Michael Bane has been talking about this subject or quite a while. How do you know when the SHTF arrives? In this podcast, he condenses all that he has said into about 30 minutes. It’s a solid 30 minutes of truth that you need to listen to.
TL;DL version: Unless you are very observant and have read your history, the only way to know when it happened will be reading the history books written about it-assuming you survive.
Their hand has been on the knob for quite a while, and they don’t intend to let it go. You need to be smarter than so many who have went before us, who didn’t realize that this is a process and not an event. You’ve got to recognized that process while it’s in motion, and as early as possible. You don’t want to be in the pot when they turn the dial up to 11.