Posted on 06/11/2011 3:46:44 PM PDT by Kartographer
In today’s “modern” globalist economy, we have relied upon centralized and highly manipulated trade, forced interdependency, senseless and undisciplined consumption, endless debt creation, welfare addiction, and the erosion of quality, as a means to sustain a system that ultimately is DESIGNED to erode our freedoms not to mention our ability to effectively take care of ourselves. We have been infantized by our financial environment. In the near future, those who wish to live beyond a meager staple of government handouts (if any are even given) will be required to make a 180 degree reversal from their current lifestyle of dependency and immediate gratification towards one of self sufficiency, personal entrepreneurship, quality trade, and a mindset of necessity, rather than unfounded excess.
This means that each and every one of us will not only be driven to form barter networks outside the designated confines of the mainstream, we will have to become active producers within those networks. Each and every one of us will need to discover practical goods and skills that will be in high demand regardless of economic conditions. Being that our society has all but forgotten how this kind of trade works, let’s examine a short list of items as well as proficiencies that are sure to be highly sought after as the collapse progresses…
(Excerpt) Read more at randysright.wordpress.com ...
For later
>>A few months is a long time without anything to eat.<<
Yes, but what do you do after/if you make it through those few months? And under what possible reasonable scenario do you not eat for a few months?
Make yourself useful and name the 'probable scenarios' as you see them. Assign a possibility and probability number/characterization to them, or STFU and go away.
In my area, ranked in most-least likely:
Tornadic winds/straight line winds in excess of 70 MPH. Highly likely.
Wildfires. Possible, but not probable.
Individual personal attack by urban/suburban free-lance socialist. Probable attempt, not very possible actuality in real terms, given measures taken.
Socio-economic displacement of urban/suburban free-lance socialists? Possible. Somewhat probable.
Earthquakes? Nope, not here.
Mud slides? Early return of JFC first.
Volcanos? Yosimite is the closest danger and I think I can turn that into a business opportunity.
So lay your cards on the table.
What do YOU think are the primary scenarios?
/johnny
“Yes, but what do you do after/if you make it through those few months? And under what possible reasonable scenario do you not eat for a few months?”
Hopefully things will settle down after a few months. History says otherwise, but perhaps. In the last 5000 years this is the only time its considered abnormal to store food. Well except for a number of people that all starved to death.
“Please do not presume that a garden is not a “dependable source of food”. It is way more useful and practical than a lot of other skills or hobbies.”
Oh I dunno, I personally think the watermelons and cucumbers imported from Guatemala will be a dependable source should the world start going to heck. /s
A high percentage of the produce in the stores isn’t grown locally or even in the US.
>>What do YOU think are the primary scenarios?<<
You list almost all natural disasters (adjusted for locale). Which I have said over and over and over are a good reason to do gardening, know how to hunt, etc. etc. etc. I know how to plant I know how to hunt. I could survive that way if I had to. But it would be survival as opposed to living.
FWIIW, Tornadic winds would probably mess the garden up, but a tornado might hop past and having a garden would be great to help the neighbors.
>>Socio-economic displacement of urban/suburban free-lance socialists? Possible. Somewhat probable.<<
That statement makes no sense no matter how much I try to parse it. If all the socialists were to leave the cities, then said cities would thrive.
Most Americans, socialist or not, live in cities or suburbs.
Rule of 3's. 3 seconds without atmospheric pressure, 3 minutes without air, 3 hours without heat, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food, 3 months without hope. Any of those things can kill.
/johnny
>>Hopefully things will settle down after a few months. History says otherwise, but perhaps. In the last 5000 years this is the only time its considered abnormal to store food. Well except for a number of people that all starved to death.<<
Post WWII, that model isn’t in play. If we were serfs and the King owned the land and we worked it, that would make sense. But we aren’t, he isn’t, and we don’t.
The modern distribution model is what we depend upon. The idea that it is is even a possibility that we could fall back to that model would mean a dismantling of the USA and the modern world.
>>3 hours without heat<<
It is summertime in VA. We are all willing to take a shot at examining that one... ;)
This doesn’t have to be about anger and angst.
“And watch out for my biker/smokers gang. because we will just take what you worked so hard to build. I’ll even let that nutcase wear his mask-thingy so long as he does my bidding.”
Your biker gang will be shot on the second house and their gas taken for someones generator.
That you suggest such a course of action shows how fragile society is.
I’ve laid in enough supplies to work one of our specialty skills; beer making. We’re pretty well set on the rest of your list, plus a few other things peculiar to our area.
But on top of all that we’ve got the supplies and the skills to turn out pretty near 100 gallons of good old fashioned home brewed beer. I figure that will make us pretty popular on the barter market.
>>That you suggest such a course of action shows how fragile society is.<<
That is my point. Don’t plan on gardening. Plan on a primitive and savage society. That will require an entirely different approach than the OP suggests.
I think that “10% unemployment” means that 10% of the working-age population that would like a job does not have a job and is looking for a job.
People in the working-age population that want a job and do not have a job but have given-up on looking for a job are not considered by the government to be “unemployed”.
Well...if we have a CME that takes down the grid during this solar max, like the 1859 or 1921 event would have, then thanks for telling us about YOUR biker gang.
Helps to know who the leader is...so I know in who's brain I will be putting my bullet. But don't worry...we live in the country...and my .30-06 is scoped...so you won't feel a thing. :-)
“Post WWII, that model isn’t in play. If we were serfs and the King owned the land and we worked it, that would make sense. But we aren’t, he isn’t, and we don’t.”
You’re right its not the same model. Our model is even more fragile. Supermarkets have 3 days of food at most. Everything else is trucked, flown, or shipped in.
When those trucks, ships, planes stop then so does the food.
I’ve seen it first hand when hurricanes were coming. The shelves are bare after 1 day and people start to panic.
Wanna join a post-apocalyptic biker zombie gang? We have cookies...
'Socio-economic displacement' is food not getting to Wal-Mart on day 5, and the FSL heading toward the suburbs. Did you see the videos of the tramplings recently in a Wal-Mart?
And to your final point, most people in the cities died, back in 1348-1350. Sucks to be urban/suburban.
We're not immune to similar calamities.
And what exactly is wrong with being prepared for the worst possible scenario?
/johnny
Oh, dear. You must live in a city or suburb/exurb.
I can normally go 5-6 weeks without *shopping*. I normally keep 6-24 months ahead on many staples, food, paper products, medicines. I know people, who are not poor and who live in small towns who bought no produce at all after the Mexican freeze this past Spring. I had a dinner party and someone referred to the green salad as “a luxury”. My own husband could happily never shop again in his entire life. He simply loathes the process.
Did you see the latest retail figures, BTW? Pitiful. If 99.99% of the populace shops weekly, they are sure being frugal about what they buy.
I was being a bit hyperbolic about not shopping _at all_ for a year. Even the Amish shop for sugar, vinegar, plastic magnetic letters for their kids to learn with, cloth, pins. But most of them and many of the people in my rural area could easily go months without shopping, if necessary, and a well-provisioned prepper who wakes up to clear skies and a booming economy will have supplies on hand for a long time, so if they are wrong, not having to shop is the worst that will happen to them.
If the store stocks are limited and expensive, if gas is prohibitively expensive, if personal incomes decline even further, if taxes and fees erode income, if the government does not encourage domestic production, if urban thugs harass stores and shoppers and your personal band of warriors decides to shoot RPGs at farmsteads: what will that 99.99% buy? Where will they buy it? How will they get there and back? What will it cost? With what will they pay? If the decimation of farmland from natural disaster continues throughout this growing season, how much food will be produced? Even the tongue-in-cheek description of the Mad Max gangs would be hard pressed to find enough basics after they have looted and that doesn’t posit having to fight with other gangs (for surely others have the same thought as they combat their personal boredom)once the easy pickings are gone. Not to mention the determined citizens who will fight back.
You aren’t alone, of course. We have friends who are restoring WWII artillery pieces (they live on high ground), restoring WWII Jeeps, even some who are into vacuum tube communications. All hobbies, of course, but useful ones.
It isn’t about reprising the 17th century, either. It will be some new conflation of the modern, the futuristic and the antique or trying to live off the grid to avoid paying taxes and fees for energy they can produce themselves. It will be the future and we have no idea what that will be like. It won’t be a 100% reprise and it won’t be a straight line extrapolation of the present or the recent past, either. As for hoarding gold, well, every investment adviser does recommend diversification. Every collapsed currency, historically, has been exchanged on a black market for either a strong currency (are there any of those left?) or for gold or silver. Looking at the commodity markets, the entire world appears to be betting on appreciation of everything basic to modern life. I bet those are the same folks who shop every week or even every day.
I just know that a lot of very intelligent, educated urbanites have begun publicly speaking out about possible collapse. Parsing their articles for political bias and self-serving motives, it seems to me that they have gone through the denial phase, passed through the anger and depression and are just now, finally, contemplating the possibility and even the probability that we are in a collapsing economy. Our present government is obviously determined to fight til our death for socialism and Keynesian economics. Maybe enough folks will be able to stop this from reaching an obvious destination. Maybe not. In any event, it harms no one to prepare.
You are obviously intelligent, so I wonder how much of your argument is just verbally reflexive? I doubt anyone wants to live through a major societal collapse and I think most people are taking whatever steps they can to improve their own chances of continuing to live as comfortable a life as possible. So, tell us: you said you have some stores to get through a natural disaster, so what have you prepared if there is no water on tap or power from the grid? If you lived through a major earthquake, you have some experience in these matters. What if that earthquake had been compounded to the point that help was slow to arrive and limited in scope? What if there was nowhere to go to get out of a disaster zone? What if assistance cannot enter the disaster zone for an extended period? What is your plan for yourself if disaster piles on calamity and you and everyone you know are on their own? I mean, besides organizing the motorcycle warriors?
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