I suspect when the final collapse comes, it will come pretty rapidly. It is possible that it will come quick enough that there won’t be much time to protect your family when most people see that we are in  trouble.

Just like in 2008 when the subprime market collapsed and a lot of mortgages went into default, the end happened very quickly. The entire system very nearly went down then.

There are some warning signs to look for now. They may not be in this order and may not all be evident before the crash. However, here are a few problems to look out for that could signal that we are headed for a bigger crash.

There will very likely be some control of the money system. It could take several forms. One may be that they quit printing $100 bills. Another may be that there is a limit on cash or ATM withdrawals. There also may be restrictions on transferring money out of the country.

Most of these restrictions would be to encourage people to keep their money in the banking system where government and the big banks know where it is and can access it if they want to.

Another sign may be that the Federal Reserve takes interest rates negative. This has already happened in several countries and the Federal Reserve has already hinted that this is a possibility. The reason they might do this is that it is a last ditch effort to try to stimulate the economy.

Look for debt defaults to increase. Student debt already has 11% of it’s loans currently delinquent. The junk corporate bond default rate is also rising a little. People and companies have taken on too much debt in the last ten years and some of them are going to be in trouble.

One other sign to watch for is the government may try to force retirement plans to invest in government securities. We already have the MYRA plan that encourages people to invest in government bonds for their retirement. It wouldn’t be a real big step for the government to force people to invest in government bonds for their own ‘safety’.