A Layman's Chart For One The Worlds Financial Barometers

While most of us (average joe) just gets on with life and pays no attention to what's happening around us, as Preppers we should. It should be as natural as buying extra food, storing up fuel or making sure our debts are being cleared as quick as we can and trying to increase our savings. Since the last GFC collapse, we are in the best seat possible because we have the Internet churning out great sites that allow us to 'see' and 'hear' what is going on. Do not rely upon the media. They will be the LAST to tell you what is happening. And the government even less although we do have some of the strictest laws in place to protect savings IN BANKS up to I think $250,000. Please inform the blog if this has changed.

ATM there are many triggers revving up. From the drop in oil; to the collapsing world stock markets; to the Baltic Dry Index (amount of ships carrying cargo around the world, ie cargo = trade = jobs; the Railroad Index (same as BDI); closures of large major department stores (Macy's) just before Christmas; the price of groceries in like countries like Canada (see previous post); housing bubbles (especially Australia) and other indicators that tell us things are not good. We might not see the affect for another year as we watch other countries around us slide because of their particular circumstance (Canada coal and oil) or we will wake up on a Monday to find the banks shut like we saw in Greece.

The reason I post items of a financial nature is because I do not want my own family to be the ones standing in queues at the banks or grocery stores and I consider my Prepping community to be my family too. I want us to be ahead of the media and the sheeple. While politicians feel it might be 'their duty' not to panic the country before things go belly up, I would rather be long prepared before that happens.

While I don't trade the stock market as a living, I can read a chart and according to those charts we (the world) are in deep trouble. While there are a plethora of charts from every country displaying their particular countries financial situation, the one that the financial sector/politicians/wealthy reads is the DOW or the Dow Jones Industrial Index. If the DOW is down, much of the world's own markets will be too. They tent to feed off each other.

Just TODAY it fell 500 points and although with 1.5 hours of trading it's around 450 and that could reverse, thats a massive (weekend) fall when nobody (sheeple) is paying much attention. Monday is another trading day and if it falls and continues on that fall within less than a month or even a week, we will be at the same level as the world when it entered the GFC back in 2008!! Today it sits around 15,950 and that means the previous day it was around 16,350 at the beginning of trading, hence the fall of around 500. It moves up or down every second as stock is traded be it bought or sold.

When the GFC hit in 2008 it sat at around 14,000 and continued over the next year to 7,000 (height of the crash but that 14,000 was the beginning) before turning and moving gradually back up all the way to 18,000 in 2014, where it turned down and this is where we sit today. Do the math. And get those preps you have been putting off in order ASAP. And remember Greece. They went to bed on Friday with their markets in turmoil and Monday was declared a public holiday and the banks never re-opened for weeks. Make sure you don't keep a heap of cash in your bank accounts. There is no reason why the old fashioned method of budgeting by allocating cash to your particular expense cannot be implemented. Yes it's a nuisance but having cash in your possession rather than in a bank might get you out of a tight spot.

This is the DOW LIVE CHART. Just hit your refresh button to monitor its progress. You might just be witnessing history. BTW. At the top of the page on the chart there is a blue line highlighting ALL the next tab is NEWS. If you click on that it will give you 'news' from different media outlets. 

www.google.com.au/search?q=dow+jones&client=safari&hl=en&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwisraCatazKAhXJKpQKHXqBCi8Q_AUIBygA&biw=1024&bih=672&dpr=2

This is a snapshot of the DOWS 10 year history