American Meltdown: Book Two of The Economic Collapse Chronicles

by Goodwin, Mark

  Trey added, “We have assigned fifty armed men to keep Young Field secure. Bill Maxwell, Will Pender and James Macintosh will all be staying behind for security leadership.”

  Pastor John bowed his head and said a quick prayer over Albert and Trey. “Father, we ask that you watch over these men and bring them back to us safely. We pray that this may all be resolved peacefully and swiftly. If it is not to be solved in peace, grant us strength and courage. Amen.”

  Robinson looked up at the men. “May God keep you and make your plans succeed.”

  Trey and Albert thanked the pastor and headed out to meet their platoon. They were to meet up with several guardsmen from the Idaho National Guard. The guardsmen would be taking the lead on this mission.

  Trey and Albert were assigned to the eviction team handling the DHS/ICE Field Office in Boise. This would be one of the most aggressive evictions, but the team Albert and Trey were on also had the highest number of troops.

  Everyone loaded up into the vehicles that they were taking to the field office. There was a wide array of vehicles. The convoy consisted of a couple of Humvees that belonged to the Idaho National Guard, one armored personnel carrier that had been sent as part of an assistance package to Idaho from a military base in Texas and several private vehicles belonging to the individual militia members. Those were mostly SUVs and assorted pickup trucks. It was a short forty-five-minute drive to the Boise DHS field office from Young Field. This was good as it didn’t give the team too much time to start worrying about the outcome of the operation. Everyone was apprehensive. No one knew for sure how the federal agents would react.

  The team arrived at the field office in force. Guardsmen and militia poured out of their transport vehicles and stormed the building. The DHS agents were caught completely off-guard and quickly put their hands on their heads. The eviction team went from room to room and cleared all of the stragglers. Everyone was herded into a large open meeting room and briefed on the eviction.

  Idaho National Guard First Sergeant Nick Powell, The lead officer on the eviction team, addressed the federal employees. “The State of Idaho considers you to be an occupying force in our sovereign state. We are making two options available to you. You may choose to take an oath to never fight against a Coalition state and leave the state or, you can choose to be imprisoned until you’re put on trial for treason.”

  The DHS agents seemed to be in disbelief. They were well aware of the politics, but they were shocked by the decisive action of the eviction. When asked to choose their fate, every federal agent elected to take the oath of non-aggression and leave the Coalition States.

  The federal employees were relieved of their weapons and escorted to their cars. The team split into two groups. One group was assigned to escort the federal agents to the border and the other half went to evict an IRS field office nearby.

  Trey and Albert were on the escort detail.

  As they were driving down Interstate 84, Trey and Albert discussed how smoothly the operation had gone.

  Trey said, “A lot of these federal employees that are being evicted from the state lived here for a long time. Some have probably lived in Boise all their lives. Now I guess they will be living in the FEMA camps.”

  “They knew the battle lines were being drawn,” Albert said. “They have had ample opportunity to leave their jobs and show their loyalty to Idaho and the Coalition.”

  “You’re right about that,” Trey agreed.

  “I understand they needed a job to feed their families, but that doesn’t justify continuing to work for a criminal organization like the Federal Government,” Albert stated.

  “Well,” Trey said, “Now they’ll get their new Federal Ration Notes in the relief camps. Won’t life be grand?”

  The two men laughed as they drove down the road, escorting the federal employees down the road toward the Utah border.

  CHAPTER 24

  “If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone.”

  -Benjamin Franklin

  Matt stopped by Adam’s early Wednesday afternoon. He brought by a bag of rice to trade for a can of coffee.

  Matt inspected the can. “That was a good call, buying a pallet of coffee when you saw the crash coming.”

  Adam sat the rice on top of some buckets in the corner of the barn. “You gave me the idea to get out of dollars. I figured this would be one of the commodities that we couldn’t produce ourselves, so why not. It has certainly held its value better that the money I used to buy it with.”

  Matt headed toward the door of the barn. “Mind if I check out The Liberty Mill online before I head back?”

  “Help yourself,” Adam said.

  Matt found his own way to the computer and scrolled through the headlines of the news-aggregation site, The Liberty Mill. He took the time to read an op-ed piece on Zero Hedge entitled The Unstable State of The Union.

  “It has been nearly two weeks since the derivatives bubble brought down the entire financial system. Gold has skyrocketed over the past two weeks. It shot through its key resistance level just under $10,000 per ounce to nearly $30,000 by the time it was no longer priced in US dollars. In fact, nothing is priced in dollars anymore. Gold is now priced in SDRs, the common currency of the IMF, or Brics, the trade currency used by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The spot price in both basket currencies soon found a market equilibrium for the gold price that is the equivalent of $15,000 in US dollars, given the value of the dollar prior to the derivatives collapse. As the astronomical gold prices quickly push most people out of the gold market, silver quickly rose to take its place as the money of choice. The silver to gold ratio closed from 25 to 1 prior to the derivatives bubble, to now just over 15 to 1. If the white metal were still priced in US dollars, it would be roughly $950 per ounce when exchanged for Brics or SDRs. Speculators expect the ratio to get even smaller as silver is only being mined at a ratio of 9 to 1.

  Like all other commodities, oil and gasoline are no longer sold at homogeneous prices. The markets have all become local. In areas where oil is produced and gasoline is refined, 2 gallons sell for a tenth ounce of silver. In areas where there is no oil production or refineries, a tenth ounce of silver might get you half a gallon or less. The disparity in prices is caused in part because of the massive looting of trucks on the highway by gangs and bandits. The truckers are on their own for security. Most police officers are no longer getting paid. The majority of those that were getting paid, were receiving a currency that is now worthless. Most have decided to stay home and protect their own families.

  Truckers have taken to travelling in long convoys of ten to fifteen rigs. They are often escorted by two security vehicles, one in the front of the convoy and one in back. Each escort vehicle typically has two or three designated shooters. Truckers and the private security teams that escorted the convoys take payment in the goods they are hauling, ammunition, silver, gold or some combination thereof.

  In states where the truckers are not allowed to defend themselves, commerce has all but ceased. In states where gun rights are respected, the farmer still tills his soil, the baker still bakes his bread and the market is finding a way. To say that small towns have adjusted to the collapse much better and more quickly than the cities, would be an extreme understatement. While life in small towns resembles something from the great depression, the cities, depending on their size, resemble nuclear waste lands. In many small rural communities, the town’s people are coming together to figure out ways to compensate their police forces with silver, food or other commodities. The first green sprouts of economic activity have begun to emerge from the charred remains of the burned down financial system in the Coalition States.

  In the states that stamped out the second amendment long ago, it is the government coming to the rescue. Howe has begun to pay Federal and State employees of those states with the new Federal Ration Notes. This effectively puts the state employees on the federal payroll, maki
ng them de facto federal employees. This shows Howe’s magnanimous side in providing for them, and it accomplishes his goal of concentrating manpower under the control of Washington, D.C.

  Howe has semi-nationalized all food production and storage warehouses in the states that have not joined the Coalition. Those states are now being referred to as the Federal States. Private owners of farms and warehouses were told they are now partners with the government. They were put on government payrolls and are being paid in Federal Ration Notes. The offers were made to the private business operators in person by DHS representatives flanked by four heavily armed DHS agents. The representatives cited Executive Order 13603 as granting the authority for the action. Though it was not verbalized, it was heavily implied that turning down the proposal could be hazardous to one’s health. The Federal Government gave them an offer they couldn’t refuse.”

  The piece was posted by a writer who was using the pen name, Daddy-O.

  CHAPTER 25

  “Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”

  -George Washington

  Secretary of Defense Scott Hale walked into President Howe’s office in the underground facility at Mount Weather.

  “Mr. President,” Hale said, “you wanted to see me, sir?”

  Howe looked up from his computer. “Scott, it is time to start weeding out the traitors. I want you to give an amnesty period of twenty-four hours for any military personnel who are not willing to fire on the rebels. Tell them that they are free to go if they will lay down their weapons and agree to leave the states that are remaining loyal to the democracy.”

  “So we are just going to let them go?” Hale asked.

  “No, Scott.” Howe’s eyes had a sinister glare. “We are going to load them up in transport vehicles and take them directly to detention centers. We’ll tell them it is a processing center. Tell them it is just a formality and that we’ll drive them securely to the border as soon as everyone is debriefed of access codes and current assignments. Anyone who has specialized warfare training will be executed as soon as they arrive at the detention camps. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that I will let these traitors walk away only to have to fight against them in two weeks’ time. But what better way to identify the traitors than to give them a one-shot chance at amnesty?”

  “I think it is an ingenious plan, sir,” Hale complimented.

  “Now, what can we do about disrupting the Coalition?” Howe asked. “I understand that Texas is sending heavy equipment to the Northwest Coalition.”

  Scott Hale responded, “Yes, sir, they are sending lots of armored vehicles that way from depots located in Texas. There’s also a heavy stream of resources such as food, ammunition, oil and gas flowing back and forth. I think we should shut down their supply routes.”

  “Do you have a plan?” Howe asked.

  “We are developing one,” Hale responded. “Hill Air Force Base is in Utah near Salt Lake City. It’s not that big, but just across the lake is the Utah Test and Training Range. It’s hundreds of square miles where fighter pilots and bombers train. Hill has a large air field to bring in troops and equipment. We can move everything to the training range in Tooele County and use it as a staging area. From there, we can launch attacks on The Northwest Coalition and clamp down on Interstates 80 and 84. This will significantly hamper the ability for Texas and the Northwest Coalition to resupply each other. They will still be able to maintain trade and mutual resupply by air, but we can set up a significant no-fly zone. They can fly around it, but it will cost them more valuable fuel.”

  Howe nodded his approval. “Sounds like a solid plan, Mr. Secretary. Make them deplete their resources. We’ll have plenty of space in the training range for large prison and relief camps. Get started right away. I would like to launch our first assault this Sunday morning. That preacher up in Boise was sowing the seeds of dissent even before the election. I would like to make an example out of him. Get some intel and find out where he is. I want that to be our first assault. Hit them while they are in church. We’ll see how much they trust their God then.”

  CHAPTER 26

  “No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.”

  -Thomas Jefferson

  Matt acquired a mild case of frostbite on the tips of his toes during militia training Monday and Tuesday. Karen tried to dissuade him from walking.

  “Really, it is not that bad. It doesn’t hurt much today. I think it was only the surface of the skin,” Matt said.

  On Tuesday when he arrived home, his toes were a bit itchy and burning as he soaked them in warm water. Now, there was a small blister on the tip of one toe. Matt was learning how brutal February could be in the mountains of Kentucky.

  “If we are going to go, we’ll drive,” Karen insisted. “Besides, it’s too cold to walk over there anyway. I don’t want to get frostbite on my toes.”

  Karen won the debate and they drove over to Adam’s. They arrived just in time for lunch. Janice and Shelly were cooking a nice pot of venison stew. Wesley had bagged another big buck the day before, during militia training. Fortunately, this time he was able to use his .308 to take the deer. He could have never made the shot with a bow.

  Mandy and Karissa were bickering with each other.

  “Both of you! Knock it off!” Janice yelled.

  Karen and Matt looked at each other. They had never heard Janice raise her voice at the girls before. They two girls quit arguing immediately and went into separate rooms.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Janice said to Matt and Karen. “We’re all getting on each other’s nerves a bit. This weather just makes it impossible to get outside. I’ve been trying to keep projects going for the girls, or keep them playing games and working puzzles, but I guess I’m getting a little cabin fever, too.”

  Karen said, “Why don’t the girls come stay at our house tonight. It will give you a break and it will be a change of scenery for them.”

  “I won’t argue with you on that one,” Janice said.

  Karen called out to Mandy and Karissa, “Hey girls, do you want to come over to my house and play with Miss Mae?”

  The two girls came running back into the kitchen.

  “Yes, please, can we, Mom?” Mandy asked.

  “I want to go, too!” Karissa added.

  “OK, but you better be good for Aunt Karen and Uncle Matt,” Janice answered.

  “We will be!” Mandy insisted. “I can’t wait to see Miss Mae.”

  Miss Mae, like many cats, was not particularly fond of visitors, but for some reason she was more tolerant of children than other houseguests. She especially liked Mandy who would slip her a bit of food from her plate when she came to visit.

  Everyone gathered around the big table for lunch.

  Karen said, “You know, this is not the best of circumstances, but we’re all growing so close together as a family.”

  Adam said, “I love having everyone here all the time. It feels like the way things are supposed to be.”

  Shelly added, “Times like these force us to focus on what is important.”

  “We are blessed. Not everyone’s families can get along this well.” Wesley winced as if he wished he could take back what he had just said. Shelly had not gotten along very well with her parents. They were polar opposites from the Bairs, and even from Shelly. They had come from Louisville for Wesley and Shelly’s wedding two months ago. Shelly had not been able to reach them since the wedding. No one said anything, but most assumed they were carjacked and possibly murdered on the way home from the wedding. Gangs had taken over Louisville and these types of crimes were common in the city.

  Wesley gave her a warm squeeze on her leg to let her know he was sorry. Shelly was tough though. She choked back the sadness and said, “I am very blessed to be part of this family.”

  She gave Wesley’s leg
a squeeze to let him know it was OK.

  The days of watching the mainstream news channels at Adam’s were over. Howe had clamped down on them and they were state-run stations now. They had gone from the puppet show that kept up the façade of independent reporting to the grossly obvious propaganda machines that operated in communist countries like China.

  Matt, Adam and Wes went into Adam’s office to watch some alternative news stations on the internet. RT was reporting on the amnesty being offered to the US troops who were not willing to fight against the Coalition States.

  A female reporter stated, “This video footage sent to us by an anonymous soldier seems to be of a detention facility. The troops who elected to accept the offer to leave the military were told they would be brought to facilities like these to be debriefed and processed out.

  “From what we know, thousands of conscientious objectors were brought to this facility yesterday, and we have had no reports of any soldiers who have been processed out. All of the footage we have received indicates this facility is very heavily secured. It’s not at all what we would expect from a processing center.

  “Our source told us they witnessed thousands of body bags being brought to this facility as well. The soldiers who did not defect to the Coalition States are becoming very suspicious of the government now. If the reports turn out to be true, if President Howe has indeed detained all of the soldiers he vowed to release, it may have a very negative effect on the military men and women who are still with him.”

  Adam went to Prison Planet Nightly News to see what was being reported there.

  A caller was on the air. The caller was in the middle of his sentence. “….was dumping what looked like body bags into mass graves. I saw four bulldozers covering up the graves.”