by Pete Thorsen
Chapter Three
Eve Bass really liked Taekwondo. It kept her slim and fit and knowing how to defend yourself is always a great idea. Especially in this time of great upheaval. She was happy she had a job and that it was a job she liked. She was a dental assistant and liked all aspects of her job. It was close to her apartment so she did not even need to own a car. That saved her a ton of money and caused her very little inconvenience.
She walked every where. She was a home body anyway so no car was fine. Eve had lost her family when she was young and was raised by an aunt that was old even when Eve was very young. But her aunt was a loving person and Eve still had a hard time with her passing two years ago. That was about a year after meeting Del.
She had a hard time telling anyone what her relationship was with Del. She did not really know herself but she guessed they were boyfriend and girlfriend. She really liked Del and thoroughly enjoyed the time they spent together. But she had always thought when you fell in love with someone there was no doubt about it and there were sparks or something. But when she was with Del there were no sparks but just a calming sense of togetherness maybe was the right word. When they were together it just felt right. Whatever they had she thought they both liked it.
After meeting Del, he introduced her to the world of news, conspiracy theories, politics, and world affairs. Things she had no interest in previously but watched closely now. He showed her the truth that these things had direct impact on her life and maybe even if she could do nothing about most of them at least she was informed and aware.
Eve had known Del for a long time before he showed her his secret and even now she thought he might have more secrets. But she knew it was a very big deal for him to show her and she knew then that he trusted her and had taken their relationship up to another level. Trust was a big deal in any relationship and it was something they shared. She still did not know if it would ever be a husband/wife type thing but she knew they had something solid anyway.
Eve’s apartment actually looked little different than Del’s apartment. But she liked it as she needed little room because she never hosted parties or anything and the location was perfect for her. She was only three blocks from work and only about the same from a grocery store. The Taekwondo dojo she went to was about two blocks away. Those three places made up about ninety percent of the places she went to. She had money in the bank and some at home and she had a boyfriend kinda, life was good. But the economy was not and was getting much worse.
She had health insurance through her job that was very good and the dental office paid her whole premium. At least they used to, because soon she would be paying about two hundred fifty dollars a month even though the dental office was still paying the same amount as before. The insurance had gone up that much just this year. She thought she might be eligible for a tax refund of some of that at the end of the year but there seemed to be no one that could tell her that one way or the other. She guessed she would find out when she filed her taxes.
Eve was so glad she knew how to defend herself as just two nights ago she had trouble on the way home from work. A guy stopped her and he had told her he had a gun (though she never saw it) and was going to take her for a ride. She did not hesitate and seeing that he had his weight on one leg she spun and side kicked that knee which was supporting him. The man made an awful scream as he collapsed to the ground and Eve had run all the way home.
So far she had told no one of the encounter but she knew she would tell Del when she saw him again. She knew if she called him he would be right over but the incident was done and over with now. She still got shaky when she thought about it though. If she lived in a free society instead of in Chicago she would likely get a carry permit and carry a gun. But if she lived somewhere else she likely would not need to carry a gun, kind of a catch-22. She liked shooting and that was something that Del had taught her. She had never even held a gun of any kind before she met Del. Now she had shot several guns and liked it.
The economy was so bad and she agreed with Del that it would likely collapse at some point under the weight of all the debt. Though she knew Del thought that was going to happen she really did not think so until she had done a lot of reading and research on her own and had come to the same conclusion as him.
Eve could hardly think of a worse place to be if the economy did collapse than in Chicago. She knew of Del’s plan to run away and he had asked her to go with him. Eve had said yes with no hesitation at all. She had complete trust in Del and knew that he would stop at nothing to protect her.
She didn’t know if Del realized that she felt exactly the same towards him. The key was deciding exactly when to run. They were both dedicated workers but did put their well being ahead of their jobs. But they both wanted to work for as long as they could to make more money even though they both had a fair amount saved up.
The ugly Chicago winter dragged on and Eve had no more problems from any bad guys. When she had told Del about the incident he said he was ready to leave for some place safer for her right now, they did not have to wait any longer. But she said it was just an isolated incident and they should stick with their plan they had talked about. Reluctantly Del agreed to wait until they both thought it was time.
And that time was approaching faster and faster. Everything was so backwards too. The economies around the world were all crashing and it was no secret and so you would assume that gold and silver prices would be seen as the safe haven and that they would surely be going up at a steady pace. But the opposite was taking place with both metals going down or staying flat. It made no sense at all.
World wide stock markets were all way up which made no sense but that was much easier to understand as most countries were printing money very fast just like the United States was doing. All that money had to go some where and so it was going into the stock markets, forcing them to rise to record levels in many cases even though company profits were down in many cases.
But things were looking up at least as far as the weather was concerned, spring was just around the corner and it was getting warmer everyday.
Chapter Four
On a Friday in March Del heard the message the same as everyone else. Saudi Arabia made a big announcement and said they would start selling their oil for gold or the Chinese Yuan instead of just for the US dollar. They would still accept the payment in US dollars until the first of April to make the transition easier for everyone. This was quite an announcement and shocked the world even though for the last few months they had talked about making major changes in policy and there had been ‘leaks’ about this very change occurring.
It was the talk of the world news organizations all weekend. Speculations of the impact were all over the place. Some said it was a change but not that big of a deal. Oil usage in the United States was down and the US was producing more of its own oil than ever before and could likely produce all of it with little time and effort. Some said the oil did not matter it was the fact the Yuan was replacing the Dollar and would lead to the collapse of the dollar and hence the United States. While others brought up the fact that the US Dollar was still the world reserve currency and nothing had changed at all really. Most just said we have to wait and see what happens.
Del was concerned but he thought while a big deal it was not enough to make it hit the fan. On Monday it looked like Del was right. The Asian markets opened first as always and were mostly flat with little volume and only small ups and downs. The dollar spot index price dropped but less than one percent which was not uncommon for it to change that much. Oil price rose but again very little at just over two dollars a barrel. Gold took a little bump and by the time the European markets opened and were mostly flat everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing really was happening. But people were still on edge and market volumes were very low. Everything was the same on Tuesday which was a ho-hum day financially.
On Wednesday Israel bombed three spots in Iran to stop them from building a nuclear bomb. A
nother big shock for the world to think about. Iran did not think at all. They moved most of their navel assets into the Strait of Hormuz stopping all ship movements through this important shipping corridor. They started amassing their army and fueling their medium range missiles that could reach Israel and they fired as many as fast as they could. Unfortunately for Iran their missiles performed rather poor and some dropped in Syria and many in Jordan, a couple even in Saudi Arabia. Of the ones that made it to Israel (who had deployed all their ‘Iron Dome’ missiles) who shot down all of them except maybe a dozen or so that hit non critical areas.
That night at home Del tried to find out everything he could about what was happening in the Middle East and to world financial markets. Oil had bumped up ten percent before he went to bed. He had called Eve and they talked about what happened but neither could decide if this would push the US over the edge into freefall. They decided to check everything in the morning and throughout the day as time and work allowed. Both said they would call the other if they thought it was time.
In the morning before work Del saw that oil was up another fifteen percent. This could be the event he thought but continued to work and didn’t check again until noon lunch break. Oil was up another twelve percent, putting it up thirty seven percent in one day. But it could just be a temporary bump and only time would answer that question. Also at noon the White House issued a statement that no matter what happened between Iran and Israel the Strait of Hormus must be open within the next twelve hours or the United States would take any action necessary to open it.
The State Department also released a statement telling all US citizens in the Middle East to return home as soon as possible. All US embassies went on terror alert. The DHS raised the TSA threat level to Orange. Stock markets worldwide had fallen throughout the day but not by large amounts, most in the one to three percent range. Gold and silver went up but only by small amounts. That evening at home Del decided that the whole world was doing the same as he was and just had a wait and see attitude.
By the time Del got up on Friday morning the United States had sunk much of Iran’s ‘navy’. The Strait of Hormus was again open for shipping and looked like it would remain open. The Asian markets had fallen a little and the oil price had stayed flat. Precious metals were again on a slight rise. Right now to Del it looked like the economy had dodged the bullet again. It was back to situation normal, all screwed up. He went to work to finish out the week.
It was during the weekend that Del realized the price of oil had went up about thirty seven percent and had not fallen any when the US had opened up the shipping lanes again. He again became quite concerned as maybe the economy had not dodged the bullet after all. There was no real news over the weekend. Iran was basically jumping up and down yelling but no one was listening. After all Iran was the one who stupidly and stubbornly had continued their quest for nuclear bombs after Israel (and most of the world) had repeatedly told them to drop it. Iran did seem pretty mad this time but didn’t have much power to do anything about it even though they were making all kinds of claims about what they were about to do.
On Monday Del watched the price of oil all day and it did drop a little, well quite a little at about a ten percent drop. But that still left it over twenty five percent higher than before this event. Maybe it would continue to drop during the week but Del had a feeling it would not. The rest of the week oil dropped very slowly and by Friday night it was still over twenty percent higher than before the event with Iran.
Then on Saturday there were three suicide bombing attacks in the Middle East on US embassies. On Sunday two US military bases suffered suicide car bomber attacks. On Monday the attacks started within the United States with two suicide bomb attacks and a Muslim shooter in Florida in a crowded spring break area.
Tuesday several electric sub stations were attacked and partially destroyed causing a blackout over a fairly large area. Wednesday it was more sub station attacks. Thursday it was multiple fires started in several western states which were already dry after winter. Friday it was cars and trucks abandoned in the middle of several busy freeways blocking traffic and causing accidents and delays plus more fires were started in the western states again.
On Saturday there were multiple shootings at several crowded events killing or wounding many people and again more fires started. On Sunday the cyber attacks began and finally it was something that could be traced. When most of the cyber attacks were found to be coming from Iran, it surprised no one.
Remarkably rather than hem and haw around the United States launched an immediate attack against Iran using mostly the naval assets that it had nearby. In a short time Iran anti-aircraft capability was severely reduced and by that time our long range bombers started pounding all Iran’s military bases, all airports, refineries, fuel storage facilities, and all power generating plants.
In roughly forty eight hours Iran was totally dark and only had troops and tanks left of their military assets. Their military and most of their civilian infrastructure were in ruins. People there would be using candles for light and camels for transportation for a long time. The cyber attacks against the United States came to a complete stop.
But damage had been done to the United States also. Fires were burning out of control all over the western states. Power was still down for thousands in the USA. There were reports of many ‘Middle Eastern’ or ‘Muslim’ appearing men being beaten or killed throughout the US. There continued to be several attacks by Muslims in crowded areas.
When many Muslims were found crossing our southern border, citizens said enough was enough and if the federal government won’t close the border we will. Hundreds and hundreds of regular citizens went to the borders and all were armed and meant business. There were several shoot outs with those illegally crossing the southern border. Many citizens died or were wounded but even larger numbers of illegals died also.
Sheriff’s departments in the areas went to protect the citizens and often ended up fighting side by side with them in the gun battles. Many in local law enforcement went down there on their free time to assist reclaiming our own land back from the cartels and other illegals. Texas and Arizona Governors called their National Guard units in to cover the border areas. A lot of blood was spilled but it was by now almost all the blood of illegals.
In Texas the news interviewed one gentleman near the Rio Grande who was found with a large scoped rifle, he said it was kinda like bobbing for apples but you used a rifle instead. Soon there was almost no one trying to cross the border any more (except for in California).
People were very upset that because the Federal government would not do its primary job of protecting the citizens of this country from foreign invaders they had to do it themselves with a large loss of life. Many blamed the government for allowing all these terrorists to waltz across the borders for years and it led to the deaths of hundreds of citizens across the US plus billions of dollars in damage.
The demand for troops on the borders even at this late date was overwhelming. Congress was basically ordered to cut some chaff from the budget and spend all the money to put boots on the ground at the borders. Bills were passed with support from almost all in Congress and the President signed them, because if he vetoed them they had plenty of votes to override that veto. But it was way late at this point. People were mad that Washington had to be told what to do to protect the people when that was the primary job of the federal government to begin with. If there had been an election right then the whole bunch would have been replaced.
Chapter Five
And Del was amazed the economy and the dollar held together. This was a lot of crap in a fairly short time and yet things were still chugging along as before. Other than finally closing the border Congress was still doing nothing except spending more money that the US did not have. The Fed was still printing that almost five billion dollars per day with seemingly no ill effect and no plan to stop the printing presses. But as is often the case bad t
hings happen in bunches and then the next hammer fell on the United States.
Saudi Arabia decided to sell the US bonds it was holding. To their credit they tried to do this quietly to not rock the boat anymore than necessary but the massive sale of US bonds could not be hidden. And even then things would have been OK but for the panic. At least we assumed it was panic but maybe it was a form of attack when China also decided to sell all their US bonds at basically the same time. At that point everyone that held US bonds wanted their money. In a closed session of Congress a bill emerged and was signed into law by the President.
It ‘nationalized’ retirement accounts including individual accounts (IRA’s and 401k’s) and basically took all that money to pay those bonds off and gave the retirement accounts government IOU’s (bonds). Right or wrong this woke everyone up about the dire straits the United States was in. There was a run on the banks. The banks ran out of money quickly and closed. That night an Executive Order was made to put capital controls on the banks starting the very next day. Money was brought into the banks overnight the same as always and the next day the banks reopened but now depositors could only withdraw five hundred dollars a week.
The panic selling of the US bonds did not end it. The US Dollar spot index price started to fall. The US stock market started to fall and then world markets started to fall. OPEC announced they would not sell any product for US dollars. But it made little difference as the dollar was falling so fast now that it was plain to everyone that it was done.
Within a couple days no foreign country would accept any US money for payment. Prices in the United States skyrocketed faster than anyone could keep track of. The capital controls on the banks had not really caused any riots, likely due to the fact that most rioters did not have five hundred dollars in the bank anyway. But when prices went way up then the riots started with a vengeance. By this time though Del and Eve were long gone out of Chicago.
