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Thought this was interesting.  Hopefully, he doesn't mind me posting this.  I need to pick up the book.

Preparing for economic collapse

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I found the comments after the article even more interesting.

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What will happen with credit cards & all other loans? Washed away?

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No problem at all Traxx12

Indeed, it was a good thread.
FerFAL

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This is my question as well.

Ferfal, care to comment what happened for you?

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Thank you!  I realized after I posted that I probably should have asked first.  It's great reading from someone who had first-hand experience.  I'll be ordering the book today.

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Sure. I had to repay every single buck I owed and the interests were beyond anything you’ve ever seen in USA given poor 3rd world usury laws. Thankfully I never owed much but what little debt I had back then taught me a valuable lesson. I think it was a year after getting married. I had little money and used a credit card to pay for a rug about 300 pesos, at that time 100USD or so. At the end of that year between interests, fees, penalties and what not I was looking at 600 USD debt.
In general being in debt was a bad thing as you could expect. Yes, its true that if you got a loan in USD at a 1 to 1 exchange rate with the peso, then after the devaluation to 3 to 1, with an adjustment to an in between point of 1 to 1,4 or so you almost doubled your money, but then again you had to a)time it perfectly b)not actually spend the money. Say you got a loan in dollars to buy a machine for your company, then the currency devaluates and you think well, I did very well. While that would be true you production costs would have followed the devaluation too, all economic activity freezes for months and business drops like a rock. You’d still find it very hard to repay you debt. It also depended on the kind of loan you got and who you got it from. Some people had to repay in dollars and for those that meant going bankrupt.  Impossible to do.
Regarding mortgages there were some emergency laws passed, but these bought you time to repay, it didn’t eliminate the debt, and it benefitted those that had bought houses worth around 50.000 USD or less, mostly focused to spare the lower income sector.  If you had scratched your way into a +100.000 USD mortgage, thinking of making sacrifices to pay and work it out, you were out of luck.

FerFAL

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Wait....I thought if the currency/economy collapsed that the mortgage was still bound by contract to be paid in that currency.  In other words if the dollar collapses and is now worth maybe $.01 on the dollar....you can still pay the mortgage off with it that currency and it is for the same amount.  In other words, I can now buy stacks of $100 bills with a few ounces of silver (far fetched and unrealistic but there's always that chance...)....I can now take those stacks of $100's and pay off my mortgage....no?  

You talk about a $100 debt turning into a $600 debt with the convoluted interest the loaners trumped up in response to the crash....but how was that a hardship to anyone that stored PM's ahead of time?

Thanks

-Emt1581

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well... no. Sorry.
If the dollar collapses and 100 USD buys you a can of coke, then I think they wont let you get away with paying off your mortage with it. Historically, what happens in such a case is that those in power come up with a new currency, a new dollar of some sort, and you have a limited ammount of time to exchange the old money for the new one. Remember its a fiat curency, its just paper backed up by the trust people have in it being worth something. If the government itself says its worth nothing then it immediately loses all value, and the government still has the power to overrun anything you may have signed. Trust me, if that ever happens they will come up with an agreement of equivalence between old and new dollar.  

While silver and gold protects you from devaluation, it does not protect you from usury interest rates,doesnt matter if you have PM. I've learned to avoid debt like the plague.
FerFAL

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So you're saying that, even though I signed a contract that says I will pay in US dollars and the lender said they would accept US dollars....the gov. could theoretically require me to pay in British Pounds or Canadian Dollars or whatever funny money they print next??  What's the point of the contract then?  Seems like it would be proof the lender made a bad investment instead of requiring me to pay in physical gold or silver rather than something the government should step in and change the terms of after the shit has hit the fan.  

-Emt1581

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So you're saying that, even though I signed a contract that says I will pay in US dollars and the lender said they would accept US dollars....the gov. could theoretically require me to pay in British Pounds or Canadian Dollars or whatever funny money they print next??  What's the point of the contract then?  Seems like it would be proof the lender made a bad investment instead of requiring me to pay in physical gold or silver rather than something the government should step in and change the terms of after the shit has hit the fan.  

-Emt1581

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Yes, that exactly right. They can do pretty much anything they want and they've shown a will to wipe their butts with the constitution enough times I believe.
I doubt that they will make you pay in Canadian Dollars or BGP but if it comes down to it, the elite running things will quickly aprove an emergency plan aproving a new currency of some sort. Everything you agreed to on old dollars will be transfered to new dollars.
FerFAL

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Well that sucks!! Thanks for the information though.  

It's amazing how powerful the gov. is...how did we get to this point??  Anyone know if our forefathers would have approved of such a thing?  

I said it before and I'll say it again...when things go bad for the government, they just bullshit their way out of it rather than owning up to their responsibilities.  

-Emt1581