Is Prepping Worth it? What if Nothing Happens? Is it all a Waste?

by Gaye Levy, Activist Post

Earlier this year, I ran across an blog post on the Directive 21 site that asked the question: What if Nothing Happens? The context was that of prepping. You know what I mean: the time, the expense, the worry, the whole shebang. Is it worth it, and, more to the point, will all of this effort be wasted?

We have six more months for the Doomsday 2012 events to unfold. And now that the end of the Mayan calendar has pretty much been dispelled, what is left?

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Chart of the Day - US Airways (LCC)

The "Chart of the Day" is US Airways (LCC), which showed up on Thursday's Barchart "52-Week High" and "Gap Up" lists. US Airways was one of a limited number of stocks that even closed higher on Thursday as the S&P 500 index fell sharply by -2.23%. US Airways on Thursday posted a new 4-year high of $13.78 and closed up 3.38%. TrendSpotter has been long since May 24 at $12.16. In recent news on the stock, US Airlines on June 14 said that it expects "very strong" Q2 and full-year results and that speculation of its merger with American Airlines when American comes out of bankruptcy is helping its stock price. US Airways, with a market cap of $2 billion, is a major U.S.-based airline carrier with service in the U.S., Canada, Europe, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

US Weekly Economic Calendar

time (et)	report	period	Actual	forecast	previous
MONDAY, JUNE 25
8:30 am	Chicago Fed national activity index	May		--	0.11
10 am	New home sales	May		348,000	343,000
TUESDAY, JUNE 26
9 am	Case-Shiller home price index	April		--	0.0% nsa
10 am	Consumer confidence	June		63.5	64.9
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27
8:30 am	Durable goods orders	May		0.1%	0.0%
10 am	Pending home sales	May		--	-5.5%
THURSDAY, JUNE 28
8:30 am	Weekly jobless claims	6-23		385,000	387,000
8:30 am	GDP	1Q		1.9%	1.9%
FRIDAY, JUNE 29
8:30 am	Personal income	May		0.2%	0.2%
8:30 am	Consumer spending	May		0.0%	0.3%
8:30 am	Core PCE price index	May		0.2%	0.1%
9:45 am	Chicago PMI	June		53.0%	52.7%
9:55 am	UMich consumer sentiment	June		74.0	74.1

Financial Time Bombs

June 21, 2012

Steve, where do I begin? Lets start up with the Eurozone and take it from there. I was the first to mention to you that the Spanish Bailout had already happened before it was even announced that they were going to need more within the week. Well a week has passed and it said that both Italy and Spain need an almost $1 Trillion dollar bailout. The reason? Apart from both being insolvent, Italy has to borrow money at 7% to lend to Spain at 3% by edict of the Euro Technocrats via ECB. These morons have the economics understanding of a five year old. Now both countries are heading the way of Greece, which is total economic death as Greece is a failed state, with no government, a stolen election and thousands starving to death.

Steve as I said the Euro is unofficially collapsed with a major "OFFICIAL" collapse coming this fall or winter. I said many times to my cohorts , though the Eurozone has it's problems, it is the US that is the Supreme Emperor with No Clothes the Eurozone are just vassals. The problems facing the US are much, much worse. With very high unemployment, debt to the stratosphere and an economy in rigor mortis, the US is a patient on his death bed waiting for the elite power brokers to give it it's last rights and then devour the patient's body.

Couple of points that, I need to revisit for your readers and listeners are as follows:

1. Real Estate- The real estate, in the US, has in no way hit the bottom--yet. Not in the FEH (Financial Economics Hubs) like New York but I tell you that you will see a housing market crash the likes of which you have never seen or will ever see again. This will occur for the following reasons. (more)

ONEOK Inc. (NYSE: OKE)

ONEOK, Inc., a diversified energy company, engages in the gathering, processing, storage, and transportation of natural gas in the United States. The company operates through three segments: ONEOK Partners, Natural Gas Distribution, and Energy Services. The ONEOK Partners segment is involved in gathering, processing, storing, and transporting natural gas; owns and operates regulated natural gas transmission pipelines, natural gas storage facilities, and natural gas gathering systems for unprocessed natural gas; and owns natural gas liquids systems. This segment offers its services to petrochemical manufacturers, heating-fuel users, refineries, and propane distributors. The Natural Gas Distribution segment provides natural gas distribution services to residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation customers, as well as wholesale and public authority customers. The Energy Services segment offers non-uniform natural gas supply and risk-management services for natural gas and electric utilities, and commercial and industrial customers through its network of leased storage and transportation capacity. ONEOK, Inc. is headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

To review ONEOK's stock, please take a look at the 1-year chart of OKE (ONEOK, Inc.) below with my added notations:

OKE has been trading mostly within a broad, sideways range for the last (6) months. During this time, the stock appears to be finishing up the formation of a Rectangle pattern. Rectangle patterns form when a stock bounces between a horizontal support and resistance. A minimum of (2) successful tests of the support and (2) successful tests of the resistance will give you the pattern. For OKE, the Rectangle pattern formed a clear $40 support (blue) and seems to be pulling away from the $45, 52-week high resistance (black) again.

The Tale of the Tape: OKE has probably formed a very common chart pattern known as a Rectangle. The possible long positions on OKE would be either on a pullback to $40, or on a breakout above $45. The short opportunity would be on a breakdown below $40.

These are the next likely steps toward the "End of America"

One of the things that’s really unique about this part of the world is having access to so many people with first-hand experience of living under Soviet rule.

It’s a bizarre thing to say, but the stories they have to tell are extraordinary.

Last night I had dinner with some friends, including one woman who was just a child at the end of World War II.

She explained to me that her family had been wealthy landowners near the capital city… until the Soviet-controlled government came in, confiscated all of their property, and shipped the adults off to Siberia.

“There were so many opportunities to leave beforehand,” she explained, ”but they just never thought things would ever get that bad here. Everyone saw what happened in other countries, but my family never expected that it would happen to them.” (more)

The Mancession: 16 Signs That This Economic Decline Is Sucking The Life Out Of The American Male

This economic decline has been really hard on everyone, but it has been particularly hard on American men. During the last recession male employment dropped like a rock and it has not recovered much at all since then. That is why many referred to the last recession as a "mancession". Industries where men are disproportionately represented such as construction and manufacturing have really been hit hard in recent years. In the old days, you could take a high school education down to the local factory and get a job that would enable you to live a middle class lifestyle and support a growing family on just that one income. Sadly, those days are long gone. Today, American men live in a world where their labor is not really needed. Wages are falling because almost any worker can be easily replaced by the vast pool of unemployed American workers that are currently searching for work, and a lot of big companies are shifting labor-intensive jobs overseas where workers only make a small fraction of what they make in the United States. American workers (especially those without much education) are considered to be expensive liabilities in a world where labor has become a global commodity. So the percentage of working age American men that have jobs is likely to continue to decline and wages are likely to continue to stagnate as well.

For many men, a long-term bout with unemployment can almost be worse than a major illness. It can be really hard to feel like a man when you don't have a job. Men often see themselves as filling the "provider" role, and when they aren't providing for their families self-esteem can fall through the floor. It is easy to feel worthless when there is no money coming in and your wife and your kids are looking at you with worry every single day.

As you read this, there are millions upon millions of unemployed men sitting at home with a glazed look in their eyes. When you talk with these men, many of them seem as though the life has been sucked right out of them.

As I wrote about recently, when you cannot find a job month after month after month people start to look at you differently. Some start to look at you with pity in their eyes, and others start to look at you with disgust in their eyes.

Most Americans don't really understand how much the economy has fundamentally changed, and many of them still believe that it shouldn't be too difficult to find a job in "the greatest economy on earth". (more)