Lessons Americans Can Learn From Argentina’s Economic Collapse for SHTF in the United States

As America heads towards an economic collapse due to its crazy national debt and runaway spending, we can learn some great lessons about how to prepare for the SHTF (Sewage Hits The Fan) that is to come by looking at what happened to Argentina

In 2001, Argentina plunged from being a very wealthy country with a large middle class to a country where the middle class all but disappeared. It was all due to uncontrolled government spending. Since the situation is so similar to what we have here in the United States today, the lessons learned are especially pertinent.

The first lesson to be learned from the economic collapse in Argentina is that desperate people will do desperate things. People took to the streets protesting what they saw as the robbery of the middle class by the banks and the betrayal of the politicians. Civil unrest became a common occurrence, as people who saw their bank accounts and retirement plans evaporate suddenly had nothing left to lose.

In addition, as the situation dragged on, more and more crime became commonplace. It wasn’t just robberies in bad neighborhoods, but more sophisticated burglaries in previously safe neighborhoods as well. People learned that their homes were being staked out and, when all the members of the family left and the house was vacant for a few hours, they could come home to a house that had been stripped.

In addition, a new term “express kidnappings” was coined. Instead of just kidnapping rich people where a huge ransom could be demanded, thugs started kidnapping people of more modest means and demanding only a couple hundred dollars. They would drive the around in a cab all day until a phone call to their home produced some sort of a payoff, and then they would move on to the next victim.

Express kidnappings were very smart financially for the bad guys, as the amount of money taken would not warrant a huge investigation from the overburdened police force. And if they knew what they were doing, they could pull off a couple of these every day.

Another thing that became commonplace was that former middle class people became unlicensed “taxi drivers” using their minivans or luxury cars to drive people to work or the airport. Others tried their luck to get work as a handyman. Women did nails and cleaned houses. People worked for a fraction of what they used to make, just so that they could feed their family.

Those looking for economic opportunity in a post-economic collapse society found that the teaching (especially vocational studies where you would teach a trade) and counseling professions did well, as people needed to get new skills to work and needed counseling to cope with a world turned upside down.

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