Early Warning Signs that 2021 May Well Not Be Better Than 2020.

     All of us are going to be glad to see 2020 in the rear view mirror and hope for a better 2021. However, though we may get the Coronavirus under control enough in 2021 to be able to open things up again by late Spring or early Summer, there are other ominous trends on the horizon that the media has barely reported on and most folks are paying no attention to. 

     One of these is increasing sabotage attacks on rail freight. This attack on December 2 is just one of a number. https://kvia.com/news/new-mexico/2020/12/02/train-derailment-injures-two-causes-potentially-millions-in-damage-according-to-police/. An oil train in Washington State was just derailed, possibly by someone using shunts, and caught fire. There have been 41 incidents in that area since January of people trying to derail trains with shunts. 

     There are almost 126,000 miles of rail track in the USA. It is impossible to keep all of it under surveillance all of the time, even using drones and remote sensors.

     A new form of low grade terrorism has just emerged with the natural gas shutoff in Aspen: https://www.vaildaily.com/news/fbi-helping-with-investigation-into-aspen-area-natural-gas-outage-community-meeting-monday-night/ . While this is probably a symbolic attack by local environmental vandals, we have over 305,000 miles of natural gas pipelines in the USA, much of it running through back-country and harder to keep an eye on than rail track.

     Then there is the communications network: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/nashville-bombing-is-a-potent-reminder-that-communications-systems-remain-at-risk-from-attack/2020/12/28/d734b76c-4949-11eb-839a-cf4ba7b7c48c_story.html . The recent Nashville attack was probably planned in 2019, but it is a reminder of how vulnerable that network is. Not too many years ago a contractor accidentally cutting a fiber optic cable in White Plains shut down the internet all over the northeast US.

     And then the power grid: Foreign actors like China are developing weapons to fry the grid, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2020/06/25/china-develops-first-strike-capability-with-electromagnetic-pulse/?sh=1de69c13e190, and cyber attacks are already common, but in addition domestic terror groups have already been caught planning less sophisticated strikes: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/12/22/white-supremacists-plotted-attack-us-power-grid-fbi-says/4018815001/. 

     Then there are the cities. All traffic - rail, truck, communications, power, etc passes through the cities. The last summer's riots show how easily disorder there can shut things down.

     And lastly there is the economy. There is no such thing as a "Magic Money Tree", and producing money out of nothing just decreases its value. Usually that takes a while before people realize what is going on and then inflation suddenly roars to life. The economy is also vulnerable to attack from both inside and outside the country. The shift to digital and subsequent lack of real cash makes the economy totally vulnerable to power and communications interruptions. Borrowing money to invest in things that promise a good return is intelligent, borrowing to meet current expenses is suicidal. Borrowed money doesn't make you rich, it makes you a slave to the lender.

     Bin Laden's strategy of keeping the USA in the Middle East and continually at war in order to bankrupt it has been working very well. You can be sure we will be drawn into another war during the next four years, both to try to "juice the economy" and to take people's minds off the problems here. Expect much more "Russia-phobia" and "China-phobia".

     Though so far these attacks don't seem to have been very organized or sophisticated, you can be sure that even if few Americans are paying attention, there are those inside and outside the USA that are. Unfortunately, I think that things are going to get a lot more serious in the coming year. While I have never really been a "prepper" (most of us ordinary folks can't afford to stock up on a year or more's supply of everything we need, nor do we have room to store it), it would be wise to build up a reserve of what necessities we can afford. SLOWLY! The big difference between preppers and hoarders is that preppers slowly build up a supply over time when things are plentiful (and preferably on sale!) Hoarders rush out when a crisis hits, empty the shelves, drive up prices, and make things unavailable to others that need them.