As I sit here this evening, I am watching the aftermath of recent Missouri and Alabama tornadoes, Midwest flooding and western fires on television.  In the southeast, hurricane season will be upon them and there is always the possibility of an earthquake throughout the US. The news carries stories of our county’s continuing financial decline and overwhelming debt. I watch as the value of gold, silver and other precious metals climb and the value of our dollar continues to drop.

The next segment of the news has reports of increasing gas prices, increasing taxes and increasing crime. The growing unrest in the Middle East threatens to push the cost of a gallon of gas to more than $6 not to mention destabilization of the entire region. No, we here in the US get comparatively little of our oil from the Middle East any longer, but that doesn’t stop the instability there causing our gas prices to rise here.

I live in a suburban Missouri neighborhood which has experienced very little crime over the years. If you listen to the local police scanner, crime in our area consists of the occasional DUI, Speeder or Petty Theft from an open garage of a kid’s bike. The police here will turn out if there is a report of a party or a house being toilet papered as a tenage prank.. Pretty boring from a law enforcement standpoint, but last weekend every Police Officer and Sherriff’s Deputy in the county were two streets over for a hostage situation. We recently had our first bank robbery and crime has begun to move out of the city, across the river and int to our quiet suburban neighborhood. As the economy breaks down, the crime rate goes up.