Watching Europe Unravel

Looks like there's a better than average chance that Great Britain will leave the EU. That could very well be one of major nails in the European Union's coffin. The union was suffering economically before it got hit with a major refugee crisis. There are a number of member countries where membership no longer makes any sense. Greece is the big one, but Portugal, Spain and Italy aren't that far behind.

We can't talk about the EU without mentioning NATO. There's speculation that Russia could take over the Balkan countries in 60 hours. The situation is supposed to get better sometime in 2017. That just tells me that 2016 is especially dangerous.

Poland is certainly paying attention. It's going all out to increase its tank force and is acquiring other armored vehicles. They have their own tank factories but are also buying Leopard tanks. The country is also addressing gaps in its air defenses. They are acting like a country that's going to need all that military hardware.

To make things even more interesting there's crazy talk in the Pentagon. Some planners believe that tactical nukes could be used on the battlefield without it escalating. Now I might not be a military genius, but just maybe using tactical nukes might soon lead to strategic nukes? That's been the assumption in the past.

So we have a perfect storm of factors: economic, political and military. One can only hope that cooler heads will prevail.

-Sixbears

Dead Cell Phone

A month and a half ago I got a new cell phone from Republic Wireless. They use Motorola Android phones which some consider to be decent mid grade phones. I was pretty happy with mine -until it stopped working while reading a Kindle book -not exactly heavy duty abuse.

Their web site had some suggestions but none worked. Over the course of a day I exchanged e-mails with a variety on-line trouble shooters. They were pleasant enough to deal with and their suggestions easy to follow. Unfortunately, nothing worked.

By the end of they day they said they'd have to replace my phone and shipped it the next day. It's supposed to come in tomorrow. Republic Wireless sent a PDF file for a mailing label so the old phone can be sent back. They want to check to see if the phone was abused. That doesn't worry me as it was well taken care of and I had sprung for the heavy duty protective Otter case. The phone looks new.

It's going to be a pain to set up a new phone, but probably not a serious pain. All in all I found them decent to deal with. My monthly phone bill has been only a little over $12/month, including tax, so that can't be beat. Their phones are optimized to work on wifi so as to limit expensive cell phone data usage.

My plan is actually the $25/month plan that allows for 1 gig of data usage. Since I've limited my phone use to wifi, plus cellar talk and text, they knock $15 off my bill. The extra $2 and change is due to taxes.

Regular cell phones don't get a signal at my house as there's a mountain between the tower and my house. The Republic phones work great on my home Internet connection through wifi.

If the new phone holds up better than the old one I'm seriously thinking of replacing my land line with a second Republic Wireless phone. It would pay for itself in about 6 months.

Of course, before I can even think of doing something like that I'll have to see how the replacement phone holds up.

-Sixbears

Economic Depression and You

Anyone want to bet on the economy? Anyone?

Funny thing about economic downturns. The kinda sneak up on you. We tend to think the start of the last major depression coincided with the collapse of the stock market. While in hindsight that was a major turning point, the average Joe at the time didn't feel it. Some folks were impacted right off, but others didn't feel the pinch for a year, two years or even longer. A minority actually prospered.

Even most of those who lost big didn't get feel the full brunt of the downturn immediately. It took some time for savings to be exhausted and debt collectors to catch up. Some folks limped along for a while selling hard assets at fire sale prices. There are families who's tales of the depression are about how they had to let most of the servants go. Yeah, times were hard on them.

There are a couple of ways to deal with a downturn in one's economic situation. One is to limp along trying maintain as much of the old lifestyle as possible. Middle class people will probably try and do that by living on their credit cards. The idea is that when their situation improves they'll make good on all that debt.

Another method is to not wait for things to get better. Instead you assume things won't, at least for a long time. With that in mind a person's lifestyle is ruthlessly cut back. Expenses are reduced to reflect one's downsized income.

Personally, I've used both methods at the same time. That's not something I recommend, but I had some reason to expect a monetary settlement that would eventually cover most of the debt. While it worked for me, it was a near thing. The stress level is pretty high so if you can reduce your expenses and still live a reasonably comfortable life, that might be better.

Most people think they are in pretty good shape if they have the resources to survive a year. Yes, that's good, but economic depressions don't last just one year. If you can radically downsize maybe that cushion can last much longer. The time to prepare for a down turn is before it really impacts you.

On a personal level I was fortunate that I had my own well, some solar electric power, and a woodstove. Those resources were extremely useful. However, after four years I was about to lose the house for nonpayment of the mortgage and taxes. Even if the house had been paid off, I would have been unable to pay the taxes. That's something to keep in mind. They will take your house away and put it up for auction.

Now is a good time to figure out how to deal with a depression. It might be a world wide economic downturn or it could be something personal like a job loss, medical expenses, or other problems like legal issues.

Don't let your problems pile up. Have a plan. The last thing you want to do is ignore approaching disaster.

-Sixbears