[Dave]

Economic train wreck may lie ahead - Politics news by mail.com

A "fiscal cliff" of steep tax increases and deep spending cuts scheduled to begin next year looms darkly over the presidential race.

Right now, the candidates are competing for attention with the Summer Olympics in London. But the unemployment report for July, due out Friday, likely will serve a cold dose of economic reality as Congress begins a month-long summer recess.

The cuts would come from a triggering mechanism put into a bipartisan agreement last year to automatically slash the federal deficit in the absence of a congressional debt-reduction deal. Neither side wants that to happen, but nobody yet has figured a way out.

"You don't borrow what you cannot pay back," Romney said in Poland. Sounds simple. It isn't.

Now, I got into prepping because of Katrina. I prepare as a means to provide for my family in case of natural disaster.

But these days it is becoming increasingly obvious that SHTF economic meltdown is actually a very real possibility.