I think more and more about the oncoming economic crash. It is definitely one of the reasons why I work so hard on Steemit, as in my opinion it is a great way for me to create my own financial freedom and get a little bit less dependent on the debt based fiat system, that is nothing but a ticking time bomb. Doug Casey describes it better; "My sense is that we are definitely exiting the eye of the storm at this point, and we’re heading back into the raging winds of financial, political, and social turmoil." As we are entering these more turbulent times I am building up different supports that will help me to deal with it .
I don't like to be the doom and gloom kind of person, but I don't believe in the saying "ignorance is bliss either". How I feel about the current situation is the "calm before the storm". Because we are long overdue for a recession
The current fiat system has created such a mountain of debt that people don't dare to spend anymore money. Subsequently the economy is slowing down leading to more unemployment, thus creating a viscous circle. Not even negative interest rates seem to do the job and it's quite evident now that this Green debt monster can't be stopped and probably will expload due to its own greed, within short.
So what are you going to do about it ? Well as I mentioned before I am focusing a lot of energy on Steemit for one thing. The reason why is that if there is a huge crisis there will be a run on the banks, and you might not be able to get ahold of your precious fiat money. With Steem and SBD the money is in my control I am my own bank and that is an awsome freedom.
Even though I really love Steemit I am not putting all my eggs in one basket I am investing in other cryptos as well.
I have also slowly collected some gold and silver over the years by slowly stacking. Crypto is awesome but gold and silver has been money for thousand of years and will continue to be so. It's a great insurance in uncertain times.
I have also done some work to get some passive income. I do that by selling royalty free photos and 3D designs. Once I put the photos and renderings online they can stay there forever and be sold over and over again. It's not a big source of income but it's constant and stable.
Now to the most important thing in my opinion, how to lower your expenditures as much as possible. It doesn't matter how much your earn if you spend it all by the end of the month. So the main expenditures is housing and living- atleast for me. So when I move back home I will try to buy a piece of land in the country side. Properties are cheap in the country side and I don't mind living there because I will be able to grow my own food and become more and more self sustainable. This is my ultimate goal !
So how about you, do you see an upcoming economic crisis? What are you doing to make sure you are as safe as possible when it arrives ?
For me, the crash of 2007/2008 was my real wake up call. It was during this period that my wife and I reevaluated life broadly. Since then, we've approached things very differently. For us, the 2007/8 crisis was more of a symptom than the disease, a symptom we finally were able to recognize with clear eyes. For us, it wasn't only a failing financial system, it was the recognition of a wobbling culture. The American economic system is over financialized, however, I think the general American sentiment of how life is to be lived is over financialized as well.
People view success primarily through a lens of financial value. People buy larger houses than they need, more expensive cars than they need, more material bullshit than they need. They express their own personal value as a human oftentimes in monetary terms. A job is only sought after for how much fiat it pays. Debt is of no concern. Most people rarely consider the politics or broader impact of the decisions they make, meaning people will buy things from large corporations that actively (as a function of their business) go against the very basic interests of the person buying their products. I don't see that a majority of people look at the human experience in its entirety (and with a historical perspective) and rationalize typical behaviors of the day...why people do what they do, who is influencing them, what their best interests are, and what the impact of their decisions happen to be.
So (without going on forever here :), our lifestyle change has been very broad. Yes, we have a very diverse asset base (@dandesign86, you mention lots of good assets :). Yes, we have a deep pantry (and use it like a grocery store, rotating the new with the old...not the deep bunker type of doomsday food storage thing) and could live for several months without going to the store should a huge economic or weather-related disaster hit. Yes, we have eliminated all debt. But, just as important, we have detached ourselves from a financialized existence. We only buy things we truly want or need. We don't buy from most corporations unless there are no alternatives and we need the thing that shitty corp is selling. We learned about the food system and the correlated health system and substantially modified our interactions with both. We take much better care of our privacy and selectively choose which technologies we engage and avoid those that we believe are not healthy relationships (I'm looking at you Amazon, Google, etc). Ultimately we are trying to create a life experience that is not based on consumption-driven happiness, but more driven by an awareness of the realities of the world - many of the existing systems (economic, health, food, etc) are not designed to act in our best interests and it is up to us to be behave in very educated/intentional ways so as not to be chewed up and spit out by the systems, systems that are primarily designed to improve both the power and wealth of those who architect and manage them in the first place.
That's probably the most on point comment I ever got so thank you a lot for sharing that experience and I am happy to see how something so terrible in the end has allowed to inspire such a great change.
I always differentiate between want and need. I'm so sick of materialism that it feels like a dish you had too many times and you're just sick of it already. I moved to China 15 years ago and in the beginning I was buying things constantly because I felt it was so cheap here. In the end though it felt like a huge weight on my shoulders and it became like quicksand pulling me down. It was not until a few years ago though that I was able to get rid of the excessive things at home. I either gave it away or donated it and it feels really nice. Like traveling with a back pack instead of pulling two heavy suitcases behind you .
A very apt analogy, "a dish you had too many times and you're just sick of it already". Differentiating between want and need is so utterly critical at this point in our "abundant" (for Westerners at least) phase of human existence.
Interesting, your mention of moving to China and the revelation it produced. My wife and I moved, in a desire to try something new, to Australia a decade ago. We stayed for a couple years, then moved back to the US but before doing so we traveled around the world for 9 months on a shoestring budget. These non-material experiences were absolutely pivotal in reshaping how we saw the world. When we arrived back in the US and financial crisis hit soon thereafter, it just seemed obvious. All this material bullshit, all these things have no value when compared to the experience you can extract out of life; interactions with people, first-hand learning about the myriad cultures in the world, finding some secluded beach in the middle of nowhere and pondering existence, our reason for being here, and what you want to make out of life. In the wordaday world, you get trapped in the echochamber of a particular culture/way of living/being. If that localized culture is vacuous, self-unaware, hyper-materialized and egotistical, well, how does that influence a person?
I guess the point is that everyone needs to travel/experience things that stimulate their imagination and pull them down a path of exploration/education as opposed to being pulled down the path of "my lawn is greener than yours, my car is newer than yours, my house is larger than yours". That car will serve you for about 8 years, that trek along Annapurna will shape how you relate to every subsequent experience you have in life until the day you die. Which has more value? Which one provides a greater life experience?
Thanks for bringing this topic up...when the larger system falters, all sorts of interesting lines of inquiry emerge!
What Is happiness and success is something subjective that only we can answer, still people listen to the materialistic voices that try to convince us that happiness will be accomplished by the next thing we buy
Keep up the good work posting great comments man!
I have just featured you on my blog regarding Posting Comments. Spamming aside, check it out here:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@fycee/posting-comments-appreciating-efforts-of-others
Struck again by this line:
#Steemit is a great platform to invest time, money, efforts and tears! Will always have in mind to check out your posts.
Thanks @fycee! Community building...people talking to people without the bullshit intermediaries using people simply as revenue streams. Let's make good old fashion human-to-human interaction all the rage once again!
Steem - checked
Crypto - check
Silver - check
Palladium - check
Gold - check
Commercial Land - check
Residual Business - check & check
Growing stuff to eat - Err...not my strong suite
Employed - Err... still working on how to get myself fire
Damn you definitely seemed prepared ! If things get really vad can you rent out your garage to me ? I can pay the rent with funny Steemit memes
i'll take payment with you giving me nightly dandy massages
My mum always taught me; because your mind isn't so bright you have to use your body to do the job instead. Boy was she right
your mom was an honest madame
Yea that's fair to say
i envy you, your mom could actually get you laid with a threesome or more
Although very depressive fact, this post makes us happy because somehow we entered a small oasis on Earth called Steemit.
I'm really amazed that you have a hidden talent of enterpreneurship.
We would be amazed if You as a Teacher make one lecture on https://discord.gg/zntd7Q. That is our Steemit School Discord Channel.
We had @karensuestudios yesterday, @d-pend today...We founded a Steemit School that will help many raise their activity on Steemit instead only sign and give up because nobody voted their 3 first posts.
And You are so persistant and so consistant that have many things to say to all of us, to learn more.
@dobartim always speaks so nice things about You
Thank you so much and I would love to help out ! I think this school is an awesome initiative and I will do anything I can to help :) please explain more how a lecture would work and details of how I should prepare. I also use Discord with the same username as here , you can instruct me there :)
There are definitely troubled times ahead, I just hope it happens when crypto has developed a bit more. A lot of these coins are still in the early stages and don’t have a working product or platform yet, I.e. bitcoin is still slow and expensive, eos hasn’t launched yet, NAGA’s MasterCard hasn’t been released yet etc. I just want the financial downturn to happen when crypto is running at 100% and help irreversibly change the tides of the financial markets forever
I'm a hundred percent with you on this one . The timing is definitely very important in terms of how crypto will develop. The next crash can actually be very positive for crypto as the original goal of crypto and blockchain was to allow people to create their own monetary safety away from the greedy banks!
I also hope it will be later rather than sooner because I need more time myself to prepare hehe
You and me Both. End of 2018 or beginning of 2019 would be perfect timing, as long as I’m not an idiot with my money haha
Haha Shanghai is expensive so be careful ;) let's hope it stays together atleast till then !
The old economic system might seems to continue is daily work, but as you eyplained well, what's behind it? Which are the principles is it based on? It will crash one day or another! I like a lot your idea to be self sustainable, years ago most of the people were able to grow food and it was alway a purpose of mine to learn a lot about it since my dad has this passion and he always farmed something. But till now I procrastinated, evenutally save a potato for me :D!
I do sell on stock sites too! Istock, shutter and adobestock are my favs, where do you sell?
I sell on shutterstock Adobe/Fotolia, dreamstime, those are my main . I wish I would have been more early into the scene of Microstocks because it's hard today when there is already so much .
True, and the royalties were better! But you can still make some decent passive income... even if setting things up is kind of boring....
It's definitely worth it ! Do you still add more stuff for micro ? I stopped like a year ago when I found Steemit hehe
Same! Fact is I uploaded some vector illustrations and it takes a lot of time to be done! I just upped the contents on Adobe Stocks lately since I saw it was growing...
Crises come and go, all we can do is try to be ready for when they arrive. I think keeping a broad crypto portfolio is a good move, as is investing time and effort into sources of income like steemit and selling pictures, rather than just focusing on amassing giant amounts of fiat.
I definitely share your desire to move to the countryside and have my own self-sustainable property! I'd require a good internet connection though. I can't live on toiling soil alone!
Haha I definitely agree with you about the Internet part , and that's the most awesome thing about today, as long as we are connected we can work from anywhere we want!
Exactly! That's why I haven't let my dream of living in a quiet Japanese village or some green plains somewhere in Europe, close to a forest, die.
Japanese village sounds cool ! Green plains in Europe as well . Life is short we better make the most of it
I wish I had the skills to do those designs. Will just have to pay you in SBD to do it for me in the future when we each have our own Steem bank.
You don't have to pay me just give me a back rub and we call it even Steven. But jokes aside it's not so hard and if you want to learn I can set you up so you will learn quickly. The fact is that with this program I use you don't have To be of at drawing, you just have to have an idea in your head, and with help of the program and it's function you can realize it
Great article!
I do not have a lot of knowledge when it comes to economics, mainly because I'm a huge ignorant, but I do agree with what you say.
I talked in the past about how important is to have multiple sources of income because you never know what could happen, both in your life and with the entire world.
This involves investing in multiple coins, working on different websites and trying to create and sell as many products as possible in order to save as much as you can.
Plus, your strategy with free photos and 3D designs is also a very good idea, I've been doing more or less the same for a while now, and it is indeed a great passive income source.
Good to see other people doing their best to create multiple sources of income and prepare themselves for whatever's gonna come in the future.
Good luck!
I know you are very miticolous and work hard and you know how to diversify - this is a great combination for any economic changes that will come, working through the Internet is extaa beneficial because you are not completely relying on the economic situation where you live
We win together my friend. Excellent post
Thank you so much my friend and I know we both share the same feeling about Steemit, and the same conviction it will be very good for our future !
Oh don't tell me we're heading into new big crisis? I've been telling my friends about last crisis after it happened. They didn't believe me what is going on. Now I see them talking the same thing. At least they discovered what real situation is!
I'm glad I hear that you're investing in gold and silver, I believe it is the only money worth something..
I'm not all that into cryptocurrency, but slowly and safely I'm learning new things every day!
Thanks for sharing knowledge!
Cheers,
Luka
Thanks a lot for staying by my friend !
Glad to be here ;)
I've been thinking/assuming there was going to be another major crash for 5-10 years but it still hasn't happened. Seems inevitable but who knows if a black swan will trigger it or not.
Nice article and I dig what you did with the photos. Thoughts on the FED unwinding quantitative easing? Seems like people aren't all that prepared for what those rising interest rates could mean.
Yea once the interest rates start increasing things can get very tricky. Probably what will happen when they stop the quantitative easing, is that the economy will start dwindling, like a drug addict that didn't get his fix things will get even worse.
I think it's time for economic rehab, and the longer we push that agenda the worse the crash will be in my opinion.
The question becomes: what does this economic rehab look like? I have no idea and can't find anyone (yet) that has significant, intelligent and, maybe even, trusted insight into this.
I do like Wolf Richter (wolfstreet.com) for a lot of his data analysis (although he is anti-crypto). How about you? Anyone you keep an eye on?
Well Doug Casey, Jim Richards and mike Maloney are all people that have seen earlier crashes coming when everyone else was in doubt, they had it right so their track record is good
I'm not sure about the whole economic collapse but I have a few different coins.
I sure hope we aren't hit with a big recession. I'm already poor as hell.
HA!
Haha lol ! I also hope there won't be another recession, but unfortunately statistics seem to point to it .
Fingers crossed!
I love that photo on "be your own bank"
Steemit is a very good medium to create full time financial freedom and mine crypto using the brain power
Well said and this is definitely a good place for everyone to join and participate and learn in the process !
Pretty much the same precious metal and crypto but I have some stocks as well.
I would love to have some property again if everything goes to shit you still got a roof but that is out of the question atm.
I am not sure if there will be a total crash but better be save then sry (safe than sorry?)
Haha I agree better safe than sorry ! How about buying some property in Thailand or Bali ? Just a piece of land ?
cant buy only lease as a farang
Hello i am dewalski ,
I think that our biggest problem will be energy consumption and demographic explosion, that can cause other problems. I want to show you an interesting interpretation of population overgrowth and resources :)
Also recent economic crisis in 2008 was primarily caused by deregulation in the financial industry. If you want more detailed analystics and opinon about future i will make detailed post about it.
So follow me i will upload it as soon as possible
also please check my latest post you will like it : https://steemit.com/colorchallenge/@dewalski/can-you-guess-what-plant-is-on-the-picture-to-win-money-colorchallenge-thursday-green
i upvote my comment to make it more visible for everyone
nice story and photographythe.your bank realy fantastic.good job.
For those who bought a lot of coins during the greatest BTC price dip, their money is now almost doubled today :) For real traders who are not that agitated with the panic selling during those dips? Today is such a rewarding day for them seeing a bullish trend of the mother of all cryptocurrencies at $11,000++ now. Thank you for this post.