Section 1—Overview
Great Collapse Nears

The U.S. economic and systemic-solvency crises of the last four years only have been precursors to the coming Great Collapse: a hyperinflationary great depression. Such will encompass a complete collapse in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar; a collapse in the normal stream of U.S. commercial and economic activity; a collapse in the U.S. financial system as we know it; and a likely realignment of the U.S. political environment. Outside timing on the hyperinflation remains 2014, but there is strong risk of the currency catastrophe beginning to unfold in the months ahead. It may be starting to unfold as we go to press in March 2011, but moving into a full blown hyperinflation could take months to a year, beyond the onset, depending on the developing global view of the dollar and reactions of the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve.

Prerequisites to the crisis unfolding include: the Federal Reserve moving to monetize U.S. Treasury debt; the U.S. dollar losing its traditional safe-haven status; the U.S. dollar losing its reserve status; the federal budget deficit and Treasury funding needs spiraling out of control. The Fed moved to monetize Treasury debt in November 2010. A much-diminished U.S. dollar safe-haven status has become evident in early March 2011, along with serious calls for a new global reserve currency. The economy is not in recovery and should display significant new weakness in the months ahead, with severely expansive implications for the federal deficit, Treasury funding needs and requisite Fed monetization of debt.

As the advance squalls from this great financial tempest come ashore, the government could be expected to launch a variety of efforts at forestalling the hyperinflation’s landfall, but such efforts will buy little time and ultimately will fail in preventing the dollar’s collapse. The timing of the onset of full blown hyperinflation likely will be coincident with a broad global rejection/repudiation of the U.S. dollar.

With no viable or politically-practical way of balancing U.S. fiscal conditions and avoiding this financial economic Armageddon, the best that individuals can do at this point is to protect themselves, both as to meeting short-range survival needs as well as to preserving current wealth and assets over the longer term. Efforts there, respectively, would encompass building a store of key consumables, such as food and water, and moving assets into physical precious metals and outside of the U.S. dollar.
Background

By 2004, fiscal malfeasance of successive U.S. Administrations and Congresses had pushed the federal government into effective long-term insolvency (likely to have triggered hyperinflation by 2018). GAAP-based (generally accepted accounting principles) accounting then showed total federal obligations at $50 trillion—more than four-times the level of U.S. GDP—that were increasing each year by GAAP-based annual deficits in the uncontainable four- to five-trillion dollar range. Those extreme operating shortfalls continue unabated, with total federal obligations at $76 trillion—more than five-times U.S. GDP—at the end of the 2010 fiscal year. Taxes cannot be raised enough to bring the GAAP-based deficit into balance, and the political will in Washington is lacking to cut government spending severely, particularly in terms of the necessary slashing of unfunded liabilities in government social programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Bankrupt governments—unable to raise adequate cash to cover obligations—invariably crank up the currency printing presses to do so, creating a hyperinflation. The federal government and Federal Reserve’s actions in response to, and in conjunction with, the economic and financial crises of 2007, however, accelerated the ultimate process—both in terms of fiscal deterioration and global perception of the issues—moving the outside horizon for hyperinflation from 2018 to 2014. Even so, over the last year or two, the government and Fed’s actions and policies, and economic and financial-market developments have continued to exacerbate the circumstance, such that there is significant chance of the early stages of the hyperinflation breaking in the months ahead.