There are many mega-trends of wickedness in motion, and we know from scripture that the Lord will not “smile upon the Nephites” forever in their wickedness.  In this series, I explore 19 points that I think point to the possibility that a Great or even Mega-Depression could be part of the near future.  What might be some factors that could trigger a collapse or add to instability already in progress?  President Hinkley warned in 1998 of a “Portent of stormy weather ahead to which we’d better give heed”.What might be the nature of some of the storms he anticipates?

If a Mega-Depression set in, is our generation as prepared for it as those during the Great Depression?  What might be some potential outcomes of a Mega-Depression?  Will we be more vulnerable to terrorist attack?  Can we truck food into our cities or will every dog have to head for the hills?

There seems to be a tribalization of America occuring.  The melting pot isn’t as hot as it once was - and it seems not unlike what occured just before the coming of Christ to the Americas.  Is it possible we could willingly and peacefully split the nation into 5-sets of 10 states each? (Red states, blue states, Mexican states, gay states, etc.)

Setting aside the doom-and-gloom speculation, how can we be both temporally and spiritually prepared for whatever may befall us?  Is it possible that continued prosperity will be part of our lives for decades to come? Is it not more challenging and maybe more important to be prepared for that than for disaster?

If you’ve read some of the series, please feel free to post snippets and comment on them, or just post your own original thoughts.

• Self fulfilling prophecy? (Nah! I’ll never be that widely read!)
• The attitude of Job: be responsible over your earthly stewardships, but be prepared to “bless the name of the Lord” even if you find yourself in hardship someday.

Will my ideas “cause” this?  If I were president?  Maybe.  With 12 potential readers?  Never.
In my “hypothetical future”, I got a bit carried away in the fiction of what the implications of a depression could look like.  I do get concerned that if enough people seriously considered what I’ve written, there could be potential for self-fulfilling prophecy, which is not an influence I want to have here.  Lucky for me my worries over a “self-fulfilling prophecy” simply indulge my pride as I pretend I’m a lot more influential than I am.  I hope the real outcome is to open a few minds to some of the potential dangers that may have a higher probability of occurring than most of us would have taken time to even ponder.  If more are aware of the dangers, at least they have the opportunity to prepare somewhat temporally, mentally, and spiritually for hard times.  
 
Even with just a life jacket, God will provide if you’ve been wise with your limited means, and if you are spiritually prepared.
It all makes me sound very right wing, perhaps even blinded to more important spiritual truths some might say.  I hope I am not.  I really want to just live the best life I can but be prepared both spiritually and temporally as much as possible.  I know the gospel basics are the most important thing, and that is where I want to concentrate.  Still, every day I am steward over the money God passes through my hands, and I want to place every dollar wisely.  Why not?  If prosperity continues for yet many years, I’ll end up well-off, and able to have greater influence for good in the world.  If prosperity fails, I’ll be better able to care for my own.
 

Even then, I hope to smile and trust in God even as Job did.  A big part of the definition of my life is that I want to be engaged in increasing the “talents” the Lord has given me.  Even if He allows me to go clear to the bottom as He did in the case of Job, and I find I lose all my talents, I still want to report back that I was not slothful and unwise, but that in the risks of the marketplace I invested seemingly wisely as did the others, but simply lost.  My hope is to build a decent ark for me and my family, spiritually and temporally while the day lasts and good fortune smiles upon us, so that we can weather the storms that beat upon us, and so we can be more effective in the battle to save men’s souls.

Tithing is perhaps the most spiritual means of assuring temporal survival
I’m no scriptorian, but I believe we have been promised that a lifelong commitment to render unto the Lord what is the Lord’s will not go unnoticed.  There is no promise we’ll get temporally rich from paying tithing (I don’t think there’s even a hint of this in spite of what others may think).  There is a promise that “blessings will rain down”.  Of course “blessings” need not be compiled of money - and in fact money may be a bigger cursing.  However, I do believe we can safely assume that the Lord is much less likely to leave us truly destitute if we have made these sacrifices with a pure heart.

I love life no matter what.  What an amazing experience this is.  I hope you have profited from this series and will do further research to confirm for yourself whether what I’ve written holds any water.  If you have valued from this, please feel free to email a link to www.latterdaylogic.com to those you believe may be receptive to this essay.

• How not to build an ark: What we learned from our first Titanic of a home.
• The wealth our “ant-like” lifestyle will create will widen our opportunities and sphere of influence for good if the storm doesn’t occur, and help us temporally survive more easily than most if it does.

Make sure your boat won’t sink!
How do you survive a storm?  Build an ark - and you can’t wait until it rains!  Start by acquiring a life preserver and a fishing pole (eliminate consumer/auto debt, and build up a year’s supply of necessities).  Then build a life boat (build a business, acquire assets with significant positive cash flow, and/or accelerate payoff of your mortgage).  If you get that far before it rains, build a bigger boat and haul the life boat on board for use by your friends and relatives if so moved by the spirit.  Whatever floatation device you presently have, don’t overload it (with unrighteous consumer debt, or acting without doing your homework) or you may capsize in a strong breeze, let alone the Storm!
 
Our Family’s first “investment”
Ever seen “The Money Pit”?  Our first “ark” was like the Titanic.  My wife and I wasted a lot of years and money remodeling a home that was the equivalent of a face-lift for an 85 year-old grandma with terminal cancer. Where we had considered buying a more structurally sound duplex in a lesser-but-still-good part of town, we instead bought a run-down dive on an incredible property.  Instead of an effective payment of $600/month (subsidized by renting the other half), we had an effective payment of almost $1600/month when factoring in the trips to Home Depot to gussy up that grandma for her “Perfect Storm” funeral (the new buyer).  On top of that I lost nearly every Saturday for four years to “the project”.
 
When our family was large enough, we concluded that while we would love to stay, it was simply unwise and impractical to expand this home to fit our needs.  We sadly sold, and the new owner tore down the home to put a starter-castle in its place a year later. As we took pictures of my beautiful walls, fireplace, and windows giving way under demolition, we learned that “stuff” must go “the way of all the earth”, and it is pointless to become attached to material things.

While we lost, we really gained
Where we can clearly see the fiscal folly of that decision, we felt inspired to live where we did, and don’t question that the Lord had other purposes for our living there.  Possibly it was His wisdom in letting us see so plainly our poor habits of stewardship and temptations toward material things, that we can now see better and will perhaps be more temporally secure than we would have been if we’d purchased the duplex in the first place.  I estimate the decision we made compared to our other best choice has set us back over $200,000 in net worth over about a 6-year span.  One good aspect is that we had to live frugally in every other part of our lives, and now that’s the way we prefer to live.  We’ll probably make back what we lost and to spare because our vision was opened to the value of frugality. 

Making sure we’ll float
We are aggressively trying to “build a temporal ark” anticipating a perfect storm, by increasing our income, decreasing our outgo, and paying off debts. It is challenging to live among such affluence knowing that lenders will let us have a lot of “cool stuff”, but instead follow a plan that will leave us either well off if calamity never strikes, or “less miserable” than others if it does. We haven’t completely lost our marbles - we still have almost everything anybody else has - but we buy most things used (Car auctions, DI, EBay, Craigslist.org).  We never buy popcorn when at the dollar movies, and we decided we can put sprinklers off and move the hose around for a few more years.
 
We have found that this is how we must live if my wife is to remain a stay-at-home mother, and we still hope to obtain enough means to more easily support ourselves and perhaps a few friends or relatives in a depression economy. What if I’m wrong about the timing and our plans to better endure disaster see us become meagerly wealthy before tough times set in? Then in addition to the Lord’s charge to care for the poor and needy who are always with us, then I want our family to have extended opportunities for education and influence. We’ll go to Rome, Jerusalem, Washington, and other important or historic sites. I’ll run for office or support my kids in similar worthy endeavors that would be unavailable to them otherwise. 

We do not feel like we’re missing out on much living like the ant. Even though the ant was tenacious in preparing for winter, a wise ant would still take some measure of pleasure from the summer. Where God has given me stewardship over six lives beside my own, I’d be derelict in my duty if I didn’t make the most of the talents and knowledge I’ve been given. Good times or bad times, we win either way.   

• Would the Second Coming of Christ accompany such a disaster?
  Can we handle a Great Depression as well as ‘The Greatest Generation’ did?
• Hypothetical future:  Actions the Left may take if given power that could aggravate an already bad situation.
• The problems created when the highest aspirations of  millions lie in X-box, tattoos, auto detailing, and internet porn suddenly find themselves without an income and a government with little ability to assist.
• What happens when the ‘knowledge gap’ currently filled by foreigners opens again because they find home more attractive?
• 8-billion people are easy to support when times are good.  What happens to endangered species and rain forests when 8-billion people can’t enough to eat?  Our cities are larger than ever.  What if trucking can’t deliver necessities?
• Would the United States survive as 50?  Or perhaps might the true red, white, and blue reorganize as just 10 or so united states?
• Could the “tribes” among us (red states, blue states, etc.) result in a peaceful dissolution into smaller unions?
• Can we effectively defend ourselves against terrorist’s mass destruction plots (including nuclear) if we are reeling from internal chaos brought to a head by several generations of selfishness and lack of concern for the future?

Will “the next big challenge” signal the Second Coming?
I used to think that something like a major depression in my lifetime would surely be accompanied by the Second Coming - indeed it perhaps indicated the Second Coming. Now I don’t think that’s necessarily true. People thought the same in the last great wars and depressions. I think we could easily suffer temporal trials of biblical proportions (unparalleled economic troubles, civil unrest, nukes, etc.), and yet live to watch things recover.  I do think it would be more evidence that we will ultimately arrive at “Armageddon” some day, but not necessarily with the next traumatizing event.

“The Greatest Generation” and their parents handled depression, but can we?
I do think our nation may not handle a depression as well as we did in the 1930’s.  I don’t think as a whole they were vastly more virtuous than we are.  For example, they wrestled with racism probably more than we do, and I think the depression was God’s way of calling many back to their roots after the “Roaring 20’s”.  Still, they were a people accustomed to hard work, and their families were still largely God-fearing and in tact.  Today there are too many poorly raised children of the selfish and spoiled baby-boomers who are now poorly raising their own.  Self defense could become pretty important.

Might the “tribes” among us separate peacefully?
I think true red, white, and blue would emerge from a massive depression (and likely related world-wide wars and strife), but perhaps not as the original 50 United States.  Maybe just 20, or even less than 10.  Another aspect of the Book of Mormon that intrigues me is how one faction seeking power murdered the Chief Judge, and contrary to the hopes of that faction (who planned to rule over all the people) their nation disintegrated into tribes, which no one liked as well.  Nonetheless they found themselves unable to reorganize and reconcile their differences.
 

For a long time I’ve imagined that we also have potential for this.  There are many “tribes” among us:  Red States/Blue States (conservative/liberal); Gay; Black; Mexican; Christian, Atheist, probably more.  If things get bad enough, I suppose we could see a relatively peaceful and willing dissolution of the union into smaller unions, one of which would espouse the US Constitution pretty much the way it was originally formed (and for which today many aspects of it are not practiced as intended), but with key amendments that would clearly help but would limit the power of the Nobles, which is why the Nobles (most of the Democrats and many Republicans) won’t pursue.

One scenario: Could this be in our future?
Imagine this.  It’s 2012 and the national economy is struggling.  Republicans who traditionally were less inclined to create wealth draining and personal responsibility draining programs angered their base in a host of ways (fiscal responsibility being among them), giving opportunity for the left to seize power in 2008 on promises that “we can do better”.  Of course they shine for a few years as some of the responsible policies that the scared-witless Republicans enacted just before their ouster begin paying off.  But the leftist being leftist cannot control their wallets either, and further created extensive regulations on autos and power plants which raised costs by 30%, for greenhouse gas reductions of 5%. 

Nukes in Iran
When their “economic sanctions and strong talk against Israel” diplomacy didn’t stop Iran from joining the nuclear club, they turned to approving billions in aid for Hezbollah and Iran and holding “summits” to address their grievances as part of their new “diplomatic solution” to that crisis. 

Mini-Mexico’s in every city
While they “cured” immigration by building a fence, they really just renamed it by still allowing record numbers of “guest workers”.  As “guests”, they see no need to integrate Mexican immigrants into American life, and instead do all in their power to accommodate Spanish, ensuring that “mini-Mexico’s” with culture, language, and unwritten laws from the old country become very large, almost completely taking over the first suburban ring of lower-end homes in every major city and even have become dominant in many border cities.  They’ve also nationalized health care. 
 
“Sixty years of partying like it’s 1999!”
By 2012 it is clear that they have not been more successful in managing the economy.  Further, there are pressures on the economy that were pushed back for decades by the self-seeking.  Not just congress, but nearly everyone seeking to eat, drink, and be merry for just a little longer, and lobbying for a turn at the federal trough in what became a 60 year American tradition of “Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what you can take from others to get for yourself”. 

Now it is clear to more and more economists that even the dream of a fiscally responsible congress could not bail out the water faster than it is now coming in.   The national debt is at $13 trillion; boomer retirement is beginning (along with their 401k draws on the Stock Market); boomer’s parents are hanging on to life in record numbers, but are doing so only off of high-taxes which support Medicare.  The generation that came of working age between 2000 and now was not only relatively small (due to their parent’s and boomer-grandparent’s selfish refusal to ‘multiply and replenish the earth’), but also relatively lazy and unskilled at anything but X-box, rap music, auto detailing, and finding internet porn. 
 
The “brain drain” from Asia reverses
With fewer workers and less wealth generated per worker, taxes have increased to the tipping point on those who still have wealth, will, or talent.  Where manufacturing jobs left in the 90’s, but were replaced by tech-sector jobs spun off in large part by foreign-born Ph.D.’s, the reverse now appears to be underway!  China and India are now showing themselves more capable than the Americans in a host of high talent areas, and the Ph.D.’s are going home!
 
What of our own kids?
In 2008 the U.S. did greatly increase the H1-B visas as part of a long overdue and ineffective immigration reform package.  This did increase the number of Ph.D.’s from China and India who stayed in America, subsidizing our knowledge gap.  The gap was created by decades of unloved, undisciplined, unchallenged children whose early years were marked by Twinkies, Ritalin, and 46 re-runs of The Little Mermaid as they were shuttled from unionized bureaucrats to daycare where they waited for the womb-donor to get them(who knows where the sperm-donor is).  Their adolescent years saw them comatose on potato chips, substance abuse, orgies, and Grand Theft Auto.

Now Asia’s low taxes and increased standards of living are attracting back their own citizens, many of whom believe the future back home is looking brighter than America’s. The trend was recently highlighted by an early 2012 news story featuring California’s six-figure software engineers who have now trained their replacements in India, and their million-dollar bungalows are going into default.   Bankruptcies which were high in good times are now higher than ever.   Unemployment is high but not crazy yet (maybe 8%).  Tax revenues are down and unemployment checks are up.
 
Panic sets in
By 2014, the market has had no gains for several years, due in part to the weak economy, but also to the massive need of retirees to pull out of the market and use their 401(k)’s.  The market enjoys a brief run up between 2014 and 2016, fueled more by gambling and the Greater Fool theory than by any underlying strength.   But by 2016 the writing is on the wall as investors are now convinced of America’s inability to make good on T-bills.  As the market tumbles 50% below its most recent low, retirees panic and move what’s left of their 401(k)’s into Asian markets, bonds, money markets, gold - anything but American or European companies.
 
A mega-depression?
By 2020, the full brunt of the problem has impacted the nation, and it is clear this is turning out to be a mega-depression.  Unemployment is topping 35% and bank failures abound.  Armed robberies, murders, and suicides are at all-time highs.  Civil unrest is at a crescendo with everybody playing the blame game, and daily riots among the poorest demographics. 

“Survival of the fittest” food chain
With sprawling American megopolises so much larger than during the depression of the 1930’s, and having consumed all the farmland for miles, it is difficult to supply enough food to such massive populations concentrated in a single point other than by truck.  Where previous generations enjoyed a measure of ability to live off the land while unemployed, by 2020 there are few skilled enough to even partially support themselves.  Nearly all wild and domestic animals in and around the cities, with the exception of attack dogs maintained by the wealthy, have been consumed by the hungry masses who have finally discovered a successful weight loss program!  Trucks supplying food for the cities are routinely ambushed to supply the gangs that have resurged, and more brazen attackers have even begun taking on trucks that are accompanied by armed escort.

Voluntary segregation
To be an American became a secondary means of self-identification decades earlier, and with the current strife and blaming going on, “tolerance and diversity” of all peoples and views other than white or Christian is no longer the highest value of the godless.  They’ve in fact embraced the opposite!  Mexican-Americans (Mexicans first, American “guest workers” second) are no longer comfortable anywhere but in the south-west, and begin moving there en mass.  Gay-Americans (gay first, Americans second) likewise are being targeted across the nation and have begun to trade homes with what Christians remained on the northwest coast.  African-Americans and Evangelical Christians have long been together in the South, but with their cultures and political views so significantly different, Christians concentrate in Texas and the mid-west, while African-Americans across the nation have begun a migration to the South-Atlantic.  Atheistic-Americans who have long looked to Europe as their model of perfection (liberals who didn’t fit a previous mold) are congregating in the New England area.
 
The Melting Pot cools and Tribes coagulate
By 2030 the migrations are largely complete.  The melting pot has cooled and coagulated.  What was once Americans of diverse traits making them all minorities in some way, and hence a functioning system based on mutual respect, has given way to super-majorities in large and distinct geographic areas not unlike tribes.  In Lincoln’s day divorce was not an option either in marriage or as a nation, and though the fight was bitter, clearly the outcome was worth it!  In our times, “till death do us part” commitments are rare, and there is little reason to believe that either “The Red States” or “The Blue States” would go to war (physically) if each had become more red and more blue, and one wanted to form their own government uninfluenced by the other.  I suppose they would mutually agree that they no longer want to be influenced by the other, and would hire the hosts of attorneys to get all they could when the federal assets are split.
 
What happens when 8-billion people are in economic peril?
World-wide, with nearly 8-billion people who could be sustained in good times, are having a hard time during this tough time.  Extinctions on a never before seen scale are occurring as hungry masses struggle for survival.  Wars are up all over, and modern killing efficiency, combined with mass starvation and disease, reduces the population from 8-billion to 6-billion before stability is regained and prosperity begins anew.
 
What’s going on among Muslims?
Islamic extremists have grown in power and influence by 2020.  They have successfully captured the governments of many nations and their propaganda harping the failure of the West and the pain that their infidel ways has inflicted on Muslims has been influential with the masses.  They claim western troubles as proof that Allah is punishing the “Great Satan” and they actively, though still covertly, support terrorist organizations. 

The position among Muslim regimes
While the regimes agree with and fund the terrorist in principle, they do not support the terrorist desire for a nuclear attack, fearing a “civilians be damned” retaliation with nukes in their own lands, and the regimes being easy to find.  They prefer the “death by a thousand cuts” method, to which the west has never been able to muster the strength necessary to mount an effective defense, and could almost certainly not now with their present domestic troubles.
 
The position among the Muslim shadows
The terrorists, however, care only about murdering and further burdening the object of their enmity.  Of course they want to live to fight another day, but they are not afraid to die and will do so willingly if it looks like a job with high returns on the investment.  They’ve deceived themselves into believing they are doing the will of Allah even if they put massive cities of their own people at risk.  They know the Paper Tiger too well by now, and are convinced that even a nuclear strike will at most be met one for one, and more likely will be met with simply more aggressive conventional tactics in an effort to at least temper large-scale, instantaneous collateral damage.

They are also more elusive than the regimes, and will have removed their networks from likely targets in the homelands many years in advance of their nuclear attack - knowing the Americans will target the obvious.   For nearly two decades they’ve had access to bulky weapons of mass destruction, but little confidence in their ability to deliver such weapons undetected.  Now 2030 technology and reduced scrutiny of the black market brought on by the chaos have finally allowed them to gain smaller devices that they have more confidence they can deliver to the target undetected. 
 
A successful, crippling attack
They succeed in detonating three of five nuclear devices.  Where a hydrogen-based conventional nuke could easily kill millions, the uranium-based suitcase nuke killed only 100,000 in a suburb of Atlanta.  Likewise the one in down town London killed 220,000.  The third surprisingly didn’t target a city directly, but instead destroyed the Glen Canyon Dam which holds the Colorado River’s Lake Powell.   Few were killed in the blast, but an ocean of water was set in motion which scoured the Grand Canyon smooth, washed out the Hoover Dam at Lake Mead, killed tens of thousands in smaller towns on the banks of the Colorado, and has left major cities in the southwest (Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles) bone dry.

Yes, I’ve delved into the realms of science fiction with this one - but I can see a pretty believable Stephen King novel around some of these themes.    Next, how to prepare for the potential of a Perfect Financial Storm.