Posted on 12/27/2013 5:44:30 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Since November, financial advisor David Marotta has been publishing a series of blog posts on how to manage your money in the event of a financial apocalypse—as in a world of hyperinflation, governmental collapse, and anarachic mobs. You know, the standard stuff of a doomsday prepper's fever dreams. While Marotta admits he has some fears about the direction of the country (the man's not an Obamacare fan, to say the least) most of it seems to be fairly tongue-in-cheek material aimed at talking potential clients down from investing in some of the crazy, survivalist scams advertised on conservative talk radio. (Sadly, The Washington Examiner seems to have missed the humor).
And the first scam on his agenda? Plowing all your money into gold, of course. Here's his biblically inflected explanation of why toting around a suitcase of gold come the end times—and at today's prices, a $1 million in gold coins would fit in a suitcase—would be a suboptimal strategy:
If there really is a collapse of the money supply it is difficult to believe that your briefcase of pretty coins will still have any purchasing power near $1 million. In the 1970s, Christian singer Larry Norman made popular the Apocalyptic song lyric, “A piece of bread could buy a bag of gold” based on Revelation 6:6. In The End, I’d rather not have bought as much gold as possible.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
If cave men could barter, then we can too.
6ft deep is more than tradition. 6ft deep is how much it takes to keep the smell down and also makes it too difficult for animals to dig them up. Lime is good but not mandatory unless you have to bury them close.
They should be buried at least 100 ft and 200ft is better from any water supply. Downhill from the well is better and not close to a stream.
The bleach is good for cleaning up after handling bodies. Disease will be a major problem.
A hint about hot air popcorn poppers. There are two types, one has a screen at the bottom, one has louvres around the sides and a solid bottom.
The kind with the screen WILL catch on fire if coffee oils build up. I know that from experience. ;)
/johnny
No, there is no one cut-to-fit, made-to-order answer to the question “What Do I Use As Post-Event Currency?”...
The post-event economy will dictate what the medium of exchange is, but you can pretty much expect it to look like this:
What do you want to trade for? WHATEVER I WANT AT THAT MOMENT.
What do you want to trade with? WHATEVER ELSE YOU’LL ACCEPT.
“Hey, Fellow Survivor, I see you have a case of MRE’s, I’ll trade you these nice pieces of junk silver for it, deal?”
“Gibsme fifteen minutes with your teenage daughter, or no deal, cracker...”
(NOTE: I paraphrased that transaction from a Selco article, so there...)
Here’s a blog post on someone that’s done it:
http://thesurvivalpodcast.com/forum/index.php?topic=40452.0
It seems to me that the best thing would be to have a large multigenerational intact family that could shoot, with adequate ammo. All the “stuff” in the world will be useless without a personal army to protect it. When some go out hunting for food, which is ample where I live, others can protect the homestead.
Where exactly are you going to "purchase" those items? The other guys fortress that has been raided by the zombies?
Realistically, we will need to survive for a year or so after a total collapse. By then, many will have starved off or died of disease and it will be safer to garden out in the open and move about but there still won't be places to purchase anything. I would much rather trade heirloom seeds and ammo over a hunk of metal.
These threads always seem to never mention hand tools. hammers, saws, ax, shovels, hoes, etc. Files to sharpen. Nails, screws all the things that are needed to build, repair or even just do a small garden.
M4L
Cavemen didn’t have 3 generations of “gibsmedat”.
I read the article. It read like it was translated by babelfish or Google translate. It was clearly one of those “all your bases are belong to us” sort of things. Based on the author’s first person account of actually living through a total collapse it would make sense, since it has not happened in any civilized country in the last few decades (that I am aware of).
Thanks for that.
Many people will die because they will hang on to the believe that people are civilized and sooner or latter the ‘authorities’ will come along and set things right. Well yeah, but nowhere near as fast as they think how quickly the forget look at Katrina, look at your own experience.
Anyone who believes that we live in a time that a major modern city with educated advanced western civilization can not be brought to its knees and turned into a dog eat dog world take a look at this:
Pictures of Sarajevo 15 years ago and today show how the city has changed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kuCAOlQSEA
Sarajevo: A Street Under Siege
I would take cover and consider that I was most likely in an ambush or that there was a hidden IED near by and get the hell out of there. If find neither then depending on how disparate I was might then consider the worth of sitting up a ambush on the site and relieving some fool of something that I needed.
Great link! Thanks!
That’s what Selco advise and what he did.; I think at one point the was between 20 and 30 living in a two bedroom house. He said at least five were awake and on guard at all times.
On your scattered bones maybe.
Why would you talk that way, throwing out words like "idiots" and so forth, even if you think that way?
We're speaking of survival here. And survival will not be one man against one man.
If it gets real bad there won't be many good men and women to side up with, but there will be some, and knowing them and being trusted by them will make the difference.
I don't care how well-provisioned a man is, if he is the hatin'est pr--k high up on the hill, it ain't gonna turn out well for him.
“How much do you think my Keurig Machine would fetch in a dystopia America? / S”
Not as much as a stovetop percolator that can be used on an open fire.
I also think that tobacco will be restored to value.
Guess I'm going to have to grab some green beans and have some grins experimenting!
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