No one was even hinting at banning rice, pasta, drink mix, frozen meat, or canned vegetables. But…they were talking about banning ‘assault weapons’ and ‘high capacity’ magazines. As a result, it made logical sense to focus on the acquisition of things that may not be obtainable if I waited. So, now that thats out of the way and the mags are resting in their new olive-drab steel homes, it’s time to reshift my focus back to where it was earlier – increasing resilience against the upcoming economic issues that seem to loom for 2021.
For me, that resilience-building is exactly three things: resources (money/metals) laid back, more food and necessary tangible goods, and alternate sources of income.
Once in a while someone asks if I’m really stockpiling food because I’m worried about some sort of shortage or famine. No, I’m not. I think that, by and large, it’s virtually impossible to starve in this country as a result of economic factors. I store food (and other things like TP, cleaning supplies, socks, soap, cooking oil, etc.) because if my life hits a hiccup where I suffer an income loss I’ll be able to use whatever income remains wisely since I won’t need to spend it on those goods. Coincidentally, those goods also come in handy if something Very Bad does, in fact, happen.
I’ve no idea what 2021 holds, but even if the Wuhan Flu thing gets under control, there are sill some major paradigm shifts that are going to have consequences. Probably the biggest is the ‘work from home’ model that we have moved into. For decades we have been told that with the advent of he internet we will all be telecommuting and that we will be able to work form home. It never happened on a big scale because there was little motivation for it to happen. It would have happened eventually, but the flu has forced that change to come much earlier. And now businesses are realizing that employees either weren’t 100% necessary, or they are realizing that if employees work remotely then they can hire cheaper employees from across the nation or across the world for the same results and less money. As a result, I see the jobs market changing radically. No longer are you competing with other job hunters in your region, you are now competing with job hunters from across the nation (and world). And with that kind of competition, the wages can be lower because someone will always be willing to work for less. So, to my way of thinking, while there never was a such thing as a ‘steady job’ there is now even less stability in a job. Physical jobs will be mostly unaffected…the guys on the garbage truck, the guys changing your oil, the fella delivering packages…they’ll be okay. But accountants, salespeople, consultants, the white collar stuff….thats going to be different. And since I can’t see how that’s going to shake out, I err on the side of caution and try to be ready.
So I’m finished with the ‘ban stuff’ stockpiling (unless something comes along at a screaming deal) and getting back to the basics – update the preponomicon and start continue increasing resilience.
CZ,
Can you help explain where all of the counterrevolutionaries/patriots who weren’t going to let Dems steal the election have gone. People who repeatedly posted on web sites about loading magazines and taking it to the streets are strangely silent now.
We have certainly reached the “push comes to shove” point, so just where are they? Hmmm.
I have continuously and consistently said that most Americans are too entrenched in their comfortable lifestyle to risk their houses, pensions, jet skis, jobs, and families, on armed (counter)revolution..
Here is a elegant quote from a board back in July….
ICHABOD
JULY 15, 2020 AT 09:37
The right is a long way from “fighting back” as a whole. Many still have far too much to lose. The leftist soldiers don’t have this “baggage”. They are either poor or young, both of which are groups easily controlled and spun up. My fear is that those of us who should be making a stand now won’t feel the pinch until its too late. We are still far too comfortable to make a stand, far too worried about losing what we currently have or our way of life. We are too worried about repercussions from action, about putting our families through hardship, about putting targets on our foreheads.
But the targets are already there. We’re still too infatuated with our possessions to take the time to look in the mirror and acknowledge the bullseye.
The right won’t wake up until the fight is well underway. Let me rephrase, they won’t take action until it’s too late. We all know the fight is well underway.
Think I’m wrong? Are “you” out there? Are “you” making a stand? I’m not. I’m a good example of the above. Complacent and fearful.
I fear the burden of shame that will come when we have to tell our kids that we could have acted, should have acted, and instead did not. That we threw away their future for the comfort of our own.
Yet that fear is not heavy enough to induce action. The pitcher is tipping, but it is not yet pouring.
Better have your food and arms well hidden when they come for them. It’ll be too late to make a stand then, you’ll be overwhelmed easily. They won’t come in 1s and 2s. Look at that couple who made a stand and how many on the right just poked fun at them from their keyboards. “I would have done X and Y”. No you wouldn’t. That will be you soon enough, all of you talking tough from your keyboards.
That will be me as well.
Point of order:
a) “the couple who made a stand” were Leftists
b) They were making a stand against even crazier and woker Leftist Anarchists
c) waving your gun around as a substitute phallus is not “making a stand” it’s making a statement
d) the text of that statement is “I’m a powerless jackhole with delusions of adequacy” who just found out how the world really works
e) “making a stand” would have been if they started shooting sumbitches in the head, and had expended brass and bodies stacked up in front of their house like cordwood, a la Rorke’s Drift or Tenaru
f) When someone makes such a stand, you won’t see it memed on the ‘net, because the would-be photographers will be ducking and covering, and/or running like hell the other way, like anyone sane will be
That I had to explain all that may indicate that there are many out there who still aren’t tall enough for this ride.
The essence of Soltsenitsyn’s Lament from “The Gulag Achipelago”.
We will soon see (January 20th at noon Eastern time) who will give up their comforts and face hardship to restore our One nation, under God as the founders and Almighty God intends.
Trump called for folks to show up in DC on the 6th. Any Internet commandos who were serious about taking it to the streets should be there.
All options have not been exhausted. It is not time.
“Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory:
1 He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
2 He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.
3 He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
4 He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
5 He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Ready and standing by. We, as Patriots, are giving the legal system every opportunity to prove its worth by correcting the atricity of the stolen election. If the legal system cannot or will not do its job, we will.
The new project management Mantra is Agile. It takes terms from Soccer and Rugby to describe the parts, but it biggest mantra is teams are local and have face to face interaction.
I think that could be a nail in the coffin of outsourcing. That and the business is not happy with the result using third world programmers.
But then I could be all wrong.
Perhaps. I could see international outsourcing not delivering the desired results, however I think that there’ll still be an increased field of competition for jobs due to proximity not being as big a factor as it used to be.
You probably know the root of the word “sabotage”.
Tell me how much proximity becomes a factor absent ports, rail service, and interstate trucking.
Like during a global pandemic. or the day people get tired of being outsourced, and take a hand in throwing their wooden shoes in the machinery wheels, so to speak.
Anyone besides me notice the sudden absence, not only of TP and face masks, but things like iron weights and lead fish sinkers lately, all shipped in from the Land of the Rising Communists?
Make it beef and beans, and tell me how that plays out.
Or ask the people in Caracas how zoo animals taste.
Complexity changes single points of failure into multiple ones, at the speed of executives’ blindness and myopia.
I think this is not going to go as well as many might have thought.
I also fear it’s going to go exactly as badly as some few have intended.
I think that if the situation you envision comes to pass, then proximity has no relevance to job searching because having a job will have lost all relevance as well.
Agile project management behaviors are what sunk the new 797 Boeing mid sized jet. Inability to make or measure progress to a plan, nor interface effectively with many product teams. While agile works in sw development, it is a failure anywhere else. Over commit and under deliver. Much like our potential new government …
Spot on. Not to mention how much money businesses will save by not renting out fancy offices. Your point regarding those people who won’t be affected (effected? I never got that down) is one of the reasons I’m looking at getting a CDL. Truckers don’t zoom, at least not over a computer. What are you thinking about doing? I can’t recall your occupation off the top of my head, if you’ve ever mentioned it.
Eh….its white collar thing but I supplant it with a little side hustle.
Whatever works!
A delightfully fun unintended consequence is that since so many people are working from home, public transportation infrastructure is being under-used, yet it still needs maintainence. If you count on 1.5 million riders to your subway ever day and that number drops by half, so do your your revenues. Your expenses however stay the same.
Look for the upcoming Work-At-Home Shared Responsibility Surcharge; ‘they’ are already touting it.
Most Public transit is 90% federally subsidized anyway, so in the scheme of things….ridership doesn’t matter much.
Never ever stop prepping.
ABC
Always
Be
Caching
(with apologies to Glengarry Glenross)
Zero
I would like your take on the astronomical bailout amounts that .gov has flung out and another 900 billion probably getting the OK shortly. Understand Covid flattened certain sectors of the economy but what are the long term ramifications of printing/ inflating the money supply.
I have not thought about it too hard, but I am inclined to say that I do not believe in government bailouts. If an industry or business cannot stand on its own two feet, or has been managed in a manner that makes them unable to withstand a period of economic turmoil, then it is not ‘govs place to bail them out. Natural selection applies to business as well as living organisms. If every industry that was suffering was given a bailout we would have subsidized gaslamp lighters, whalers, and record player manufacturers. Last time .gov handed out covid money, I happily took it but I didnt need it. I think if $1200 of .gov money makes a difference in your life, then maybe you should have had $1200 saved up in an emergency fund. As for the economic long term ramifications of money printing, I think that at this point something like national debt has become so unmanageable that it has lost relevance. There’s no point in using it as an argument for/against things because it’s impossible to eliminate at this point. It’s like arguing about the weather. I suppose it’s possible that this money printing will serve to inflate the currency to the point that some national debt can be paid off (those are gonna be some unhappy Chinese left holding the bag on debt instruments) but, by and large, I don’t think anyone is paying any attention to consequences. At some point there will need to be a ‘reset’…it’ll be either hyperinflation, a world war, or some other catalyst that has, historically, eliminated periods of economic unsustainability.
^This^
“What cannot continue indefinitely, will not.“
Once the Chinkypox panic is behind us, companies will start balancing cheap workers and no office rent against control and collaboration and productivity. I’m not sure that we’re all going to get to work from home.
While I respect and enjoy your postings Commander I have to comment about Food and Money printing.
This year I understand SO FAR the M1 of Federal Reserve Money creation created some 51% of ALL the money ever created in the history of America. So far the angels are *Still* dancing on that pin head but things to me look like a waterfall event and I hear roaring water ahead. Maybe I’m influenced by my families history during the Weimer Republic and fleeing after Kristallnacht to work odd jobs in NYC until the family reestablished themselves.
Fiat (FAKE) money printing works until it don’t. These “Stimulus Checks” are a symptom of the disease like a Fever. Pay attention to fevers eh?
Your food comment “Once in a while someone asks if I’m really stockpiling food because I’m worried about some sort of shortage or famine. No, I’m not. I think that, by and large, it’s virtually impossible to starve in this country as a result of economic factors.” is interesting.
History proves time and time again once the lifeblood of business “Honest Money” fails ALL things including Food supplies jams up. The Government Communist or not efforts to “Resolve” it quickly always makes things worse and thus Governments fall.
Tangibles are “Money” stored in such a way as not to be Electronically turned into worthless toilet paper, OR worse electronic digits frozen and lost if your not of the Socially Approved Classes.
The real problem is that its digital. When the people want the fiat paper in hand is when it begins.
I was a contractor in Moscow in the early 1990s. Spent many hours & many days standing in exactly those bread lines – often with no bread at the end. It cured me of any lingering ‘progressive’ sentiments I had.
COSTCO and WinCo loves us. We just keep on doin’ what we have been doin’ for many, many, years.
Speaking of ammo. There is an article over at Town Hall about Vista Outdoors. The parent company of Federal, CCI and Speer and now Remington.
In it they quote a recent statement from the company President. He says they have all plants running. They are having to hire new employees in order to expand capacity but they too are affected by the. Chinese Flu.
At the current time he said three calibers are most in demand. 9mm Lugar, 22 LR and 30-06. He said over the hunting season there was a huge demand for that caliber and they made, shipped and sold a record amount of that caliber. My thought here is that much is being bought for use in M1 Garand and Springfield rifles. CMP shooters can buy their ammo from CMP at reduced rates. This is mil surplus and is from stocks made around the world from NATO allies who were using American equipment.
I’ve seen nothing more on the new factory that Fiocci has under construction. The building started going up in the early summer. No telling how long it will take to receive and install the equipment.
I’m still wondering if the amount of ammo allowed in from Europe and the Philippines was ever increased. When Red Hilda was SOS she vastly cut imports. No clue if those were restored to the previous numbers. And finally with seven million new gun owners since June and no let up on buying in sight for guns and the ammo to shoot them it’s hard to say when prices and availability will stabilize.
At least we have a ton of new advocates to the 2A cause as more realize the 2A doesn’t guarantee your right to hunt but defend yourself.
According to what I heard recently the NRA has picked up another half million members since June as gun retailers pitch the Association to new buyers. At least I’m not being bombarded with requests for money or early renewal of my membership. Understandably they are fighting the attempt by the insane Marxist New York Attorney General to shut them down in the entire US. I guess the creature doesn’t understand her authority ends at the borders of her own state.
So after ‘Red Hilda’ was replaced were the imports restored by Trump?
I don’t know. The magazines and periodicals I subscribe to concerning the firearms industry haven’t mentioned it. Years ago there were many articles monthly about the reductions and resulting shortages. I have looked for import numbers but have been unable to find the information. Years ago there were some webpages that kept track of this but they seemed to have disappeared. I know several of the places I deal with are getting at most a pallet or two of a certain caliber. And they don’t last long. AIM surplus got some in last week and like a lot of places are limiting purchase to one case. The prices are higher than I have ever seen them. And I’ve been shooting and reloading most of my life. As I find and substanciate information I will pass it along.
“CMP shooters can buy their ammo from CMP at reduced rates. This is mil surplus and is from stocks made around the world from NATO allies who were using American equipment.”
Just a quick clarification – at one time that was accurate, but the CMP exhausted their stocks of surplus M2 ball about 2 years ago, IIRC. I remember getting an email from the CMP in 2017 saying that they were down to last of their inventory. No milsurp M2 has been listed on their eStore for some time now. They still sell 30-06 ammo for use in the Garand but it’s current, commercially manufactured stuff.
That is true. But now days they are buying Greek and South Korean M2 ball. The South Koreans bought 400,000 M1 Garand rifles and 300,000 M1 Carbines. Since those are owned by South Korea they couldn’t be returned as lend lease equipment. During the Reign of Obama the I an attempt to repatriate those rifles and carbines was nixed by then U S SOS John F’in Kerry. Now at least the carbines are coming in. I am seeing adds for them. The best are coming in now and include carbines in excellent to unissued condition. The prices are hefty compared to what carbines were selling for when I was a kid. Back then $50 would get you a factory fresh carbine with a fifteen rd magazine.
So far I haven’t seen adds for the Garands yet. Hunters Lodge has the Carbines and the last add in Firearms News also featured ammo for them. Price wasn’t cheap on the ammo but in current tines what is.
Hunters Lodge out of Ethridge, TN?
Be very, very careful dealing with them. They are notorious.
In our world, (engineering) the job market has not shifted to that model yet, but it will. Being forced to work from home was a giant leap. This leap was a large stone tossed into the real estate pool and the ripples are moving. I have four engineering firms on contract. My largest had three floors in our downtown center. The lease was up in May of 2020 and they cancelled it. Their savings was over 137K per month after the rent, parking and transportation expenses. They reinvested in two very small office suites at opposite ends of the city with a copy room and small meeting room, these totaled less than $4500 per month. The principles are more than satisfied with the workflow and the transition. As long as client needs are fulfilled the engineers can work from wherever.
Two of my design teams are going to do the same thing in 2021. Both have leases that expire in March and July respectively. Again, each are setting up small suites for the plotters, tech folks and meetings. Each are looking to save large sums of money on long term leases and as long as the work is being done, they are all ok with this ‘new normal’.
Our downtown is a now a ghost town, (upside, parking is always available). The local eateries are dying left and right along with retailers, there are ‘For rent’ and ‘For Lease’ signs going up weekly. The long-term office and retail market is going to get blasted by this and I do not see how they will ever recover. As the ripples move out along with employers and workers, the tax base will decline, this will affect the city budgets. It will take a few years for the real estate to crash, but it will crash. And I can assume commercial property owners will be asking for property tax breaks and mortgage forgiveness, but we shall see how that works out.
Change Bad, Fire Good
All the COVIDication of the workforce has done is
a) ring the dinner bell to outsource everything (and everyone) outsourceable.
b) People in Bangladesh cannot cook your burger, do chest compressions during your heart attack, nor change your oil or transmission.
c) If you have a job, you are employed at will.
d) If you own a business, you are employed at whim.
e) Find ways to make money that have other people making the money and delivering it to you. Diversity is asinine. Diversification is king.
f) long-term, having a large class of unemployed, under-employed, and broke, hungry, shiftless lumpenproletariat is how revolutions start. Middle classes do not revolt. This year has seen the biggest targeted wipeout of the middle class, worldwide, and shifting them to the lower class, than anything since the Great Depression. And we’re still in the early innings of it, as COVID2.0 now appears to be clearing its throat.
g) That’s before the blatant disenfranchising of a third of the adults in this country by the most ham-fistedly blatant electoral fraud (outside of every election in Central America, ever) in living memory
h) make plans accordingly, for a long, cold, brutal, and quite probably bloody decade-plus of economic winter. Possiby with a bonus helping of “heads on pikes”.
Good Times Are Here Again will not be played anytime soon.
That is all.
Well I guess there is always archery for us and weaponized lawn darts. Merry Christmas and happy nye.