Just another day here in the interesting world that is America 2022. Sometimes I feel like a war photographer trying to chronicle battles and their aftermath so that future generations will know what happened. It seems like when I grocery shopping I spend about a third of my time examining the pricing and availability of items from the previous week so I can get some metrics.
There’s that old joke: “How did I go broke? Gradually and then all at once.” I suspect that will be the story of how the next Great Depression or World War or Black Plague starts…..gradually, and then all at once.
Not much I can do about it….I’m a flea on the back of a mammoth – I don’t steer it, I just ride it. As I’ve said before, there’s a point at which I stop working the pumps and instead start heading for the lifeboats. As of late, in the last couple years, I’ve narrowed my focus down to what I need to take care of myself and those I care about. My neighbors, distant family, and the total strangers around me…who make more money than me and have more resources…have had plenty of time to get to their lifeboats. I’m not setting a seat aside in my lifeboat for them. They saw the signs, same as me. They could have prepared, same as me. They’re going to have to live with their choices, same as me.
What does that mean, exactly? Am I envisioning starving neighbors begging for food in some Holodomor-like famine? No, I’m not. I’m of the opinion that it’s virtually impossible to starve in this country if you are reasonably intelligent and in generally good health. What I see happening to the unprepared and the head-in-the-sand-crowd is financial impacts that will destroy dreams of retirement, force the sale of homes and vehicles, put plans on hold, reduce a standard of living, and perhaps even drive people into homelessness or a wave of perpetual ‘couch surfing’. There will be a lot less Trader Joes and Whole Foods, and a lot more WalMart in some peoples lives.
Society is going to be remade over everything in the last couple years, and everything thats coming in the next few years. Much like how after 9/11 there was a ‘new normal’, I think by the time this current administration and its epic failures have run it’s course we will have a ‘new normal’. I like to think that the result will be a lot of people ‘coming over to our side’ but it’s entirely possible it may go in the other direction. Sure, the Great Depression set a generation of Americans on a path of being better prepared, but it also created a generation of Americans who believed that government entitlements were a solution.
I can’t really know whats going to happen. But, I’ve always known what could potentially happen, and as a result I tried to give myself some advantages that would improve my resilience. Paid for house and vehicle, heavy emergency fund, etc, etc. So far I haven’t had to use the .50 BMG but I have had to use the $50 bills.
So, I continue to live my life as close to what I’m used to. I’ve always kind of lived like it could fall apart at any moment so there’s not much change for me. But sometimes, like when I saw chicken jump sixty cents overnight, the hair on the back of my neck stands up and I wonder if maybe I’ve been right all along. Guess we’ll find out. In the meantime, I’ll continue to observe and note the interesting ‘signs of the times’ that seem to be all around us these days and that we will look back upon later and marvel at.
Thats exactly what I have been doing, and how I feel. Spot on.
You were right all along. As are many of your readers. The next couple of years will be “interesting”, to say the least.
As far as weapons training and first air to and for others goes, I’m like minded. No thoughts of acting like a sheepdog in a mass shooting; I’m going out the back if I’m alone, and i usually am.
Same as my first air stuff, things like Israeli bandages and tourniquets. They’ are available to myself and close people, not the general public. I should take a page from one of my friends and not announce I’m first aid trained at events like pistol matches.
Skills are for me, don’t get involved unless you absolutely have to.
I keep watching prices and availability , Keep my gas tank topped off from my stock of 5 gl. jugs and top them back off , Just keep watching
Commander Zero I’d like to hope nobody will suffer from malnutrition and angry folks or even desperate parents trying to feed their kids will go feral.
But I work in a small hospital and help in the food bank. Already folks are suffering from anger and frustrations as those lower on the economic scale are trying hard to work enough hours to keep their families fed.
I remember the 70’s when the joke was “what brand of cat food tastes the best”. I remember my having a CD with a 19% interest rate as Volker shut down the out-of-control inflation. It was redeemed early (of course) but I have it above my computer along with a photo frame of million-dollar Zimbabwe bills, replica marks of the Wiermar Germany era and other fiat money that died.
I remember family stories about how some of our Great Grandparents saw their family savings accounts while huge in marks was unable due to hyperinflation to buy a cheap car. Previously pre-hyperinflation it was a thought to be a valued inheritance to pass on to several children.
When money is so devalued that you weigh it like Venezuela.
Us in the middle and upper middle *might* be propagandized by the leftist media as the hoarders or such, making normally reasonable neighbors into threats.
Politicians are well known for “lets you and Him fight” distractions.
I just gave a hard-working buddy a set of old winter tires I kept from my old traded in pickup truck. He’s a tree trimmer and he needed them. The new replacements are insane, IF you can get them.
When that stack of 50.00 bills is needed for a week’s groceries AND the selection is Hobsons Choice things will get CRAZY around here.
I have spent many years studying U.S. markets, our economy, standard of living etc in an effort to ensure I’m ahead of the curve when the bad times begin.
Like you, I’m debt-free, am well stocked with the ‘ol beans, bullets and bandaids, and have retired to a rural community that have many like-minded people. And while I’m not LDS, many of my immediate neighbors are, which I’m actually thankful for. (Although it’s difficult at times to find someone to share a beer with).
With that said, the freedom that comes with being ready for virtually any economic
crisis, societal violence or a life with broken supply chains is truly priceless. A relative whom I, at one time, tried to educate re the dangers we face, asked me, “What are you so afraid of.”
He looked puzzled when I replied, “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
This only reaffirmed my belief, like yours, that I’m certainly not going to ‘set a seat aside for them.’ Especially those who I have reached out to at times.
I only recently found your website, and it’s become a daily visit for me. Thanks for all the information you provide…
This country is being ruled at the moment by global elites. Telling the Vegetable in the White House what to do and when. The goal is to bring America to the status of a third world shit hole. When you see the cities run by the blue party we haven’t been far away for years.
Our leadership has sold itself to these NWO types. But one thing they forget. One thing they conveniently over look. If they keep pushing. They will get a reaction they don’t expect. Nor do they want.
With a stolen election barely two years in the rearview mirror they are setting the stage for another. That will be a very terrible mistake. Ill advised and I’ll conceived.
They believe as others have. They can take over. But they will not control anything. Asked Tojo and Hitler. Mussolini and the rest of the petty dictator wannabes.
Do not underestimate our will. Nor or unwillingness to capitulate. Underestimate us at your own peril.
Unintended Consequences
I suspect we’ll see both outcomes, depending on where on the country one lives. I also suspect that hard times will deepen divisions already present, particularly at the juncture of liberal and conservative areas.
I think the greatest threat lies not with the hordes of hungry neighbors but with the hordes of hungry neighbors who vote.
While society may change, thats eveolution. My fear is that government will change in relation to that evolution.
Enough people complain about gas prices, .gov steps in and announces a “windfall profit tax” of %99 on the earnings of fuel companies above what they made last year.
Baby formula crisis? .gov declares baby formula vital to national defense (they just did this) and uses the Defense Production act to mandate suppliers fast track formula components to the factories. If thats not enough, then maybe .gov takes the makers into receivership like they did in WW1 with S&W.
The Free Shit Army (arguably a good excuse for bringing back poll taxes) will whine about have the Haves have too much and the ‘wealth needs to be redistributed’. Never mind that it wasnt ‘distributed’ in the first place; it was earned.
“.gov declares baby formula vital to national defense….”
Solution: 4th trimester abortions.
Offended? Tell it to a democrap.
I think the difference in the upcoming economic upheaval in the Great depression is that 1) our Urban cultures are already at a breaking point of kill or be killed. Life is not precious and might equals right already. 2) Most rural communities are not self-sufficient and have no clue how to be. They are mostly commuters that are transplanted urbanites. 3) I don’t think there will be a lot of starvation either but I do think that there will be a lot of fighting/pillaging and a lot of trauma deaths resulting from it. Just my two cents from my front porch
Z, stock the shelves at the local grocery. All respect to the highly educated “EXPERTS” but I’ll see the signs of our eventual demise way before they do. The price war/change/whatever is something I see every day. Stock up brothers and sisters, It’s only getting worse.
veggie oil
flour
sugar
rice/beans
Oh, and of course, Tabasco, duh.
CZ, I know that instead of using a crystal ball, tea leaves or “experts” to gauge the state of our economy and our society, you monitor availability of Ball and Kerr canning supplies, primarily lids. I haven’t spotted any loose lids, but I was at a Rural King here in Kentucky today and found numerous pallets of Ball brand jars in quart, pint and half-pint sizes. The quart jars were $12.99 a dozen. I don’t can, but I grabbed a dozen because I’m thinking of trying out the “meal in a jar” technique using canning jars and oxygen absorbers. Will likely make some do-it-yourself meals using mylar bags, too.
On a related matter, gasoline just hit $4.99 a gallon here in Flyover America. i expect shortages to begin shortly.
I don’t think most societies see it when they are “at the end”. It really makes me wonder about our good ole U.S.A. The founding fathers were brilliant in my opinion. Absolutely brilliant. The further we get away from their ideals ths worse off we become. The seventeeth amendment should be repealed IMO. Too many people today want mob rule, because you just know this mob is so much smarter than all those past mobs that mucked things up.
Interesting time to be riding the mammoth isn’t it.