You pull the trigger too soon and you have that awkwardness of trying to get your job back after you quit to run for the hills. Pull the trigger too late and you’re trapped with the sheep. How do you look at the news and what’s going on around you and decide when the time is to quit the job, yank out the IRA, spend the mortgage payment on canned goods, leave the bills in the mailbox, load the truck, and head for the hills?
Its a tough call….if I knew with 100% absolute certainty that tomorrow at noon a hot World War III was gonna kick off with nukes and all the trimmings, I would…not show up for work, not pay my bills, abandon my mundane obligations, pack my gear, and head for the Beta Site. Wouldn’t you?
Now, lets say that sort of thing happens and….you’re wrong. Well, crap…you really burned a few bridges there, didn’t you. Not the least of which is getting your job back that you abandoned.
So, now comes the real problem: you want to be sensitive enough to whats going on around you that you recognize the triggers of the ‘preppers point of no return’ so you can beat the Golden Horde before they clog up the WalMarts and interstates..but…you want to be realistic enough to not go full Burt Gummer in what turns out to be a false alarm.
I’ve seen this before, several times. Most notably Y2k where people burned a lot of bridges…sold prime property, cashed out retirement, etc, etc, to buy food and wasteland in the desert to drop a trailer on because they were convinced that ‘this is it!’. And….it wasn’t. Or people who were convinced the Fukishima power plant was going to poison the atmosphere, or some oil well explosion would taint the oceans forever with some microbial sludge dredged up from the center of the earth, or Obama was going unleash UN troops to bring in black helicopters…you get the idea. Short version: Pretty much everything you hear about on Coast to Coast AM never happened.
Current situation? Lets see – inflation, shortages, high gas prices, pandemic, race issues, balkanized population, polarized politics, Russians doing Russian stuff, etc, etc. And, from what I see on the internet, it appears some of the more….committed….survivalists are saying ‘this is it!’
My opinion, which is worth exactly what you paid for it, is that this isn’t it. It is my highly unprofessional opinion that this isnt the time to write off the career, mortgage, and life that you’ve built so far and head to the hills. That time may be coming, but this isn’t it. What it is, however, is a time to bump yourself up a notch or two in terms of situational awareness. Is not time to head for the exits, but it might be time to make note of where they are and what the shortest route to them is.
It’s kind of a joke but:
There have been a lot of moments in the last thirty years that had people saying “this is is it!” and…it wasn’t it. Not even close. I’m not saying everything is going to be fine, or that there aren’t things that are concerning. I’m simply saying that I dont think we are at the point where you throw away your ‘normal’ life and head for the hills. Remember that ‘In Case Of Emergency, Break Glass’ that we used to see on fire extinguishers or alarms? Well, IMHO, its nowhere near time to break that glass yet.
Of course, it helps if you live a life of half-in-half-out of the normal and preparedness world. Maybe you already live at your bugout location. Or you’ve already gotten 90% of our preps amassed. Or you already live a life of constant vigilance and self-reliance. Honestly, thats the best way to go, in my opinion – not a hundred percent Burt Gummer, but not a hundred percent soccer mom. Rather you live half in each world at any given moment with the ability to go one hundred percent into whichever one is right at the moment.
For now, I’m the person straddling the line between lifestyles. Half the time I’m the corporate 9-to-5, paying bills, watching movies, eating fast food, and shopping at CostCo. The other half of the time Im stacking ammo cans, buying storage food, checking batteries, networking with like-minded people, filling gas cans, etc. I think thats the best place to be right now. If it goes in one direction, I’m ready to commit to that lifestyle; and if it goes in the other direction, I’m well set to operate in that one as well.
Interesting times, indeed.
I think the ideal situation would be some sort of internet job or early retirement that lets you live anywhere. Starlink’s coverage should be getting better and better. Once the job is in place, you could find the right spot to set up your survival cabin and get as many miles as possible between you and the human hordes of the big city — before TSHTF. That way, the only bridges burned are the EMP bridges, or total supply chain failures, or govt round ups and confiscations. You’ve already bugged out. They’re the ones burning bridges, not you. Find a small community of like-minded.
I agree. It isn’t time to break the glass yet, but it is time to prepare.
At this point, I think we’re quite a ways from it, though that could change depending on several factors.
I think it IS time to watch closely and prepare in case things change quickly. And if you can, move to a new job and location that you won’t need to run from.
Respectfully submit that if there’s time to discuss whether or not “this is it”, then this isn’t ‘it’.
We’ll all know when it arrives. And no one except progressives will be talking about it. It’ll be all action.
Word.
I left the big city for my 40 acres in the middle of nowhere over three years ago because I knew that moving too soon was better than doing it too late.
I went 8 months not working, lived off savings and worked odd jobs. But I was living in a home I had helped build as part of my plan for a sustainable life. Finally found a job 40 minutes from my home and I love it. The commute is better driving through the mountains than when I commuted through traffic.
You don’t live in your “bug out location” now because you think the apocalypse is coming, you do it because that’s where you want to be. If you don’t like living in the middle of nowhere, don’t move there. If you think “nowhere” sucks now, wait until there’s no power, internet, running water, etc…. you get the picture.
I have committed to the “prepper” lifestyle but it’s not for everyone. You have to decide if that commitment is what you really want.
3 years ago?! Great timing!
Don’t suppose you have any lotto numbers you’d like to share…
I have that patch depicted. Ordered it off FB and it arrived with Russian postmark =) great quality though.
Looked at a place in the country Monday. We’re making an offer.
It’s not the perfect prepper place, we looked at that one, but it was missing one crucial thing.
-11 wooded acres
-abutting a national forest
-end of a dirt road
-abundant deer, pigs, and fish
-smokehouse
-artisian well
-on large lake
-established garden and fruit trees
—couldn’t have a dock. Wife would only sign off on a lake house that we could use if the world DIDN’T end, because it usually doesn’t.
This house is on a lake, double lot, garden, some trees, down a dirt road, miles from most things. Nearest store is a Dollar General and most people there shop at the gas station for normal things. Close enough to my primary that we can use it weekends, and get there in an emergency, far enough down the unbeaten path to miss the golden horde.
I really hope it all works out and we’ve finally got a place to go TO if we have to go.
And I REALLY hope TPTB don’t take us down the path to destruction. I like western civilization.
n
I prep. I have a closet full of medical supplies, extra everything, lots of food, water, water filtration, etc. I have weapons. I know how to use said weapons.
Have any of you figured out yet that all your preps mean nothing if ANY of the .gov world survives? Unless your county commissioners, sheriffs and deputies, etc. are all preppers, do you really think they are going to honor your property rights?
The sheriff, the politicians, the cops, and the rest of the people that make their money off other’s taxes are just going to watch their families starve? They are going to stoically say, damn, we should have prepared and then watch their children slowly die? Really? That is what you are betting on?
You don’t think that “for the good of everyone”, they won’t move people down to the county fairgrounds and then send the swat team door to door gathering supplies. Your supplies.
You really think your rights are going to matter to them at that point? How long can you hold out with swat out on the street in front of your house just waiting for you to get quiet so they can come in? You think they will just let you leave with your preps, their own families be damned?
Good luck with that.
That’s why you don’t talk about preps, are far enough out that a. There are few other people and b. That others think and act similarly, and c. You are prepared to defend yourself and yours.
Could a situation happen where you lose what you have? Yes, fires happen, the stereotypical biker zombie horde could happen, etc. Your best prep is the knowledge you have.
Yep. I thought about that too. But maybe on a larger -national government level. Have read accounts of governments going in and rounding everyone up and relocating all of them. Then the government goes in and takes anything of value from their homes. Totally disrupt the people. That could happen here. But I still prep and keep my mouth shut about it to everyone. The few people who thought I had some stuff put by – well it’s been a tough couple of years and that is all gone.
That could happen here? It did happen here. FDR signed executive order 9066 and put Japanese AMERICANS in concentration camps, many of them born US citizens.
In a scenario like this they will ultimately shoot tear gas into the house and then set it on fire. The best way to deal with this worst case is to not be there. Be a gray man and don’t attract attention. ‘Timing the market’ for a societal collapse will be tricky, as will moving all the stuff to a remote and secure location that won’t be seen or detected or raided by others.
Like Sun Tzu said, the best battle is the one you don’t have to fight.
Nobody feels sillier than the jet pilot who thought his plane was about to flame out, hits “EJECT!”, and flutters to earth, watching it soar along out of sight for miles and miles.
Except the guy who punches out after it’s already too late, he’s rolled inverted, and he rockets into the ground headfirst at 300MPH.
It’s always a question of timing.
I remember an incident with a Kodiak bear on set, when things got a bit interesting. Nobody got full retard and bolted for the exits, but there was a distinct number of people limbering up rather purposefully, and I swear I heard the squeak of several sphincters puckering.
800 pounds of bored bear 20′ away, and all out of marshmallows, will do that to you.
So will the 800# gorilla of potential catastrophe as it oozes from “f**ked around”, and makes a beeline for “found out”.
You makes your best guesses, and you takes your chances.
In my opinion you should make sure to be in a position where you dont need to not pay your bills and generally burn bridges to bug out. You should also be on a late hair trigger. I live in Sweden and by Swedish laws so your milage may vary.
But i I were to head for the hills i would siklly pack up The car, leave town and call in sick to work. Basically we have unlimited sickdays and dont need a doctors note for The first week of any sick leave.
So, in my opinion, prepare the bug out in time, bug out right before The golden hörde starts to move and hope that it is clear within a week wether it is teotwawki or a false alarm.
Good article. One minor quibble. You said “Russia doing Russian stuff” implying that the Russians are the instigators of this situation. As near as I can tell they are the reasonable party here.
“The Russians are the reasonable party here.” – said no one ever, in world history.
‘Reasonable’ is relative. And we are in deep doo-doo when the Russians ARE the more reasonable side.
Ukraine has been a Russian satellite for 1,000 years. We have no business sticking our big, fat nose in their business.
except when they were our allies in WWII killing Nazis. The krauts were tripping over each other trying to surrender to the US troops and not the Russians.
The Russians have prevented the end of the world multiple times I know of,take a look at your .gov and say you trust them with a candybar.
wouldn’t trust our guy with the wrapper.
The best thing you can do is live full time at your dream BOL so you’re already there at any given moment should SHTF. This is impractical for many so you have to find that middle ground where you live somewhere that has as many of those BOL attributes as you can get while still being near that job or medical care or elderly parent or whatever the anchor is. I look at the people who panicked in 2008 or even in 2019 when COVID hit and pulled their money from the stock market and stuck it in gold. Gold and silver have done next to nothing while my stocks have continued to average 12+% a year, I kept buying during all the panics and those have basically doubled over the past few years. I would have left hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table if I listened to 99% of the prepper chicken littles.
12+% of what per year…?
What you’re telling us is that this year, your stock returns are only 13% behind inflation, and in an average year, you’re “only” losing 2%/yr.
A dollar from early 2021 is now worth 75¢ or less.
A dollar from 1957 is now worth 1.08¢.
That means you need $9.18 now to have the same amount of money as when you had a dollar then.
Call when your stock portfolio relentlessly earns 14%/yr, and we can discuss how you’ve made the 918% ROI you’d need just to break even on inflation from 1957 to present.
For only a 40-year lifetime investment, that means your money will be worth almost 45% of what you put in.
You can get better annual returns than that by simply burning half of your money in the fireplace, and investing the rest in comic books and baseball cards.
Anybody buying stocks as an investment would probably sell a cow for magic beans.
OTOH, someone who bought gold 40 years ago has seen it hold value in absolute terms, and return the exact same 12%/year you think you’re getting with stocks. 375.91 in 1982 is $1850 now.
Your error is to confuse dollars with either value or money (they are neither), which is always a fool’s errand with fiatbux, and the common mistake which keeps the stock market Ponzi scheme in operation.
Yes, you must outpace inflation to make a real profit (historically the last 25 years it has been around 2% and now we might be facing 5-6%/year, I have no idea where you are getting 25% or whatever you calculation is that makes you think a dollar from early 2021 is worth $0.75 or less), plus you will pay capital gains or income taxes (depending on the account and type of investment minus something like a Roth account) so that’s another cut of the profit but regardless buying stocks has done far better than gold. You can cherry pick a date to have bought gold and show a huge increase, I could do the same with about any stock from 2008/9 and show a larger gain. Inflation eats away at everything; stocks and some real estate happen to be the BEST return of all the options. I believe in being diversified both in the stocks I own (mostly mutual funds indexed to the whole DOW or S&P) and by investing in real estate rental properties that go up with inflation while generating income. You do you though, I’m living extremely comfortably and will leave a lot of wealth to my children to build further upon. I wish you success in your methods.
A given stock, once in a while, goes up in relative value.
If you bought the IPO of Apple, you made out, in the short term. But “stocks” overall, have done no such “outperforming” of anything.
Because they’re valuated in dollars, they cannot. A dollar from 1933 has lost 98.8% of its purchasing value of actual things.
For your imaginary ride to work, you’re positing getting on an elevator that only goes up. And then stepping on another elevator that only goes up. And so on. And so on.
What you keep forgetting is that while the floor number go up, you built your entire skyscraper in Venice, and the building is now buried 110 stories below sea level, so you need to get off on the 121st floor just to still be on the ground.
You can’t name a stock, over even your adult lifespan, that has outpaced the inflation that’s made imaginary gains a flat line, or a descending one, in real terms.
Stocks are the guy who thinks he’s doing great, because he makes $100K/yr, when his dad only made $10K/yr, before he looks things up and finds out that dad’s $10K in real terms of absolute value should now be $400K.
Stocks are a bottomless hole, because fiatbux (mainly the US dollar).
If you think you’re making money over time, you’re not paying attention. You’re making more dollars, sure. But you’ve been losing money every minute of your life, and you’re nowhere near the “ahead” the shell game you’ve been playing has led you to believe.
Gold and silver never lose money, because an ounce of gold or silver is always an ounce of gold or silver. They buy now what an ounce of gold or silver bought then, or ever (within fractional amounts), because they’re money, while dollars or pounds or francs or yen are simply currency. We sometimes use the two items interchangeably, but they are as alike as houses and houseflies.
If you don’t know the difference between currency and money in the equation, you’re not tall enough for this ride.
Gas hasn’t gone from $0.37/gal to $5.00/gal in 50 years, nor cars gone from $3K to $50K in the same timespan, because either of them are more valuable. They’ve done that because dollars used to buy them are more worthless. If you think you’re “keeping up” with inflation, I have a bridge for sale, cheap. And you’ve been buying stock in the company that trades it since your first dollar entered the stock market.
It cannot be put any more plainly than that.
The only way a stock goes up in actual terms is if they either discover or provide more actual value in terms of product or commodity than formerly. No company has ever outperformed inflation over any worthwhile span of time. It’s running in quicksand, and the idea itself is ludicrous, with a predictable end. The best you can do is spread your financial liability, and hope you pick more winners than losers. Ask Sears, Pontiac, or Pan Am how that works out over time, and check their stock price today compared to their heydey.
The name for that game anywhere but Wall Street is “roulette”, and they’ve built luxurious skyscrapers on the profits from suckers who thought they could outperform the house at that game.
Let me know when that penny drops and you finally get your gumball of wisdom.
Pro tip: A millionaire, in 2022, is what we would have called someone in 1933 with a hair over $11,000.. It’s what we would’ve called someone in 1970 with $19,681. It’s what we would’ve called someone in 1980 with $331K.
All stock values track, mainly, is inflation.
Which is why the DJIA is periodically monkeyed with, to give the illusion of spectacular growth, rather than disaster.
But don’t believe me: look up the value of the actual stocks in the DJIA now that were part of the DJIA in 1933.
The DJIA is 433 times bigger, but the value of the stocks (to compare apples to apples) would be a financial albatross of biblical proportions, and most of the companies held then have gone the way of the three I mentioned.
Stop watching the shiny spinning roulette wheel, and start doing math. And watch the croupier’s hands.
Because the tale you’re trying to sell is that you can get rich playing roulette forever. (And, when paid in Weimar reichsmarks, Zimbabwean dollars, Venezuelan pesos, etc., you actual can make
metric fucktons of currency. Just not anything we’d properly call “money”.)
PMs can’t be inflated.
Fiatbux, and stocks valued in them, can be, and are, relentlessly, since ever.
It’s simple. The rise in stock price is due to inflation.
I have no plans to jump ship since I have no where to go and given a list of health problems my time won’t be long , So I’ll stand my ground and take out as many of the horde out as I can .
Gold and silver have done next to nothing while my stocks have continued to average 12+% a year,
–or put another way, the stocks stayed the same and the buying power of your dollars fell by that much. Gold and silver are not investments. They are a way to preserve wealth through economic disasters.
I would have left hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table if I listened to 99% of the prepper chicken littles.
–when do you plan to take if off the table? How much gain is enough vs the risk that you won’t make it to the exit when the inevitable crash comes? And a crash ALWAYS comes. Until you turn those digital file entries into something solid, you haven’t “made” anything. Lots of news reports of hedge funds packing up, of smart money moving out of the inflated markets (taking profits) and moving into real estate, or farmland, or businesses.
Are you smarter than the smart insiders? Or are you just the ‘bigger fool’ buying what the lesser fools are selling so that they can take their profits and get out??? How much higher can it go? Will there be an even bigger ‘fool’ when you want to sell?
Have you at least pulled your initial principal out so you’re only gambling with the casino’s money?
Some of the smartest smart guys in the business have said it’s not about fundamentals any more it’s about tweets, algo driven headline trading, and peoples’ feelings. They’ve packed up and gotten out. Buying stock in lithium miners because you see an increasing demand for batteries is investing. Buying Tesla because Musk tweeted something that caused a dip, and everyone knows you get rich by ‘buying the dip’ is gambling.
I decided, after a stint working in Vegas, that I worked too hard for my money to gamble with it, no matter what the possible payoff might be if I won. Because in the end, if you keep playing, the casino always wins.
n
(one of my neighbors was married to a guy who became a ‘dotcom millionaire’. That didn’t last long.)
** ‘bigger fool’ coming from the expression “there is always a bigger fool” to sell to ….
(not anyone in particular)
n
You all literally don’t understand how the stock market works. Each company’s stock price is based on an estimate of its future earnings. It is in no way directly tied to the value of the dollar or inflation…other than obvious macro market concerns related to it. If a company has a breakout year, invents the next iPhone then its value can go up many times faster than inflation, that doesn’t mean all the dollars in the US lost value it just means that company did really well. I will say I pulled some money out of stocks (and cash I had been sitting on foolishly) to build another rental cabin this year so I will have a higher than normal percentage of my investments in that property/business than in previous years but not a majority certainly. As to when I will take the money out (and stop putting more money in), it depends. Either when I see a better return elsewhere (like with the cabin rental business) or when I go to retire and can’t weather the periodic cyclical ups and downs because I don’t have decades to burn anymore. I’d love to know where other people are putting their money, crypto? Gold? Crypto is way too volatile and gold has been a dog for the last 20 years.
The cost of stocks is ONLY related to the amount and price the fed and ppt are willing to give it. Profitless dotcoms are the high flyers again and “car” companies that roll a few vehicles are worth more than the big makers?
Yeah, that’s the real problem, we don’t understand “how the stock market works”, but you’ve cracked the code.
If your stocks are “in no way directly tied to the value of the dollar” (you realize how retarded that sounds, said out loud, right?) tell me what the share price is valuated in?
Peanuts?
Bananas?
Gumballs?
Pine cones?
Quatloos?
Hen’s teeth?
Or, just possibly, is it expressed in dollars per share…?
So, having settled that, tell us again who it is who doesn’t understand how the stock market works. I’ll wait over here while you work that out.
When you sell a stock (after you pay your trading fees, broker’s commissions, income taxes, and capital gains taxes, of course) what do they pay you in??
Would that possibly also be in dollars?
You’re 0 and 2 in the count, Slugger.
And if your whole plan is to time the sell-off, then what difference does it make how much you think you’re gaining year over year? You were crowing about 12%, in a year when the official rate of inflation is already running at 15%, and the real rate of inflation in just the last year is probably somewhere in the mid 20s. So in the last year, your “investments” have had the last two years’ “gain” wiped off the map already. You’re already back to 2020. And the dollars of value you’ve got in stocks now are worth 70 cents on the dollar to what they were worth then.
Strike three.
“…gold has been a dog for the last 20 years.”
You’re entitled to your own opinions; you are not, however, entitled to your own facts.
The average price of gold in 2002 was $310/oz.
It’s now at $1850/oz.
https://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/gold/result.php
That’s an annual rate of return of 18%, in every one of those twenty years gold was “a dog”.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/banking/calculator/compound-interest-calculator
It’s a 20-year RoR of 597%.
That would be a return 50% greater than your touted 12% average for the stock market.
So by “investing” in stocks, a person who started with $10,000 and listened to you twenty years ago, even if your imaginary 12% average market return was true, would now have assets worth $33,009 in 2022 dollars. Except they pay in dollars, so the return over that time, before taxes etc. are removed, but after 20-year inflation of over 595% since 2002 from then to now is accounted for, means that $33,009 in real terms and constant dollars is now only worth $5542.74. Congrats. Well-played. Stocks only lost 45% of their original investment, even with a notional 12% annual RoR, and 303% over 20 years.
Versus a real value of $1679.16 in constant dollars if you’d just taken that $10K stack of $100 bills and buried it under the porch in a pickle jar.
So stocks (with an imaginary 12% avg annual return) are 330% better than doing nothing at all.
But a person who foolishly ignored your opinion and bought $10,000 in physical gold twenty years ago (±32.26oz) would now have assets worth $59,705.
And being still gold now, they’d be worth the entire $59,705, (and still be ±32.26oz of gold).
Gold would have beaten your stocks by $26,696 in dollar profits for every $10,000 of investment.
And accounting for inflation, still worth the equivalent of $10,025.42, just about double the return over stocks.
Yet you think gold is a “dog”.
You used that word; I do not think it means what you think it does.
In real terms, the person who bought gold would have made a real value profit of about $25.42.
The person who bought stocks would have a real value loss $4457.26 over the exact same period.
Gold loses nothing.
Stocks burn 45% of your money.
Inflation burns 84% of straight cash.
And despite that reality, you think you’re “winning”, financially.
And that you have a keener grasp on basic economics than all us other poor boobs.
Strike Four.
“That stinging sensation in the back of your head is reality slapping you, Butch.” – Marcellus Wallace
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2022/01/economics-101-inflation.html
I’m retired, living in a rural area where I know my few neighbours. I’ve put away stuff for a rainy day, and I have a place to run to with a small group if things get bad. My attitude is whatever will be, will be. I haven’t lost any sleep over the state of the world since Y2K and, I don’t plan to start.
Looking at current non-fiction is currently my latest method of analyzation and planning.
I wonder if there is a prepper somewhere in Afghanistan, (who wasn’t trying to hop onto a moving aircraft frantically trying to gtfo), right now out in the middle of nowhere with his family, clay pots full of dried goat meat and garbanzo beans, some 55g drums of water and a couple of AK’s somehow not gathering the attention of the Taliban?
I’m going to go with no. In real life people stay put and go with the program or become refugees, get imprisoned or killed. Probably some examples where that didn’t happen but reality is brutal.
“You all literally don’t understand how the stock market works. Each company’s stock price is based on an estimate of its future earnings. ” – maybe that used to be an accurate way of looking at the stock market, but in today’s world with quants, program traders, day-traders, short-sellers, insiders selling their optioned shares, and other activities which have no relationship to a company’s performance in the market, equities and bonds move up or down for many, many other reasons than future earnings, profitability, etc. – and, of course, there’s plenty of money to be made whether the assets move up or down. If ya don’t believe me, read this article about the guys at Renaissance Technologies who manage the Medallion Fund (https://www.afr.com/technology/inside-the-medallion-fund-a-74-billion-moneymaking-machine-like-no-other-20161122-gsuohh), and try to explain, with a straight face, how these guys can average 80% returns for the past 40 years, based on “fundamentals”. It’s a rigged game, and all those of us in rowboats can do is hope to ride along on the big boat’s wake.
Thanks Joe for taking up the gauntlet. I didn’t have the time.
Just look at the market cap of Tesla to see that in no F’ing way are stock prices based on a reasoned assessment of future earnings.
Do a google search for “do fundamentals matter” and you’ll see a whole lot of very seasoned financial pros saying “No.” They almost all add “right now” to qualify the ‘no’ but then they always hedge… And they almost all mention “speculative” behavior, or in other words – gambling.
It’s the people who don’t realize that it’s a casino that don’t understand what it’s become.
For me, I lost half in 2001. Half in 2008. I’m not willing or able to lose half again at ANY point. I don’t have the time.
n
not time to break the glass,but time to grab that little hammer on the chain and stay ready to smash that glass. you need to keep that F U MONEY on hand though. that get’s you thru if you call the game too early. it allowed me to bail rather than vax 6 months ago. i’ll get another job if we aren’t glowing this spring. new gov did away with the vax mandate for state employees. i was ready to go anyway. if we survive another year i have another pension coming so i might just stay retired this time.