Well I guess I will tell you what is worrying me. I am not particularly worried about power outages or storms or natural disasters. Not to say that all those can't happen. The risk of a storm or whatever is more or less the same as it always has been. Also it helps that I am pretty prepared for that sort of thing. Of course some tin horn dictator or totalitarian state could blow a couple nukes up in the sky and cause an EMP then it would be One Second After. I think those sort of low probability high impact events are worth paying a bit of attention to but I don't think the odds of such occurrence are any higher than a decade ago. I sort of look at them like if I happen to be in line at a coffee shop and 5 guys with AK's roll in and start mowing people down. You do the best you can and that is that.
The economy and inflation are what is worrying me these days. My income is secure. That is quite an intentional choice but still a blessing. I know almost to the dollar (somehow it is always a bit different) what I will get paid on the first and the fifteenth. However I am not entirely sure what it will buy me. If you start talking about 8, 10 or even 15 percent inflation that can reek havoc on any budget.
More concerning than tightening our belt a bit and lowering our standard of living are the second and third order effects of that kind of ruinous inflation. Very quickly banks would realize that the interest they charge needs to not just factor in risk and their profit but that the money they are repaid will buy less than the money they loan out. I recall a friend talking about 15% home mortgages in the late 70's. That would mean the cost for a business to borrow money would be ridiculous. Businesses would be less able to grow or expand. Good luck with a start up. This in turn means more unemployment so fewer people are buying less. Short of the debt trap you don't see many more vicious cycles.
What can I do about this? I think a lot of conservative financial advice suits these times well. In particular stuff like living below your means, saving and avoiding debt is so important. A person with a few dollars put away, reasonable bills and little debt can ride out a decrease in standard of living (from inflation or job loss). The exact same family with the same income disruption but a bunch of bills, a visa card and no savings will be in deep trouble.
We have some money put away and few bills. Between slashing our discretionary spending and going to minimum payments we could live on a lot less than we bring in. If need be we could live off savings for some time. In several months we will have paid off my student loan and will be debt free.
A small but regular portion of our income gets turned into silver and gold. I buy them as an insurance policy. If they go up 100 or even 300 percent in dollar denominated value I wouldn't sell. If things go beyond ruinous inflation to outright hyperinflation. Some of our precious metals would give our family a little bit of help in adjusting to the new reality and the rest would be our proverbial nest egg.
If we were 20 years older and better established real estate that can produce income would be where I would park money. A little paid off house you could rent would be better than some cash in a mutual fund. However since we aren't at that point in life yet it is a moot point.
Slowly but surely we are preparing for slightly darker scenarios. Argentina and FerFal's blog in particular are of a real help here. I am not so concerned with a full on Mad Max scenario but am working on self contained ways to maintain as normal of a life as possible no matter what disruptions we face. Little things like being able to do laundry easily or brew my own beer or listening to stations far away on the world band radio aren't huge but they start to add up.
There is a higher than normal risk of theft and violent crime. This doesn't worry me so much right now. I live in a pretty small safe world right now. When elsewhere I am pretty cautious about where I go and carry a handgun. However if you aren't a fit young guy who is reasonably trained and carries a gun it might be a good idea to worry about this. Get your body into some resemblance of shape. Get trained with firearms and start carrying one. Be aware of what you do and where you go. Not a lot of people get robbed while buying groceries at 3pm but going to the ATM at midnight is dumb.
What's worrying you?
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11 comments:
I started buying Series I bonds about a year ago. They are inflation-linked bonds. If inflation goes thru the roof then at least *some* of my savings will be protected.
What's been worrying me lately is the amount of crime in this county. It's getting out of control. It seems more frequent and more violent. Very worrisome.
Trailer Park Sam
The US economy is my biggest worry.
Life in Germany is pretty easy right now.I'm not expecting a lot of problems over here,I am preparing for problems,just in case.
Wouldn't the Army raise your COLA pay? When the US dollar took a dip back when I was in the Army we got a COLA raise.
It's not going to get better,I'm afraid.If America doesn't start manufacturing stuff again,if no jobs are created....SHTF time.
Take care.
Trailer Park Sam, Interesting and a good idea. However I would wager the official inflation rate would be at least somewhat offset from reality.
Bigunsfan, Yeah I tend to agree. It is true that COLA would adjust but that would be based on the CPI and I am less than confident about its accuracy.
America needs to produce some stuff that people will buy. We are not going to produce tennis shoes or sweat shirts cheaper than Asia. We need medical and tech and many other value added kinds of manufacturing.
I hold concerns political-economic, but I am not worried about anything except finding a career building work. My worries in otherwords are personal, and concerns do not keep my attention long anymore. I have stuff on hand. There is no need to worry past that point. Meine Frau is always harping on that point, and she is right. Life is too short.
i'm worried about who i'll become once i start going hungry. (or worse, seeing people i love going hungry)
EMP may not be as bad as we feared. in tests recently some modern cars were unaffected. even our auto industry is part of the globalist economy. "our" jobs have been systematically outsourced to bring "we the people" under control. i'll have to finish reading: "world made by hand", for some ideas on how to keep living, once they decide to "pull the rug" out from under us. my biggest wory if i were you, would be getting Jen, Walker and Self "home" to loved ones post colapse. (although the people where you're living now, certainly know a few things about living after a colapse)
Although I don't worry a lot about an EMP, I DO worry about it more than I did 5 years ago. I also read the article about them not being as much of a problem with cars, but the rest of the grid will still be fried. Our plans have adjusted for that. Not top of our Hit Parade, though.
My concerns, too, revolve around financial issues and civil unrest. On both issues I am genuinely past the "if" stage, and into the "when" stage.
I think our economy will be along the lines of Argentina, but I think our civil unrest is going to go off the charts. Too many people either work for the government or get an Income Redistribution check from them. When those stop, or are seriously curtailed, it's gonna be ugly.
"My income is secure."
Until there is a reduction in force (RIF). It happens and as usual in the govt, there is no genius at S1/G1/J1 (or HR) making smart picks on who stays and who goes. I work for the govt and am also secure - for now. Once the govt starts slashing, defense (DoD) will eventually bleed like everyone else.
Suburban Survivalist, I meant short to medium term. Like the next couple of years not the rest of a career. I can note that the Army intentionally grew slower than the politicians wanted. It was grown in such a manner so that when things eventually slow down a bit the inevitable shrink can be by recruiting less, promoting less and retirement/ people getting out.
I am not so sure defense will be cut significantly at least in terms of personnel. I see training and equipment getting cut more. The hollow Army of the 80's where units couldn't afford the gas to go training and chow to eat there seems more likely than the Clinton era RIF's.
My worry? Well, in this day and age, rationality has pretty well gone out the window in favor of raw emotion-based action. It's "Me First," live-for-the-minute world. And as Gerald Celente keeps pointing out, "When people lose everything, they have nothing to lose, and they lose it." There is nothing more terrorizing than a society that has lost its rational capabilities. They turn into beasts, but they are worse than beasts, precisely because of the humanity that should be present.
I am still haunted by one sentence written by an American nurse who witnessed the Rape of Nanking, and all the animalistic behaviors perpetrated by the Japanese. She said in a letter, "It is as though we are facing the forces of darkness." I have little doubt they were. And I have little doubt that the next time, it will be far worse.
Prepare for the worst.
I really think it's going to play out much like in Rawles' book, Patriots...
I, too, have been buying silver and ammo.
My debt. I waited too long to get into preparing and came to the party with about $8000 in credit debt. I've stopped it growing and pay extra but it is so hard to get out from under.
I built a base of preps to get a bit right before something happens, but now growing my preps has slowed to a crawl as I am in the pay down my debt prep phase.
I made my bed now . . .
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