Bank runs in the Eurozone

... the outflow of funds from Greek bank accounts has been accelerating rapidly. At the start of 2010, savings and time deposits held by private households in Greece totalled €237.7 billion -- by the end of 2011, they had fallen by €49 billion. Since then, the decline has been gaining momentum. Savings fell by a further €5.4 billion in September and by an estimated €8.5 billion in October -- the biggest monthly outflow of funds since the start of the debt crisis in late 2009.
...
Nevertheless, the Greeks today only have €170 billion in savings -- almost 30 percent less than at the start of 2010.
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Those who can are trying to shift their funds abroad. The Greek central bank estimates that around a fifth of the deposits withdrawn have been moved out of the country. "There is a lot of uncertainty," says Panagiotis Nikoloudis, president of the National Agency for Combating Money Laundering.

The banks are exploiting that insecurity. "They are asking their customers whether they wouldn't rather invest their money in Liechtenstein, Switzerland or Germany."

Nikoloudis has detected a further trend. At first, it was just a few people trying to withdraw large sums of money. Now it's large numbers of people moving small sums. Ypatia K., a 55-year-old bank worker from Athens, can confirm that. "The customers, especially small savers, have recently been withdrawing sums of €3,000, €4,000 or €5,000. That was panic," she said.

Marina S., a 74-year-old widow from Athens, said she has to be extra careful with money these days. "I have no choice but to withdraw money from my savings," she said.
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http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,802051,00.html

Bank holidays are likely coming since it looks like a bailout is off the table.

How are these banks still surviving?
They must be heavily subsidised by emergency funds through the national bank of Greece and the ECB. No private lender in the interbank money markets would grant them any loans to manage their liquidity.
Next question: What do these Greek banks offer as collateral to the NBOG and the ECB? They probably offer Greek sovereign bonds? Will they be taken for their market value (33 % or so) or for 100 c on the €? I bet it´s the last one...
In essence, this means that Eurozone taxpayers already backstop all Greek banks because the ECB holds worthless collateral.

Well, at least I don´t feel alone drawing down my checking account there in America by $500 via the ATM some three times per week...

When I get back, I will keep at it! My own personal bank run. On occasion I will take out four-figure amounts and dash off to the coin shop for gold. As I have for decades. Shopping and saving at the same time, nothing better!

I think the bank run is just a part of it. From what I have read, people are no longer even depositing paychecks. They simply cash them and keep the cash. The underground economy in Greece and Italy is huge. those two countries lose tremendous amounts of tax revenue each year.

ancona said:

I think the bank run is just a part of it. From what I have read, people are no longer even depositing paychecks. They simply cash them and keep the cash. The underground economy in Greece and Italy is huge. those two countries lose tremendous amounts of tax revenue each year.

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The underground economy is huge everywhere. NYC anyone?

Also.. I'm not really sure if i'd phrase it as "lost tax revenue". I'd argue they don't have a legit claim to that money anyways.

If we're going to have a tax, then it should be paid by everyone, not just those who choose to. think about it this way, if taxes were paid on every drug deal, every prostitues trick, every swap meet purchase, etc., the hole might not be so deep. I don't want taxes any more than anyone else does, but without radically shrinking government at all levels, it ain't going to happen any other way. Ron Paul would be a great start. It is his intention to dismantle government department by department.

+ 1,000,000, ancona for Ron Paul 2012! Like you said, a great start.

I think more people would be willing to pay taxes if there was the perception that the government wasn't just mis-spending the revenue - even using it to repress us.

They've not kept up their end of the bargain at the fed level. I find it a lot easier to be willing to pay local taxes, for which I (maybe) get tangible services, instead of disservice from the federal level. Congress' approval rating, anyone? I'm not alone in my assessment.

In an attempt to make that distinction moot, the feds give a lot of money back to the locals (always with big strings attached), to make for a more centralist-statist situation. It's an old trick the states should be resisting harder. But they fell for it, and in that, did us a disservice. Somehow they've all been tricked into thinking they get more than they have to give for that.

I don't see why my mom (bless her dearly departed soul), who was a psychologist, should have to pay taxes on produce and chickens she took in trade for therapy from patients seen off the books because they couldn't afford the going rates that would pay the insane malpractice insurance, though. (imagine paying $30/hour for insurance in a practice where all you do is talk to people, psychologists can't even prescribe drugs) But she got busted for doing that public service - she worked with abused and suicidal women, who guess what, don't often have a lot of money.

And, to the IRS, talk isn't cheap. Since she had to charge $45/hour to get $15 after the insurance - those chickens were worth the avoided costs. So one chicken became worth say, 10 hours of therapy - or $450, on which tax had to be paid.

And yes, they came after her for that.

The feds only provide real services to those who pay no taxes - GE, Boeing, RIAA, Microsoft, those sort who have captured all the power anyway. The rest of us they just spy on to make sure we're no threat to the status quo.

I find it hard to be willing to pay them taxes for that, and on things like, friend Paul needs a special tool for his woodworking shop, so I make that for him, and he provides me some jig for my machine shop - legally, we're both supposed to pay taxes on that swap. What do we get in return from them? We have to do our own road plowing when the snows come, or wait a week to get out - and the roads aren't paved here anyway.

Even if you believe the war on terror is a good thing, from our POV it's just denying us some good moving-target practice. And making us some serious enemies out there - hard to call that a service.

Bank of France debts jump tenfold on capital flight

The Bank of France faces surging debts to Germany's Bundesbank and fellow central banks in the EMU system as foreign investors pull large sums out of French accounts.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...nce-debts-jump-tenfold-on-capital-flight.html

European banks, and very specifically Dexia, Credit Agricole and SocGen are in seriously deep trouble. Just look at the dollar swaps. From a facility that was supposed to support somewhere around 10 billion dollars in swaps, there has been over 50 billion and the number is growing. The system is seized up tight. The only difference between today and 2008 is that they see it coming and are able to throw money at it before it gets beyond their ability to paper over. The trouble with this method is that it merely makes the ultimate breakdown that much more painful. My friends, I see a light at the end of the tunnel, but unfortunately for us, it is the southbound freighter and it's brakes are out.

This is going to get real, and when it does, millions upon millions will starve to death. this is not an exaggeration, nor is it fear mongering, it is the plain and simple truth.

Folks used to [when I was a kid anyway] keep several months of food in their home. Remember grandma's pantry? Remember row upon row of canned goods? I certainly do. I also follow grandmothers model. We try to keep a years worth in the house, including all the stuff we can from the garden.

Don't be a sheeple, the time to prep is running out. Get open pollinated heirloom seeds for THREE seasons, a Berkey water filter, lots of toilet paper, and.....well you already have the list so I won't bore you with the rest of it.

Don´t forget KBC. They´re totally undercapitalized

Hey, yo, all you doom-mongers! Don´t start pulling your money out of the banks until I get back!!! LOL...

I want to be FIRST in that line!

And stop buying up all that physical! Leave some more for me!

It's getting uglier by the hour. Bloggers are picking up on this and the word is spreading. That's the one downside to the web, bad news travels even faster than good news. It's probably part of the reason the government wants to have a "kill switch".

DCFusor said:

I think more people would be willing to pay taxes if there was the perception that the government wasn't just mis-spending the revenue - even using it to repress us.

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People would also be more willing to pay taxes if they perceived that the tax system was fair and simple. Neither fair nor simple is our tax system.

DoChenRollingBearing said:

...
And stop buying up all that physical! Leave some more for me!

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There will always be some for you - at the right price point. ffftt:

Monday could be quite interesting with the downgrade of Eurobanks last week. The market has had a couple of days to chew on this and the situation in the rest of Europe. Draghi and Merkozy are at a critical juncture in the final phase of their attempt to "save" the European Union. A failure to get every single country on board will result in all member stated reverting to their traditional currencies, which results in phenomenal losses for the banks. The self reinforcing spiral this will create in the financial world will be biblical. Imagine for a minute if you will, what happens when tens of millions of people all go to their banks at the same time to withdraw funds, only to be denied or limited to some arbitrary amount. Chaos would reign supreme. Empires have fallen over less.

Can it happen here? Absolutely. As a matter of face, when I tried to get ten grand in cash from BOA, I was summarily refused. I had to see a bank officer who asked me a lot of questions that have zero to do with my money. After repeatedly telling him that I simply wanted to have some cash on hand in case of emergencies, he actually said he did not believe me. At that point, I demanded he close all three of my accounts. It took about 45 minutes and a ten minute lecture from the branch manager before I got it.

It has become so completely fucked up in our country, I am amazed that we haven't collapsed from the inside already.

If you have not already done so, move your money to a Credit Union. The time is coming when the big boyz are going to explode and you will not have time to do anything about it. The FDIC is broke, so they will have to print huge sums of money to cover the promised 250,000 per account. It won't be pretty.

Got PM's?

So, now it's been published. Next week will indeed be interesting. Also, thanks for the link to the news site. It looks to be a fairly conservative web-based news outlet.

As we tick down to Thursday (when I will be back and ready to resume my own personal bank run), I really hope you guys don´t take the Au and the Ag out of the retail system! I want one more chance (at least!) to BUY!

I still stand by my earlier remarks that holding genuine FRNs (in some combination of $20s, $50s and $100s) is a smart idea, especially if there IS a bank holiday (likely means no credit card use either). How much cash? Say a few thosand dollars worth, enough to get through 3 - 6 months of (barebones) living expenses. After such a time frame, if the SHTF scenario is bad enough, then silver would come into play as a currency (my best guess).

Here´s two general classes of scenarios to think about:

1) a ´mild´SHTF, something on the order of The Great Depression, where LOTS of money is lost, few jobs, etc. But, the grid stays up and social order is more-or-less maintained. This could go on for years. It could be hyperinflation or deflation or a combination. If this would be about as bad as it would get, Mr. and Mrs. Bearing will work out OK. And a decent chunk of our wealth would go to our kid.

2) a BIG & BAD TEOTWAWKI, that shuts down the grid, imperils our infrastructure (so that physical food is hard to get), shuts down the water supply, etc. PM stashes would certainly help for a while, but the only real winners would be people who have made advanced preparations (like DCFusor and my brother´s friend in rural NC, yeah, the guy who can shoot over 2000 rounds without having to RELOAD!). The scale of preparations needed for this very bad one are so vast that Mr. and Mrs. Bearing would join the 85% dieoff when tradeable PMs and other stuff we have run out. And, I´m too old to learn to farm... Our only hope would be PERU, where we have a company bringing in vehicle spare parts and we would bring enough $$$ and Au with us to be wealthy. Peru is not so hair-trigger tight like our JIT economy is... The timing would be the hard part here...

---

PMBug, I again commend you on your forum. Although I have not REALLY looked around, your place fits a great niche of both quick news and discussion at length features.

+ $55,000!

Thanks DoChen. My guess is Scenario #1, a slow gradual financial deterioration, such as what we are experiencing right now, except continuing to get even worse. And then degradation at a somewhat faster rate if/when the dollar collapses, but not a complete SHTF during a dollar collapse.

I think it would take an additional catastrophe of some sort on top of Scenario #1 to launch us into Scenario #2.

Unobtanium said:

I think it would take an additional catastrophe of some sort on top of Scenario #1 to launch us into Scenario #2.

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There are lots of potential catastrophes that could do that. In fact, there are so many potentials that it is likely that at least one of them would occur.

At this juncture, even something as simple as a major hurricane, earthquake, or some other major natural disaster could push us to #2.

Unobtanium said:

I think it would take an additional catastrophe of some sort on top of Scenario #1 to launch us into Scenario #2.

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...like peak oil (that according to professional/government/national security bodies all around the globe - we are experiencing right now, since 2004, a "plateau" of oil extraction, not exactly a sharp peak), that will send oil prices sky high, disrupting everything, but most crucially, global high-yield farming (strictly depending on affordable oil AND affordable fertilizers (also past their peak production - phosphorus), AND they have to be shipped globally = oil-dependent again), sending food prices sky-high and sending unemployment sky-high (our western economies are linked 1:1 with the availability of CHEAP oil, and there's NO WAY we could get off oil-dependant economy in the next 20 years, trust me, before I started to educate myself in our current dire economic situation, I was very much into renewables/free energy sources, and there's simply no alternative in sight to cheap oil, not even nearly in our sight, and much less so in the very much disrupted/broken economy).

Like world wide monetary systems being a giant ponzi schemes, depending on an exponential growth of global economy to even kept functioning? Alas, facing hard limits to grow further (re: paragraph above), thus inevitably collapsing (as any Ponzi scheme, that could not grow anymore).

Like Baby-Boomers beginning to retire, and starting selling their accumulated enormous paper "wealth" en masse on the stock market, to pay their monthly bills/retirements, thus sending stocks down, thus forcing them to sell more each month, to pay their monthly bills, thus sending stocks even further down?

Like the enormity of the total (sovereign, institutional, personal) debt, burdening the global economy, that has to be serviced - by borrowing MORE money from central banks into existence? Like the fact that delta debt/delta GDP ratio is going down linearly (currently, delta GDP is negative, so the ratio itself is negative as well, meaning that every dollar borrowed into existence actually DIMINISHES the money supply in the economy, but why bother, "leaders", huh?)

Like the size of derivatives markets being AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE BIGGER (that is, estimated about 20 times, AFAIR), than the size of global REAL economy, and this enormous casino wobbling above the heads of all of us, if (no, sorry: WHEN) burst, will came down crushing every bit of REAL economy in its path...



Shall I continue

All these above are not figures of speech or more/less relevant memes, these are FACTS, and these are only the most important ones I have, and best backed in hard numbers.

Global warming is small potatoes, comparing to these ticking timebombs. But at least people are talking about it for quite a while now.

What about all of these above? It is not even on any public discussion agenda! As such, there's no way anyone will ACT on them, before too late (BTW, another curious fact, with regards of ACTING upon the core problem of our current, flawed-by-design monetary/banking system: every US President who attempted and/or succeeded to take the power to issue US dollar back from the hands of central bankers into the hands of Congress (as the US Constitution warrants, by the way...) was either assassinated, or attempted to. Surely, a coincidence!)

I never thought I will be trying to scare people with a global financial armaggeddon, that will most likely transform into some kind of a REAL global armaggeddon, but here I am, just quoting the facts collected by smarter than me, more in the know in every of these issues, that when viewed together, are downright frightening. And there's no magic technology to the rescue.

In short, we are heading towards the cliff at ever increasing pace, and the real cause for it is our fiat monetary/fractional reserve banking systems, that REQUIRE exponential growth to prevent them from collapsing. Did anyone said "a bubble"? We are living in an enormous, monetary bubble, started a good while ago - when money started to be BORROWED into existence, and then leveraged a hundred times, via fractional reserve banking - yet again, as an interest-bearing debt. And our planet is finite. It cannot stand the chance against exponential growth. Or, shall I rather say, exponential growth cannot stand a chance against our ULTIMATELY FINITE RESOURCES... So sooner or later, the collapse of such a system, based on a giant Ponzi scheme, is inevitable. And the facts seem to be pointing out that writing is on the wall.

I can only hope our financial "engineers" will be able to buy me enough time to develop enough resilliance in my life for inevitable catastrophe, since I am very late to the game, and woefully unprepared at the moment - but trying hard to change that ASAP. The tragedy is, they are not trained engineers, these chaps, only economists, and worse still, working hand in hand with complete muppets, ie politics/policymakers. If they were engineers indeed, they would NEVER design a system which requires an exponential growth, just to keep it functioning - have you ever seen a car, that would require you to put, say, 7% more gasoline in every year, just to keep it running? Just for laughs, it would meant, that after just 10 years, your MPG would HALVED, and god forbid 20 years - it would be a QUARTER of the original. And it would be by design so, regardless of any efforts from you to drive economically etc . Just like our economy is DOUBLING roughly every 10 years, at the "stable" economic growth rate of 7%.

The power of exponential functions is very easy to underestimate, but it is crucial to understand why our current civilisation is at the brink of a total collapse.


...and a very Merry Christmas, to you, of course . Pray to God I am an idiot scaremonger. But better do not bet your life on this assumption, not trying to boast myself nor anything like that , but my IQ according to official tests is quite high in the general population, and also I tend to be quite a critical thinker... That is just that... We are deeper in shit, that anyone would like to admit, IMHO, and it is just hard to believe that our (mostly) comfortable and secure lives, will most likely look extremely different, in quite a short time from now...

Best Regards,

Ah, Bushi, the zeal of the recently converted. Many of us have known about peak oil, and exponential growth in a finite world issues for some time (long before Chris Martenson came on the scene) - welcome to the club! CS Lewis even wrote about it in the early '50's...the weird fascination our species seems to have with moving big things long distances quickly (Out of the Silent Planet).

The move worldwide to JIT systems has made what my dad used to call "the dangers of tiny % differences of large numbers" far more important these days.

I'm beginning to think that OWS is serving a purpose other than inchoate anger at being ripped off (or "extracted") at this point. TPTB now realize that even their controlled letdown is too severe - and they're certainly straining to control it as is.

It's not a particular bottom they seem even to be aiming for, but a rate of descent that's tolerable to us (eg, we don't start burning them on stakes). And they can't seem to hit it for a lot of reasons - part of which is their attempt to stay on top and be king of even the degraded remaining hill. But not all, they've really screwed the pooch this time.

I'm watching for the tipping point myself, at which we go over that cliff. I think it's possible to kick that can down the road a bit further - but it's taking increasing skill, which I DON'T see in evidence, and regardless, I can see the end of that road.

Interestingly, I'm seeing a resurgence in the "country self sufficient living" craze, a return of the one that put Rodale's organic gardening on the map about a generation ago, but this time more concerned with survival than all that hippie/greenie stuff per se. Sustainability is taking on a whole new urgency. I'm not at all sure that this is just the usual generational nostalgia wave coming around again like it always does.

But suddenly a whole lot more people got interested in what this particular old fart (and other similar old farts) has been doing since about the '70's along those lines. And heck, even with all that time, and a lot of learning the hard-work way, I couldn't declare myself ready for TEOTWAWKI - just above average.

And a lot of things are much more possible and tolerable the younger you still are. Things I didn't used to break a sweat at - say going down to the spring with a few jugs for water - are now more difficult, as is managing my woodlot. At some point you get into a race against time anyway - trying to make things easier or automate them faster than age makes you weaker - without cheating and becoming dependent on "The world" as we know it, again. Always more that can be done - it's an adventure to be sure - and it can be mostly a fun one; I encourage everyone to get started if they haven't yet, because no matter what happens "then" - your life is (or should be) happening NOW, and the adventure is a good one.

It's not the hours in your life, it's the life in your hours, and he who dies with the most fun, wins. Go for it!

DCFusor said:

Ah, Bushi, the zeal of the recently converted

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Thanks for your kind words, but it is more of a shock of a sleeper being abruptly awakened, in a room quickly filling with water - that is what I rather feel right now, despite the smileys!

DCFusor said:

The move worldwide to JIT systems has made what my dad used to call "the dangers of tiny % differences of large numbers" far more important these days.

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Totally agree, our current society is trained in being totally reliant on supermarkets (despite the non-edible sh.t they are quite often selling), I remember when I was a kid back in Poland (some thirty-ish years ago), everyone has a cellar with at least some jarred fruits, winter-long supply of potatoes and stuff - even people living in a big, communist 10-storey blocks. And everyone had some family living on a small farm, and there were small farmer's markets everywhere - so the resilliance was build-in. Anyone that could, would try to secure a community-garden (and there were loads of them, there still are back in my country - but today mostly for recreational purposes)

Not so much today in a western world, loads of people do not even have a clue, how to prepare their meal, and they are totally reliant on a global supply chains - which are all to easy to disrupt. That is lamentable, but it is what it is.

So there are planty of enormous potential disasters just waiting to happen, and I agree that our financial overlords seem to lost control over the whole current mess.

I could not tell you how happy I am that I've found PMBug, and other like-minded people - around me, nobody seems to be willing to listen/discuss the current situation

cheers,
M

Cheers back at ya, bushi!

Polska jest najlepsza! <--- That´s what my grandmother would sometimes say, she really hated the Communists because they messed with her relief work for the Red Cross there in Poland just after WWII.

bushi said:

I remember when I was a kid back in Poland (some thirty-ish years ago), everyone has a cellar with at least some jarred fruits, winter-long supply of potatoes and stuff - even people living in a big, communist 10-storey blocks. And everyone had some family living on a small farm, and there were small farmer's markets everywhere - so the resilliance was build-in.

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Hi, welcome Bushi. Your story above reminds me of stories my mother used to tell me about when she was a teenager growing up in Germany in the middle of WWII.

She said that many times all they had to eat were potatoes. They made boiled potatoes, fried potatoes, baked potatoes, potato pancakes, mashed potatoes, potato bread, potato soup, and on the list goes. (Wait, this paragraph sounds alot like Forrest Gump's shrimp-loving friend...)

She said that the younger children were not allowed to prepare the potatoes for fear of them ruining a very precious meal.

And at one time she traded her last an only pair of shoes for, guess what, potatoes.

Anyway she had a survivor mentality and a survivor trait in her and I am very thankful for all the practical things that I learned from her.

Glad you found and joined PMbug, we also enjoy it quite a bit here.

DCFusor said:

It's not a particular bottom they seem even to be aiming for, but a rate of descent that's tolerable to us (eg, we don't start burning them on stakes). And they can't seem to hit it for a lot of reasons - part of which is their attempt to stay on top and be king of even the degraded remaining hill.

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So true DC. They seem to put out feelers from time to time to see if people can tolerate a steeper rate of decline (whether it be financial or moral or what have you), and when there is too much outcry they will reel it back in to a slower rate. The old proverbial "boil a frog in a pot of water slowly".

Since many kids these days are not students of history, even the history that happened one or two decades earlier, their only reference point is the world in which they live, right now. And that makes them terribly susceptible to accepting the slow changes that are happening around them.

bushi said:

I can only hope our financial "engineers" will be able ....

The tragedy is, they are not trained engineers, these chaps,.....

If they were engineers indeed, they would NEVER design a system....

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In this small but growing group at PMbug, there are several posters that are engineers or are in a technical field. Could it be possible that we have another engineer with Bushi?:wave:

Hi guys,

I am so glad to be welcomed here! Thank you all for your kind words - touched especially for reading that "Polska jest najlepsza" from DoChenRollingBearing. I wouldn't go that far, although indeed, there is a lot of valuable strengths in Poles - resourcefulness, self-reliance, ingenuity, trying to get to the bottom of things, and not accepting the official BS from the TV (that is at least one positive thing of a totalitarian government - people get trained, that whatever appears on the TV, is by definition a BS & propaganda, and if you assume a complete opposite thing to what you are being told, you will be probably closer to the reality )

Unobtanium said:

Could it be possible that we have another engineer with Bushi?

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Kind of... A bastardized version; a software engineer, so it is as close to economist as an engineer can be, without turning into an utter waste of space - at least it is what one of my lecturers used to say at the college, more or less (he was an expert in keeping up the morale)

But my software engineering course was taught on a Technical University of Gdansk, faculty of Electronics, and it was as close to a good ol' engineering as it gets in this career - we had a lot of electronics/theory/advanced maths as well, some advanced physics, loads of labs and overall, I'd say quite a solid background to appreciate the real world - so I am not exactly like a dotcom era programmer.

But wasn't it for me being genuinely interested in programming, and big part playing the demand and job security in IT (with projected growth), I would be definitely getting into the mechanical/civil engineering. I was always trying to build stuff, to understand how it works, to make it better. I'd prefer to build a toy than to buy one, ever since. Thus my better-than-average DIY skills, in fact, I am quite confident to be put into competition with many tradesmen (and I am a big sucker for high quality tools, have to admit - not that I have unreasonable loads of them, not at all, but if I buy a tool, I'll buy as high quality one as my money can buy).

So I hope, with that lengthy disclaimer, I could qualify as a near-engineer quality person

Unobtanium said:

She said that many times all they had to eat were potatoes. They made boiled potatoes, fried potatoes, baked potatoes, potato pancakes, mashed potatoes, potato bread, potato soup, and on the list goes.

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...actually, potatoes might be worth of a separate entry in the "bunker" section, I will elaborate more on them - they are big source of carbs/calories, are dead simple to grow even on not very fertile land, (even in pots, so very effective area-wise, might qualify for a glass house), dead simple to store in a heap outside, and to re-saw them next year, from the last-years leftovers. And you know what - you can even make a great booze from them!

Actually, we might be forgetting on other great skill to have/invest in - booze! Seriously, there is always a demand, and same as cigarettes, alcohol is also very good for bartering (erm... or is it just that Polish thing in me?)

Random thoughts.

To me the essence of being an engineer is not related to the sub-field or specialty, but the ability to make good trade-offs, and the lust to successfully find ways to increase the dynamic range out of those. We used to say a PhD is a guy who took seven years to study a problem and write a report - and engineer would do the same in 7 days or so - and the report would answer the question and provide a solution.

To explain that dynamic range (since I've not come up with a better word yet), here's the idea. Lets suppose we have a burgler alarm device, which has an analog output that moves depending on what it thinks is the likelihood of an intruder being present. Our job in doing the basic tradeoff is to adjust a threshold for when it alarms. This is done by satisfying the equality:

Cost of false alarm times probability of false alarm == Cost of missed detect times the probability of same.

Making those equal reduces total cost to a minimum. It also leads to some crazy situations - what if the cost of a missed detect is a stolen nuke?

Now, a good or great engineer will find a way to increase the dyn range by making the cost both sides of the above are equal to less, no matter where the idea threshold winds up - it's a different class of problem than adjusting the decision level. It's improving the basic input to the decision process - or finding ways to combine more than one input to get a better answer. It's amazing on reflection how many problems reduce to this one.

/*****/

The lack of everyone having a little extra space, and a root cellar full of food is one of the scarier things to me. We were able to send our boys to WWI and let the girls run the place (maybe better!) because we had slack of this sort all over the system, all naturally occurring. As things get more "efficient" this slack is removed, and I think its reached a serious state.
People weren't even nearly as dependent on automobiles then, either.
A lot more didn't have electricity, but yet weren't declared to be living in disaster areas - they knew how to get by alright without. Now if the electricity goes out in say Nebraska as it did a few years ago - no one could even heat their homes! No woodstoves, no backups, just electric heat, or at least heat that required electricity for the fans and valves to work. And no one had backup generators - so, disaster zone now in our "modern" world where it wouldn't have been more than a PITA 50 years earlier for the same flood. All too many examples like that exist.

The only thing we seem to have any resiliency in now is in an excess of low-mid skilled labor. Of course, if it's really back-breaking work, we have to depend on illegals to do it at this point, even here in redneck land.