Episode-33- The Unique Challanges of Economic Collapse Survival Planning
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Today’s podcast focuses on the unique challenges of surviving an economic collapse and how it is very different from environmental or other disasters in scope, duration and impact. Tune in today for my thoughts on…
- Planning for long term self sufficiency vs. planning for an acute interruption of short duration
- The need to eliminate debt as part of long term planning, specifically debt on property
- The need for prearranged groups before the economic SHTF
- The need to NOT “bet the farm” in your long term planning
- How FEMA nor any other organization can’t respond to an economic collapse
- Why storing food is important but not enough
- How your cash could become worth next to nothing in a true economic crash
- Gaining specific skills before you need them
- Storing construction supplies and other “hard comities” now vs. planning to buy them later
- Hardening property and picking remote easy to defend locations
- The value of the family dog in keeping trespassers away
- A few reasons that an economic collapse may simply be an eventuality vs. a possibility
Remember to join in and comment with your thoughts, questions and ideas. Also make sure to enter our listener appreciation contest and help us spread the word about The Survival Podcast and grow to our first 1000 listeners.
Though I still feel that we are in economic slowdown only; as a general practice we should teach our younger folks to treat life as an economic disaster now. Then they will be that much more stronger in handling any financial difficulty no matter what the source (jobloss, medical crisis, natural disaster, etc.)
@Offroad,
I would agree with that 100% that we should “treat life as an economic disaster now”.
Now on a slow down vs. a collapse. If you listen to enough of my shows you will soon realize I am not an alarmist and I am not big on predicting the “when” of things. The next few years may indeed be far more a “slow down” then a collapse, indeed we may see a big “recovery” in a few years (though I ain’t betting on it). It may cycle up and down a few more times or even many times before the big drop.
I just think at this point there is no way out of the eventual SPLAT! The debt is to big and it grows to fast. You can only print money for so long till it becomes worth less then the paper it is printed on. You can only borrow for so long and let debt compound for so long. With Medicare, social security, etc. alone we are already 53 Trillion in the hole, 53 TRILLION!
So in time with social security etc. we have only two options,
1. Admit the failure and get rid of them leaving some large portion of society hanging in the wind.
2. Print money and cover the obligations. Given that the entire existing M3 Money Supply of the US is about 14 Trillion I think we can see the problem with this one.
There is a third option, wean off social security and medicare by providing full benifits to one age group and a declining path based on age for the rest that eventually gets rid of it. Since that makes sense and would solve the problem and reduce taxes all at once you can bet our government won’t do it. Further every day we spend without beginning that process makes the ability to ever pull it off less likely.
To me the big crash will come, it is the exact method of when and how it will come that is in question. In the history of the world no paper currency economy has ever survived with out the eventual crash, not one.
The money may do a “big crash”, but bartering for common services will not. Where we all run into trouble is when we need complex services (like open heart surgery, or to get a specialized repair part for some complex device). You can not barter for that, resulting in the government getting in the middle of the complex need. So you need something that the government will value that can not be taken away (appropriated).
When I think of “big crash”, to me that means from some worth to no worth. If you have real capitol tied up in a homestead that produces food, or you have put away real food stocks, or you can harvest real food from the natural world (and it is available); then you have some real intelligence capitol.
@Offroad,
Um I think I get what you are saying but if so I think we completely agree. The crash I speak of will certainly have a lesser effect on the prepared and barter will be a big part of a post crash regional economy.
Yet for the unprepared and those with very few or no concrete skills what will they have to barter with?
I am certainly for investing in a real homestead, building up supplies, building up skills, etc.
What do third world countries barter with right now for individual survival? Usually they barter with mineral wealth; or entertainment; or manual labor; or food production. The individual will need to defend their personal wealth (food, supplies, etc.) from others who would steal it in bad times.
Maybe you could do a show on HIDDEN CACHES for hard times; so your resources can not be stolen?
Nice podcast. Bought the farm last year and have been updating our website about our ZED (zero energy design) farm. We want to be ready and if it doesn’t – well – we’re just better off with healthier food, less dependency and less debt. . .however, that’s why I call my website: MyBackAchers.com – it is work.
We’ve been trying to “inform” others about being prepared, but so many people in the “work-a-day” world just don’t want to hear it.
I was just told from a friend that when researching the Exxon stock prospectus – Exxon says they have “new refineries” and oil sources coming online and there is no shortage insight . . anyone seen these as I’d like to see if they use the terms “present need” based anywhere in the paper.
Other subject – in all these movies I’ve been watching – they all say how “we consumers use 30% of energy and agriculture uses 17%” – SO WHO IS USING 53 PERCENT?????!!! and why what good does it do for US (the 30%) TO CONSERVE if they don’t??? Shouldn’t we be demanding our government conserve and down-size by 20% a year until it again becomes manageable?
What else . . debt. Card companies increase spending on people without people’s request then slap high interest rates on them once they max out the card. I told my credit company 4 years ago – “I cut up my card and I do NOT want a replacement” so they INCREASED my limit and started sending me checks to use? What a bate & Trap system! (isn’t that illegal??). . . and isn’t that what is happening to the national debt? We’re bated into debt so high that the nation can’t pay it off then charged high % to the point we will never be out of debt.
Thus – The En-enslavement of America.
Keep the podcasts going . . .Sherry
@Sherry,
Good points, all of them. Unfortunately sending you “blank checks” isn’t illegal, though I do think you can contact them and state that you don’t want ANY contact by mail other then to send you bills or other mail directly necessary for your account. You could also cancel the card unless you still have a ballance.
On the national debt it is actually far worse. The nation really no longer can avoid growing the debt. Much of the total spend (over 8%) of our spending now is just interest.
In fact if you add up the entire costs of then Departments of
Agriculture
Veterans Affairs
Transportation
and
Labor
The total cost off all four of those departments does not add up to JUST the interest we are paying. It also keeps growing and growing. Personally I think the snowball can’t be far away, it is just compounding to fast. Interest compounding is the most powerful thing in the financial world as any good investor will tell you, unfortunately with the debt is compounding against us and no one in government seems to want to do a damn thing to stop it.
Right OffRoad.
I saw the youtube video “Most Important Video” and they don’t mention how the nations’ compounding interest will hit a point were it is more than people can afford to pay. . .critical point of no return. Thanks to the Fed Res not being a real government banking system but giving the politician’s a blank check to be paid off by the American people.
If you have a podcast on it- please list again.
Thanks.
Sherry,
Here you go, my thoughts on the Debt
http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/what-the-current-us-national-debt-really-means
By the way we as consumers have out debted (not really a word is it?) the federal government by 4 billion more then they have spent.
Oh well only if you forget the 53 Trillion dollar hole they have on the second set of books! Oh yea and somewhere there is a third set of books! These guys have some nerve, “making and example out of companies like Enron and Worldcom”. Enron and Worldcom were the fricken boy scouts compared to what Congress has done.
I still think that the biggest threat to FARM SURVIVALISTS will be the theft of your stored goods. How will you defend against that when people are starving around you, and wearing worn out rags?
Offroad,
I think that depends on many things.
1. Where you are located, starving people can’t travel that far. The more remote the better.
2. The relationship with your neighbors. If they are generally prepared as well, willing to defend the area as well, etc. then looting, stealing, etc will be much harder. I actually plan on getting a good set of radios and a solar charging back up for them should I and those around me need a communications method in a real disaster.
3. I hate to say it but how willing you are to shoot someone trying to raid your home. When one person is shot in a group trying to raid a home the tendency is to seek a weaker target by the survivors.
4. How difficult raiding your home is. At our bug out location we are on a dead end road with only 5 other homes after ours. We went in together on a gate that blocks the road to all our homes. The terrain is mountainous and steep and we would have the high ground on any invasion. Clearly it would be easier for us to defend this if we had to then for someone to do the same with 40 flat acres of open farm land. There are benifits and detriments to all decisions, the flat land will produce more food by my mountain retreat is a heck of a lot easier to protect.
I also think your concept of hiding much of your reserves in a cache or in multiple caches is a great idea. If you ended up with food ceased they would only get the stuff you kept readily available. I also think weapons and ammo should be cashed as well. I hate saying this because I used to be a big believer in “the system” but the biggest threat to your stored food won’t be hungry masses nor are they likely to travel to the country and risk being shot to steal your guns. The biggest threat will be the government, just like in Katrina where they ceased guns from law abiding citizens leaving them defenseless.
Having some stuff you can give up with out too much of a fight may be a real good idea, call that your decoy preps.
Decoy preps is an outstanding idea. So can you put this all together and handle the feds (not exactly like waco, nor exactly like the morman fundies) kind of a raid and be fully functional in a few days?
@Offroad,
Yep that would be the idea. Simple things like have a simple break action cheap shotgun, may be a “ghetto glock” (highpoint pistol) that are back ups in reality. The G-Men come you can surrender them with out to much fight.
On food keep may be 30 days at most in anything resembling plain site again you can give up some to the G-Men or even fake G-Men (another real threat) that get the drop on you. Then when they are gone just recover other weapons and 30 more days of food. Odds are the threat won’t return as they will think they have cleaned you out.
If such was planned for by folks during Katrina then they would not have been left defenseless in their own home.
If you want to truly weep for your nation watch this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-taU9d26wT4
I swear John Adams, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would really kick some major ass if they were brought back today.
Hi all, read the threads. Ragnor Benson has a couple of books on retreat defence. The best way NOT to loose a fight is don’t get into one. Keep your head down. don’t advertise your wealth (i.e. food water supply, medicines), this is good advice pre or post collapse!!
Most of us have some level of debt. But storing food and other things you need to live is a great buffer against losing your job or a severe down turn in the economy. My brother was a car salesman. He was in and out of jobs. But when earning he always stocked up on things, especially razor blades (clean shaven gets you the job!!) Good mantra!
please try to find the book YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE by Dominguiz. it is a great discussion about money control.
Preparing for the worst case scenario is difficult today because there are so many possibilities of things that can go very wrong. Economic meltdown, terrorist attack, volcanic eruption (Katla or Yellowstone) severe weather change, (warming or cooling), political unrest that boils over, massive crop losses due to disease, etc. Preparing for these events should in my opinion be an ongoing exercise for the family.
How to prepare includes things like looking at shelf life of stored food, personal defense, shelter, and water supplies. Barter supplies and things that we may need to rebuild our lives.
I do not believe our local or government law enforcement will be able to handle the crime wave that will come, and it will be incumbant on each individual to protect himself and family. It is not that I doubt the ability of our law enforcement it is just that they will be completely overwhelmed.
One only has to look at Argintina and the economic collapse in 2001 to better understand what we could be facing. I hope and pray it never comes to that but there is a possibility it could happen here. Far better to be ready then very sorry.
Incredible. I’ve just traveled from Los Angeles to New Orleans and the thoughts from everyone I’ve met are the same. These things are inevitable and the people are starting to see. Good luck with the preparation, time seems short and God bless.