American Exit Strategy: Book 1 (5 page)

Matt opened the safe and got two credit cards out. He also took a few hundred dollars in cash. He stuck his Ruger LC9 in the holster, grabbed the extra magazine and headed out the door. The Ruger was small and compact, it only held eight rounds with one in the pipe, but he liked the fact that it was chambered in 9mm. It was a relatively large round for a concealed carry gun.

Matt's first stop was the Winn Dixie just around the corner. He had no idea what to expect when he walked in the door. Surprisingly, it looked like business as usual. However, there was someone yelling at the cashier because her EBT card did not have as much as she expected. She was throwing the groceries on the floor to bring her balance down to the amount she had on her card. Evidently, this was the first she had heard of the benefit reduction. Other people were stopping to watch the action between the irate lady and the cashier. Not Matt though, he headed straight for the canned meat section. He loaded up the cart with canned tuna, canned chicken, canned beef and canned turkey. When the cart was nearly full, he headed for the checkout. He paid with the credit card without any issue. He unloaded the canned goods into the passenger seat of the truck. He returned to the store with the cart and went straight to the rice and beans. He bought 5 twenty-pound bags of parboiled rice and 100 pounds of dried beans. He bought various sizes and varieties. Matt made a quick pass down the coffee aisle and loaded up on several pounds of coffee as well. He took his haul and headed home. As he was unloading, Karen pulled into the driveway.

"More beans and rice? I thought we were all stocked up on that stuff? What's going on?" Karen asked.

"I think it just hit the fan." Matt replied. "The government was only able to replenish EBT cards with half of what the recipients have been receiving. And, there was no advanced warning."

"What's the government saying?" Karen inquired.

"I don't know yet." Matt replied. "I saw the headline on Drudge, texted you, and ran straight to the grocery store. There are a few things I want to do before we sit down and watch it all unfold. I need you to go fill up your car with gas. Then go to PNC Bank and close that account. Withdraw it all in cash. If they can't give you all cash, take what they will give you in cash and leave the rest. Call me when you know so I can decide what to do about the Bank of America account. For now, I'm planning to keep it open to pay our bills with. Take your gun out of your purse and put it on your waist. You need to be able to get to it fast today. I don't want to scare you but I want to take every precaution. I'm going to Auto Zone to buy a few gas cans to fill up when I gas up the truck. Meet me at Publix when you finish at the bank."

Matt could tell that Karen thought he was overreacting. He was glad she didn't say it. He thought he might be overreacting as well. But if he was right, things were going to go downhill fast.

Matt arrived at the Publix grocery store before Karen. He gave her a quick call to see how it was going. Karen answered her phone "They're giving me the cash, but it may take a while. They have to get the manager to go into the safe. I can't believe they don't have $4000 in the cash drawer!"

"OK baby, call me when you get to the store. I am going to go inside and get started." Matt said.

Matt went in and saw things were not quite as pleasant as they had been at Winn Dixie. There were several people arguing with cashiers. It seemed most of the EBT card holders were finding out about the benefit reduction at the checkout line. They also seemed to have never heard the term “don’t shoot the messenger" because they were taking out their frustrations on the cashiers and store managers. The lines were backed up into the aisles. It looked like a scene from Black Friday. One manager was catching a rant about discrimination because they had opened two checkout lanes with hand written signs that said "No EBT cards in this lane". There were two other people jumping on the bandwagon about the "discrimination" issue, so the manager took the signs down.

Matt proceeded to the pasta aisle. He filled the cart with several boxes of angel hair pasta and cans of sauce. These were items that took very little fuel to prepare. Angel hair cooks faster than any other pasta because it is so thin. He also got several cans of canned pasta. This is something they would usually never eat, but if things get really bad, you can eat it right out of the can and it is very high in fat, carbs and calories. Normally that is not a positive attribute, but in a survival situation, it is getting the most bang for your buck.

Matt grabbed five gallons of bleach in case they needed it to purify water. Then, he headed to the bread aisle. Once there, he threw in ten loaves of bread. He picked up several packages of cookies and several bags of candy. "The next few days have the potential to be stressful", he thought to himself, "Better load up on some comfort food." He grabbed some peanut butter and several large jars of jelly then headed to the checkout. His cart was just big enough to handle his haul. When he got back to the checkout area, there were two new signs. One lane said "Credit Cards Only" and the other lane said "Cash Only".

The store manager had outsmarted the whiners. Since there was no mention of EBT cards, they could not make a valid claim that they were being discriminated against.  He surveyed the lines. The "Credit Card Only" lane had eight people in it. The "Cash Only" lane had one man. Matt got in line behind him. Just then, his phone rang.

"I'm here" Karen said over the phone.

Matt spotted her walking in the door and waved her over. "Matt, we are already prepared for this. We have at least 6 months worth of food at home."

"We also have a lot of neighbors." Matt replied. "I doubt any of them have more than a few days worth of food. We may need to help them out if things get bad. A few hundred bucks is a small price to pay to be able to help out. Besides, we may need help from them as well. If we share what we have right now, it will last about two weeks."

Karen saw the chaos in the other lines and started to think that maybe Matt was right about all of this. She knew he kept his ear to the tracks when it came to economics and these sorts of things. Even more than that, she trusted him.

They checked out, took that cart and loaded it into the trunk of Karen’s car, then went back with two more carts. They filled them up with more rice, beans, canned meats, canned vegetables, powdered milk and other dry good staples. Once the carts were filled to the top, they went back to the "Cash Only" lane. Three lanes down from them, four EBT card users were in a physical confrontation with two male stock clerks and a male manager. One cart had overturned and groceries, including a busted two liter of soda, were all over the floor.

It seemed that the larger stock clerk had pinned the main trouble maker and three others were attacking the clerk to try to get him off the pinned trouble maker. The other stock clerk and the manager were trying to fight them off.

People were trying to get away from this madness. Several customers walked out of the store and left their carts in the lines. All of the cashiers were watching the action. This froze the progress of the slow moving lines. No one seemed to mind as they were so engrossed in the ongoing commotion.

"Don't get involved." Karen said sternly.

"Don't worry." Matt replied. “I have my mission and I’m not planning to be distracted from it. These people who walked away from their carts will be sorry tomorrow."

Matt and Karen finally got checked out and proceeded towards the parking lot. As they were leaving, five police cars arrived to address the fight. All of the attackers were gone except the primary trouble maker. The big stock clerk still had him in a total submission hold.

"Why are they blaming the cashiers and the store for their benefits being cut?" Karen asked. "It’s not their fault; they had nothing to do with it."

Matt answered "The majority of those people have been trained for generations that they are not responsible for anything, but that everybody else is responsible for taking care of them. The store employees are part of ‘everybody else.' The wicked politicians that rely on these people to continue to get reelected have worked hard at convincing them of that idea."

They loaded the contents of the carts into the bed of Matt's pick-up and started heading home.

CHAPTER 8

"I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared."

-Thomas Jefferson

Sonny Foster busted through the door of Paul Randall's Kerrville, Texas office. "Sir, you must turn the television on now!"

Kerrville, TX was the base of operation for Randall Ranches Cattle Corp, the family grass fed beef business.

"Sonny, settle down! What is happening?" Paul asked surprised by the interruption. "Are we at war?"

"Yes sir, but we have been at war for fifteen years now. That's not the news." Sonny replied while he scrambled for the remote.

Paul found the response to be amusing and couldn't help but smile to himself. This reminded him of why he liked Sonny's quirky personality so much. They had been through a lot together over the past few years. In the same way marketing campaigns for Christmas started in late August, now, unofficially, presidential campaigning started in the back rooms the week after the previous inauguration. Sonny had been with Paul Randall for over three and a half years now. He had done great work on getting information about the timing of the other candidates’ announcements to run for the office of President of The United States. All of the strategies, social media campaigning, and even a large part of the fund raising had been coordinated by Sonny Foster.

The television sprang to life and "News Alert" scrolled across the bottom of the screen. CNC reporter Patrick James was reporting from the White House Rose Garden. "We are awaiting a statement from the President any minute. This morning, millions of Americans who depend on SNAP,  the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, to meet their basic needs went to their grocery store to find only half of their usual benefits had been reloaded to their EBT cards. No advance warning of the cuts had been issued by any government agency. Wall Street saw the biggest two hour plunge on record. About a half an hour after the market opened this morning, the Dow lost 975 points. This represented an eight percent decline and the SEC made the decision to close the markets at 11:00 today. Among the stocks hardest hit was Howe Clancy. Howe Clancy is the investment firm co-founded by Governor Anthony Howe's father, Porter Howe. The firm processes all the transactions for the SNAP program and earns a transaction fee for every swipe. With the huge withdraw from corporate and individual investment accounts over the past few years; the loss of the SNAP benefit revenue could be catastrophic for Howe Clancy. Their stock was down 31% when the SEC made the decision to invoke the circuit breaker rule and close the markets at 11:00 today.

Beyond the woes of Wall Street, Main Street is seeing troubles of its own. Main Street is without a circuit breaker rule and life goes on despite the calamity. Reports are flooding in of violence erupting in grocery stores all over the country. Police have been called into several big box retailers and grocery stores in major metropolitan areas. There have been eleven shootings at food retailers and grocers reported across the nation, all in large cities. There have been numerous arrests and too many reports of violence to count. The reports continue to flood in and we are still waiting for the President who was scheduled to issue a statement at 2:00 pm EST."

"What happened?" Paul Randal said with a look of shock.

"My source at the Treasury says there was a deal to get the program funded by midnight last night and it didn't happen.” Sonny answered.

"You mean they have been running things that close to the edge? Why didn't they let the people know there would be a benefit reduction?” Paul quizzed.

Sonny explained, "They’re still scrambling to get it funded. From what my source understands, Treasury Secretary Melinda Chang is consulting about an emergency bond auction. Her advisors are telling her there aren't enough buyers and it could spike interest rates on the 10 year Treasury note to 16%."

Paul put his hand on his mouth in utter dismay. As his hand dropped he said "The 10 year is around 13.25%. They believe one auction could push it up 275 basis points? What about the Fed, they won't buy the emergency bonds?"

"Fed Chairwoman Jane Bleecher would do it in a heartbeat, but there is no consensus. Including Bleecher, there are three doves and three hawks. NY Fed President Sydney Roth is a tossup. Roth would be the tie breaker.  The Fed independent oversight committee is screaming 'Armageddon' if they raise current levels of monetary creation even one more dollar. Roth tends to follow their advice." Sonny rambled.

"I have to hand it to you Sonny; you certainly have your finger on the pulse. I couldn't do it without you." Paul complimented. Sonny would never admit it, but compliments were very important to him.

"You would never have to sir." Sonny stated faithfully.

Paul continued "We are printing a total of $275 billion every month, $3.3 trillion a year through the combined QE or Quantitative Easing programs. I can't believe we can't scrape 21 billion a month out of that to fund SNAP. Don't get me wrong, I think the program is bloated and a completely bad idea. The government has no business in charity, even if it were charity. But it’s hard to use the term 'charity' to describe robbing one man of his hard earned cash to support another that contributes nothing to society. Charity is when he gives it freely, of his own accord. Nevertheless, you can't shut a program like SNAP down overnight. It has to be phased out over time to avoid systemic collapse."

Sonny explained, "Nearly half of the $275 billion in monthly QE is going to service the debt. We owe $26 trillion dollars on the national debt. With an average interest payment of 11%, that is $238 billion a month. No one is purchasing new bonds. Most of the remaining $37 billion left over after interest every month is going towards rolling over existing bonds. If they don't do that, rates will go to the moon and the interest on the existing debt will be unserviceable."