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I am working on this as fast as I can, though money under the mattress is obviously not a way to go and Brazil is not high on my list of places to live.

Please read the Normalcy Bias definition. I know it is difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff in the current information environment we have, but a little reasoned thinking and some fact checking goes a long way towards finding out a semblance of truth. Consider the possibility that the world may very well not be what your government tells you it is.

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Is that nervous laughter, Johnr? Or laughter of disbelief?

If it is the latter, there is a state of mind which scientists explain and call the “NORMALCY BIAS” You may have this. We are facing a disaster and we are experiencing various forms of control by the people causing this disaster.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The normalcy bias refers to a mental state people enter when facing a disaster. It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of the government to include the populace in its disaster preparations. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster never has occurred that it never will occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.[1]

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Yeah,,I have been following a lot the web sites regarding most of the issues surrounding the economic meltdown and potential world wide depression. It is difficult to know just how severe consequences are going to be as there are so many theories and proponents of extreme sounding ideas. Facts and interpretation of facts can be manipulated to fit nearly any bias.

The list is long;

Globalism
police state terror
shadow governments
crash of the dollar
high world unemployment
world riots
world war
loss of civil liberties
rising oil costs
rising commodity costs (inflation)

It seems that any geopolitical event of consequence that happens right now could precipitate a total, unstoppable fall of the markets which in turn could bring about all of the above simultaneously culminating in a feudal society at best or a Mad Max world at worst. Some are saying that oil, at $150 per barrel, will surely bring it all down.

My concern right now is not whether disaster will hit. I am convinced it will. My concern now is WHEN will it hit? I don’t want to be caught in the States when the pooh hits the fan.

I have been squirreling away canned food and rice for a while now and have been thinking about converting cash into silver or gold but there is also the question of whether or not the precious metals market may be just another bubble…and you cannot eat gold. More importantly, who wants to be in the middle of a large, starving US city where many citizens are armed to the teeth?

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I don’t think any of this matters any longer. The current world society has reached the end of its tether and is going to implode. If any thing rises from the ashes, we can hope it will be more intelligent in the way it deals with human behavior, which is mostly determined by environmental influences.
Just think of the titles “War on Drugs” or “War on Poverty” or “WAR on crime or against terrorism. The selling of solutions which approaches behavioral problems, whether invented or real, with a war should be seen for what it really is; a way to control people by deception. A false flag enemy and confrontation is created as a diversion from the real problem.

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The imperial gallon is 20% more than the US gallon. My brother, who lives in Ireland, has informed me of the high cost he pays there. We are truly spoiled rotten in the States as far as gas prices go. But this is coming to an abrupt end pretty damned soon as far as I can see.

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I have been reading more reports that US dollars may be replaced as the standard currency for petroleum purchases. The exclusive use of US dollars as the world wide currency for petroleum sales is what has subsidized our gas prices in the US. Since the Fed just keeps pulling more and more new US dollars from thin air (quantitative easing), we get our gas cheaper than anyone else. Guess what happens what the gravy train stops? (and it will soon)

I guess I better plan on leaving my Toyota FJ Cruiser behind when I move to CR. At 17 MPG, I would be paying $15 for each trip to San Ramon in that vehicle. The Dai-shit-su 4X4 is looking better and better.

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The single, most important factor which will facilitate learning Spanish is a burning DESIRE to do so. Without that desire, whatever Spanish you may pick up or learn from necessity along the way will remain insufficient to really appreciate the culture in which you find yourself. You can get by on limited Spanish…you can even get by, they say, on no Spanish….but that is all you will ever do …get by. I see many Latin immigrants here in Miami who never master English and their experience of this country is very diminished because of it.

I continue to be amazed at the naive attitude many expats have about living in a foreign country without speaking the language. It should come as no surprise that they begin to feel a strong sense of alienation after a short time. Maybe that is why so many sequester themselves behind the walls of their gated communities…and later, give up entirely and return to the States or Canada.

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I don’t understand how reasonable people can possibly believe that Costa Rica would be free from the consequences of the world economic system falling apart. Unless you are totally self sufficient and completely cut off from the current monetary system, you are going to feel the effects no matter where you are on the planet. If it is a matter of degree, then perhaps Costa Rica is a better choice than the epicenter of the problem. North Americans who complain about CR tax increases sound unreasonable. The places where you can run to where little or no taxation is found are not going to be easy places to survive.

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Everybody who believes there will be no financial collapse of the world economy and dollar killing, pension killing and social security killing US dollar inflation, raise your hands.
You guys get to have hope that there WILL be a little of your pension retirement money still around to be reduced and taxed.
For the rest of you, those who suspect a true catastrophe coming, pensions and taxes won’t have to be worried about at all since they won’t even exist.

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Hello, Michael.

By the way, I am a “he”. Please read the Greg Grandin article Scott has posted on the Home page. This explains what Colombia has been turned into after so many years of US military involvement there.https://www.welovecostarica.com/public/Building_a_Perfect_Machine_of_Perpetual_War_The_MexicotoColombia_Security_Corridor_Advances.cfm

The US military has been training uniformed terrorists for various of its corrupted puppet governments for a long time.
The list of these governments’ countries is long and runs from A to Z, from Argentina to Zimbabwe…..and the crimes are terrible. Torture and murder of millions is the result.
The very last thing these sweet, gentle and naive Ticos need is ANY U.S. “assistance.

I have no idea how many frightened Americans would “scamper back to Notre America” if they thought their gated walls would be “broached” by the savage, machete waving Ticos your fevered mind conjures. No doubt there are some who think as you do and no doubt they are the ones living in gated communities. If they perceived a diminished US military in the world, they might just “scamper”. Good riddance to them! Let them languish at the center of an imploding empire.

Your view is so skewed, biased and corrupted, that I fear reason and facts will do no good here. I sincerely hope for a quick and relatively painless end to the US military. I doubt that will be the case, though. Perhaps Costa Rica will be a good place to live through the ordeal.

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We need more people like her and fewer like the poachers, of course. It seems we are taking apart the environment around us and I can understand how her strong opposition to that kind of activity might lead to a violent confrontation. Too bad she wasn’t better armed.

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There are many complex, inter related reasons for the well being of a population. Costa Rica, in 2009, was number one on the Happy Planet list of countries with the happiest population. Yet it has no army. It barely has a police force and there are no US military bases here. How do you explain the last 30 years of peace and quiet in Costa Rica with no armed uniforms running around? Of the many reasons, one might be that the U.S. never intervened here.

Columbia, on the other hand, has had a close military relationship with the US. Guns and uniforms attract trouble, they don’t necessarily prevent it. Columbia has suffered decades of armed struggle with right wing death squads supplied by the U.S.. It has only recently emerged from that mess and there is still a danger it will fall back again.

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Let’s hope Ticos do not adopt your insane vision of the world. Soldiers are a cancer within any nation that undertakes their use for internal problems.

You are completely wrong in your analysis of Colombia. As soon as the US can get a military foot in the door, whether if just with equipment and surrogates or with actual US boots on the ground, your country is finished.

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There are so many frightened, misinformed, brainwashed Americans. The biggest drug movers are to found within the us government. The war on drugs is just one of many false flag wars being used by banking interests and the US government as manipulative tools.

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Beliefs are important. They have consequences because they lead to actions. For me, it follows then that false beliefs, however comforting, must eventually lead to false actions and false actions lead to failure. The 12 step program has dismal recovery stats.

An interesting question would be “why do you believe you need a god to keep you sane and in the moment”? I do not nor do many others. Could it be a chemical imbalance combined with specific environmental aspects which makes some more susceptible to addiction than others…or more susceptible to superstitious beliefs than others? Not knowing the answer to many things, I feel more comfortable putting the question to science and reasoned thinking rather than to a primitive belief system which includes magic and supernatural beings and pretends to have the answer for everything….

I am all for feeling good but it must come truthfully. Otherwise, you are merely replacing the addiction to one false idea, drugs and alcohol, with another, religion and god.

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