"Something Just Broke – It Appears That A Liquidity Crisis
Is Upon Us, And That Is Really Bad News For The Financial Markets"
by Michael Snyder
"What is the Fed not telling us? The numbers clearly indicate that big trouble is brewing in the banking system. I wish that I could specifically tell you which banks are in the most trouble, but at this stage we simply aren’t being told anything. They probably figure that the best approach is to try to keep everyone as calm as possible. But they won’t be able to keep a lid on what is going on indefinitely, and when word finally gets out people could start to panic.
In recent weeks, bank reserves have fallen to alarmingly low levels. In fact, last week they fell to the lowest level that we have seen in more than four years…"US bank reserves have crashed to a four-year low, plunging to about $2.8 trillion, according to the latest Federal Reserve data, sending fresh warning signals across Wall Street and Washington. The steep decline marks the second straight week reserves have stayed below $3 trillion, a critical threshold analysts say could test the banking system’s liquidity strength."
By itself, this doesn’t necessarily signal that we are facing a major crisis. But everyone agrees that what we are witnessing is certainly unusual.
What is causing far more alarm is what occurred on Friday. All of a sudden, there was an insane amount of demand for overnight repo cash…Federal Reserve reportedly pumped about $29.4 billion into the markets via overnight repos. That’s a big number and it signals something I’m watching closely. According to the data for “Overnight Repurchase Agreements - Treasury Securities Purchased by the Fed” the figure for Oct 31, 2025 is $29.400 billion.
In other words: The Fed is quietly stepping in and stepping up. To me, this is clear evidence that something just broke. Who suddenly needed that much cash? And why did they need it?
But that wasn’t the end of it. By the end of the day on Friday, it was quite obvious that something extremely strange had just happened…"Federal Reserve liquidity facilities caught fire on Friday as month-end pressures pushed a key lending tool to a record level of usage. The Fed’s Standing Repo Facility lent a total of $50.35 billion on Friday to eligible financial firms in two separate availabilities, the highest-ever usage since the tool was put in place in 2021 to provide fast loans collateralized with Treasury or mortgage bonds. At the same time, financial firms also parked a considerable amount of cash on Fed books, with the reverse repo facility seeing inflows of $51.8 billion."
So what is the bottom line? The bottom line is that it very much smells like a major crisis is brewing. But let’s wait and see what happens. If we see figures on Monday that are fairly normal, perhaps we have more time before things start breaking loose in the markets. However, if we see even larger numbers on Monday, hold on tight.
In either case, the financial markets will not be able to stay disconnected from the real economy forever. Just like in 2008 and 2009, large employers all over the United States have been conducting mass layoffs. Sadly, this time around that includes some of our largest and most prosperous employers…"The Trump administration offered buyouts to the entire federal workforce this year, aiming to reduce it by as much as 10%. Roughly 75,000 workers accepted. More recently, Amazon, UPS and Target all announced private-sector layoffs."
Buyouts can sound tempting. A five-figure severance package might be the most money a worker has ever seen in one paycheck. But it’s also the last paycheck your employer will give you. We haven’t seen anything like this in many years. Bankruptcies are soaring, delinquency rates are spiking, thousands of stores and restaurants are permanently shutting their doors, and just about everything just keeps getting more expensive.
Unfortunately, this is just the beginning and most of the population understands this. In fact, one recent survey discovered that 57 percent of Americans expect economic conditions to get even worse over the next year. Many of you are going to be facing some very hard decisions in the coming months.
If you currently have a job that you highly value, I would recommend holding on to it as tightly as you can. But if you feel that it is absolutely necessary to go somewhere else, you will just have to do what you have to do. Just understand that if you leave your current position it will not be easy to find a new one at all.
In 2008 and 2009, millions of Americans lost their jobs. Many of them didn’t have anything to fall back on, and so large numbers of them also lost their homes. This is one of the reasons why it is so critical to have a sizable emergency fund. At this point, even the mainstream media is stressing the importance of this…
Most people live paycheck to paycheck, and when the economy crashes, that leaves no room to breathe. Having three to six months of essential expenses tucked away can make all the difference when cash flow dries up or jobs disappear overnight. Keep your emergency savings in an easily accessible account, not tied up in volatile investments. It’s not about hoarding- it’s about buying time and peace of mind. When others panic, you’ll have the stability to make smart, calm decisions.
I expect things to start moving very quickly now. If the problems in our banking system bubble to the surface and start becoming highly visible, it will create a lot of fear. And it is just a matter of time before our absurdly overvalued stock market takes a dramatic tumble.
Of course all of this is happening at a time when so many other elements of “the Perfect Storm” are coming together. We are right on the brink of multiple major wars, global food supplies are rapidly getting tighter, we are being told that the next worldwide pandemic could break out at any moment, and on average the U.S. has been getting hit by a “billion dollar disaster” about every two weeks.
I expect so much chaos to be unleashed during the weeks ahead, and that means that we should expect the turmoil that we are currently witnessing on Wall Street to escalate quite a bit more."
"Your Bank Has No Money! Shadow Banking Nightmare"
"The banking crisis is here, and no one’s talking about it! Join me as I break down the serious issues plaguing the financial system right now, including shadow banking, dwindling reserves, and how it affects YOU. From private lenders to auto industry turmoil and even commercial real estate defaults - this is a wake-up call. Protect yourself and your family with smart decisions today. "
“What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 60? Your Honor.”
– "Better Call Saul"
"Picture this: You’re at a family reunion, and Uncle Bob is still insisting in 2025 that the Vaxx is “safe and effective” and the only reason you don’t agree is that you don’t “trust the science”. Everyone chuckles, pats him on the back, and passes the stuffing wondering if Bob is going to eat through is mask. Harmless, right? Remember, Bob gets a vote even though his relationship with the Truth is probably pretty tenuous. The True, the Beautiful, and the Good are important. They’re foundational to finding out things that are beneficial to society and, if you’re me, also things that are in-tune with God’s plan.
For decades, at least, the GloboLeft has been attempting to control the Narrative on everything from climate Armageddon (remember, the Arctic will be ice free by 2015!) to gender as a spectrum that includes, somehow, people putting on suits and pretending to be animals. But the crown jewel of their obfuscation Olympics®? The ironclad link between race, intellect, outcomes and cultures. Why did they bury it under six feet of reinforced concrete?
Simple: because admitting this torpedoes their “all cultures are equal” fairy tale. Remember, the “Globo” in GloboLeft means that everything is the same, everywhere, right? If they admit there are differences, poof: there goes the vote farm. Even more, it gives the TradRight rationale to exclude endless hordes of foreigners whose languages, cultures, and norms are more alien to our nation than creatures from the planet Zantar.
Let’s start with the basics, because facts don’t care about pronouns or participation trophies. IQ, that dusty old metric the smart set loves to hate, is rocket fuel for a successful life. On the individual level, folks clocking above 115 rake in 20-30% more dough over a lifetime, snag better jobs, and even divorce less. Higher IQ means more planning.
But let’s zoom out to nations. There, we find that IQ is a GDP cheat code. Countries averaging 100+ IQ (think Japan at 106) boast per capita incomes north of $40,000, while those scraping 80 or below (hello, sub-Saharan squad) limp along at less than $2,000. A one-point bump in national IQ? That equates to a 7.8% GDP boost. Smart nations are wealthy nations.
And, no. Not all black people are low IQ murderers. Thomas Sowell exists. But the Truth is that there is a substantive and real distance when viewed in aggregate. And it causes huge difficulties: low IQ correlates with impulsivity, poor planning, and a higher “screw the consequences” factor.
Bring this up, thought, and the responses are, “You’re racist!” even though the facts are stubborn and won’t go away. When confronted that these are persistent facts, the GloboLeft throws their Hail Mary: “But muh root causes! Poverty! Systemic racism! Colonialism’s ghost! 1619!”
It’s empathy porn, a verbal defibrillator to flatline any talk about the real facts. Sure, environment nips at the edges. Malnutrition might ding 5-10 IQ points, but when was the last time you saw a skinny poor person? Malnutrition isn’t a factor. Adopted black kids in white homes lag by a similar amount, the SAT scores from black kids from families at the highest income levels are lower than the SAT scores from white kids at the poorest levels.
This ain’t excusing; it’s enabling. Treating 30-year-olds like toddlers with excuses robs them of agency. If we’re gonna nanny them via EBT (Entitled Belly Timers) or Section 8 (Subsidized Shackles for the Aimless), fine. But adults get adult rules and toddlers get toddler rules. How about: no voting if you’re on the dole? SNAP’s 41.7 million users are 37% White, 26% Black, 16% Hispanic. Why let chronic takers tank the makers? This isn’t cruelty; it’s consistency. Benefit takers will always vote for people who promise more benefits. And, it’s a voluntary condition. Want to vote? Get off the benefits for two years.
The next lie, though is that all cultures are interchangeable widgets. We can swap them all like IKEA parts, and voila: Utopia! Spoiler: Nope. Cultures aren’t blank slates; they’re downstream from the people who make them. Those people are downstream from their genes. India’s a case study in spicy chaos: 1.4 billion souls with an average IQ ~82. The result? A subcontinent of smog-choked streets, bribe-fueled bureaucracy, and a GDP per capita scraping $2,500. No one’s fleeing Toronto for Mumbai. Now, Trudeau set Canada on a curry bender: they imported 500,000 Indians yearly, turning Tim Hortons® into Pooh Hut™.
The point was missed. If you replace every Canuck with a subcontinental clone you don’t get Canada 2.0 that’s short, brown, and with no upper body strength, you get a frozen New New Delhi. A society of polite hockey lovers? Nah, just more potholes, poop in the streets, Singhs driving trucks into innocent families, and power cuts.
And bringing their best? The top IQ in the United States (everyone above 130) is about 4.8 million people. But India? India has an average IQ of 82? Their 130+ IQ club shrinks to 0.02% a population of only 299,000 Indians. The United States outproduces India 16-to-1 in geniuses, despite the headcount handicap. Why import mediocrity when we’ve got homegrown innovation? The world already has an India, why clone it in Cleveland?
Same script for Somalia’s sequel in St. Paul or Haiti’s remix in Springfield. Flood Minnesota with 100,000 East Africans (IQ ~68-70 nationally), and watch lutefisk disappear to some sort of piracy and theft – oh, wait, they’re already running scams? Politics is downstream of culture, culture is downstream from race. The latter is a taboo subject, but it’s True. Shoehorning Somalis into the Land of 10,000 Lakes doesn’t Americanize them, it Somali-fies the lakes.
Truth demands we say the unsayable: America’s not a global hostel. Those 8 billion “Americans who haven’t arrived yet”? If America is an idea, they can have their ideas over there. We’re a nation of pioneers, not parasites; inventors, not importers. The GloboLeft’s borderless fever dream erodes that, swapping high-trust hardware stores for low-IQ hawala bazaars. Result? Balkanized basket cases, where “diversity” means dialing 911 in five languages.
I’m advocating adulthood: face facts, fix what’s fixable, and quit pretending that we can make a hot dog bark because it has the word “dog” in its name. “Why” simply doesn’t matter. Fighting the root cause has proven to be a lost cause. At our stage we have to deal with the symptoms. The stakes are high. If we don’t embrace Truth, the United States will end up exactly like those low-IQ nations: begging for scraps while the elites jet around the globe. I mean, it won’t be jets because they won’t have enough people smart enough to make jets. But you get the point. And Bob still gets to vote."
"Across the country, retirees and families who rely on SNAP benefits are facing growing concerns about safety while shopping. Reports of grocery store thefts, rising tensions, and price spikes have left millions wondering how to protect their benefits and stay safe. In this video, we break down what’s really happening and what every senior should know before heading to the store.
You’ll learn practical, step-by-step strategies to safeguard your SNAP card, stretch your benefits further, and plan smarter grocery trips. We also highlight what states are doing to increase protection for older shoppers and how communities are coming together to keep seniors safe. Whether you live in a small town or a big city, this information could help you stay one step ahead. If you or someone you love depends on SNAP, don’t skip this update. We’ll show you how to respond calmly, take advantage of new programs, and shop safely without fear. Stay informed, stay prepared, and share this video with friends or neighbors who might need this guidance. Your safety and peace of mind matter most."
"No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the truth."
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
"We write today in praise of hypocrisy. As Hawthorne suggests, it occasionally confuses us into a life of virtue. But today, public life seems to be becoming less hypocritical...and more coarse. When we were young, we rarely heard the ‘F-word,’ for example. On television and in print, it was verboten. Now, it is one of Americans’ most popular verbs. Even so, until this year, our leaders never said the F-word in public. They were held to a ‘higher standard.’ No more. Donald Trump: ‘Iran, Israel don’t know what the f— they’re doing.’
It is not our business at BPR to rake muck. But we’ve never before seen so much muck to rake. Things that used to be sources of embarrassment or social stigma are now right out in the open. So watch out. The US dollar derives its value not just from our laws and our economy, but from the trust that people have in our leaders’ good faith, prudence, and rectitude. But with no hypocrisy to point the way...does that mean that bankruptcy, default...inflation...seizures...devaluations...and rip-offs are more and more likely?
Maybe. Let’s look first at how much public integrity has already given way. Politicians used to be reluctant to ‘cash in’ on their powerful positions, for example. It was ‘unseemly’ if not completely illegal. Not that they didn’t take a bribe from time to time...or peddle a little influence...but they did it on the sly. And on a small scale.
Richard Nixon’s famous ‘Checkers’ speech, in 1952, set the standard. He was not accused of breaking the law...but of getting (improperly?) reimbursed for some of his expenses and accepting ‘gifts’ from big donors. Nixon was on the Republican ticket to become Vice President; there was some doubt that he would continue as long as this cloud hung over him. So, he went on TV...and the skies cleared. He told the audience that, yes, he had accepted a gift — a cocker spaniel named ‘Checkers’...and that he wasn’t giving it back. The public was reassured and Nixon remained on the ticket.
But that was then. This is now...Reuters: "The U.S. president’s family raked in more than $800 million from sales of crypto assets in the first half of 2025 alone, a Reuters examination found, on top of potentially billions more in unrealized “on paper” gains. Much of that cash has come from foreign sources as Donald Trump’s sons have touted their business on an international investor roadshow."
The pitch: "Buy at least $20 million of “governance tokens” in the Trump family’s crypto business, World Liberty Financial, and become part of a venture that Eric Trump predicted would soon embody the future of finance in America, according to a person familiar with the meeting.
...In the first half of this year, the Trump Organization’s income soared 17-fold to $864 million from $51 million a year earlier, according to Reuters calculations based on the president’s official disclosures, property records, financial records released in court cases, crypto trade information and other sources. Of the first-half total, $802 million – more than 90% – came from Trump crypto ventures, including sales of World Liberty tokens."
A really good salesman might sell sand in the Sahara. But the Trump boys do even better. They sell ‘tokens’ of nothing at all...for billions. They must be really good at business! But wait. What business is it? What does all this money buy? Well, it bought Chinese billionaire Justin Sun relief from an SEC investigation. The SEC backed off after Sun bought $30 million of WFL tokens. And it bought the government of the UAE security-sensitive computer chips; the sale was approved following a $2 billion investment.
Protection from tariffs? A pardon? Advance warning of POTUS’s next moves? Law professor, Kathleen Clark, explains the obvious: “These people are not pouring money into coffers of the Trump family business because of the brothers’ acumen. They are doing it because they want freedom from legal constraints and impunity that only the president can deliver.” But it is not just financial chicanery and hucksterism that are there for all to see. The perps do not slink around in the shadows. They go on X and boast. More to come..."
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI)is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding,safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
“Never since Jesus has one man drawn out so many demons.”
- Spock’s Love Child (@vulcanmindtrap) on “X”
“The question is, can communist subversion be defeated without using ‘authoritarian’ measures? Is a constitutional republic equipped to deal with this kind of threat? When someone wages war on your society internally, is there a way to fight them while being civic minded? Probably not.” - Brandon Smith
Doesn’t it kind of look like the Nov. 5 “Trump Must Go Now” action in Washington is designed to be our time’s Fort Sumter moment, to kick off Civil War 2.0? The organizers behind it are the usual suspects: George & Alex Soros’s Open Society Foundation at the hub and spin-offs such as the Tides Foundation, Revolutionary Communist Party, and Refuse Fascism doing the logistical grunt work... buses... snacks... signs.... brickbats... frog costumes. . .
The idea is to entice a million Wokesters to surround the White House and literally exorcise the president, get Donald Trump teleported out through the roof into the cosmic ethers, to be seen no more. We’ll have to stand by to see how it works. Something like it was tried in October, 1967, when anti-(Vietnam)-war celebrities - poet Alan Ginsberg, The Fugs’ Ed Sanders, hippie rabblerousers Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin - led incantations to “levitate” the Pentagon. (Failed.)
You might have noticed by now that the most hysterical voices crying about “fascism” are exactly the people who yearn to push everybody else around, tell them what to think, run your life, wreck every institution and relationship in society, and take all your stuff. The Left never notices how all that resembles their notion of what fascism is. Self-awareness is not the Wokesters’ strong suit.
The Nov. 5 event is predicated on - and coordinated with - the Democratic Party’s government shut-down, especially the suspension of SNAP benefits (free food), in hopes that famished mobs will rise up, loot the supermarkets, and force the president to forcefully put down food riots: Look, Fascist! But over the weekend Judge John J. McConnell Jr. (Rhode Island) foiled that ploy, commanding the president to use “contingency funds” out of the US Department of Agriculture to keep SNAP running. The president coyly replied, “If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding.”
Seeing as how the contingency fund contains only $5.25-billion, and the actual cost of running SNAP through November is $8.5-billion, we have a math problem. So, stand by on Judge McConnell spelling-out what appropriate legal direction can get that done. The president might have demonstrated how federal judges are not competent to carry out his Article II executive duties, and why the Constitution was written as it is. Of course, all this will be moot if the Democrats fold, as expected, by mid-month and vote to re-open the government.
The Lefty federal judges have been uniformly humiliated as one temporary restraining order (TRO) after another gets tossed by the SCOTUS. Judge James Boasberg of the DC District, the very model of a judicial “Resistance” activist, is about to get his ass impeached after ten-years of dabbling in malicious abuse of judicial process (28 U.S.C. § 2680-h under the Federal Tort Claims Act), plus 18 U.S.C. § 1001 (false statements or concealment in federal matters, potentially covering abusive filings), and 8 U.S.C. § 1503/1512 (obstruction of justice via tampering or corrupt persuasion, applicable to malicious process abuse), Stand by on that. Might be a caution to the rest of the federal judge gang to back off their Resistance shenanigans.
In case you haven’t followed the story - since The New York Times and network news won’t report on it - we are in the midst of the “Arctic Frost Investigation” scandal when, in 2022, “Joe Biden” induced AG Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray to go mad-dog on Donald Trump and hundreds of political conservatives, including nine US Senators, whose phone records were seized, with gag orders (from Judge Boasberg) to prevent notification of the seize-ees, which has raised accusations of violating their First Amendment rights, and grand jury secrecy. Arctic Frost is still unspooling, with reverberations to come, including insights on the Jack Smith / Norm Eisen lawfare spree in 2023-24 against Donald Trump that followed it.
Altogether, how successful has the Resistance movement to defy, thwart, and overthrow President Trump been going since January 20? Looks a little lame, so far. The summer of “No Kings” was entertaining enough, with the Boomer-geezers wetting their Depends every Saturday morning to stay out past noon, and the mentally-ill Antifas roistering as inflatable dinosaurs and Teletubbies to mask their homicidal tendencies. Don’t be so sure they will get the Second Civil War they yearn for. What it actually looks like is the Left has turned the Democratic Party into a suicide cult. And ask yourself: what is the end point of that, exactly?"
"The Paradox of Virtue: The Reign of Evil in Society"
"Why does evil seem to dominate a world that claims to be moral? Why do manipulation and deceit often triumph while honesty and virtue struggle to survive? In this video, we explore The Paradox of Virtue - a journey through the minds of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche, two philosophers who dared to expose the hidden machinery behind morality, compassion, and power. You’ll discover: Schopenhauer’s idea of the Will to Live - and how ego disguises itself as virtue. Nietzsche’s challenge to traditional morality - and why he saw “goodness” as the mask of weakness. How both thinkers reveal that evil is not an external force but a reflection of the unconscious human soul. And the ultimate truth: that real virtue is not purity, but the integration of both light and shadow. This is not a video about right and wrong - it’s about awakening. Because the highest form of goodness is not innocence… it’s understanding."
"We work in the dark. We do what we can to battle the evil that would otherwise destroy us. But if a man's character is his fate, it's not a choice but a calling. Sometimes the weight of this burden causes us to falter from the fragile fortress of our mind, allowing the monster without to turn within. We are left alone staring into the abyss, into the laughing face of madness."
- Fox Mulder, "X-Files"
“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself
does not become a monster, when you gaze long
into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”
- Nietzsche
o
Freely download “Beyond Good And Evil”, by Friedrich Nietzsche, here:
"Messier's famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least. About 170,000 light-years across, this galaxy is enormous, almost twice the size of our own Milky Way. M101 was also one of the original spiral nebulae observed by Lord Rosse's large 19th century telescope, the Leviathan of Parsontown. Assembled from 51 exposures recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope in the 20th and 21st centuries, with additional data from ground based telescopes, this mosaic spans about 40,000 light-years across the central region of M101 in one of the highest definition spiral galaxy portraits ever released from Hubble.
The sharp image shows stunning features of the galaxy's face-on disk of stars and dust along with background galaxies, some visible right through M101 itself. Also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, M101 lies within the boundaries of the northern constellation Ursa Major, about 25 million light-years away.”
"Are you prepared for the extreme violence that is likely to come your way if the SHTF? No matter what your plan is, it’s entirely probable that at some point, you’ll be the victim of violence or have to perpetrate violence to survive. As always, Selco is our go-to guy on SHTF reality checks and this thought-provoking interview will shake you to your core.
If you don’t know Selco, he’s from Bosnia and he lived through a year in a city that was blockaded with no utilities, no deliveries of supplies, and no services. In his interviews, he shares what the scenarios the rest of us theorize about were REALLY like. He mentioned to me recently that most folks aren’t prepared for the violence that is part and parcel of a collapse, which brings us to today’s interview.
How prevalent was violence when the SHTF in Bosnia? It was wartime and chaos, from all conflicts in those years in the Balkan region Bosnian conflict was most brutal because of multiple reasons, historical, political and other. To simplify the explanation why violence was common and very brutal, you need to picture a situation where you are “bombarded” with huge amount of information (propaganda) which instills in you very strong feelings of fear and hate. Out of fear and hate, violence grows easy and fast, and over the very short period of time you see how people around you (including you) do things that you could not imagine before.
I can say that violence was almost an everyday thing in the whole spectrum of different activities because it was a fight for survival. Again, whenever (and wherever) you put people in a region without enough resources, you can expect violence.
We were living a normal life, and then suddenly we were thrown in a way of living where if you could not “negotiate” something with someone, you solve the problem by launching a rocket from an RPG through the window of his living room. Hate stripped down the layers of humanity and suddenly it was “normal” to level an apartment building with people inside with shells from a tank or form private prisons with imprisoned civilians for slave work or sex slaves.
Nothing that I saw or read before could have prepared me for the level of violence and blindness to it, for the lives of kids, elders, civilians, and the innocent. Again, the thing that is important for readers is that we were a modern society one day, and then in few weeks it turned into carnage. Do not make the mistake of saying “it cannot happen here” because I made that mistake too. Do not underestimate power of propaganda, fear, hate, and the lowest human instincts, no matter how modern and good your society is right now and how deeply you believe that “it can not happen here”.
I’ve mentioned warlords and gangs in several of my articles. Were they responsible for the majority of the violence or was it hungry families? Fighting of the armies through the whole period of war brings violence in terms of constant shelling from a distance from different kind of weapons. For example a few multiple rocket launchers (VBR) could bring in 30 seconds the destruction in an area of 3-4 apartment buildings, and being there in that moment and surviving it gives you a completely new view on life. Snipers were a constant threat and over time you simply grow a way of living that you constant scan area in front of you where your next steps gonna be. Are you gonna be visible and from where? Etc.
Most brutal violence was actually lawlessness and complete lack of order between different factions and militias, so in some periods there were militias or gangs who simply ruled the cities or part of the city where they were absolutely masters of everything in terms of deciding of taking someone’s life. In lawlessness, you as one person could be really small and not interesting, or join some bigger group of people to be stronger, some family or militia or gang.
An example of a gang would be group of people of some 300 or 500 people who “officially” were a unit or militia and operate for some faction, but in reality they operate mostly for themselves. That included owning part of the black market, having prison (for forced labor or ransom), attacking people and houses for resources, smuggling people from dangerous areas. Violence from those kinds of group was the most immediate violence, the most visible in terms of SHTF talking. If those people came on your door you could obey, fight, or negotiate, but mostly you could not not ask for help from any kind of authority, because there was no real authority.
In any society, no matter where you are living, there are a great number of people who are waiting for the SHTF to go out and do violent things. Small time criminals or simply violent persons who are not openly violent because system is there to punish them for that. It is like that. Some gang leaders that I knew were actually completely sick people with a strange type of charisma that makes people follow them, weird situations that can happen only in a real collapse. They are people who just waited for their time to rise. Those kinds of people together with criminal organization that are already there in any city in the world will be the backbone of SHTF gangs.
Who were the most likely victims? A very simple answer would be that the most likely victims were people who had interesting things without enough defense. But it was not always that simple. For example one of the first houses that got raided in my neighborhood, right at the beginning of collapse while there was still some kind of order, was a rich family’s home. They had a nice house with bars on the windows, a pretty good setup for defense, and they had enough people inside so they could give pretty good resistance to the mob. But they got raided simply because they were known that they are rich, so they were attacked with enough force to be overwhelmed.
It was not only about how much manpower you had and how well-organized defense of your home was, it was also about how juicy a target you were. If you are faced with 150 angry people attacking your home because they are sure you have good stuff inside your chances are low, no matter how good and tough you are. People who were alone were a pretty easy target and old people without support of family or friends.
It was not always about killing someone or violence. For example, if you were alone and without resources but you had something else valuable like some kind of skill or knowledge you could easily be “recruited” for some faction or group, not by your will of course.
What were some ways to prevent yourself from becoming a victim of violence? How do you recommend that people prepare themselves for the possibility of violence? It can be done in steps, or in layers:
• Do not be interesting (or attract attention) when the SHTF. This means a lot of things, for this article I can give a few examples with shortened explanations because it is a huge topic:
• Do not look like a prepper (before or after SHTF). There is no sense in announcing that you are prepping for EMP, civil collapse, apocalypse, or whatever. With that you are risking the probability that when the SHTF, people will remember that you have interesting things in your home. Your home should look ordinary. For example, if you are living in the city on a street where all houses look similar, there is not much sense in making your home look like a fortress. You’ll just attract attention.
Your defense should be based on more subtle means. Some examples are having means to reinforce doors and windows quickly when you need it, or to reinforce them from inside. Make changes in your yard to funnel possible attackers where you want them to be (trees, fence, bush…). You can make your home look abandoned or already looted.
• Think about what survival is! Survival is about staying alive, it is not about being comfortable at the expense of losing your life. I have seen many times people lose their lives simply because they were too attached to their belongings (house, car, land, goods…) so they simply did not want to leave something and run in a particular moment.
• Everything can be earned and bought again except life. Forget about statements like “I will defend it with my life” or “over my dead body” or similar because the real SHTF is usually not heroic or noble. It is hard and brutal. When you are gone you are gone and there might be nobody to take care of your family just because you have been stubborn or trusted in movies when it came to violence. To rephrase it: Be ready to leave your home in a split second if that means you and your family will survive, no matter how many good things you have stored there.
• Be mentally ready for violence: In a way, it is impossible to be ready for violence, especially widespread violence when the SHTF, but you can minimize shock when that happens with some things. If you are not familiar with what violence is, you can try to get yourself close” to it today (in normal times). It can be done, for example, by doing some voluntary work for example in a local hospital, ER or similar… or simply by working with homeless people. Sounds maybe strange but activities like this can get you a bit of a feeling of what it is all about, not to mention that you can learn some practical and useful skills for SHTF.
• Have means and skills (physically) to defend – or to do violence: No matter how old or young you are, your gender or religion I assure you that you are capable of doing violence. It is only a matter of the situation and how far you are going to be pushed. It is not just “some people are capable of violence.” Everybody is capable. Not everybody enjoys doing it or is willing to do it so easily.
In today (normal times) you can learn some violence skills and you should do it, again no matter if you are a woman or old or young. You should own a weapon and know how to use it. You should practice with it, or have at least some basic knowledge about hand-to-hand combat. The worst case scenario is to have a weapon that you try for the first time when SHTF. Be familiar with your means for defense, let your family members know what they need to do in case of attack of your home, have plan, and go through it. Only through practice will you minimize chances for mistakes.
• Use common sense: I know lot of survivalists almost dream about how they are going to use weapons against bad guys when SHTF, and that they will be something like super heroes from movies, saving innocents and killing villains. Truth is that in a real collapse, a lot of things are kind of blurred and you are not sure who the bad guys are. Good guys turn out to be lunatic gang members who want to bring food to their kids. There are no super heroes when SHTF, and if some of them show up they end up dead quickly.
There is only you and your skills and mindset and what you prepared. Use violence as a last resort because of the simple fact that by using violence you are risking of getting killed or hurt. Remember when SHTF there is maybe no doctor or hospital to take care of your wound. It is a time when even a small cut can eventually kill you through infection and lack of proper care.
Reader questions:
"I’m a single mom with a household full of girls. In an SHTF situation, what would our best strategies be to remain safe?" Just like I have mentioned before, strategy is always same for any part of survival, and shooting from the rifle is pretty similar no matter are you man or woman. Being single mom with household full of girls on first look make you as a ideal target in some situations, but we are talking here in prepper terms so there is no reason not to be perfectly well prepared as a single mom with girls.
But yes I admit it is not perfect situation, even if you are prepared well, some things are sure, you need to connect with other people even more. House with couple of girls will always look like easy prey for some people. It is like that.
"Were people in the city safer than people in the country? Can you tell us more about rural living during this time?" In my case definitely no. In the essence it always come to the resources and people. City meant more people less resources, country (rural) meant less people more resources, and because that level of violence simply was lower. That was most important reason.
There are few more reasons why it was much better in the country. People in the country (rural settings) were much more “connected to ground” they were more tough if you like, they grew their own food, had cattle, lived more simple life prior SHTF and when everything collapsed they had less problems getting use to it. Yes they also did not have electricity and phones, running water or connection to other places but they adapted easier to the new life because they had more useful skills then people in the city. Life was harder for them too than prior to the collapse, but they had means to get resources: land, woods, river…
Another thing is that people in small rural communities “in the country” were more connected to each other, people knew their neighborhood and some things were easier to organize, like community security watch, help in case of diseases and similar.
"What types of weapons did people have for self-defense?" It was different political system prior the collapse where it was not so usual to own a weapon legally. And to own one illegally could mean a lot of troubles. Right prior to SHTF, it became possible to buy different weapons on the black market but still, a majority of people did not own weapons. When it all collapsed, it was possible to get a weapon through trade.
Because of the military doctrine here prior to the collapse, we used “East Bloc” weapons. A favorite was AK-47 in all different kind of editions, or older weapons like M-48 rifle, SKS rifle, 22 and similar. People used what they had, so in one period you would be lucky if you had any kind of pistol and knife. Later through the different channels weapon become more available so people had them more. A lot of that was actually junk that some warlords somehow “imported”. Weapons 50-60 years old without proper ammunition, or not in operating condition. A lot of people simply did not have a clue how to use any kind of weapon so a lot of accidental deaths happened.
I remember people storming abandoned army barracks that was mostly looted, but they found in one building a lot of RPGs while other part of the same building was burning. Two guys were trying to figure out a single-use RPG, and while they were messing with it clearly not knowing how that thing worked, they accidentally armed it and launched a rocket that flew through the crowd, not hurting anyone and exploding in wall 100 meters from where they stood. They were smiling, clearly happy because they thought they figured out how that thing worked.
"What weapons do you suggest to have for SHTF?" It is a never-ending discussion and a favorite prepper topic, and I must say that whole discussion is overrated. I have used them in a real situation, and tried and tested lot of different kind of weapons and what works for me may simply not work for you. For example, here for me good choice is AK-47 rifle, maybe for you wherever you are it is very bad choice.
Good advice is: you need to have a weapon that most people have around you because of multiple reasons: spare parts, repairing, ammunition availability, possibility that you can pick that rifle from other people and you know how to use it. What caliber and similar is a matter of discussion again. I am talking from the point of owning a rifle. Another thing is that you need to know how that weapon works. Luckily, most of my readers live in an area where gun laws are great comparing to region where I am. You have much more choices when it comes to owning a weapon and practicing with it. Use that.
And do not forget that using a weapon in a real life situation is not like shooting at beer bottles with your friends after a barbecue. In real life you might be in a situation to use a weapon while you are tired, dirty, and hungry and while someone is screaming next to you. It is going to be maybe when you are not ready to do that, maybe in pitch dark, maybe after you have been awake for 48 hours. At least think about that.
"When should you use violence?" Contrary to some popular beliefs in the prepper community, the point is to use violence only as a last solution. The reason is as I mentioned already, the risk that you can be hurt or killed too, but also once you do violence you change your own rules, or push it more forward, and it is easy to get lost in violence. There are consequences to that, and you are not going to be the same person ever again.
Violence is a tool, not a toy. You need to know how to use it as best as possible, but also to avoid using it when it is not necessary. It is a good idea to set up a clear set of rules (mentally too) when you are gonna use violence and to try to stick to it. For example you will use weapon if someone tries to break your home and attack you, and you need to be ready to do that without hesitation.
"What else should we know about post-collapse violence?" Think with your head and research. One thing that is absolutely important when it comes to understanding how violent it is going to be and what can you expect in your own case of SHTF, is to understand how much media can influence people in making their decisions about violence.
In my case, the media built up situation where people feared so much from other people that they actually hated them. They hated them so much that they actually strip them down from humanity. In a real-life example, it works in a way that people killed other people, including kids and women, because they hated them so much because media told them.
It may look ridiculous and not possible to you, and you might again think “that can not happen here” but please trust your own resources, look for independent information, not mainstream media, in order to get the right information about what is really happening in the beginning of collapse. Do not be pulled into “popular opinion” just because the “man from TV” (whoever he might be) told you so. It is easier today. Because of the internet, you have much more choices for correct information than in my time. But still be careful, you might find yourself rioting together with 500 people just because you trusted some media."
"More information about Selco: Selco survived the Balkan war of the 90s in a city under siege, without electricity, running water, or food distribution. In his online works, he gives an inside view of the reality of survival under the harshest conditions. He reviews what works and what doesn’t, tells you the hard lessons he learned, and shares how he prepares today. He never stopped learning about survival and preparedness since the war. Regardless what happens, chances are you will never experience extreme situations like Selco did. But you have the chance to learn from him and how he faced death for months. Real survival is not romantic or idealistic. It is brutal, hard and unfair. Let Selco take you into that world."
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