic way to uncover what is useless in a reasonable time frame? Well, you make some guesses. Probationary workers ("new hires" is a synonym for that) could reasonably be expected to be less critical than long term workers. Not in every case, but generally. People employed by agencies that do stupid stuff - like study psychiatric issues of transgender frogs - can generally be lumped into the useless category simply by being associated with an agency that does such stupid stuff.

There are certainly good people doing useless stuff in some cases. I feel for them being laid off. Not that many government employees offered me condolences when I got laid off in the private sector. But the simple fact is - we can't afford to pay people to do useless stuff. It is not sustainable. We are well past the point of realizing that. So much so that the argument du jour is that laying off government employees will be only a drop in the bucket and won't affect our debt. How did we get ourselves in such a mess that we're doing so much useless stuff that we can't quit doing it because it won't make any difference?

I have used the word "useless" above very liberally. There are some things that our government does that are good. But the bottom line is, we can't afford to keep doing it. We just don't have enough money. So while everyone probably thinks it's good to feed undernourished babies in Africa, it's in America's best interest to stop doing that and use the money to feed American babies instead. So our aid agencies for other countries simply need to go. Good people may work there. But we can't afford to keep paying them to do things that are to our detriment, even when they're good for those other countries. Some will say that if we don't continue doing it, our enemies will start doing it and this will hurt us. But all's we managed to accomplish doing this stuff is to bankrupt ourselves. So let those enemy countries take a turn and bankrupt themselves if they want. That's what Russia did with Afghanistan. They pulled out and freely let us move in. Probably laughing their heads off. Now that we've pulled out, maybe China will have a go at it?

 

[Robert Stewart]

Just read on my laptop news feed that Ukraine has agreed to Trumps proposal of access to their rare mineral deal in exchange for continued military and economical assistance my main concern is if old mate Putin will keep his word and not be trigger happy in doing Invasion 2.0 which could very well equal all out NATO vs Russia meaning WW3 as im fairly sure with Ukraine handing over exploration and exportation rights to their minerals it gives them that door way to NATO membership and protection if Russia does attempt a 2nd round invasion

 

[Magus]

I'll be very afraid when AI can build a skyscraper all by itself or make my supper, or fill my gas tank, etc.

Right on!

Better grab a wine cork. LOL
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daphne...ve-global-restaurants-staffed-by-robot-chefs/

https://rotec-engineering.nl/robotic-fuelling-systems/robotic-fuelling-station-for-passenger-cars/

https://constructiondigital.com/top10/the-top-10-construction-robotics-companies

 

[UrbanHunter]

Right now things are just shaky, the S&P jumps up an down about 1 1/2% every couple of days and it makes me nervous but I see opportunities for profit too. This is just like the roaring 20s, the markets were swinging. There will be profits to be made by some and there will be losses incurred by others. Eventually the bill does come back around to bite the unprepared. My crystal ball is telling me that between now and November things will keep this pattern. After that the real suck will appear and you better have your seat belt on....

 

[SoulSeeker]

This is just my opinion, but I don't see where Trump is hurting the country. I don't recall Musk ever saying his or any other company would be sending out checks. What the DOGE has done is find worthless Government departments employing unneeded staff to do exactly what? Spend tax dollars. By getting rid of wasteful spending is the only way to get our country back under control financially. Some people may get caught up in the firing that shouldn't. Everyone needs to see the urgent need to rein in the spending. People keep saying Trump this and Trump that. What about Biden and the Biden crime family and the political mafia? They're the ones that helped put us in this mess. The Democrats created the worthless agencies and departments, some to just put more tax dollars in the laundry, to keep the U.S. broke! That's our money going to buy condoms for Afghanistan, promote the LGBTQ movement, or as I call it the mentally ill, in other countries, creating a new sesame street kids show in some other country, giving aid to terrorist groups, tax dollars being spent to sweep under the rug sexual misconduct of politicians. The list goes on and on. Do you want to be paying for this? How many Billions went to the illegal migrants while Americans hurt? I don't understand how law-breaking non-Americans are entitled to safety under the American constitution. Our bill of rights, our constitution, our body of laws are just that, ours. They were not and are not meant to protect those who come here illegally and break our laws. Breaking our laws then trying to use our laws to protect themselves, no way! I hear people talking about how Trump was going to reduce inflation and bring down the costs of fuel and improve things but he hasn't done it yet! No crap! Nobody can fix in 30 days what took 4 years and longer to mess up! It will take time and some hurt yet before things get better with the Democrats holding us back. One good note is the Epstein list in on the desk of Pam Bondi!

 

[elkhound]

I would like to know what seasonal workers do in the National Parks and National Forest, Bureau of Land Management, etc. They certainly aren't managing the lands under their judications.

They clean bathrooms,empty garbage daily in camping areas....sorry the public are pigs at times and produce huge amounts of waste while camping that has to be removed...anyhow...pick up trash along road ways,set up timber sales,fish biology stuff concerning wide array of things a real important one is salmon runs going up rivers to get an estimate on fish stocks to be able to get numbers for commercial fisherman to harvest,build trails,buck trees out of trails and clear roadways of danger trees and fight fires,do wildlife management stuff like habitat improvement from planting trees to seeding food plots and fields with suitable forage for birds and deer and this is just a tiny blip of the things seasonals do along with full timers.Seasonals are the backbone boots in field and ditch getting hands the most dirty doing the field work.

 

[montanabill]

These illegal and wasteful programs are not just taking my money thru taxes they are indebting me for my lifetime by having the government borrow money....

Getting things straightened out is kind of like taking a strong antibiotic because you have blood poisoning and will die from it.....The antibiotic also kills the good bacteria in your gut which after you are not dying from the infection you have to rebuild. might go thru some diarrhea in the mean time.

A local company was just sold.....all the long term employees that had been there for years were laid off and had to reapply for jobs......not a bad idea..

i have been in the same situation after doing what I thought was a great job I got called into the office and the overall facts of profit and loss were explained....I requested they fire me, I drew unemployment for a little while and pounded the streets looking till I found another job.

The situation now is that there will not be jobs at the same level and in the same field for the same money and benefits for many cut from the gov..

 

[SoulSeeker]

I don't think any reasonable person would say just get rid of all of them. There are those who, like I said, will get caught up in the gears and get fired. If we just give it time and do the right thing of telling our President this should not have happened and needs to be corrected. Kicking, screaming and crying is the Democrat way which will be ignored by the Trump admin. Going forth with calm demeaner and telling them of the fault will get things done a lot faster. The department heads from the top needs to hear, about the ones that need to stay/come back, from the trenches. Get a total of needed people and get reinstated the most they can. Once the country is back to running smoother than it has been I bet Gov jobs will be back due to finding freed up funds so to speak, but until then...

 

[poltiregist]

Reading posts on this forum or tuning into news both conventional and non-conventional , certainly is providing me with a lot of entertainment . I've been snowed in for a few days and this has been my go to entertainment . This forum of which has members " or at least some " on the homestead side of life that have prepared putting up food , gardening and have established survival critters appear to not have much anxiety over economic changes . It is the non-prepare d's responses that I find of the most amusement . -- Things " will " get more intense for those that didn't follow the basic prepper advice , as for some S.H.T.F. has arrived . --- Just my personal thought but if I was too lazy or felt too entitled to work a job along side of regular folks , thus was facing losing it all , would consider gathering what financial resource I had " before it melted away " and buy a camper van and prepare for a nomadic life . At least in a van or small camper someone will be able to lay down flat to sleep instead of trying to sleep half setting up on one's butt in a car seat . There are a lot of free places someone can spend the night without some " remaining government employee " harassing someone for living .

 

[montanabill]

"Those that have prepared for self-sufficiency has that covered . The downside is , what the prepared may have to do to protect their preps from the un-prepared . Hopefully everyone has already prepared to confront the desperate , regardless of the cause of their desperation ".
I am afraid you are right poltiregist. I just went to a gun show today and most of the folks I talked to seemed to think things trump is doing were going OK and going to get better.....

I think we we will see righteous indignation breaking down into mayhem by all those people who feel the country owes them a living, what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine......just wait and watch when the food trucks don't make it to wal mart.

 

[Supervisor42]

"Those that have prepared for self-sufficiency has that covered . The downside is , what the prepared may have to do to protect their preps from the un-prepared . Hopefully everyone has already prepared to confront the desperate , regardless of the cause of their desperation ".
I am afraid you are right poltiregist. I just went to a gun show today and most of the folks I talked to seemed to think things trump is doing were going OK and going to get better.....

I think we we will see righteous indignation breaking down into mayhem by all those people who feel the country owes them a living, what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine......just wait and watch when the food trucks don't make it to wal mart.

My worry is about the people in New York, no manufacturing, produces no product, but the majority have a 'guaranteed' guvment paycheck, so they have no need to prep.

 

[poltiregist]

march 4th. is the date set by the communist to try to get a civil war started . Their plan - converge on Washington D.C. for insurrection . They also have planned for some to converge at all the state capital; buildings for their civil war . -- No worries about this plan to actually succeed as here we are talking about a bunch of self entitled to their government job , free food stamps , multi-colored hair queers and folks whose butts are shaped like their favorite chair bottom .

 

[Amish Heart]

I heard that it's 50 protests in 50 states, the protests being in each state's capitol city. They're calling it 50 50 1, the one meaning one nation.
Glad I don't live anywhere near our Topeka.
Going on the same time Trump is giving a speech