Monthly Archives: October 2018

Article – These Doomsday Preppers Are Starting to Switch From Gold to Bitcoin

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Wendy McElroy is ready for most doomsday scenarios: a one-year supply of nonperishable food is stacked in a cellar at her farm in rural Ontario. Her blueprint for survival also depends upon working internet: part of her money, assuming she needs some after civilization collapses, is in bitcoin.

Across the North American countryside, preppers like McElroy are storing more and more of their wealth in invisible wallets in cyberspace instead of stockpiling gold bars and coins in their bunkers and basement safes.

They won’t be able to access their virtual cash the moment a catastrophe knocks out the power grid or the web, but that hasn’t dissuaded them. Even staunch survivalists are convinced bitcoin will endure economic collapse, global pandemic, climate change catastrophes and nuclear war.

I’m not some dinosaur that refuses to embrace technology Because. But what I most definitely am is someone who tries to objectively evaluate the utility of something against what I envision my future needs will be.

I would think the people who froth at the mouth about “If you cant eat it, shoot it, or set fire to it, it’ll be useless after the apocalypse!” will lump bitcoin in there with gold as having no post-collapse utility.

As I see it, gold and silver (and perhaps bitcoin) have utility in the descent from “Times of Plenty” to “Thunderdome”.

Bitcoin does have an interesting use though…as long as there is internet you have a portable, secure, anonymous way to move your wealth. While getting on a plane from Dubai to London with a couple kilos of gold may cause some problems at customs, you can, I suppose, transport that same amount of wealth with nothing but a few passwords in your head.

Do I see a need for bitcoin in my preparations against an uncertain future? I dont think so. But Im also the first to admit that I am probably terribly underinformed on the subject. However, would I divert resources from other preparations I make towards getting bitcoin into those preparations? I would not. I’m just more comfortable with a mix of cash, metals, and, honestly, paperless handguns, as a method of doing commerce…pre- and post-collapse. (And, really,  most of my ideas about a sustained collapse are based on economic issues rather than comets/Xenu/rapture/bird flu/nuclear holocaust.)

However, and this is a big however, it might be prudent to dump a hundred bucks into it and just let it sit there in case it blows up again. Much like how penny stocks are fun to play.

Seasonal gear rotation

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A bit of snow up on the mountains today…none down here in the valley. Checking last years posts, I see that we had our first snowfall in the valley right around this time last year. Well, at least it’s consistent.

Survivalists in the south lament that when the apocalypse comes, summer will be unbearable without air conditioning. I suspect they are right. And while summers up here will be just fine, the winters will be downright lethal. But…I’ve a goodly stash of alternate fuels, warm clothes, and food, so if we do lose power in some sort of ‘storm of the millennia’ blizzard I’ll be juuuuuuuust fine.

But…I suppose this means it’s time to migrate the winter gear back into the vehicle. But first…inspect it. Swap out all batteries, regardless of whether they’ve been used or not. Check gear like radios and flashlights for function. Inspect food/water for degradation. That sorta thing. Sitting by the side of the road when its five below zero is no time to learn that the radio won’t work, the flash light is dead, the mice got into the PopTarts, and your spouse took the blanket outta the car. Ya gotta check this stuff, man!

Some previous commentary on the subject:

Of course, you are supposed to add/remove things to this basic list as you deem necessary. One size has never fitted all.

Direction

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I was having a little exchange in email with someone and was describing how the direction of my own prepping (and I really hate that word..it sounds so cutesy and trendy) has changed as of late and why. Maybe it’s worth a post or two.

I’m fairly satisfied with where I’m sitting in terms of food, fuel, materiel, etc, etc. It’s not necessarily gilding the lily to continue on the current path, but this current economic clime is one that makes me think now is the optimal time to shift directions for me.

As I mentioned earlier, we’re in a somewhat better-than-usual economic period. Jobs and markets are at record numbers. I’m not going to say that money is out there falling from the sky, but for someone with a brain, work ethic, and ambition, now might be a good time to work on getting the financial side of preparedness buffed up…take the extra job, invest the extra cash, sell the unused items, etc.

What does the financial side of preparedness look like?  For the ‘casuals’ that may look like the classic six-month-emergency fund in the bank, pay off the credit cards, and beef up the Roth. For us lifestylers it may look like that plus cash in the safe, cash equivalents like gold and silver, trade goods, and other assets (like land).

I’m pretty sure I will be just fine if I don’t buy another gun, freezedried, or backpack for the next five years. And, as I’ve said over and over, the times in my life where I urgently needed money far outnumber the times in my life where I urgently needed a Barrett 82A1. Doesn’t mean that moment won’t happen, just saying that so far I’ve need $50 bills more than I’ve need .50 API.

Trying to avoid this

So, for the last few months I’ve cut back on my spending on things like storage food, ammo, guns (sorta), and the like, and have instead been moving more resources into savings, investments, cash, hard currency, and that sort of thing.

The economy is doing well at the moment but nothing lasts forever. If this good economy affords me the opportunity to get my ducks in a row for when it inevitably starts to decline…well, wouldn’t that be the smart thing to do?

So..for now, my focus is mostly on getting the money stuff squared away. If the zombies/war/Depression/invasion/flu/volcano/collapse occurs tomorrow I think I’ll be just fine with what I have on hand…but I don’t share that same level of confidence if some of the more mundane life disasters (transmission, broken leg, water heater, job loss, unexpected critical expense, etc.) occur. This change in direction will hopefully change that.

As I read that last paragraph it seem that could be interpreted as the direction of the blog changing, rather than personal direction. Nope…the blog will continue to strive to mediocrity with no change in its usual aimless topical wanderings. But personally, yeah, I think I’m going to be working on the really, really unsexy parts of preparedness. But…it’s gotta be done.

Piggy Goals.

Surreal estate

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You know, when youre a survivalist shopping for a chunk of property, there are certain words or phrases in the listing that jump out at you and make you think “hmmm…that might be just the place I need”. You know, phrases like “year round spring”, or “bordered by National Forest”, that sort of thing. Or, how about the phrase “Local lore claims that there are many hidden bunkers on the property holding the needed provisions to protect and support the members of the group. Current owners know of one bunker, have never looked for more.”

Ok, color me interested.

Backstory: about twentyfive years ago there was a happy little religious cult called the Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT) that wound up becoming newsworthy when the feds raided one of their properties and basically found them to be building bunkers and stoking them with some rather serious (but mostly legal) firepower. I forget what the original issue was. Anyway, once the leader of the church moved on the whole thing sorta fell by the wayside and, as far as I know, is now just a handful of believers scattered here and there.

Apparently one of their “Strongholds” is for sale.

121.76 ACRES OF HIGH BITTERROOT MOUNTAIN VALLEY, CLOSE TO IDAHO BORDER. SURROUNDED BY FOREST SERVICE; 2+ M. OF CREEK RUNS THROUGH IT! PREVIOUSLY PURCHASED AS THE ‘FINAL HOLD POSITION’ property of the religious sect CHURCH UNIVERSAL AND TRIUMPHANT (“CUT”).

I’ve seen pictures of some of CUT’s bunkers and shelters before. The ones I saw are not the least bit amateurish. At the height of their membership they had the money to throw around. (I remember the news article with ATF pointing out the Barret 82A1’s they had…. not cheap guns.)

I’d imagine the biggest drawback to a property like this is that if the apocalypse does occur, members of the church my come back to claim it. That could be…inconvenient.

Don’t kid yourself, properties with bunkers (and, in some cases, tunnel systems) are not unheard of out here. They’re just usually pretty low profile…but they are out there. A thousand years from now archaeologists will have a hell of a time wondering what sort of civilization ritually buried weapons in plastic tubes.

Last Blogger Standing

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Well, it happens from time to time….a couple of my frequently-visited blogs have decided to hang it up and go from ‘survivalist blog” to just “survivalist”. They’ll be missed, but I hold out hope they’ll be back someday in one form or another.

One of the reasons I don’t have a blog list on this thing is because they come and go so fast. I’ll go to someones blog, check out their list of other blogs, and half of them are either 404 or haven’t been updated in five years.

Blogging is not all groupies and lucrative endorsement contracts. Not even close. Not even close to being not even close. Sometimes it’s just a chore that borders on being a pain in the butt.

Me, I’m ambivalent. There are times I don’t feel like posting, and sometimes I can let a week go by without sharing my brain droppings with the world, but I try to post at least a few times a week. Some more, some less. But it’s been a good way for me to stay focused and informed on preparedness. I’ve been doing it for over 15 years now, and I’ll probably keep at it until the FBI snipers get lucky, or I’m drafted to a cabinet position with FEMA.

In the meantime, I wish for the best for those bloggers and I thank them for their years of work. And, if YOU think you’ve got what it takes to blog…go do it. There are plenty of blogging websites that will give you everything you need. Who knows, you might be the next Big Thing in preparedness blogs.