Following Hurrican Ike's wake through the Gulf of Mexico, affecting oil production and refining, a severe gasoline shortage afflicted the southeast US.

Severe Fuel Shortage Grips Parts of US Southeast
September 30, 2008
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N29386189.htm

A severe fuel shortage has gripped parts of the southeastern United States, causing long lines at filling stations and symbolizing for some people their fears about the wider economy. The shortage began two weeks ago in Atlanta, the region's largest city, when oil refineries on the Gulf Coast were shut down by hurricanes Gustav and Ike earlier this month. Parts of north Georgia, western North Carolina and parts of Tennessee were also affected. The effects on motorists have been dramatic. Most service stations in Atlanta are out of gas, with plastic bags placed over the pumps or signs saying "out". Lines and elaborate queuing systems have developed at gas stations on days when oil companies deliver fuel. Motorists report showing up at gas stations before dawn to beat the line only to find dozens of cars ahead of them. The shortage has also had a psychological impact. Like many U.S. cities, Atlanta is car dependent and residents say they had until now taken refueling for granted.

The problem, primarily, was delivery. Pipelines serving the southeast come from the Gulf of Mexico, and a pipeline cannot be diverted to another source of refined gasoline. If the source is dry, the pump goes dry.

Gas Shortage Plagues the Southeast
September 29, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/29/AR2008092902263.html

While other parts of the country get gasoline from a variety of domestic and overseas sources, the Southeast relies heavily on two pipelines that carry fuel from the Gulf of Mexico. Because the gasoline moves at just 3 to 5 mph, it can take up to 10 days to reach Atlanta. In the meantime, government agencies have postponed public hearings, community colleges have canceled classes, and some companies have provided vans for carpooling or encouraged employees to work from home.

Though Atlanta is no doubt considering this gasoline shortage to be merely a temporary inconvenience, the Zetas warn that this will be the norm after the pole shift. In fact, the norm after the pole shift will be far worse, as gasoline will run out, and existing stores of gasoline will be a hazard, exploding during the pole shift and creating death by fire to those nearby.

ZetaTalk Advice 11/30/2002: We have stated that fossil fuels will soon run out, so should not be relied upon by survivors for the long term. We have also stated that refineries and storage tanks of oil and natural gas and gasoline will be broken and set afire during the shift, creating a holocaust for all nearby. Likewise gasoline stations, fuel pumps, and even tightly sealed tanks may rupture and leak, also a continuing danger for any nearby. Natural gaslines in streets will run fire along the street, setting houses ablaze where they would otherwise not be in such danger. Natural gas in lines under cities will cause explosions, setting the cities on fire and burning many trapped citizens in a painful death. Avoid gas cans or anything that can explode. What do you gain by a few cans of gas? A few hours of heat or light? And what do you stand to risk in exchange? Your life? A painful death to others? Since you are going to have to adjust to life without these explosive fuels in any case, and soon, learn to get along without them!

Beyond future gasoline shortages after the pole shift, there is the issue of what will occur in the last weeks when many will be wanting to dash from the coastlines to a safer location in the hinterland. The ability to get a full tank of gas, or to have clear roads to travel on, is in doubt. There are many reasons for this. Refineries will be devastated by the increasing storms to be expected as the Earth wobble worsens. Delivery of refined gasoline will be affected by roads and bridges broken by the many earthquakes expected as the last weeks approach, and gasoline pipelines twisted and ruptured by earthquakes. And finally, each family trying to escape to safety will find others with the same desire clogging the roadways. Many of these cars will run out of gas in the traffic, and be abandoned in place. A nightmare, making travel almost impossible.

ZetaTalk Prediction 8/15/1995: In spite of denial and suppression of talk about the approaching cataclysms, when the earth slows and then stops in its rotation the truth will be known. How could it not? Those who sense the seriousness of the situation will attempt to flee. If they have been informed, but scoffed, they may know what to do and where to go, and attempt to do so in great haste. Belongings and even loved ones left behind, doors left wide open, heading for the hills, for cover, to escape the city. If they have not been informed they will attempt to flee anyway, going in all directions. Those who have prepared and placed themselves and their loved ones in safe places will not find themselves overrun at the last minute. This is not because last minute stragglers are not trying to join them. This is because the stragglers cannot reach them.

Imagine the situation. On one side of the Earth the Sun is not setting. Temperatures rise. Machines break down. The telephone lines are jammed, and highways blocked with disabled cars. On the other side of the Earth perpetual night is reigning. Here activity is not heat- locked, but is rather sleep-locked. Businesses do not open as everyone is confused. Are the clocks broken? Telephone lines are also jammed, and lack of coordination is evident everywhere. The night shift goes home, eventually, exhausted, but the day shift never shows up. The traveler attempting to drive somewhere finds gas stations unattended and cars out of gas blocking the roads. So those becoming aware of the situation at the last minute do not go anywhere, essentially, whether they want to or not.

Washed Out to Sea

Some 400 people remain missing after Hurricane Ike's devastation. Despite the early warnings and mandatory evacuation orders, many people remained behind in their homes, refusing to evacuate. Hurricane Ike had a high storm surge, estimated to be 20-25 feet, where prior storms had a lesser surge. But where are the bodies? The swamps surrounding the coastline are being searched, but many have been simply washed out to sea.

Two Weeks After Ike, More Than 400 are Still Missing
September 28, 2008
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hurricane/ike/6027458.html

Gail Ettenger made her last phone call at 10:10 p.m. She was trapped in her Bolivar Peninsula bungalow with her Great Dane, Reba. A drowning cat cried outside. Her Jeep bobbed in the seawater surging around her home. That was Friday, Sept 12. On Wednesday - 12 days later - her nearly nude body was found face down by a huge debris pile in a remote mosquito-ridden marsh in Chambers County, about 10 miles inland from where her gray beach house once stood. Two weeks after Hurricane Ike swept through the Texas coast, 400 people remain missing, mostly from Galveston County, according to an analysis of calls logged to a hot line set up by the nonprofit Laura Recovery Center to assist local authorities. Until Wednesday, Ettenger was one of them. Disturbing tales told by survivors from Bolivar communities like Gilchrist, Crystal Beach and Port Bolivar suggest some may never return.

Searchers confirm they've also spotted countless cars in the floodwaters and marshes. It's impossible to tell which were once occupied, though so far no bodies have been reported recovered from vehicles sticking out above water. Submerged vehicles are not being searched. Raul Roy Arrambide last heard from his mother, sister and nephew as the three prepared to evacuate by car from Port Bolivar. Just after 6 a.m. Sept. 12, his sister, Magdalena Strickland, 51, called from the house to say they were leaving. The family's 2000 white Ford Taurus and 1993 maroon Ford pickup were loaded and idling in the driveway. It was a quick call, since Strickland was eager to go. His mother, Marion Violet Arrambide, 79, along with Strickland and Arrambide's nephew, Shane Williams, 33, had planned to evacuate to Arrambide's house near Dallas. They had two vehicles but no cell phone. They never arrived. Roy Arrambide fears they were washed off the road. After the storm, he hired an airboat to visit the area, where he saw dozens of submerged cars in the floodwaters and marshes along the peninsula's lone low-lying highway. But neither he nor anyone else has found his relatives or their vehicles. The house they left behind was damaged but intact.

Housing along the coastline was in many cases battered into nonexistance. Given the crashing waves and high winds, what would the hapless souls caught in this situation do? Cling to debris? Swim until they were exhausted and could swim no more?



The Zetas have described a similar situation during the pole shift. There will be hurricane force winds worldwide, and along the coastline high tides that will drown high-rise buildings. For this, there will be no escape and few survivors. The answer, of course, is to move sufficiently inland and onto high ground before the last weeks, well before travel becomes impossible. Where it was only Galveston and the immediate coastal area that was affected directly by Hurricane Ike, the Zetas predict that most of Texas will be so affected during the pole shift.

ZetaTalk on Texas, 2001: Those who have witnessed tidal bore roaring up a ravine are astonished that water does not seem to respect the relative sea level during those times. What makes the water climb? Water pressure drives water to climb above its level because at the point where the pressure builds, it takes the easiest path. When the force of pressure is extreme, compressing the water at lower levels, the path of lease resistance is taken. During a tidal wave, this path is away from the bulk of water. A tidal wave moves inland until one of two situations occurs:

1. the level to which it has climbed is higher than the level elsewhere, and the wave recedes, or
2. the pressure behind the wave decreases.

Where tidal waves meet mountains, this can result in tidal bore up ravines. Where tidal waves flow inland, this results in a flood tide going hundreds of miles inland. Where the tidal wave finds foot hills or barriers, the force of the wave is broken such that it is slowed, allowing a reduction in pressure behind the wave to arrive before the wave moves far inland. But where the tidal wave finds virtually no barriers, due to the land being flat, it becomes water on the move, and this very momentum carries it far inland, and above a height that would otherwise be expected. Water on the move does more than just push forward, it also creates a void behind it. At first, this water is on the move because there is pressure behind it, like sloshing water in the Gulf. But then, the force of this moving water takes on a life of its own. It has momentum, and moving forward, creates a void behind it, thus drawing the water in the direction of motion, thus continuing the motion. This water on the move is greater than the resistance in front of it, so it continues. For Texas, this means that the water will lap at the foothills of the Rockies, before dying back.

Texas will be devastated by waters sloshing in from the Gulf during the pole shift as well as the rising waters that occur within in the first two years after the pole shift. Being flat land, and low, the Gulf will roll over Texas without opposition, at a height of several feet. This water must go someplace, and will take the path of least resistance. If the water is flowing most rapidly as it moves over the flat land, then water that would normally move toward mountains or natural barriers will be diverted to a faster moving flow area - the Texas plains. Thus Texas, due to its flat terrain, will get more water overall than neighboring areas. Even the high plains will have several feet of water moving across it, where the coastal areas will have tidal waves hundreds of feet high. With few tall trees and faced with the after effects of hurricane force winds and earthquakes that will flatten all but new steel skyscrapers, desperate survivors will have few places to go to escape the moving sheet of water, which will drag whatever it engulfs back out into the Gulf on its return.

Depression Patterns

The causes of the Great Depression are endlessly debated, but some facts are clear. How do those facts line up against the facts from today? There are many similarities. Deregulation and unfettered greed were characteristic of the roaring 20's? There was a stock bubble, with the price of stock not reflecting its true value, and when euphoria was replaced by lack of confidence and fear, the bubble crashed.

Wall Street Crash of 1929
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Crash_of_1929

The Roaring Twenties, which was a precursor to the Crash, was a time of prosperity and excess in the city, and despite warnings against speculation, many believed that the market could sustain high price levels.

How does this compare to executive compensation over the past few years? Would this be described as "prosperity and excess" based on speculation?

Wall Street Executives Made $3 Billion Before Crisis
September 26, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aGL5l6xOPEHc

Wall Street's five biggest firms paid more than $3 billion in the last five years to their top executives, while they presided over the packaging and sale of loans that helped bring down the investment-banking system. Merrill Lynch & Co. paid its chief executives the most, with Stanley O'Neal taking in $172 million from 2003 to 2007 and John Thain getting $86 million, including a signing bonus, after beginning work in December. The company agreed to be acquired by Bank of America Corp. for about $50 billion on Sept. 15. Bear Stearns Cos.'s James Cayne made $161 million before the company collapsed and was sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. in June.

Just how over-inflated are our stocks? Per the Zetas, a stock crash similar to what happened during the Great Depression is possible before confidence is restored. This is why the current bailout of Wall Street has such urgency, as those pressing for its passage by Congress are concerned that confidence will not be maintained.

ZetaTalk Overview 12/15/1999: Without confidence, most governments and financial structures would fail and fail rapidly. So confidence is kept pumped up as long as this can be maintained. Most stocks are inflated beyond their value, very few are not, and they can fall to 1/4 of their value before they settle with the public feeling they have some confidence in the stock and that it cannot be worth less.

Another similarity between today and the time of the Great Depression is debt - the degree of debt that individuals and corporations carry. If this was true during the Great Depression, it is certainly true today. Individuals have been encouraged to max out their credit cards and carry multiple credit cards, and families were encouraged to take a second mortgage out on their homes based in the theory that the value of their homes could only go up. Surprisingly, a similar process occurred in the roaring 20's.

Great Depression
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

Debt is seen as one of the causes of the Great Depression, particularly in the United States. American consumers and businesses relied on cheap credit, the former to purchase consumer goods such as automobiles and furniture, and the latter for capital investment to increase production. This fueled strong short-term growth but created consumer and commercial debt. People and businesses who were deeply in debt when price deflation occurred or demand for their product decreased often risked default. Banks which had financed this debt began to fail as debtors defaulted on debt and depositors attempted to withdraw their deposits en mass, triggering multiple bank runs.

Another surprising similarity between today and the time of the Great Depression is the price of housing. The roaring 20's had a housing bubble too!

The Great Bubble Economy
http://www.anthonypalmer.net/money/newsletter_great_bubble.html

The destined-to-be-infamous interest-only mortgages of today are nothing new, as they were first used during the Roaring 20's.

Certainly overinflated housing prices are directly responsible for the current crisis on Wall Street. The sub-prime structure assumed that housing prices were perpetually going to go up, never down.

WaMu Deal Suggests Home Prices May Fall Further
September 26, 2008
http://www.mynn.com/story/538826/wamu-deal-suggests-home-prices-may-fall-

When buying Washington Mutual's banking business, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. weighed the risks of the deal using some worrying assumptions about house prices and future losses on mortgages. That's sparked concern that mortgage-related assets held by rival banks including Wachovia Corp. may be worth less than previously thought. In a presentation on its WaMu (WM acquisition, J.P. Morgan forecast a 58% peak-to-trough slump in California home prices if the U.S. enters a severe recession. In Florida, house prices could fall 64% in such a scenario, while nationwide prices could drop 37%.

Here too the Zetas have grim news, but they have a word of advice to stabilize the situation. Their advice is to allow bankrupt individuals to continue in their homes and bankrupt corporations to continue in their business. Here again, the requirement is liquidity in the system, so that bankrupt individuals and corporations can get credit and over-extended banks are assisted. This is in effect what the bailout of Wall Street is attempting to do, in part. What is missing is the piece where the homeowner gets relief from a bankruptcy judge. Current law under Bush (who vetoed such relief for homeowners) forbids a bankruptcy judge from renegotiating the terms of a home mortgage.

ZetaTalk Advice 7/20/2002: The real estate bubble will likewise burst when the current weather problems and lack of insurance coverage prove this to be hollow. The percent of the workforce to be affected is already increasing, and look to the Depression era, worldwide, for expected results. During the coming depression, which is in fact in place but denied by the media and powers that be, one should look to the past Great Depression as an example of things to come. Banks were insolvent, but allowed to operate, not called in. Homeowners and businesses were insolvent, unable to pay, but not called to term, allowed to continue. Thus, those insolvent entities were allowed to continue, and gradually came back into solvency, and thus business was reestablished. During the coming crash, this will repeat itself, but with a difference. There will be no re-solvency, no new health, but the shift, instead.

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