The Stock Market Has Officially Entered Crazytown Territory

It is time to crank up the Looney Tunes theme song because Wall Street has officially entered crazytown territory.  Stocks just keep going higher and higher, and at this point what is happening in the stock market does not bear any resemblance to what is going on in the overall economy whatsoever.  So how long can this irrational state of affairs possibly continue?  Stocks seem to go up no matter what happens.  If there is good news, stocks go up.  If there is bad news, stocks go up.  If there is no news, stocks go up.  On Thursday, the day after Christmas, the Dow was up another 122 points to another new all-time record high.  In fact, the Dow has had an astonishing 50 record high closes this year.  This reminds me of the kind of euphoria that we witnessed during the peak of the housing bubble.  At the time, housing prices just kept going higher and higher and everyone rushed to buy before they were "priced out of the market".  But we all know how that ended, and this stock market bubble is headed for a similar ending.

It is almost as if Wall Street has not learned any lessons from the last two major stock market crashes at all.  Just look at Twitter.  At the current price, Twitter is supposedly worth 40.7 BILLION dollars.  But Twitter is not profitable.  It is a seven-year-old company that has never made a single dollar of profit.

Not one single dollar.

In fact, Twitter actually lost 64.6 million dollars last quarter alone.  And Twitter is expected to continue losing money for all of 2015 as well.

But Twitter stock is up 82 percent over the last 30 days, and nobody can really give a rational reason for why this is happening.

Overall, the Dow is up more than 25 percent so far this year.  Unless something really weird happens over the next few days, it will be the best year for the Dow since 1996.

It has been a wonderful run for Wall Street.  Unfortunately, there are a whole host of signs that we have entered very dangerous territory.

The median price-to-earnings ratio on the S&P 500 has reached an all-time record high, and margin debt at the New York Stock Exchange has reached a level that we have never seen before.  In other words, stocks are massively overpriced and people have been borrowing huge amounts of money to buy stocks.  These are behaviors that we also saw just before the last two stock market bubbles burst.

And of course the most troubling sign is that even as the stock market soars to unprecedented heights, the state of the overall U.S. economy is actually getting worse...

-During the last full week before Christmas, U.S. store visits were 21 percent lower than a year earlier and retail sales were 3.1 percentlower than a year earlier.

-The number of mortgage applications just hit a new 13 year low.

-The yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries just hit 3 percent.

For many more signs like this, please see my previous article entitled "37 Reasons Why 'The Economic Recovery Of 2013' Is A Giant Lie".

And most Americans don't realize this, but the U.S. financial system and the overall U.S. economy are now in much weaker condition than they were the last time we had a major financial crash back in 2008.  Employment is at a much lower level than it was back then and our banking system is much more vulnerable than it was back then.  Just before the last financial crash, the U.S. national debt was sitting atabout 10 trillion dollars, but today it has risen to more than 17.2 trillion dollars.  The following excerpt from a recent article posted on thedailycrux.com contains even more facts and figures which show how our "balance sheet numbers" continue to get even worse...

Since the fourth quarter of 2009, the U.S. current account deficit has been more than $100 billion per quarter. As a result, foreigners now own $4.2 trillion more U.S. investment assets than we own abroad. That's $1.7 trillion more than when Buffett first warned about this huge problem in 2003. Said another way, the problem is 68% bigger now.

And here's a number no one else will tell you – not even Buffett. Foreigners now own $25 trillion in U.S. assets. And yet… we continue to consume far more than we produce, and we borrow massively to finance our deficits.

Since 2007, the total government debt in the U.S. (federal, state, and local) has doubled from around $10 trillion to $20 trillion.

Meanwhile, the size of Fannie and Freddie's mortgage book declined slightly since 2007, falling from $4.9 trillion to $4.6 trillion. That's some good news, right?

Nope. The excesses just moved to a new agency. The "other" federal mortgage bank, the Federal Housing Administration, now is originating 20% of all mortgages in the U.S., up from less than 5% in 2007.

Student debt, also spurred on by government guarantees, has also boomed, doubling since 2007 to more than $1 trillion. Altogether, total debt in our economy has grown from around $50 trillion to more than $60 trillion since 2007.

So don't be fooled by this irrational stock market bubble.

Just because a bunch of half-crazed investors are going into massive amounts of debt in a desperate attempt to make a quick buck does not mean that the overall economy is in good shape.

In fact, much of the country is in such rough shape that "reverse shopping" has become a huge trend.  Even big corporations such as McDonald's are urging their employees to return their Christmas gifts in order to bring in some much needed money...

In a stark reminder of how tough things still are for low-income families in America, McDonalds has advised workers to dig themselves "out of holiday debt" by cashing in their Christmas haul.

"You may want to consider returning some of your unopened purchases that may not seem as appealing as they did," said a website set up for employees.

"Selling some of your unwanted possessions on eBay or Craigslist could bring in some quick cash."

This irrational stock market bubble is not going to last for too much longer.  And a lot of top financial experts are now warning their clients to prepare for the worst.  For example, David John Marotta of Marotta Wealth Management recently told his clients that they should all have a"bug-out bag" that contains food, a gun and some ammunition...

A top financial advisor, worried that Obamacare, theNSA spying scandal and spiraling national debt is increasing the chances for a fiscal and social disaster, is recommending that Americans prepare a “bug-out bag” that includes food, a gun and ammo to help them stay alive.

David John Marotta, a Wall Street expert and financial advisor and Forbes contributor, said in a note to investors, “Firearms are the last item on the list, but they are on the list. There are some terrible people in this world. And you are safer when your trusted neighbors have firearms.”

His memo is part of a series addressing the potential for a “financial apocalypse.” His view, however, is that the problems plaguing the country won't result in armageddon. “There is the possibility of a precipitous decline, although a long and drawn out malaise is much more likely,” said the Charlottesville, Va.-based president of Marotta Wealth Management.

So what do you think is coming in 2014?

Credt to Economic Collapse

The Probability Of A Stock Market Crash Is Soaring

While some individual stocks (cough TWTR cough) may have reached irrational bubble territory, the US equity market is undergoing a seemingly 'rational' bubble. However, as John Hussman illustrates in the following chart, the probability of a stock market crash is growing extremely rapidly.

Based on the this paper, Hussman simplifies the rational bubble as:

You only hold one long one more period if expected return is positive - requiring EXTRAGAIN x (1-p) + CRASHLOSS x (p) to be greater than 0.

As John goes on to explain, The diva is already singing, the only question is how long they hold the note...

Regardless of last week’s slight tapering of the Federal Reserve’s policy of quantitative easing, speculators appear intent on completing the same bubble pattern that has attended a score of previous financial bubbles in equity markets, commodities, and other assets throughout history and across the globe.

The chart below provides some indication of our broader concerns here.The blue lines indicate the points of similarly overvalued, overbought, overbullish, rising-yield conditions across history (specific definitions and variants of this syndrome can be found in numerous prior weekly comments). Sentiment figures prior to the 1960’s are imputed based on the relationship between sentiment and the extent and volatility of prior market fluctuations, which largely drive that data. 

Most of the prior instances of this syndrome were not as extreme as at present (for example, valuations are now about 35% above the overvaluation threshold for other instances, overbought conditions are more extended here, and with 58% bulls and only 14% bears, current sentiment is also far more extreme than necessary). So we can certainly tighten up the criteria to exclude some of these instances, but it’s fair to say that present conditions are among the most extreme on record.

This chart also provides some indication of our more recent frustration, as even this variant of “overvalued, overbought, overbullish, rising-yield” conditions emerged as early as February of this year and has appeared several times in the past year without event. My view remains that this does not likely reflect a permanent change in market dynamics – only a temporary deferral of what we can expect to be quite negative consequences for the market over the completion of this cycle.

Narrowing our focus to the present advance, what concerns us isn’t simply the parabolic advance featuring increasingly immediate impulses to buy every dip – which is how we characterize the psychology behind log-periodic bubbles (described by Didier Sornette in Why Markets Crash). It’s that this parabola is attended by so many additional and historically regular hallmarks of late-phase speculative advances. Aside from strenuously overvalued, overbought, overbullish, rising-yield conditions, speculators are using record amounts of borrowed money to speculate in equities, with NYSE margin debt now close to 2.5% of GDP. 

This is a level seen only twice in history, briefly at the 2000 and 2007 market peaks. Margin debt is now at an amount equal to 26% of all commercial and industrial loans in the U.S. banking system. Meanwhile, we are again hearing chatter that the Federal Reserve has placed a “put option” or a “floor” under the stock market. As I observed at the 2007 peak, before the market plunged 55%, “Speculators hoping for a ‘Bernanke put’ to save their assets are likely to discover – too late – that the strike price is way out of the money.”

The following chart is not a forecast, and certainly not something to be relied upon. It does, however, provide an indication of how Sornette-type bubbles have ended in numerous speculative episodes in history, in equities, commodities, and other assets, both in the U.S. and abroad. We are already well within the window of a “finite-time singularity” – the endpoint of such a bubble, but it is a feature of parabolas that small changes in the endpoint can significantly change the final value. The full litany of present conditions could almost be drawn from a textbook of pre-crash speculative advances. We observe the lowest bearish sentiment in over a quarter century, speculation in equities using record levels of margin debt, depressed mutual fund cash levels, heavy initial public offerings of stock, record issuance of low-grade “covenant lite” debt, strikingly rich valuations on a wide range of measures that closely correlate with subsequent market returns, faith that the Fed has put a “floor” under the market (oddly the same faith that investors relied on in 2007), and the proliferation of “this time is different” adjustments to historically reliable investment measures.

Even at 1818 on the S&P 500, we have to allow for the possibility that speculators have not entirely had their fill. In my view, the proper response is to maintain a historically-informed discipline, but with limited concessions (very small call option positions have a useful contingent profile) to at least reduce the temptation to capitulate out of undisciplined, price-driven frustration. Regardless of whether the market maintains its fidelity to a “log-periodic bubble,” we’ll continue to align our position with the expected return/risk profile as it shifts over time. That said, the “increasingly immediate impulses to buy every dip” that characterize market bubbles have now become so urgent that we have to allow for these waves to compress to a near-vertical finale.

The present log-periodic bubble suggests that this speculative frenzy may very well have less than 5% to run between current levels and the third market collapse in just over a decade.

As I advised in 2008 just before the market collapsed, be very alert to increasing volatility at 10-minute intervals.

Credit to Zero Hedge

Armed Community Watch Groups Form Amid Police Cutbacks

After a tax levy was voted down in Josephine County, Oregon last summer, the local sheriff’s department made sharp cuts, including the release of dozens of prisoners, the closure of the major crimes unit, and the reduction of hours that officers were available to 8-5, Monday through Friday.

The Josephine County Sheriff’s dept issued this press release last May:

Patrol services will decrease from 20 hours a day, 7 days a week to 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. The total number of patrol personnel will decrease from 24.5 to 6. Of the remaining six, one is a sergeant and three are contracted by other entities. 

Contract deputies’ primary responsibilities are to those entities that pay their salaries – namely, the City of Cave Junction, the Bureau of Land Management and the Oregon State Marine Board. Therefore, their availability to respond to areas outside their contracts will be extremely limited. 

Considering the quantity of high priority calls that this office receives, it is clear that patrol will only be able to respond to life threatening incidents.
If you call 911 after hours, and it is a life threatening situation, Oregon State Police will provide a limited response that involves eliminating the current threat. 

Sheriff’s patrol deputies will be spread thin, and their response, even in life threatening situations, may be delayed. 

As such, the Sheriff’s Office regretfully advises that, if you know you are in a potentially volatile situation (for example, you are a protected person in a restraining order that you believe the respondent may violate), you may want to consider relocating to an area with adequate law enforcement services.
Sheriff’s deputies will respond to life threatening calls only during patrol hours of operation, which are not being publicized for safety reasons. There are no funds available for call outs, so sheriff’s deputies will not be available to respond after hours. (source)
Just days after the cutbacks began, a woman in Josephine County called 911 because her ex-boyfriend (who had previously put her in the hospital) was trying to get into her house. Thedispatcher told her it was “unfortunate” that there were no officers available to help her and suggested that the woman ask her ex-boyfriend to go away. Apparently that didn’t work very well, because the woman was then choked and sexually assaulted.

When asked for a comment, Sheriff Gil Gilberson was unsympathetic. “There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t have another victim. If you don’t pay the bill, you don’t get the service.” This has led many residents to believe that the cuts are being made to be deliberately painful in order to pressure the community into approving the tax hike.

The residents of the community understand that criminals don’t generally keep normal business hours, and they’ve had enough of the lackluster sheriff’s department. They have taken matters into their own hands and stepped up to the plate to protect the county themselves. Groups like the North Valley Community Watch are springing up to pick up the slack left behind by the sheriff’s department.

Ken Selig — who was the longest-serving law enforcement officer in all three local agencies when he was forced to retire from the department due to cuts — told FoxNews.com he found the sheriff’s declaration unacceptable. And he felt compelled to guard his community’s vulnerable members.
“Who else is going to protect you when your government can’t?” Selig said.
Selig and his friend Pete Scaglione formed the North Valley Community Watch, a county-wide organization dedicated to helping citizens in non-life-threatening situations, primarily property crimes. It is one of a handful of community groups that have formed since the cuts. Without a robust Sheriff’s Office, their mission is broader than the typical neighborhood watch group.
Selig’s community watch group, looking to fill in the law enforcement cracks, now meets once a month to discuss crime and teach its approximately 100 members about personal safety. The group also has a trained “response team,” which consists of 12 people who will respond to the scene of a reported non-life-threatening situation if called.
Though the “response team” members do carry legal firearms, Selig said the team’s main goal is to provide a deterrent presence, and that none of them have ever fired a shot. He said those involved in his group believe there is no substitute for well-trained law enforcement, but they feel they have no other choice but to protect their community.
“We believe responsible citizens doing responsible things make it hard for criminals to do irresponsible things,” he said. (source)

Josephine County Commissioner Ken Heck denies that the lack of protection offered by the sheriff’s department is a ploy to frighten residents into opening their wallets, and he is concerned about the “aggressive” neighborhood watches that are being established.

Heck said though he supports neighborhood watch groups and citizens being vigilant in their community, the rise of increasingly “aggressive” community watch groups make him worried the situation could escalate to violence. Watch groups have been under increasing scrutiny nationally ever since the George Zimmerman case in Florida. 

“These things seem good on the PR side but fail a little in the reality side,” Heck said.

Heck said the only real solution is for the county citizens to approve more funds.

“There is this little shimmer out there of some giant Santa that is going to come and drop all this money on us because we are well-meaning folks,” he said. “The sleigh is broken, the deer are dead, it’s not going to happen. We have to figure out how we are going to solve this problem.” (source)

Kimberly Paxton is a staff writer for the Daily Sheeple, where this first appeared. She is based out of upstate New York.


Credit to The Activist Post

Save Yourself While You Still Can

The sheep of this country are attempting to get along by going along. However, despite our national capitulation to the New World Order, we are not adapting well as a people. Americans have miserably failed to adjust to our changing status and are paying a steep emotional price for our slide into tyranny while on our way to becoming a third world country. A good day for most Americans is a day where we avoid a catastrophe instead of celebrating our accomplishments. Americans are increasingly a miserable people. We are most certainly the most stressed out people on the planet. Perhaps the biggest slap in the face comes from the fact that the media controllers of today’s society are teaching us to love our servitude instead of inspiring us to reach for the stars. However, this acceptance is not sitting well with America and it is showing up in our collective health.  Did you know that despite paying the most for healthcare, our lifespan is only 51st in the world? Even some third world countries live longer than we do, according to the CIA fact book of 2012. The biggest reason for the decline in our national health, relative to other countries, is the high amount of stress that we are experiencing as a people. Much of the stress we are experiencing comes from trying to find a level of homeostasis in the midst of experiencing personal, emotional and spiritual subjugation. The rubber band can only be stretched so far till it breaks.

Man Was Born to Be Free

There is an emotional and mental health price to pay when a person forsakes individual control over their life, for it is in our DNA to be free. When people are not free, they suffer emotionally, psychologically, spirituality and physically. In America, we have lost our freedom. As a result, psychosomatic illnesses are at an all-time high. The research of health psychologists has revealed that it is psychological factors which constitutes the number one contributor to nearly all forms of illness from cancer to heart disease. Just the nature of the word, disease, or dis ease, speaks to this undeniable fact.  In a ground breaking study in the 1970′s, Steven Bramwell demonstrated that this principle even applied to college football players as he demonstrated that the members with Stanford football team who experienced the most stress, sustained the most injuries related to their sport. That same year, Japanese cardiologists demonstrated the same relationship with heart disease and stress and hence, the term psychosomatic illness came into vogue in the field of health psychology.

Conspiracy of Silence

You don’t hear a lot about the mental/emotional aspects of disease because there is no money in it for Big Pharma and Big Pharma writes the medical school curriculums. Whether, or not, the pill companies want the tried and true principles of health and well-being taught to medical school students as a prelude to intervention, it is irrelevant. The fact remains that America is a sick nation and we are a sick nation because all forms of our personal growth are stunted because we allow our lives to become distracted from the purpose of why we are here. Henry David Thoreau was correct when he said that “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them“.

According to a presentation offered at the IFPE Congress in Vienna, Austria on April 18, 2009, on the results of World Health Organization’s World Mental Health Survey, 19% of studied Americans experienced a clinical anxiety disorder in the previous twelve-month period, which pushes the United States into a ranking of first place in this category.  

What do Americans have to be so anxious about? At least part of the answer which explains why Americans have such a high degree of clinical anxiety, is contained in the following paragraphs as it is undeniably stressful living in America under the present set of conditions. We Americans are a miserable people who are dumbed down, drugged out, persecuted, fluoridated, chemtrailed, poisoned by consuming the GMO food supply, breathing radiated air thanks to Fukushima and are propagandized by a corporate controlled media who constantly reminds us about how happy we should be because we live in the land of freedom and opportunity and our imaginary enemies hate us because of our freedoms when the truth is actually the opposite. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index 2011, the United States is tied with Romania for forty-ninth in civil liberties. Several countries such as Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and Norway are tied for first. So much for our freedoms. When most people have a gun pointed at their head, they should know that they could soon die. And when the government passed the NDAA, they are telling you what they plan to do with you if you get out of line, which is to snatch you off the street without due process and “disappear” you forever. Yet, we do not fight back.

Living the American Lie

The truth of the American experience is really quite the opposite of what the mainstream media tells us. We live in a hellish 1984 nightmare where our every move is tracked by the NSA. Every word we speak is under scrutiny. We have no privacy and it has become very clear that the government is no longer of the people, by the people and for the people. The people are no longer the sovereign, the bankers who have hijacked our government are the sovereign and are in near total control of our government. As a result, we are a besieged people. In short, we are an occupied nation which is producing a high degree of misery. Even for the sheep, these undeniable facts are showing up in our collective stress levels.

Most Americans Are a Helpless Group

If a population is exposed to Ebola, 90% will die agonizing deaths. However, 10% will survive and this 10% figure is true for most pandemics. I think the 10% figure is true for resistance to tyranny as well. There are those of us who are seemingly immune to the societal brainwashing and are clearly able to rise up and oppose tyranny. However, I have concluded that most Americans are not able to mount any form of psychological resistance to what is going on, much less any physical resistance. Most Americans suffer from learned helplessness.

Learned Helplessness

When I first began writing, I operated under the myth that if we could reach enough people, that our numbers of resistance would reach a tipping point and we would simply overwhelm the forces of the New World Order. I was not ignorant or naive, there simply isn’t a body of research which addresses this phenomenon. When people were not responsive to seeing through the lies and deception of the NWO, I attributed their blindness to cognitive dissonance in that they were not quite ready to make a mental paradigm shift, but eventually would if armed with enough facts. I no longer believe this is true because most Americans suffer from a psychological condition called learned helplessness. The term “learned helplessness” was coined by psychologist Martin Seligman.  In 1967, Martin Seligman’s seminal research was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology entitled, Failure to Escape Traumatic Shock. Seligman’s experiment led to the term often used today to describe why poor people do not take obvious steps to climb out of their poverty-stricken circumstances. In Seligman’s dog study, he used dogs that were shocked and at first, demonstrated the ability to escape. In the second phase of the experiment, when a barrier was erected, repeated shocks to the dogs led to them passively accepting the shocks when their efforts made no difference with regard to their circumstances. In the third phase, when the barriers were removed, one would expect the dogs to return to escaping the shocks. Stunningly, even when the animal could see a clear path to escape, they continued to passively accept the shocks, hence the development of the “learned helplessness”. The dogs had been conditioned that their actions made no difference in the outcome, hence the term, learned helplessness. This principle is applicable to humans as well for when people lose hope, they passively accept their fate even when there are clear and identifiable options. I have concluded that most of these people cannot be saved because they are so unresponsive to the dangerous intrusions into their lives and they are programmed to label our warnings as conspiracy theories as they perform their Stepford Wives imitation on the way to their final demise.

Options?

Maybe a collective effort could save this country, but I seriously doubt it. As a whole, I have concluded that America is a defeated nation. I firmly believe that if we gave Americans a choice to fight for their freedom against a combined Chinese and Russian occupation force or to acquiesce, most Americans would say, “It would not be that bad to live under the Chinese and Russians”. Subsequently, I have altered my focus in my writing. I have decided to perform triage in my approach. In battlefield triage, there are always three groups (1) Those that cannot be saved no matter what you do; (2) Those that have some chance to be saved; and, (3) those that have a good chance of being saved with the right kind of attention. I am now writing for people who are in the second or third category. I would suggest to my colleagues to do the same thing. Our time is short and we cannot waste time trying to educate and warn those who are so blind that they cannot see.

Is There Any Hope?

Most of the time, successful military coups do not end well for the people for an old authoritarian regime is often replaced by a new authoritarian regime. However, with present preparations to turn all public venues into detention centers, the criminalizing of free speech and the renewal of the NDAA, Ray Charles could see what is coming. Perhaps our only way out is to hope the military does execute a coup. What do we have to lose? However, you should be aware this will only trigger a civil war between the foreign troops already here and our depleted domestic military forces. I believe as Dr. Jim Garrow does in that our only hope for resistance is a long-term guerrilla civil war. Most of this country does not have the stomach for this development and I think this is what is giving the military pause and is keeping them from doing what some think needs to be done. Ten percent of us understand what is coming and that capitulation and passivity will not save our lives. I would strongly urge most Patriots to focus the lion’s share of their activities to the cause of surviving what is coming.

Credit to The Common Sense

Thousands of homes left without power as UK storms continue

Strong gales and heavy rain have continued to batter the UK, leaving thousands of homes without power and prompting flood warnings across much of southern England and the Midlands, with parts of Kent causing particular concern.

An estimated 1,200 homes have been flooded over the Christmas period as forecasters warned of continuing strong winds and rain spreading north and east across the UK. Ferry sailings between Britain and Northern Ireland have been cancelled.

The Met Office has issued yellow and amber weather warnings, indicating severe or hazardous weather with potential to cause danger to life or widespread disruption, and urged many people to prepare for flooding. Police urged drivers, particularly those of high-sided vehicles, to take extra care, while a number of roads remained blocked with fallen trees.

The Environment Agency said there could be significant disruption across southern England, saying: "It is possible that heavy rain may worsen the current flooding situation in some areas with rivers responding quickly to rain falling on already saturated ground."

The agency warned that Canterbury and Ashford on the Great Stour river in Kent could be inundated with floods in the coming days, as several days of heavy rain continues to push water levels higher.

The warning comes despite lighter than expected rainfall in the south-east of England, with the agency reporting just 10mm of rain overnight despite predictions of much heavier rainfall. The improvement in the weather is good news for the residents of Yalding and Maidstone on the river Medway in the north of the county, where dozens of homes were flooded on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas Day.

River levels downstream of the Leigh Barrier, in Tonbridge, Yalding and Maidstone, were the highest recorded, the agency said. River levels in the most saturated catchments of south-east England are expected to exceed those of the floods in 2000, following rainfall of up to 100mm between 21 and 24 December.

The agency is sending out "flood ambassadors" to the centre of Canterbury "to reassure and support people" where the Great Stour river is still responding to the rainfall of the past few days. Its officials are also monitoring water levels on the Thames.

The Met Office recorded a gust of wind in Aberdaron, in west Wales, of 109mph early in the morning – with general wind speeds of between 60mph and 80mph expected in the UK.

About 3,600 customers in Northern Ireland were without power, while in southern England 1,800 customers in Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset who lost power over the Christmas period were told they should have their electricity back on by the end of the day.

Stuart Hogarth, director of distribution for Scottish and Southern Energy, said: "We would like to thank customers for their continued patience while our teams continue their work in these areas where homes are still without electricity. We are confident that electricity will be restored to these homes today and we will not stop working until every customer is reconnected. Conditions continue to be challenging for our teams, particularly in areas where flooding makes access difficult."

More than 300 staff and contractors were working in the affected areas, with Petersfield and Aldershot worst hit. Trees and branches across roads and power lines were being removed while mobile catering units were offering free hot meals and drinks.

Southeastern train services in Kent and London were badly affected with the company warning that most services would not be running until midday as engineers checked lines for fallen trees and flooding. A half-hourly high-speed shuttle was in operation between Ashford, Kent, and London St Pancras. The South West Trains line between Petersfield and Haslemere is likely to be closed for a week after damage to embankments, bringing diversions and disruption to several services, while flooding hit First Great Western services between Liskeard and Looe in Cornwall. East Coast services north of Doncaster were running at reduced speed.

Credit to The Guardian

2014 Is Going To Be A Financial Train Wreck With Possible World War

Be prepared: Wall Street advisor recommends guns, ammo for protection in collapse

A top financial advisor, worried that Obamacare, the NSA spying scandal and spiraling national debt is increasing the chances for a fiscal and social disaster, is recommending that Americans prepare a “bug-out bag” that includes food, a gun and ammo to help them stay alive.

David John Marotta, a Wall Street expert and financial advisor and Forbes contributor, said in a note to investors, “Firearms are the last item on the list, but they are on the list. There are some terrible people in this world. And you are safer when your trusted neighbors have firearms.”

His memo is part of a series addressing the potential for a “financial apocalypse.” His view, however, is that the problems plaguing the country won't result in armageddon. “There is the possibility of a precipitous decline, although a long and drawn out malaise is much more likely,” said the Charlottesville, Va.-based president of Marotta Wealth Management.

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Marotta said that many clients fear an end-of-the-world scenario. He doesn’t agree with that outcome, but does with much of what has people worried.

“I, along with many other economists, agree with many of the concerns expressed in these dire warnings. The growing debt and deficit spending is a tax on those holding dollars. The devaluation in the U.S. dollar risks the dollar's status as the reserve currency of the world. Obamacare was the worst legislation in the past 75 years. Socialism is on the rise and the NSA really is abrogating vast portions of the Constitution. I don't disagree with their concerns,” he wrote.

In his latest note, he said that Americans should have a survival kit to take in case of a financial or natural disaster. It should be filled with items that will help them stay alive for the first 72-hours of a crisis, including firearms.

“A bug-out bag is a good idea depending on where you live even if the emergency is just power outages, earthquakes and hurricanes. And with your preparedness you will be equipped to help others who might be in need,” he wrote. “Be prepared. Especially because it keeps you from being scared.”

He provided a list of items and even a link to bug-out bags on Amazon.

Credit to Washington Examiner