You have to keep in mind the cycle involved here. There is a reason for these crashes, recessions, and depressions.
They are not in and of themselves an end, but rather a means to an end.
You make a buck. You spend 2/3 of a buck and put 1/3 of a buck into the bank for a rainy day.
The bank loans out your 1/3 buck 10 time to 10 different people for 1/4 of a buck interest. These guys pay back their 10/4 bucks and the bank loans that out to 10 more people.
You lose your job, and go get your 1/3 buck back, and these 20 people lose their jobs, and the bank is unable to pay back the money it owes the Fed for permission to loan these derivatives to the Fed. The Fed foreclose on the bank. Then they forecloses on the 20 people and takes their resalable property.
This is called "Profit taking" because before all they owned was debt papers. Now they have touchable assets from the 20 people, and the failed bank assets. These assets they sell for gold and silver to elite investors and send the gold and silver to some out of the country storage point.
This is where we are today.
If you remember last year when Ron Paul and the congress told Bernanki they wanted to audit the fed he told them that if they did it would be the doom sound for the world. They went ahead on just a basic near real time audit and found the 1.3 Trillion the Fed had loaned to the European banks when our banks were denied the money. The Congress raised hell and the Fed called in that 1.3 Trillion 0% loan, and Greece, Italy, and Germany went into a depression as 1.3 Trillion in US Federal Reserve notes were pulled out of their economy by their banks to pay the debt. Millions of people lost their jobs as their employers had no money to pay them.
The elites were forewarned and pulled their gold from these banks, and sold their stock as always.
When the EU financial fails the people will be in the streets, and all of the American banks that hold loans, and shares of these banks will also owe the loans to the Fed.
When this crash hits it will be felt by the little guy first. The banks will close with his CD's, loans, and savings belonging to the Federal Deposit Insurance Company. He will receive an IOU for what he has in there, but that won't buy food.
In my estimation it will take 10 to 20 years for the economy to move back from a trade and deal to a cash for goods system. Till then you will find yourself spending time you need to make wealth, guarding it from those who want what the President says is their right to have.
We must all be careful what we wish for, as we might get those wishes sooner than we want them.