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As
the economic and financial
systems of the world rapidly
approach the real possibility
of total collapse, signs of what
we can expect on a mass scale in the near future are beginning to appear throughout Europe.
In
Spain, a country that just
a few years ago was heralded as a shining example of real estate entrepreneurship,
international tourism and a rising
middle class, the situation is so
bad that many are unable to meet the most basic necessities for life.
Social
safety nets across the
continent are visibly under
stress and breaking down, so
much so that unemployed Spaniards have begun raiding supermarkets in order to put food on the table.
As recently as last month
the people of Cadiz and Sevilla, which have a reported unemployment rate of
32%, joined together
to loot local grocery
stores of three tons of food
- some of which was distributed to local food banks:
In Spanish
with English subtitles:
Fernando Ferfal Aguirre, author of Surviving the Economic
Collapse, was in Argentina in the early 2000′s when the
country underwent a hyperinflationary
currency meltdown, and says that these
acts of desperation are a
carbon copy of what he witnessed in his own country and should be expected
as the economic crisis accelerates:
To be
fair they aren’t taking booze and big screen TVs, but taking what isn’t
yours is still under the same principle. Would you do any different if you couldn’t put food on the table and spent months unemployed?
…
Just a few years ago many
Spaniards would joke saying that
thanks to the new immigration wave
everyone in Spain could afford to have a “Sudaca”
as a maid. Sudaca is a derogatory term similar to wetbacks, commonly used in Spain referring to
South Americans. This is pretty sad given
that these “sudacas” are children and
grandchildren of those same Spaniards that left to SA because of the Spanish Civil war. Now, its
obvious that they are suffering many of the miseries their “Sudaca“ brothers went through in the past.
Spaniards eating
out of garbage bins, many of them senior citizens, have become a common sight in Spain and in other European countries where they have emigrated to looking for work themselves.
In the following
videos via The Modern Survivalist and Prepper
Website, we can see what happens
to civilized societies when there is
no food on grocery
store shelves or it’s
so expensive that it becomes
unaffordable for the majority
of the population:
Available in Spanish only:
This morning
we learned that 46.7 million Americans
– a new record – are receiving government nutritional food assistance benefits, so the troubles we’re seeing in Spain, Greece and other European countries are
not just limited to the other side of the ocean. They are happening right
here at home.
The only
reason stores in the United States are not yet being looted
like those in Spain is that our
social safety nets are still
able to support the basic needs of most of the population. But as prices
continue to rise, more jobs are lost,
and record numbers of people join
the ranks of the already 100 million receiving some form of government welfare, the breaking point is quickly approaching.
In Spain, just a few short years ago people were living the high
life. Expensive homes, expensive
cars, luxury vacations and dining,
ever-expanding credit limits, and not a worry in the
world. Does that sound familiar?
Those same
people who would have laughed in your face five years ago had
you told them the economy was going to collapse and their country would be facing a massive debt default that would leave the majority of their population in
poverty – those same people are rumaging through garbage cans in the hopes they can find
some bread, rice and vegetables to put on their dinner tables.
This is
reality.
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