I received a lot of feedback about my interesting day in the land of the free yesterday. Most were to tell me of similar horror stories they had witnessed. But, some people suggested I must be exaggerating – or even made up the story completely.
To that, I offer some photo evidence.
A number of my colleagues from the conference witnessed me being taken down last night for having walked outside of a bar with my drink for a few moments and one took a picture which she sent to me today.;)
Your Trusty Chief Editor Being Attended to by the Authorities – Click to Enlarge
Interestingly, just after this, I walked into a gas station to ask someone for directions (trying to find a place I could go where I was not banned for 30 days). The girl working at the store looked upset and was running around and trying to call someone on her mobile phone. I asked her what was going on. She said she had just gotten robbed.
I asked her if she was ok and if there was anything I could do and she told me, “No, it's okay, this happens all the time.”
I asked her what she meant. A few times per year?
“No, almost every night,” she replied, almost embarrassed.
We are witnessing a collapse of the system. Due to trillions of dollars worth of wealth being destroyed by the booms and busts caused by the Federal Reserve system and untold trillions more destroyed and siphoned off by the US Government to banks and corporate interests there are millions of very desperate people in the US now. And it's only going to get worse once the next leg of economic collapse occurs, likely later this year.
Take for example this video of an older gentleman robbing a gas station.
Get ready for a wave of very polite, awkward robberies as people who lived their entire lives thinking that the government was protecting them find out, one by one, that they have been robbed blind for decades and will be desperate to do anything to get food on their tables for themselves and their families.
Of course, perhaps some of these robberies could be attended to by the police but when you have three squad cars tied up for an hour dealing with a man who walked outside of a bar with a drink it it can be tough to handle.
As for me, I rarely spend any time anymore in the United State and every time I return it is clearer and clearer how quickly the entire system is collapsing. It's like when you have a child, you don't really notice them growing but when friends who only visit once or twice a year see your child they are shocked at the growth.
Those who live inside the US may think that things aren't getting that much worse because they live within the system and it happens so incrementally that you may not notice the change. But for someone who only visits once or twice per year it is very obvious just how quickly things are declining.
The scary part is, this is all just beginning. As the US Government is forced to default on its debt(taking the Social Security ponzi scheme and most pensions with it) and/or when the Federal Reserve launches QE3 and QE4 and destroys the US dollar things will look a lot more like how the town square in Cairo looked over the last few weeks.
I will be visiting Salta, Argentina, in March to get a first hand view of an amazing-looking expat community being built by one of my favorite free-market thinkers, Doug Casey, and will be reporting back to our subscribers on that. As always we will keep our eyes open for the best places in the world to expatriate, at least for a few years, while this ongoing collapse of the western governments and financial systems continue.
From all I've seen on my latest visit to the US I continue to urge anyone living in Europe or the US to move as quickly as possible to try to expatriate your assets and even yourself before the noose tightens.
I'll be looking forward to one last grope or radiation bath from the US Government on my way out of Phoenix this weekend as I return, very happily, back to the freest country in North America, Mexico. At least there when you get stopped by the police you just give them 100 Pesos ($8) and have a good smile and a laugh. And when you leave a bar with your drink in Mexico the only thing you are bound to be confronted with is by some pretty young girl asking you if you'd like a plastic cup with some ice for the road!
