Free Republic

ow that we’ve done our cheery “Happy New Year” greetings, it’s time to get more serious. I’m a boomer. In my lifetime, I can’t remember a new year beginning with such dire warnings and grim outlook. This morning, the UK’s The Telegraph reports that Americans bought record numbers of guns last month amid an apparent surge in popularity for weapons as Christmas presents. Another UK paper, Daily Mail, is grimmer still. Dominic Sandbrook writes that a “loss of faith in politicians and democracy could make 2012 the most frightening year in living memory.” Sandbrook goes as far as to compare...

"Nobody can afford right off the bat to buy 20 years of dehydrated mashed potatoes," he said. He would buy a little extra every time he went to the store. Peace of mind increases as the larder grows, he said. "If you stock food for a year and lose your job, you can at least eat for a year," he said. Besides food and water, his stash includes certain medicines and some cash -- "If it's worth anything in the end" -- and important documents, some of which he's duplicated and stored off site. "You can't be prepared for everything,...