“Then we’ll raise an army and expand our empire, creating even more jobs,” Dan added, cutting Jerrick off.
Group laughed again.
Then Jerrick closed the screen to the notebook computer and began, “Guys, the day has come. Each passing day becomes more dangerous. It’s time we begin building an armed force, not an army but a contingent of armed security guards.”
“That’s a good idea, but where do we recruit guards,” Chad asked.
“We have a variety of people in our organization. One, a former sergeant in the Army, believes we can train the homeless people as soldiers,” Jerrick continued in a serious voice.
Dan laughed sarcastically and stated, “We’re going to arm homeless people and ask them to fight and protect us.”
“We shelter and feed many homeless in our organization, so, it’s time to put them to work. Everyone contributes to the organization,” Jerrick said.
Dan stopped laughing because Jerrick was right.
We must start somewhere. Did it matter our soldiers were once homeless? A soldier following orders is a soldier. He is a pawn on a leader’s chessboard.
The U.S. Economy Collapses in 2016
Some people sensed it coming silently in 2016, like birds and animals sensing an imminent earthquake.
If only the political leaders were honest to their constituents, but the leaders prevented a panic The U.S. government was broke. Every year since the 2008 Financial Crisis, the government collected less tax revenue. The U.S. government kept dumping massive amounts of cash into the economy, resuscitating a dead economy, which was beyond resuscitation.
Leaders and politicians didn’t understand the fundamental problems with the economy. They didn’t want to reform the system. Thus, only a revolution could solve these problems and could jumpstart the economy again.
Reason was simple. The U.S. legal system became sick, discouraging people from working hard or building a successful business. If someone had beaten the odds and started a successful business, then government regulators, tax inspectors, and scum-bag attorneys appeared, like schools of sharks, who thrashed out and bit anything that moved in the waters. Then once a shark tasted blood, the other sharks descended on the prey, devouring it alive.
Some people found protection from government by working for government.
Every year after the 2008 Financial Crisis, the economy worsened. By 2015, the unemployment rate reached 20%, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a measure of the size of the U.S. economy, contracted again by 3%; the federal debt reached $20 trillion, and the Dow Jones hovered around 7,000 points. Real estate prices remained in free fall, and investors stopped holding the U.S. government debt.
Then 2016 arrived as hell released its fury upon the U.S. economy. Revolution was galloping towards us at a breakneck speed.
***
Prices were steadily dropping in the economy since 2008. Anyone with a job became wealthier. However, finding a job in today’s economy was finding a virgin in a whorehouse – a daunting and impossible task.
Pete was driving to work, and he was addicted to gourmet coffees. He knew he should save money, but at least he didn’t smoke or drink or gamble. These fantastic coffees became a bright spot in his rather dull life. That first sip in the morning was a smoker’s first puff of a cigarette, or a gambler’s high from his first pull of the lever on the slot machine.
Pete worked for a government and was single, and thirty-five years old; he held a flag for his job, cautioning drivers to slow down as the crew worked on the roads and highways. He saved several thousand dollars in his bank account.
Pete saw his first surprise of the day as he pulled up to the drive-thru at ‘Coffees are Us.’ He fished in his pocket for $2.50 for his cappuccino.
“Sir, may I help you,” a young, feminine voice asked politely.
“I’ll have a large cappuccino please,” Pete retorted politely as his lips moistened in anticipation.
“That’ll be $3.03”
Two quarters fell from Pete’s fingers onto the truck’s floor as he asked in disbelief, “What?”
Young voice replied firmly with undertones of irritation wavering in her voice, “Sir that will be $3.03!”
Pete pulled around to the pickup window and asked, “I was paying $2.50 for that same coffee. Why is it over $3.03 now?”
“Sir, I do not know why. Regional manager came in today and raised all the prices.”
Pete scrounged for the extra money for his coffee by fishing more money from this pocket and collecting those quarters off the floor.
Pete handed the barista his money and snatched the coffee away from her. He usually said thank you but not today. Higher price definitely irritated him. If prices kept going up, then he would reduce his gourmet coffee consumption, the one bright spot of his day.
Pete took the first sip, feeling a little lightheaded while his irritation melted away.
Then he put the car in drive and pulled onto the street.
Driving to work, Pete noticed prices were higher everywhere. He drove by Cheap-o-Gas, and saw gas had risen to $3.94 per gallon for the lowest octane. Yesterday, it was $3.25 per gallon.
Americans complained about the higher prices, but they didn’t think about them as prices kept creeping upward.
A week later, Pete made his first morning stop at Coffees are Us.
He pulled up to the drive-thru and blurted, “How much for a cappuccino?”
Girl replied, “$3.67.”
He paused for a second, thinking about the higher price.
Girl asked, “Would you like a cappuccino?”
Pete inquired, “No, how much for a small regular coffee?”
“$2.20”
“I’ll take a small coffee with extra cream, please,” Pete responded mechanically with his voice devoid of emotion.
Pete shook his head in disgust because he was drinking regular coffee again. No way in hell would he pay $3.67 for a cappuccino, even if the barista was naked and added a free lap dance.
Pete didn’t know, but price hikes began accelerating.
At the end of the month, that price for cappuccino soared to $7.93, and by the end of the year, that same cappuccino was $5,500 per cup.
At the end of the year, that one gallon of gas had risen to an astounding $71,586 per gallon.
Hyperinflation struck the U.S. economy, like a lightning bolt striking and destroying a healthy oak tree. Inflation rate accelerated to 1,000% per year, becoming a ravenous cancer coursing through an already sick body. The U.S. economy began collapsing.
Many people like Pete gave up.
Although Pete still worked, his salary lagged severely behind inflation. His salary rose to $300,000 per year. Oh boy! He could buy 55 cappuccinos, or four gallons of gas as the high inflation robbed Pete of his wealth and hard work.
One day Pete stopped working and didn’t bother to pick up this last paycheck. Cost of gasoline vastly exceeded the meager paycheck.
Pete packed all his possessions into two suitcases and placed all his camping gear into a backpack.
Pete fled his apartment because his rent had risen to astronomical, incomprehensible numbers, and he was several month’s rent behind.
Pete carried and placed all his worldly possessions into the back of the truck, leaving his apartment with the front door wide open.
He pulled onto Highway 59 and headed to the countryside with a half a tank of gas.
As Pete drove from the city, he saw every other business was closed and boarded up. Then thousands upon thousands of homeless people meandered along the streets.
Homeless people strolled along the streets like zombies, begging for food. They formed homeless camps under bridges, and on vacant lots as they scrounged wood, cardboard boxes, and old tires to make themselves a home. These homes had no running water, waste disposal, or electricity, but the homeless had no other options.
They had no jobs, no money, and thus
no future. A stench of death, rot, and misery surrounded the homeless camps as they waited for God to call them home, ending their miserable existence on the earth.
Pete ran out of gas 10 miles outside of city limits. He hopped out of his truck, slipped on his backpacked and carried a suitcase in each hand. Then he walked along the abandoned road.
He would live in the country and off the land, hoping someday he would return to civilization after the chaos had ended.
***
Hyperinflation devastated the U.S. economy as the unemployment rate soared to 50%, shoving the middle class into despicable poverty.
The U.S. dollar became worthless as people dumped their money onto the streets. A person couldn’t buy a stick of gum with a one-dollar bill.
Everybody was hurting, except the wealthy and the politicians.
The U.S. banking system also collapsed during 2016. If anyone had money in a bank, then their savings eroded to nothing overnight.
Fixed bank loans became worthless overnight. Homeowners paid their fixed-rate mortgages with worthless dollars, but the banks had closed and stopped accepting loan payments.
***
Jerrick’s party grew fast overnight as membership rose to 1.5 million members. Then he closed the membership, attaining enough party members to fill the major offices of government.
Jerrick, however, had faced fierce competition, not from the Republicans or Democrats. Many Americans had given up on those two political parties years ago. If anything, those two parties were responsible for creating the mess of our economy.
Jerrick’s competed fiercely with Benjamin Gitlow, founder of the American Communist Party.
Benjamin Gitlow sat behind his desk, listening to Shostakovich‘s Fifth Symphony.
On the wall behind him, he hung a large red communist flag that spanned the whole wall like wallpaper. In the flag’s center emblazoned the infamous golden sickle and hammer, forming an X - the symbol of the Soviet Union, and the government cares for the workers.
Benjamin was a short, stocky man with dark, sunken eyes with short, black curly hair. Sometimes he wore glasses that enlarged his eyes, so people thought he disguised himself as a raccoon, a bandit.
Benjamin taught finance at a small college in Texas. He remembered the day the university had laid him off in 2011.
Benjamin sneered at his PhD diploma, hanging on the adjacent wall in his office as bad memories drifted into his mind.
Many students dropped out of college because they became pessimistic about the economy and their future job prospects. They stopped wasting money on excessively high tuition.
Most parents didn’t have the money to pay for their children’s tuition. Instead, they paid for the mortgage and food. Life’s necessities outweighed the prestige of a college diploma.
In normal times, Benjamin Gitlow would easily find another job because employers demanded finance specialists. After 2008, no one studied finance anymore.
Thus, Ben never found another teaching job in his field anywhere. He never found a job in anything, not even collecting aluminum cans along a highway. Hordes of homeless people already did that.
Ben did a complete 180 degrees. He hated business, and all its representations. Antithesis of business was communism. He devoured Karl Marx’s Das Kapital and began disseminating its teachings to the public.
Although Benjamin Gitlow was fat and downright ugly, he spoke with a large, booming voice, emanating intelligence.
Destitute, homeless, and disenfranchised flocked to his party.
On Ben’s desk laid a newspaper with Jerrick Davis’s picture on the front page.
Jerrick became Benjamin’s roadblock to power. If he eliminated Jerrick, then he can take over.
As the classical Soviet music soothed his troubled mind, he began thinking of ways to rid himself of his enemy and planned the communists’ takeover of the United States.
***
General Ninian Edwards sat behind his desk. He was general of the United States Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) at Fort McPherson, Georgia.
General Edwards was the poster child of a general.
The General was a natural leader and commanded respect. If he were in public and out of uniform, people still respected him. He never shouted at people or soldiers. Everyone automatically obeyed him and never interrupted him when he spoke.
Staff Sergeant Ralph Brumitt abruptly entered his office, disturbing the General's thoughts.
“Sir, we found more pamphlets,” the sergeant said as he placed the pamphlets on the General’s desk.
General glanced down at the pamphlets for the National Workers’ Party. Jerrick Davis would speak next Friday night in East Point, Georgia.
“Do you know anything about this Davis character?”
“Some of our soldiers support him. Jerrick Davis promises to put Americans back to work again. He also talks about building an empire, expanding the empire to the south.”
“Not another one of those.”
“Sir, I do not understand.”
“No, no. I was just thinking out loud, Sergeant.”
The General paused and then asked, “Sergeant, how does he plan to put Americans back to work?”
“Davis will bring the factory jobs back to America.”
“Factory jobs?”
“Yes, the factory jobs. They pay well sir.”
“Thank you. You’re dismissed sergeant.”
Sergeant quickly snapped his heels together and saluted the general. Then he left the general’s office, quietly shutting the door behind him.
General Edwards relaxed by putting his feet on his desk and tilting back on his chair. General started thinking about Jerrick. He did relate to Jerrick Davis in one detail, the factory jobs.
General grew up in a small Virginia town. He remembered the textile factory closing in 1999. Then times became hard there. Then several years later, everyone made a killing from the real estate market. That escapade ended in 2008. Now everyone was hurting everywhere in the country. Jobs began disappearing off the face of the earth.
His parents still lived in that small Virginia town. He sent them money until the money had become worthless.
Now, he ships them containers of army food, building a cache of food. Once the army stops feeding him and his soldiers, he would desert the army during the night and join his parents. At least, they would have plenty of food to survive during this crisis.
The General hated thinking this because he spent his whole life in the army. Army became his adopted family but those damn politicians in Washington. They screwed everything up.
Soldiers became demoralized and fatigued after 15 years of war. President Bush started the War in Afghanistan in 2001 and the War in Iraq shortly after. We claimed victory in 2003, but the U.S. military stationed soldiers there. Soldiers were returning in pine boxes.
How did the United States win, when soldiers were still dying? We continued fighting a war on two fronts.
Every year, Congress reduced the military’s budget. Then the politicians in Washington asked the military to do more with fewer resources.
Military’s resources were stretched razor thin.
President Charles Gibson initiated the first draft in 2013 since the Vietnam War because we had lost too many soldiers in the wars, and riots erupted in the large cities.
General ran around the towns, ensuring teenagers signed up for Selective Service. Then if they were selected, the general ensured the teenagers came to a military recruiting station.
Many youths rebelled and refused to come in. Consequently, the military wasted resources, building internment camps for rebellious young men, who refused their duty to their country.
Now, the 2016 Hyperinflation struck the economy, reducing soldiers’ pay to nothing. They couldn’t pay a soda at the military store with their monthly salaries.
Soldiers became so demoralized that some fled during the night.
Ge
neral tripled his staff for base security, not to keep the outsiders out but to stop his soldiers from deserting during the night.
General didn’t blame them, but we need those soldiers to protect America. Their first duty was to serve their country. Everything else came second.
General planted his feet onto the floor while a large grimace swept across his face. He never had seen such a deplorable state of the troops. If a major crisis broke out, the general couldn’t respond to it.
Then the general picked up a pamphlet from the National Workers’ Party, reading it carefully. Then he dropped it onto the pile of pamphlets.
Next, he shoved the whole stack of pamphlets into the trashcan next to his desk. Pamphlets fell into the trashcan like an avalanche, rolling down a mountain.
General clicked a button on the intercom and uttered, “Sergeant, please have Captain Erickson from the intelligence division meet me ASAP!” Then he clicked the intercom off before the sergeant responded.
***
Jerrick arrived in East Point, Georgia on December 4, 2016.
He received a strange note. Opening the letter, command stripes for an army general fell to the ground. Note said, ‘Meet me at 9:00 at Mad Murphy’s, a small bar on the outskirts of town. Come alone and don’t be late.'
Jerrick showed Dan the note, stripes, and asked, “What do you think Dan?”
Dan examined the stripes in detail, turning them over in his hands at various angles and replied, “I don’t know. It could be a setup. The U.S. government knows you and could shoot you an ‘attempted robbery.'”
Dan emphasized the words, ‘attempted robbery’ by holding up his hands, using his fingers to form double quotation marks.
“I know, but that’s one of the reasons I must speak in towns with Army and Air Force bases. I’m appealing to our soldiers. We need to win the soldiers to our cause.”
“I know, but buddy; you’re pissing off the wrong people.”
“Well as Lenin said, ‘You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.”
“But I think the government wants to break you,” Dan bellowed seriously.