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Page added on July 11, 2014
How To Find Shelter From The Coming Storms?
Some basic suggestions for those who are seeking shelter from the coming storms of global financial crisis and recession.
Reader Andy recently wrote: “I look forward to your blog each day but am still waiting for your ideas for surviving the coming crisis.” Andy reports that he and his wife have small government and private pensions, are debt-free and have simplified their lifestyle to survive the eventual depreciation of their pensions. They currently split their time between a low-cost site in North America and Mexico. They are considering moving with the goal of establishing roots in a small community of life-minded people.
Though I have covered my own ideas in detail in my various books (Survival+: Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation, An Unconventional Guide to Investing in Troubled Times, Why Things Are Falling Apart and What We Can Do About It and Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy, I am happy to toss a few basic strategies into the ring for your consideration.
Let’s start by applauding Andy for getting so much right.
1. Don’t count on pensions maintaining their current purchasing power as the promises issued in previous eras are not sustainable going forward. I’ve addressed the reasons for this ad nauseam, but we can summarize the whole mess in four basic points:
A. Demographics. Two workers cannot support one retiree’s pensions and healthcare costs (skyrocketing everywhere as costly treatments expand along with the cohort of Baby Boomer retirees). The U.S. is already at a ratio of two full-time workers to one retiree, and this is during a “recovery.” the ratio in some European nations is heading toward 1.5-to-1 and the next global financial meltdown hasn’t even begun.
B. The exhaustion of the debt-based consumption model. The only way you can sustain a debt-based model of ever-expanding consumption is to drop interest rates to zero. But alas, lenders go broke at 0%, so either the system implodes as debtors default or lenders go bankrupt. Take your pick, the end-game of financial crisis and collapse is the same in either case.
C. Printing money out of thin air does not increase wealth, it only increases claims on existing wealth. An honest government will eventually default on its unsustainable promises; a dishonest government (the default setting everywhere) will print money to fund the promises until its currency loses purchasing power as a result of either inflation or some other flavor of currency crisis.
In other words, the dishonest government will still issue pension checks for $2,000 a month but a cup of coffee will cost $500–if anyone will take the currency at all.
D. Pensions funds are assuming absurdly unrealistic returns on their investments. Many large public pension plans are assuming long-term yields of 7.5% even as the yield on “safe” government bonds has declined to 3% or 4%. As a result, the pension fund managers have taken on staggering amounts of systemic risk as they reach for higher yields.
When the whole rotten house of cards (shadow banking, subprime everything, etc.) collapses in a stinking heap, the yields will be negative. As John Hussman has noted, asset bubbles simply bring forward all the returns from future years. Once the bubble pops, yields are substandard/negative for years or even decades.
Pension funds that earn negative yields for a few years will soon burn through their remaining capital paying out unrealistic pensions.
2. Lowering the cost of one’s lifestyle. It’s much easier to cut expenses than it is to earn more money or squeeze more yield out of capital.
3. Establishing roots in a community of like-minded people. Though it’s rarely mentioned in a culture obsessed with financial security, day-to-day security is based more on community than on central-state-issued cash–though this is often lost on those who have surrendered all sense of community in their dependency on the state.
The core of community is reciprocity: before you take, you first have to give or share. Free-riders are soon identified and shunned.
My suggestions are derived from this week’s entries on the inevitable popping of credit bubbles, the unenviable role of tax donkeys in funding corrupt state Castes and the Great Game of Elites acquiring essential resources with unlimited credit issued by central banks, leaving the 99% debt-serfs and/or tax donkeys with neither the income nor the credit to compete with Elites for real resources.
4. Lessen your dependence on anything that requires debt and assets bubbles for its survival. Whatever depends on expanding debt and asset bubbles for its survival will go away when credit/asset bubbles pop, which they always do, despite adamant claims that “this time it’s different.” It never is.
5. Control as many real resources as you can. These include water rights, energy-producing or conserving assets (solar arrays, geothermal heating/cooling systems, etc.), farmland, orchards and gardens, rental housing, and tools that you know how to use to make/repair essential assets such as transport, housing, equipment, etc.
6. It’s easier to conserve/not use something than it is to acquire it or pay for it. As resources rise in price, those who consume little will be far less impacted than those whose lifestyles requires massive consumption of gasoline, heating oil, electricity, water, etc. It’s as simple as this: don’t waste food, or anything else.
7. The easiest way to conserve energy and time is to live close to your work and to essential services/transport hubs. Those who reside in liveable city neighborhoods and towns with public transport and multiple modes of transport who can walk/bike to work, farmers markets, cafes, etc. will need far less fossil fuel than those commuting to everything via vehicle.
8. If you can’t find work/establish a livelihood, move to a locale with a better infrastructure of opportunity. I explain this in Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy, but John Kenneth Galbraith made much the same point in his 1979 book The Nature of Mass Poverty.
9. If you buy property, do so in a state with Prop 13-type limits on property tax increases. We have no choice about being tax donkeys, but choose a state where income and consumption (i.e. sales tax) are taxed rather than property tax. You can choose to earn less and buy less, but you can’t choose not to pay rising property taxes.
10. Be useful to others. That way, they’ll want you around and will welcome your presence. There are unlimited ways to be helpful/useful.
11. Trust the network, not the state or corporation. Centralized systems such as the government and global corporations are either bankrupt and don’t yet know it or are bankrupt and are well aware of it but loathe to let the rest of the world catch on.
12. Be trustworthy. Don’t be morally corrupt or work for corrupt/self-serving institutions. Many initially idealistic people think they can retain their integrity while working for morally bankrupt, self-serving bureaucracies, agencies and corporations; they are all eventually brought down to the level of the institution.
Lagniappe suggestion: lead by example. “Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means.” Albert Einstein
Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
52 Comments on "How To Find Shelter From The Coming Storms?"
Davy on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 10:28 am
Some great ideas. I have a hundred more. The biggest thing to do is attitude and lifestyle changes inline with decent scenarios structured and focused on your local. All the details fall into place with these changes. Enjoy prepping and enjoy oil age life while you can. No use suffering to prep for a life that may or may not be. Nonetheless there are basic prep strategies everyone should embrace.
Northwest Resident on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 10:43 am
I’m not sure how important all the “get out of debt” advice is. Reason being, once the financial world collapses, all that debt that the banks hold, that companies hold and that you hold will be digitally erased in a split second — the same way it was created. When nobody has a job, greenbacks are worth zilch and the vast majority of people are starting to feel hungry and scared, I wouldn’t be too worried about crashed/failed banks coming to foreclose, or about those pesky bill collectors dialing your number to harass you for payment. A good question to ask yourself right now is, since the whole world is trillion$ in debt, what’s wrong with building up my puny little debt level to acquire things that I might need for the coming SHTF? Of course, if you lose your job prior to SHTF and you’ve got a bunch of debt piled up, then sure, you’re screwed. But a lot of people will probably keep their jobs right up until the very end, which I’m guessing will come quickly and suddenly. Just something to think about…
Davy on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 11:26 am
NR, the million $ question how long will it take to get to a debt holiday? In the meantime debt collectors are multiplying like flies. I am choose moderate debt reduction. Where $ is very cheap I am keeping a little debt. My mortgage is at 2.75% that is unheard of historically.
Arthur on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 11:45 am
NRW, I would not assume that debt will evaporate, even in case of hyperinflation.
The idea: “I have a mortgage of 400k, Weimarstyle inflation (one loaf of bread costs 4 billion) will evaporate that mortgage, wonderful!”… could be premature. Once the storm is over and a new financial system/currency in place, you will be paid a visit by an assessor who will express your old mortgage in terms of the new currency.
Debt makes you vulnerable for debt collectors in case the economy crashes and you are unemployed.
No debt is a sound advice.
steve on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 12:18 pm
Yes but to pay off all your debt and have no money materials etc is not good advice small debt is o.k ….this article is based on these so called pensioners….that is a dream!…that there pension will continue or their 401k will keep filling them up…..How can you not see that when things fail they will all fail very fast!!! Hank Paulson said in 2008 that we were minutes away from martial law!…we are in much were shape than 2008!!
Davy on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 12:26 pm
No shit Steve, martial law was a “C” hair away. The technical term is Minsky moment or in other words an economic heart attack. It all comes back to fragile confidence in a complex interconnected global system. Confidence is human nature and human nature is part irrational especially in times of crisis.
Pops on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 12:30 pm
Here’s my favorite thread: 5 Rules
http://peakoil.com/forums/post477502.html?hilit=5%20rules#p477502
Mine:
Don’t Buy
Don’t Borrow
Don’t Specialize
Don’t Starve
Don’t Depend
Plantagenet on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 1:34 pm
Counting on financial collapse to expunge your debts, as northwest resident suggests, is both foolish and morally reprehensible. Far better to follow the advice in this article and reduce your expenses and maximize your own financial and social resources to create a sustainable debt free lifestyle
Nony on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 1:40 pm
Or you could run up the credit cards, run away, steal, etc. If it’s good enough for Goldman, why not good enough for anyone?
Northwest Resident on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 1:43 pm
Arthur — No debt is almost always sound advice, granted. I guess the point I was trying to make is this: if you haven’t done anything to prepare for a very hazardous-looking future because you don’t want to put any charges on your credit card, it might be a good idea to rethink that strategy.
But in the case of total financial collapse — banks go belly up, lending/credit freezes up, international shipping screeches to a halt including oil trade, etc.. — basically, the total collapse that we all know is coming sooner or later — who is going to have a job anymore, other than the military and homeland security (and undertaker) perhaps? The “money” that the bank created out of thin air to “own” that house that your hard labor is making monthly payments on will have returned to where it came from — nowhere. I guess the point I’m trying to get at is this: In a total financial collapse, many trillion$ in debt will evaporate into nothingness because it was created from nothingness. And if nobody has a job, that leaves many millions of homeowners without a means to make the mortgage payments. Who are they going to foreclose on first? And what armored division with hardcore soldiers armed to the teeth are they going to send to tell you to vacate the neighborhood of all foreclosed homes? What are they going to do? Forcefully remove every single American family from their unpaid-for home and send them off to the gulag, or tent city?
It seems likely to me that there is no “debt forgiveness” or “debt jubilee” moment coming. But there is a moment coming where debt disappears back into the digital void from whence it came, and along with it, your and my credit card debt (actually, I don’t have any of that), your mortgage, etc…
No?
Northwest Resident on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 1:51 pm
And Arthur — One final point I wanted to mention. Okay, so post-collapse, you’re months behind on your payment because the contract specified you would pay “X” dollars per month but you don’t have a job that pays dollars and nobody is accepting dollars except as a gift offering of toilet paper, how is it even possible that you could fulfill your end of the contract?
And another point. So let’s say they foreclose and kick you and your family onto the street, along with all the families in your entire fucking city because nobody has money or jobs to make payments. Who are they going to sell that house to? Nobody. What fine and upstanding (blemishless!) investment institution is going to hold your mortgage when they’ve all gone bankrupt due to financial collapse?
No, I am quite sure that where a person lives when collapse hits is where that person is going to stay — renters included — unless forced to leave by security forces, or hunger, or too dangerous, or got a better place to go. Debt collectors, foreclosures and mortgages will go the way of the dodo bird, just like the entire concept of a debt-based economic system.
Northwest Resident on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 2:13 pm
“Counting on financial collapse to expunge your debts, as northwest resident suggests, is both foolish and morally reprehensible.”
Plant, you are the master at false accusations and mischaracterizing posts to suit your own point of view. I never said to count on collapse to expunge your debts — my point was, if you’re holding off on accumulating “a little” debt to accumulate things you might need to survive collapse, then you might want to rethink that strategy — that it was just something to think about. Read my post again Plant, over and over until you finally understand what I really said, if that is even possible.
I’m personally not “counting” on collapse expunging my debts, but I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what will happen for the reasons explained above.
“morally reprehensible” — you mean, like creating money out of thin air to provide a loan on something that the recipient must work like a dog to pay off — that somehow isn’t morally reprehensible.
The debt based financial system we all live under is morally reprehensible, with the bankers and 1% growing fat and rich off the hard labor of the masses simply because they are entitled to create money out of thin air, and they get that money first before it has been subjected to inflation, and they don’t lift a finger to get the money that they loan to you AT interest. Don’t tell me about “morally reprehensible”.
Davy on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 4:32 pm
Noo, made a good point we should not forget and points to why plant thinking is dubious and that is Goldman is doing it. IOW the too big to fail banks are robbing the country and the world blind with numbers that are not even within reason. We are in a point in time Plant where the common man deserves to default on the banksters. I still recommend dancing on the edge of the cliff so to speak meaning be careful anticipating anything like a debt jubilee. I imagine the rules and regs from a collapsed BAU will linger into the here after like a rotting corpse.
Northwest Resident on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 4:55 pm
If I build a counterfeit machine, print a few billion dollars, lend it out to consumers, invest in sure-fire money-making schemes and buy a lot of whatever the heck I want and basically live high on the hog from all the interest earned on that free-to-me money, then I’m a crook and morally reprehensible.
If the banksters and their buddies do it (which they do, and have always done, and will do for as long as they can get away with it), then it is admirable and a fine outstanding way of doing business.
Pops on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 5:26 pm
Overnight Armageddon could happen, but how are you going to guess what night?
Betting that the thing that will happen is the least likely, most dramatic and just happens to let you off the hook for your debts sounds at the least a little delusional.
I mean if a person is just looking for an excuse to not give up the new car I can dig it, but be honest with yourself anyway and don’t act like it is anything else.
Northwest Resident on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 7:24 pm
Pops — I agree. Good thing I wasn’t advocating anything even close to that.
In the meantime, my speculation about what might happen in what we often refer to around here as a global economic collapse — banks go bankrupt, many if not most lose their jobs, gas lines if there is even any gas to be had, all that — seems not to have attracted any interest.
But the question is, when most or a significant majority of the population loses their job in the as yet highly speculative collapse scenario, who in their right mind really things the debt collectors and repo men are going to go into overdrive and start hammering on people for money. Unless of course, all the people who lose their jobs to collapse are hired by the bankrupt banks and mortgage companies to work as debt collectors and repo men — wouldn’t that be a spectacle. I already have read several or more real life stories of folks who have been living in their homes for a long time despite foreclosure — reason being, the banks don’t want to write down the debt they “own” on the house which they would have to do if they actually took possession. With ten or twenty million people suddenly in foreclosure, there is NO WAY that the banks and collectors are ever going to take possession of those homes, or even try.
Does anybody else see it differently?
steve on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 7:39 pm
I used to have this problem with people on the oil drum back in 07….they think that collapse will still be BAU.. and that is just not the case!! NW has laid it out perfectly, I don’t have to repeat it…if you haven’t “prepared” maybe now is the time to do so….I don’t mean go out and live high on the hog….although that might not be a bad idea either…but this time is not like the great depression…if you don’t understand this please go read Gail the Actuary’s blog….Our finite world…she lays it out very carefully…but even the preppers are ridiculed there because the collapse will be so big that very few if any humans will survive…in their opinion…but paying off your mortgage and leaving yourself with very little cash or assets…or materials is bad advice…
GregT on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 8:23 pm
“Does anybody else see it differently?”
I see it like an exponentially accelerating game of musical chairs. Every time the music stops, more and more people lose their places to sit. As long as the music continues to be played, those that have lost their chairs will need to stand, or sit on the floor. Eventually, however, the music will stop completely, and the game will end. When that happens, it will be every man for himself, the chairs will be taken by whomever is the strongest, the most ruthless, the smartest, or the best organized.
So in other words, at some point it won’t matter how much debt one has. In the interim, debt is not a good plan, unless it can be serviced right up to the point when the game ends.
Northwest Resident on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 8:46 pm
I think the politicians, the business leaders, the banks, the military and everybody else that matters see clearly that collapse is where we’re headed. Right now, we’re on a more or less stable plateau employment-wise. The unemployment numbers, fudged as they are, go up a little and down a little, but nothing dramatic. The good ship BAU is holding together for now, creaking and taking on a little water with big cracks forming in the hull, but still floating for now. When we hit the next major step down which in my definition will include a major stock market correction, a few more banks going insolvent and a fat slice of the currently employed losing their jobs as the businesses either close their doors or downsize dramatically, I do not believe that a new wave of foreclosures and evictions will result. The dastardly debt collectors will of course keep churning away because that’s what THEY have to do to earn their miniscule slice of the pie. But political and business leaders know there is a point beyond which they cannot go in terms of forcing people into the streets or just letting them starve while the vultures of debt collection circle overhead waiting for an opportunity to swoop in and grab their pathetic little morsels. We are coming to the end of the road as far as BAU is concerned, and everybody who is anybody knows it even if they aren’t talking about it. It is illogical to believe that the banks will set out to aggressively foreclose on homes and put people into the streets when the next big wave of unemployment hits. Too many people on the streets means crime, riot, murder and mayhem. The leaders must know that. As BAU winds down and collapse becomes reality, look for the banks and debt collectors to just give up trying because, ultimately, you can’t squeeze blood out of a rock, and what good does it do to repossess a house when you know for a fact that it is just going to sit vacant collecting rats, squatters and graffiti.
In any case, the banks and mortgage companies no more “own” those homes than the people who are living in them because the money they lent to finance the mortgage is nothing but freshly created digital dollars on a computer hard drive somewhere. The people living there at least had to work and save and put in some sweat equity to earn their right to live in the home.
The debt based economy games are coming to an end, right along with BAU and everything built on the back of debt and cheap energy.
So, what do you do? Go out and charge up all your credit cards and go deeply into debt because, you know, WTF? It isn’t what I’m going to do and I wouldn’t recommend it for anybody, but I would understand if somebody took that route. But my original point is this, don’t be afraid to take on a little debt if you need to in order to get prepared — getting prepared is much more important than paying off all your current debt. IMO.
Makati1 on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 9:01 pm
1. Done
2. Done
3. In process
4. Done
5. In process
6. Done
7. N/A
8. N/A
9. No problem
10.In process
11.Common Sense
12.No problem
Nothing new here. Great article for the newbee.
Makati1 on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 9:15 pm
Assuming that a collapse will erase your debt is only one option ahead. It may just shrink the dollar to it’s real value and the debt will still be in force and collectable for many years.
Debt slaves are so conditioned to live under the bankster’s chains that they will rationalize it as long as they can. (See comments above.)
So few have ever truly been debt free, that they cannot imaging a life without debt. THAT is true freedom. When you have achieved full withdrawl from debt addiction, you will NEVER want to borrow again. You will learn to live withing your means. A situation foreign to most Americans.
steve on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 9:50 pm
Makati you are soooo full of shi$…you change your tune more than the wind…You have been saying on here that collapse will come in 2015…and that it is just around the corner and the U.S will be destroyed…yippeee! And now you are saying well this could last years etc…maybe because you are tied to the teet of a pension you can’t or won’t see the truth…collapse of this magnitude will not happen neat and orderly…allowing you to keep spewing your lunacy….
Pops on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 9:55 pm
10 years ago people here said everything would be completely different after the collapse happened in a year, 2 at the most. Heck, 40 years ago Howard Ruff was saying the same thing. Still no discernable collapse, but lots of things are different: pink slips, foreclosures, lost equity, bankruptcies, pensions robbed, etc. To paraphrase Gibson:
“collapse is here, it’s just unevenly distributed.”
So if one is betting on the tsunami to flatten the playing field and take everyone out but them, I’d suggest they should study on the fact that it doesn’t take a tsunami to drown, just a couple of inches – and a couple of inches falls from the sky all the time. lol
Don’t get me wrong, one would be mistaken to think I’m a corny simply because I don’t log in daily to holler “We’re Dead!”
I was a “prepper” decades before it was a TV show, I hung around wingnut survivalist BBSs and later websites (shotgun/rifle/4Wd/etc) way before Campbell and Laherrere showed up in SciAm. I sold my small business and bought a little farm outright, have no debt, several independent sources of a small income (none are a “job” or financial instruments), little need for money, etc. I can grow and preserve all the food we and a dozen others could eat, I can heat with a coppiced wood lot and not a drop of fuel and have the tools and skills to do just about anything that needs doing around here – really, the harsher things get, the better I look.
I wrote the primer here and started the Planning for the future forum here 10 years ago to talk about just such things. So no need to preach to me about how to be prepared, I bugged out years ago.
So I think I can say I’ve studied on “collapse” on the personal level about as much anyone. After all that, the thing that makes me feel most secure is knowing I don’t have to kiss the bosses ass to keep a roof over my head and food on the table and the tow-truck out of the drive. That is because I have no debt and no clock to punch. No amount of self-deception about one’s importance at work, no amount of Parkerized bravado, N-packed wheat berries or bullion in the bunker can match that.
I’d likewise say that doom can be a little intoxicating. Keep some perspective, especially if you are convinced you have attained some level of foresight no one else has – and all you can see is Doom, maybe best to take a break and go fishing.
:^)
Pops on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 10:31 pm
Actually NWR I wasn’t addressing you directly, just the idea. But since you bring it up:
“But the question is, when most or a significant majority of the population loses their job…”
I’m not arguing that would be grand or that can never happen. I’m asking what about when it isn’t a significant portion; what about when is is only a somewhat significant portion, or a barely significant portion …
What about if it is just you?
That is the thing, betting on the big one seems silly if it means a little one can take you out.
clueless on Fri, 11th Jul 2014 11:30 pm
NO WAY OUT for all these delusional debt ridden americans. Those who can’t pay will be incarcerated by the state. USA will be the biggest prison cell in the world, the reason FEMA camps are being readied. The million plastic coffin liners are for those who are going to oppose the order. Puzzled why fema have those stashed in several states??? .MARK MY WORD.
Makati1 on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 12:30 am
steve, the end can come as IO am typing this. Or it can be a long painful process taking a decade. but I think it is somewhere in between those two extremes. Collapse for you is not the same as collapse for me or for Davy or anyone else. It will be a personal event. Those farthermost from it’s clutches will be the ones who will last the longest.
What will kill those in debt is the long process that will slowly bleed them to death. If you think that when the SHTF, you will just tear up your mortgage and credit card bills, you may be in for a shock. It is not likely to happen that way. Instead, a freeze will be placed on debts and then they will be reevaluated to some new payment level, but you will still owe. The government is going to stay in business as long as possible no matter what happens. It just will not be anywhere close to democracy or debt freedom.
Davy on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 7:13 am
First guys who really know what is going to shake out concerning the economy and when. A generalized collapse with relative stability may favor those with debt landing on what was purchased with debt as theirs. I would imagine there will still be claims to those debts. It may happen that debts with large too big to fail banks who fail may just disappear. These large organizations will be probably evaporate quickly with their complexity at every level including bookkeeping. I would imagine local debt or debt with firms that have well documented and accounted for claims will remain. These folks having warm bodies behind those debts will not just sit back while you drive around their car or live in their house. I would imagine the feds will know who owes taxes but they are a bit on the large and complex side so they could possibly lose all those 0”s and 1”s on a computer somewhere.
Pop’s your situation is much like mine in many ways as far as being a prepper. We both live in the Ozarks too so I know what you are talking about when you say you have multiple sources of income and can feed yourself. I just want to say I have a second home my boy’s mom lives in with my boys as child support. I have a small mortgage on it. I have good equity and the rate is 2.75%. When the child support is over I have a rental house to bring in income. It also allows me the ability to move somewhere else if I can’t live at the farm for some reason. My net worth is positive so I could pay this house off. I see no reason not to have a little debt yet, I see no reason not to have any debt like you mentioned. I see many reasons not to have excessive debt. So I would say a little debt is ok and a little debt may pay off if a debt holiday showed up in a collapse. No debt is a great feel good situation also especially now with the financial world in “Alice in Wonderland”. So between a little debt and no debt is my recommendation. As an ex-finance guy who would repossess equipment not paid for that my salesman would sell to dead beats over my objections, I know how easy it is for debt to go south. Please folks avoid excessive debt and the thoughts that excessive debt can make you excessive money.
Pops on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 7:58 am
I guess my thing is, when the jig is up, whether via pink slip or global MZB contagion, the last thing a guy is gonna want to worry about is debt collectors and tow truck drivers, let alone being put out in the street.
But I’ll tell ya Davy, after years of blathering on these boards, I have learned that the one hard and fast rule is that most of it is just talk so I have all the respect in the world for people who are actually doing something – even if it isn’t what I do.
JuanP on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 8:34 am
Pops, I can relate to your comment about being a prepper and survivalist for decades, and having a more open mind about what could happen and how things will play out. I have been wrong before many times. I never expected life to be so easy by now. I now feel more reassured and relaxed about collapse, though still a doomer.
Davy on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 8:34 am
Yea, Pops, I am on here because I am doing something and I find few personal acquaintances that think like me and are doing anything but status quo stuff. I tried for years to influence my family and friends but with limited success. They are aware of issues and taking some steps. For example my brother is helping me with some funds for the farm development. This board is a place I can talk with likeminded people on prepping issues and collapse issues. I appreciate those who don’t agree with a collapse scenario because I wish is was not so and maybe it won’t be so for years. I have a great life and the last thing I want is ugly, painful, and loss. I have become a doomer and prepper because I am honest with what I see coming. So, Pops, you are right there is allot of talk and few doing the walk. Yet, Pops, at least some here are talking. It may turn out in some case no action turns out better than action. I feel that in most cases basic action is advisable at minimum. I took drastic action pre-2008 and collapse was averted. It cost me some money mainly from liquidation of property I had with debt. I would tell folks here stock up on a few months of food minimum. Eliminate the most pressing problems that will be at hand in a collapse and that is food. Pops you and I could go on for hours from what could be done in addition to food but please folks stock up on food “MINIMUM”.
Davy on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 8:43 am
Juan, you are so right about being relaxed and reassured. This comes with years of being a doomer and prepper. The education, lifestyle changes, and change in attitudes allow this. It is also a wonderful hobby and past time if nothing else. You, Pops, and I know we could die before SHTF but in the meantime we are enjoying life and ready for the worst.
JuanP on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 8:44 am
Davy, my family has been involved in RE investment, construction, management, and development for over a century and I’ve been a licensed RE broker in Florida for almost 20 years. I don’t actively work in RE or tell anyone about it because I hate it with a passion, but I want to reply to your comment about your second house by saying that I very much like your strategy and how you have positioned yourself. Do not pay off that low interest mortgage ahead of time, that is free money with today’s real inflation! And do not sell your second home unless you must.
Good job!
JuanP on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 8:58 am
NR, I personally know many people living in or renting their homes in Miami who haven’t paid a cent on their mortgages for up to seven years and still have possesion of the homes. Many other units are sitting empty, getting infested by mold, roaches, rats, and termites, because absentee and foreign owners simply ignore the problem indefinitely.
One funny detail about this is that the court can’t serve any papers to many absentee owners cause they don’t know where they are, and that delays the whole foreclosure for years.
Banks and note holders are waitin for the market to recover and can only sell so much before prices start going down again, so they are playing a waiting game, cause they don’t want to write down those loans. I don’t believe the market will recover so this could last a very long time.
Northwest Resident on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 11:28 am
JuanP — What you wrote exactly highlights the point I’m trying to make, and that is, there will come a point at which it simply isn’t worth it for whatever financial institutions are left standing to deploy their diminished resources to try and reclaim property that is worth exactly zero to them. As you point out, there are already many homes in foreclosure that the banks already have no interest in repossessing and the people who previously “owned” those homes are still living there for free, and will continue living there for free because this economy is NOT going to pick up, it is on a downhill slide picking up speed incrementally. Other than little bubbles of real estate appreciation like we see in New York and a few other places, real estate prices have already been inflated as much as they are going to be or close. It will NEVER be worth it for the banks to kick those people out onto the streets and reclaim “their” property. We are only going to see more and more of the same thing, only worse.
My discussion on this article began with the premise that being prepared for collapse is much more important than trying to pay off your debt or stay out of debt. And then I began speculating that what the heck, in a total collapse scenario, all that debt would probably disappear into the electronic void from which it came anyway. Seriously, when you get right down to it, what is debt today except a bunch of zeroes and ones on a computer chip somewhere, as Davy points out. If the grid goes down, debt disappears with it. Yeah, some bank on the other side of the country or in the big city near where you live might still have some paper with your signature on it, but that paper will be worthless in a collapse scenario other than perhaps as toilet paper or fire starter. And that is my whole point. We all know where this is heading. There will be a point in time, sooner or later, where BAU ends, where credit is not issued and where the many trillions in debt (wealth!!) that the global economy has accumulated simply vanishes into thin air.
The takeaway of all this, from my point of view is, don’t load yourself down with debt now of course because it could be another few years or so before TSHTF and you don’t want to live in misery and debt poverty during that time. But also, don’t be afraid to charge up a credit card — assuming you can make the payments — or buy that little piece of land out in the country where you can really establish yourself for collapse, even if it strains the finances. Chances are, the way things are going, if you suddenly find yourself without a job or otherwise unable to make payments, you still “possess” that property or those supplies or whatever, and as has been the case for many centuries, possession is nine tenth’s of the (natural) law.
Hey Pops — how in the hell can you grow enough food for 13 people without a tractor and/or fuel-powered equipment?! Please elaborate — inquiring minds want to know!
P.S. Please allow me to “crow” a little. I work as a software developer in the financial/investment services sector. The company I work for is booming, right along with the bubble inflated stock markets. As long as their are investors investing, and as long as their are investment advisors servicing the investment accounts of those investors, I am flat out guaranteed to keep my very high paying job. And guess what — when it gets to the point where I lose my job because the investment advisors and investors have all lost their money and there is no more stock market, then THAT is the definition of TEOTWAWKI, we are in total collapse and nobody else has a job either, so I’ll join the crowd. And where I live, in the home I am currently making payments on (my only debt), is where I will stay unless the US Military or homeland security or other external forces make me leave — it certainly won’t be the San Diego based mortgage company that comes to get my house, that is a given that you can “take to the bank” — if you can find one that is still in business, that is — good luck with that.
Davy on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 12:11 pm
NR, I can crow a little too coming from a 1%er family. I left the family business but still ride their coat tails. I have a nice nest egg and have adjusted my life to simple and inexpensive living. I guess NR you and I have the ability to prep where other just don’t. We have to acknowledge that partially when we complain about talking but not walking the walk.
Northwest Resident on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 12:30 pm
Davy — It is true that a lot of people for whatever reasons (mostly financial) do not have the resources to adequately prep, even if they wanted to or rather, felt the need to do so. And that is a sad fact of life.
Reverse Engineer over at the Doomstead Diner (linked from Gail’s blog site) wrote a big article about this a while back, and offered some suggestions that I thought were viable.
At minimum, the very minimum, a guy (say, 25 years old, little to no income and just a part time job maybe) could team up with one or more friends. They could accumulate camping gear, bags of rice and wheat, canned goods — the big emphasis here is on long shelf life food!!. Then, find a place outside of the big shitty (RE’s term) in the mountains or forest where you want to use as your getaway hideout. Dig some big holes. Store that food and whatever other preps you have in plastic garbage cans, put the lids on tight, bury the garbage cans and there is your emergency food and prep supply.
That idea appeals to me immensely because when I was younger I was a camping fanatic as were my friends. The main idea is, don’t get stuck in the big shitty when TSHTF. Monitor the news closely. Educate yourself. Be prepared to bug out fast. Keep the car gassed up (the dependable one that isn’t going to maybe break down half way to the getaway spot). Do dry runs with your friends. Prepare!
Of course, there are those who don’t even have part time jobs, or cars, or any means whatsoever to buy preps, and who couldn’t last a day without a Big Mac anyway. Best plan for those people is to paint a big red “X” on their butts (or get it tattooed) and practice bending over and kissing it. When they time comes, they’ll be ready to kiss their ass goodbye.
Davy on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 12:59 pm
NR, great idea, they can have a super secrete zombie squad club. I was also a camper and survivalist when young. It was great fun. They can sit around smoke dope and drink cheap beer after their work is done. Companionship and comradery that is what life is about when young!
Northwest Resident on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 1:06 pm
Yeah, if I was that 20-something prepper stocking my garbage can for burial out in the wilderness, that would be top priority — lots of Jack Daniels, cheap cigars and plenty of weed. After I got that supply secured and in the ground, then I’d move on to the next priorities down the list.
JuanP on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 2:01 pm
NWR, I think it makes sense to spend, and borrow if necessary, $1,000 on a credit card to buy an emergemcy kit and water and food supply, if you have the spare cash or have a source of income and credit and can afford the minimum payments until you get a chance to pay the balance off, but this is beyond many people’s reach as mentioned. Little by little is best for poor people.
Boy Scout and fishing, camping, and outdoor and watersports enthusiast since 8, survivalist since 13, prepper all my life.
I am very lucky in that I still do it regularly by myself and with my wife. Without that I would lose what’s left of my sanity. Enjoy the Super Moon tonight!
Pops on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 2:29 pm
NWR, you’re saying that your job is super secure as a coder for the owners but you think when the balloon goes up all the debt will disappear – because the owners will fold? I’m thinkin you have a disconnect in your logic somewhere …
I’m just giving you a hard time LOL
As for food, its easy to grow food here, although like anywhere else not so easy to make a living at it on a small place. We have 40-something inches of rain in the growing season mostly, and the growing season is over 200 days long, easily enough for a spring and fall crop if the weather permits – or a do over if it doesn’t.
I have 40 acres of pretty deep soil (for the Ozarks) so can grow most anything. With a dozen hands, beans, corn, potatoes would be coming out the ears and beef, mutton, dairy and chickens pretty well raise themselves with 35 acres of mixed warm and cool grass. Throw in a sow and plant a little more corn and you have some bacon.
I’ve done all that but haven’t raised and rape or soy for diesel, quite doable as well but I can’t practice everything.
Northwest Resident on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 2:57 pm
Pops — Ok, with a dozen hands on deck, that would do it. Heck, if you had two dozen people doing the work, it sounds like you’ve got a setup that could produce enough to feed them all, assuming they all do their work.
My setup is tiny compared to yours. And this is my first year attempt at growing my own food. But I am and have always been a very good (A) student, and I studied like crazy before implementing my plan. Now, looking into my 1/16th acre back yard, I have very healthy wheat, two varieties of corn, cowpeas, pole beans, alfalfa, cucumbers and squash, onions, lots and lots of potatoes, and tomatoes growing. I know how to preserve them, and I have the grain grinder for the corn and wheat. But realistically, it is not going to be enough to feed three people all year round, much less the laying hens that are very big eaters. BUT, I have plenty of long term storage food all saved up, and in a full blown collapse scenario I imagine some or most of my neighbors will move out, commit hari-kari or simply die from lack of medicine/medical treatment or other natural/unnatural causes. All I have to do is survive a year or two, and I imagine there will be plenty of backyards and front yards in my neighborhood that I can expand into, which would give me the space I need to grow enough to do just what you’re doing. The key I think is to acquire the knowledge and know-how in growing food — it is NOT as simple as planting a few seeds and waiting for the food to grow, as you know. Knowing how to store food long term is another huge subject that unless you’ve studied it and practiced it and made your share of beginner’s mistakes, then it is too late. My overall goal is to become knowledgeable, experienced and capable. When the time comes, I’ll be able to teach people how to grow their own food, as long as they can and will do the work, and to have enough seed on hand to get them started. Well, that’s the plan…
Pops, the debt will disappear when the banks crash and the electric grid is no longer sustainable, that is what I believe. How could it not be true?
And even if some bank somewhere that holds the mortgage on your home happens to somehow stay in business, how are they going to collect their debts when nobody has a job and nobody is earning any money? That defies logic.
So, Wells Fargo owns the mortgage on my house and fifty million other mortgages. Collapse strikes. Everybody stops paying for obvious reasons. Wells Fargo crawls out of the dust and decides it is time to start foreclosing on all those “losers” who lost their jobs. Ha!! Good luck, motherfuckers. If they send a debt collector to my house, I’ll ambush that sucker, and that is a promise. And don’t think about a hundred million or more people won’t be doing the exact same thing.
When collapse hits, debt disappears almost entirely. Except for personal debt. If you borrowed something valuable from me and you haven’t paid me back yet, then I may try to collect from you, if I can. But global debt, the type stored in bits and bytes on the electronic network — say goodbye.
Don’t you think?
Davy on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 4:03 pm
Pops I got 400 acres of mostly grazing land. If you have 40 acres of deep soil you are along an ozarks stream. Wish I knew what stream to picture your place. I pretty much floated all of them in my youth.
Better yet NR, when SHTF your neighbors beautiful 18 yr old will want to join your effort and she is a good cook among other things)
Pops on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 5:02 pm
Davy, we’re just out of Mt Vernon, on a branch of Stahl creek up from the Spring river near Talbot conservation area. It’s mostly pretty good silty loam (Creldon) and it is near 30″ deep in places. This farm was deeded in 1847 if I remember but not built on until 1914. The builder died not long after the ’29 crash and the wife lived here until the ”60s so it didn’t get worked a lot. It only has a slight slope. I’ve rotated corn/alfalfa/fescue trying to establish an endophyte free stand and will one day put in about a third warm season grass if I get the chance.
NWR, more power to ya!
(the perfect peaker salutation is it not? LOL)
I think it is great you are getting your hands dirty, lots of folks go in for buying The List and going to the range a couple of times a year and think they’re golden for the big die off. You have the right idea, in my opinion anyway.
There are 77,803 posts in the Planning forum on 2,668 topics and I bet you can dig up one that has good info. Looking just now I see your thread has 1,830 views and 27 replies. The nice thing about forum posts is they are there forever as opposed to the comments box here.
Not really sure what happened to the planning forum, it was the most active by far here for many years. Most of the other PO sites are the same. I sometimes think the lesser depression kinda scared off the armchair doomers who were just playing a computer game. What I always liked about the PFTF forum here is that everything is discussed in light of PO, not a lot of other forums cn say that and it makes a big difference.
Anyway I invite you all to come on in and dig up whatever old topic you find interesting and comment, critique, criticize or whatever – or just start a new one: it’s time to rekindle some interest!
R1verat on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 6:10 pm
Can’t guess at whether debt will be “modified” or not. As for me, I am drilling down on my debt. I don’t want the mental anguish of trying to guess if someone is going to show up or not, to evict me from my spot of land that I’m prepping gardens, animal grazing areas, etc…on. I will survive where I am or I will die here.
Do subscribe to self-sufficiency. This is not a recent fad for me, but has always been a way of life. What is most important to me, but receives minimal discussion, is the importance of community building. No man is an island. Where I live my small circle of friends labor share, helping each other NOW. Not waiting for when the SHTF.
Next priority for me is And the next important is preparing mentally. This includes being in the moment, having an attitude of gratitude. Almost everyone I know is on happy pills of some kind. I can not imagine what the majority of people are going to do when their med supply is disrupted or stopped. Was on that road but got off voluntarily. Hard road but best for me.
We will all have our own experiences of life, no matter the circumstances.
Davy on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 6:15 pm
Pops, nice country out there in west MO. I spent some time in Joplin and get through Springfield occasionally. I have 400 acres of a combination of woody draws a few patches of timbered woods, pasture, and there are 3 large lakes. I am south of Rolla. We tried to put most of our acreage in warm season grass but only a 1/3 took. I have decided to revert what didn’t take to fescue, timothy, and orchard grass. I am busy now replacing fences. The biggest problem I have is with invasive weeds and grasses. I am fighting them with burning, mowing, and grazing. I use some chemicals but I don’t like to.
Davy on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 6:58 pm
Riverrat, I am kinda like you this place will be my Alamo. I also agree that no man is an island. I have good relations with the locals. Our farm has been here since the 40’s so we are well connected in the area.
What state you in Riverat?
Northwest Resident on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 8:15 pm
Davy, keep telling me things like that, and I’ll be praying for collapse in no time at all! 🙂
Northwest Resident on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 8:44 pm
Pops — Thanks for the “power to me” best wishes. I appreciate it!
Just guessing, but probably one reason that you’re not getting as much participation in your prepping forum these days is because just about everybody who knows what’s coming is already well on their way to getting prepared. When I first realized that we have a collapse headed our way, I became a voracious consumer of prepping articles and information, including yours on this site. After a while, I developed a plan based on all I learned and since then my main research on prepping has been information related to growing the crops that I am growing, and preserving them. When it comes to prepping, I think I have it all figured out and I imagine a lot of other people do, versus back in time a ways when everybody was trying to figure out what to do. But I’m sure that your prepping forum still serves as a valuable resource to those who like me are getting into the game a little late. You should be real proud about that, it was and remains a valuable service to those who are seeking information.
Five solid months of cutting down trees, chunking them up and putting them into organized piles, building raised planters, digging in hard packed ancient fine sandy silt to install those planters and turn the soil and mix in the mulch and fertilizers, hacking and chopping out huge piles of tree roots all the way along, then getting seeds planted after completing each new planter and prepping the soil. It was a grinder, an exercise in physical endurance and a test of willpower. But I got it done. Now, looking at everything growing, I see clearly that I didn’t mix the soil good enough in a lot of areas, or I didn’t plant the seed soon enough, or I didn’t fertilize enough in other places, or especially with the wheat I wasted a lot of space by not spacing the seeds properly. But I have learned, and I won’t be making those mistakes next growing season, that’s for sure.
I wish I was in the Ozarks with you and Davy, maybe along with a few other posters on this forum who I’ve grown to like and who it seems I have just about everything in common with. It is a damn crying shame that we’re all spread out across the country. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could all get together for a “doomer campout” maybe at your place, or Davy’s, or up in Vancouver Canada at GregT’s place. Hell, it would even fun to get together down in Texas at rockman’s patch of parched praire — I could bring my high-powered pellet rifle along and probably get in a lot of target practice on the prairie dogs (just kidding, I only kill what I can eat or what is eating what I intend to eat). What fun it would be! Oh well, when doom descends on us, there will be others in my vicinity who pop out of the woodwork and who are, like me, hardcore survivors, good people with good values, hard workers, ready to fight to the death to insure survival, but still loving life with all the challenges big and small and joyful and terrible.
Davy on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 9:00 pm
Funny, NR, I was thinking a reunion of some kind too the other day. Should we do that pre or post collapse? lol
Northwest Resident on Sat, 12th Jul 2014 9:40 pm
Better do it pre-collapse, Davy. It is a long walk or horse ride to Mo from Portland, Oregon. My ancestors on my mom’s side came across the Oregon trail, starting out (like most others) in Missouri. I guess I’d have to do a reverse Oregon trail crossing to make it out your way. A little too far, realistically speaking. Pre-collapse while the airlines are still in business, or not at all, sorry.