Now it gets fun! I will rate the top nine risk and threats that I feel my family and I face in our current national environment. After I do the rating and explain it I will talk about how to mitigate risks and threats in the final article in this series. Because, after all, mitigating the  risks and threats so you and your family can survive emergencies, disasters, and “grid-down” events is the whole goal to all of this “preparedness” stuff!

In the previous article I went over how to rate the different risk and threats you and your family might face. I provided definitions, worksheets and explanations on how it works. I also touched on the different levels of concern and how they should be handled. Now let’s wrap all of it together and see how it can work to give you and your family a fighting chance to survive!

In no particular order I listed the following as risks and threats that my family and I face at this point in our life that I feel need to be presented to you:

~ Retirement
~ Flu
~ Police State
~ EMP or Nuclear Strike
~ Epidemic/Pandemic
~ Invasion of USA
~ Heart Attack
~ Financial Collapse
~ Stock Market Crash

I wrote out some of my thoughts to narrate some of my thinking of these events –

Retirement: Almost certain to occur. If not properly prepared for hunger, homelessness and utility disruptions are possible. Potential loss of, or greatly reduced, transportation capability.

Flu: Occurs nation-wide annually to large percentage of population, age 55+ being the most susceptible. Potential for bed-ridden sickness for 1-week to death is possible.

Police State: Already in-place to some degree, mandatory DUI checkpoints, citizenship checkpoints, DNA collection points, increasing police violence, police militarization, multiple occurrences of localized undeclared martial law, increasing deaths and injuries by police of innocent people.

Epidemic/Pandemic (i.e. Ebola): Ebola already in the USA, not widespread, not easily transmitted, no known cure or vaccine, confusion at the local, state, and federal level on treatment.

EMP or Nuclear Strike: A nuclear strike has only occurred twice on a population center and only then during a world war and by America. Probability is almost nonexistent but it is minimally possible with countries like North Korea and Iran possessing a weapon. An EMP strike has never occurred anywhere in the world ever; at least one that was ever recorded. So the likelihood of an EMP strike is also almost nonexistent. But either event would be severe in outcome. A nuclear strike would be most devastating to the immediate and outside of the immediate strike zone as well as downwind and downriver/stream but much of the country would continue to function within reason. And EMP strike, depending on the strike location, could be potentially devastating to the entire USA. Either event would wreak havoc on the financial system here or abroad should a strike occur within the USA.

Invasion by foreign country or UN: I consider this an impossibility at this time in history. No country on earth has the ability to carry out such an attack and subsequent invasion, let alone occupation. The logistics issues by themselves would be virtually impossible to overcome. And then there is the clear and unmistakable knowledge that the US has hundreds of millions of weapons in the hands of civilians with more than enough ammunition to be a deterrent in and of itself. I do rate the severity aspect high since it would plunge the country into a war on American soil.

Unemployment: Statistics show that the average American will change jobs 11 times in their working lifetime. There are no stats indicating how often or for how long a person will be unemployed. So I am going off of people that I know and making a totally unscientific guess at it. Probability of unemployment 100% at some point in a person’s lifetime. Length of time that a person will be unemployed I will go with the BLS statistics, 8 months. Severity of unemployment can be devastating even with an unemployment check. Loss of home, shortage of food, battling with utility companies and losing credit worthiness to name just a few.

Heart Attack: For a person of aged 40 the chances you will have a heart attack sometime before you reach that age is less than 5%, over that age it increases exponentially. There are risk factors that increase your risk, and life style efforts that reduce that risk. But we are going for “average” for this purpose. And the severity rating comes out fairly high since heart attacks are 50% (+/-) fatal. They are more fatal the older you are when the heart attack strikes.

Financial/Economic System Collapse: This is a tricky one to say the least. The Federal Reserve is a train wreck taking place in slow motion. Since they began active involvement recessions have both lengthened and deepened. They have also devalued the dollar in terms of inflation by over 2200%, in relation to gold the dollar has devalued by 988%. So the US dollar and economy has been in a slow crash for over 100 years. An “event” that crashes overnight could occur rather easily. That could occur financially via our global enemies such as China and Russia, or internally via a “bank holiday” or removing gold from public possession. Both of which have occurred before under Progressive Presidents. So a “crash” is a foregone conclusion, it is only a matter of time-frame. I believe that the slow-motion option is a 75% probability, while the “event” is a 25% probability.

Stock Market Crash or Substantial Correction: These events occur on a regular basis, it is just a matter of severity. Here is a list of years that the more notable events and when they occurred; 1857, 1869, 1883, 1886, 1901, 1907, 1929, 1937, 1962, 1987, 1989, 1990, 2000, 2001, 2008-2009, 2010. Here is a summary of severity and the occurrence average –

Note of interest:  The country has suffered a minor market correction approximately every 11 years from 1791 – 1907 (119 years). Between 1908 – 2010 (102 years) the country suffered a significant or major market correction every 8 years, including the two worst market crashes in history, the only depression, and the top four recessions. FYI…the Federal Reserve began controlling the economy and the currency in 1913.

In the 2009 crash the stock market lost over 50% of its value. In the 1929 crash it lost 75% of its value. So based on the statistics I feel we are due within 3 – 5 years for a greater than 50% correction in the markets and the economy in general, or a complete collapse of the stock market and economy.

So here are my ratings on the nine events noted above:

Based on the ratings I assigned to each potential event here are the events in order of concern with the highest concern first:

When I chart it out it looks like this –

So now what do you do with the information? Well, I provided a worthwhile guide for you to list your own concept of potential events and how to rate each one of them. Once you have done that then you have a good idea of a priority list of events that you need to prepare for. With that you can work on what you need to do to prepare for each event.

In my next and final article in this series I will explain how to mitigate risks and threats through the “risk management” system. This system is reliable and proven in the field to work. When you are finished reading the next article you will be ready and able to tackle even your toughest risks a threats that you and your family face. You will be armed with the system to reduce the risk and reduce the threat and increase you family’s chances of survival. Look for it!

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