Neo-Survivalist

Piggy-backing off my previous post on being afraid to travel, my thought process migrated from travel to work.  What if something happens at work?  I’ve decided I should have a nice little supply bag stashed in my office.  The reality is that I spend more time at work during the week than anywhere else.  Therefore, if something were to happen, there is a very high chance that it occurs while I’m in my office.

Some supplies I’m considering adding to my work/office stash include:

1. Tennis shoes, socks, and a change of casual clothes – If I need to run home (10+ miles), I don’t want to be running/walking in my dress shoes and slacks.
2. A handgun - General self-defense, plus I work in a fairly large office building and there have been events recently (including here in my home town) of disgruntled or recently fired employees getting violent at office buildings.
3. Cash - A few hundred bucks in cash might be a good thing to have available.  What if the power is out or there is a financial system collapse?  You might be able to get a few items before those unprepared folks loot the stores around you.

Other random items that might be worthwhile are flashlights, batteries, emergency radio, granola bars, water bottles, etc.

What do you think?  Do you have a stash at work?

General Preparedness

I’ve recently developed a fear of travel.  No, I’m not afraid of flying or anything.  I used to work a job that required me flying every single week, so that isn’t the issue.  The concern that has developed is a major disaster happening while I’m away from my family.

For example, my wife and I are traveling from Florida to Alaska later this year.  We have a little girl that we are leaving behind with her grandparents.  What if the transportation grid completely goes down while we’re away?  This is a thought that keeps me up at night.  It’s one thing to be unable to drive home from work and have to walk 10 miles, but Alaska to Florida?  It’s nearly impossible.

Thus is the mentality and thought process of someone who has recently awakened to the dangers and realities of our world.  Sometimes I wish I didn’t wake up.  To plan for such risks takes well thought out plans.  Communication with family members is crucial.  If I’m away and something happens, there should be a clear plan in place in order what to do and where to meet in case transportation and/or communication is down.

Putting plans in writing for various emergencies is a big task that I need to take care of with my family.  There should be a clear understanding of what to do for a range of emergencies that could happen.  This is hugely important.

General Preparedness

I’m currently reading “The Black Swan” by Taleb (a very interesteing read).  The basic summary of the book is that major, catastrophic events can and do take place on a regular basis without any ability to see them coming.  Taleb goes through an indepth analysis with a large focus on human psychology to explain why we fail to see these enormous events coming.  Black Swan events have been the financial crisis in 2008, September 11th, etc.

As I’m reading this book, I can’t help but think of America and the prevailing attitude of most Americans that nothing catastrophically bad can happen on any large scale to America.  Sure we have our bumps in the road like Hurricane Katrina and the Los Angeles riots in the 90s, but those are confined to specific regions or cities.  Anything on a large scale that has far reaching and long lasting devastation is simply not going to happen here.  This plays into the Black Swan Theory perfectly and eerily.

The survivalist community often discusses TEOTWAWKI.  This refers to a completely different world than what we know now.  The cause of this shift might be a war, a bomb, an economic collapse, something, but nevertheless, it is a time when things are drastically different.  I’m also currently reading “One Second After,” by Forstchen which describes a man’s struggle following an EMP attack here in America (I read multiple books simultaneously).

These events are unimaginable for 99% of America and are not even considered.  We do not realize how fragile our communities, our existence and our systems that we depend on really are.  When you get “awakened” to these realities, it really changes you and forces you to think differently.  As somebody with little children, I probably think about these things even more than those without children.

Reading “The Black Swan” is a must read for anyone in the survival community.  It is an unusual read and a fairly difficult one, but it sheds light on America today in my opinion, especially when it comes to possible societal collapse which most Americans view as an impossibility.

America

When getting into the “survival” game, I became immediately concerned with the fact that I had no supply of long term food storage outside of a few cans of soup in my pantry.  It immediately became a focus for me in my plan to prepare for an uncertain future.

I was also amazed to read about the typical supply chain situation that our retailers embrace for profitability and cash flow purposes.  Any disruption to this fragile system and we would likely see stores run out of food in a matter of hours.  A scary situation indeed for the vast majority of Americans.

Building My Supply

So, with that said, I needed to build a core supply and at least of some level of insurance should a food shortage or emergency occur.  Furthermore, I have zero experience canning foods nor do I really want to learn about it (I have a busy life and schedule).

My solution was to buy some Value Buckets from the Ready Store.  This is an online website selling survival and preparedness items.  The Value Buckets are a way to buy a significant quantity of an item, have it sealed professionally and have them shipped to my door (if you’re over $100 in a single order – which is easy to do – you get free shipping).  The Value Buckets have a 25-30 year shelf life if you keep them in a climate controlled area.  You can easily build a core food supply with a few Value Buckets of some staple items.

You can buy Value Buckets for the great, core items like rice, wheat, sugar, milk, oats, beans, etc.  So far, I’ve purchased three: black beans, oatmeal, and white rice.  Those buckets combined with some other items I’ve also picked up recently has created a nice little core food supply.  Is it complete?  No.  But, it is a great starting point.

The Value Buckets might not be the cheapest way to store food, but like I said, I don’t have experience sealing up food in buckets, and I can buy a quality product that is professionally sealed up and then just put it up in my closet.  I have the peace of mind knowing the product was put together correctly.  Done.

Food Preparation

Many people agree that eventually, we will have serious inflation.  Possibly, hyperinflation.  I’m not ready to jump on board the hyperinflation train yet, because I think there is still a way to avoid it, but I’m struggling to find a way that we won’t have at least some level of inflation in the future.  The problem with jumping both feet into the hyperinflation camp is deciding what to do about it.

To see what I mean, consider the following questions:

1. Should you not hold any cash?
2. Should you stop paying off your mortgage?  After all, if we have hyperinflation, then your debts will be inflated away
3. If you’re certain of hyperinflation, shouldn’t you just run up your credit cards and buy a bunch of gold?

These are questions that depending on how you answer them might result in some pretty extreme action.  Additionally, if you were in the camp of going all out to protect yourself from inflation, what are you doing to hedge against the possibility of not having hyperinflation?

If you take all your cash and put it into gold, what if we get massive deflation and gold takes a hit (along with everything else)?

I believe in holding gold, but I also believe in not putting all your eggs in one basket.  Therefore, I think it’s smart to diversify across the following assets:

1. Gold & other precious metals
2. Cash – including actual cash held at your property
3. Defensive, dividend stocks that will be able to perform in an inflationary environment

Your allocation might be different than mine based on how much of a believer you are in inflation.  Personally, I think we still have some deflation ahead until we get big time inflation.  If gold & stocks take a hit, I will use that opportunity to unload more cash into those assets.  Until then, I’m still holding a pretty good amount of cash.

Financial Preparation

More evidence of the oligarchy that runs America these days.  It has come out that Goldman Sachs CEO has been a frequent visitor of the Obama White House, even as the lawyers prepared for the SEC fraud case against Goldman Sachs (GS).

Take a look at the article from McClatchy:

While Goldman Sachs’ lawyers negotiated with the Securities and Exchange Commission over potentially explosive civil fraud charges, Goldman’s chief executive visited the White House at least four times.

Also, apparently, Goldman and Obama share legal advisors:

Meanwhile, however, Goldman is retaining former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig as a member of its legal team. In addition, when he worked as an investment banker in Chicago a decade ago, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel advised one client who also retained Goldman as an adviser on the same $8.2 billion deal.

America

Amazing thread over at Zero Hedge today regarding the idea of purposefully running up debt and walking away from it, telling the banks to come and get it.  More Americans are getting frustrated with the oligarchy-like behavior of Wall St and Washington.  If the guys in charge don’t play by the rules, why should we?

People walking away from homes is no new thing, but purposefully ratcheting up credit card with no intention to pay is certainly a new development in today’s world of bailouts.  I personally am not going to implement this financial strategy in my own life, but I do not blame the people who are so frustrated that they are resorted to these tactics.  Heck, if I were single and unemployed, I’d probably consider it too.

The question becomes where does this lead?  Well, more losses on banks’ balance sheets have to be recognized one way or another (even with manipulative accounting rules).  Most likely, it means more monetization from the Fed which means inflation.  Boy, things are sure getting crazy even if the stock market continues to “recover”.

Take this as a reminder to at least own some gold, silver and precious metals.  Inflation will come at some point.

Financial Preparation

America

The massive disruptions to everyday life caused by Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano continue to play out before our eyes.  The biggest victim currently is the airline industry which is reportedly losing $250 million every day due to the no fly restrictions.

The lesson to learn here is that major events like this volcano eruption can cause major disruptions to the “systems” that we rely on.  Whether it’s travel, food, water, security, power, etc. these systems are not magic.  They are complex systems that can be disrupted.  We take for granted that everything works automatically.

Major volcano eruptions like this can cause disastrous consequences such as major food shortages, flooding, and more.  Add volcano eruptions to your list of reassons to take the necessary steps to prepare your family for any type of uncertain future.

On a side note, it is crazy to think of the frequency of major geological events these days.  The earthquakes in Haiti and Chili are still present in our minds, and now the incredible images of this massive volcano in Iceland are all over the news.  You’d think more people are buying into neo-survivalism… then again, maybe they are.

Natural Disasters

Most survival blogs are built around the idea of preparing for TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It).  Well, what about preparing for tough times, tough circumstances or outright disaster within the context of the world as we know it still functioning at least somewhat?  If you think about it, this is more realistic, and is probably worth planning for and preparing for at least as much as TEOTWAWKI.

So, what are some realistic scenarios that we should prep for?

Prolonged Economic Depression

A prolonged economic depression is a near certainty in my mind.  There will be much economic pain associated with it and some very nasty ramifications, but with that said, I believe the country will still operate and have some level of economic order to it.  Think about the Great Depression.  Horrendous unemployment in the 25% range.  Realize as bad as that is, 75% still were employed.  It was far from a total societal collapse.

With a major economic depression, there are definitely nasty side effects so I don’t wish to downplan the ugliness here.  First, crime will likely shoot up significantly as people without jobs turn to crime.  Throw in the fact that most municipalities are in terrible fiscal shape which will likely mean reduced police forces, and you’ll see that this is not a pleasant scenario.  You should plan to be able to protect yourself, your home and your family.

Work on building significant reserves of cash, supplies and definitely food & water.  Supply disruptions might be common in a major depression so make sure you have things you need.  In case of the situation where you lose your job, work on building reserves to get you through.

Terrorist Attacks

The world changed on 9/11.  With the United States still engaged in the “war on terror” there are plenty of terrorist out there plotting to attack America.  This is a very possible and maybe even likely event at some point in the future.  Major disruptions to normal systems that we rely on such as power, food supply, gas supply, etc. can occur in such an event.  Another reason to stock up on certain items.

Natural Disasters

As we’ve seen recently over the years, events like Hurricane Katrina, Asian tsunamis, earthquakes (Haiti, Chili) and now even Icelandic volcanos are happening all the time.  We need to prepare for a variety of disasters.  As a Floridian, much of my survival preps can double as hurricane preparation as hurricanes are pretty common here.  Power, water, food, first-aid, and other supplies are all good to have on hand for natural disaster preparation.

Inflation

Inflation has been happening underneath the surface (and sometimes right in our face) over the last 100 years.  Since the Federal Reserve was created in the early 1900′s, the U.S. dollar has lost over 97% of its purchasing power.  Encouraging, huh?

Well with recent policy of printing money to paper over massive debt losses, inflation seems like a very possible scenario down the road.  Stocking up on usable consumer goods as well as “sound money” like precious metals is a good plan to prepare for inflation.  With this said, don’t jump on board the inflation train 100%.  There are real deflationary forces in the economy and putting all your eggs in one basket isn’t smart anyways.

What scenarios are you prepping for?

General Preparedness