Sterling

Jessica West Sterling and Gina Shealy were beginning to do well with their on-line business of making and selling security alarm components designed by Gina. At the same time, Jessica began making videos criticizing the banking system for the way it did business with inadequate cash reserves, increasing restrictions on use of cash, and even getting laws passed that made customer deposits the banks' property. Jessica also began making promotional videos for their business and her following grew. That popularity attracted the attention of a large, secretive, and well-financed group with plans for crashing the economy. Jessica's approach was becoming more popular each day and the secretive group began helping her Web presence along until public participation in the movement reached an avalanche point. Once that point was reached, the fragile system imploded. The more complex a system is, the more quickly and thoroughly the implosion will be. The Collapse story is about an accidental outcome to Jessica's educational efforts and reads like a step-by-step guide on How To Crash the Banking System. That may sound like fun but, as things happen, no one is immune from the event and there are no secure places from which to enjoy the show. When money suddenly became worthless within a single week, the unintended consequences were far more widespread and devastating than any of the participants could have imagined. The story is about people as much as it is about cataclysm. The more you know about the people and their lives, the harder it is to watch what happens to home and country, especially when plans for surviving a disaster do not exactly apply to the real disaster when it happened.