A Teaspoon of Medicine Makes the Bullshit Go Down
As I have not so gracefully gotten older, my sense of mortality becomes hightened. I read a copious amount on a plethora of subjects including medicine. Then there is free to air television and the University of Washington TV Mini-Medical courses and Research TV.
There is no doubt that the medical profession is on the cutting edge of gaining insight into the workings of the human physical condition. With the current discoveries into genetics and immunilogical responses, new drugs and their applications will become tailored to the individual.
This leads me to a troublesome line of reasoning. First-world humans have a pathological fear of death. We avoid talking about it. We will spend every last cent we can aquire to avoid it. We look to the government to help us pay for Herculean efforts to combat it. The insurance companies love it.
Once I developed this line of reasoning, it wasn't a giant leap to realize that most of what I thought I knew about medicine was wrong.
Perhaps some background might be in order. My mother was an LPN. She had great hopes for me to become a doctor and encouraged me to spend time with the doctor she worked for in order to develop my urge to become a prominent physician. I took a different path, but for a time was an EMT-1.
In all of this, I gained a better than average knowledge base on medicine. From my study of comparitive religion, I learned that humans shouldn't fear death. Shouldn't is a long way from the reality.
What I came to realize is that humans will expend all their wealth in the pursuit of the possibility of increasing their lifespan. A common thread in these treatment regimes is the "quality of life issues."
We have become a nation of drug addicts and cyborgs. Nevermind that the elderly will not be running in marathons or competing in Ironman competitions, a new hip or pacemaker will get you fixed up. We pursue better living through modern chemistry.
Over the years, we have prescribed amphetamines, barbituates, MDMA and before them, there was opium elixirs and even hash candy. Every time we saw a potential abuse of the drug, we outlawed it. Almost every currently prescribed drug has a long list of potential and often serious side-effects. I know people that were prescribed rat-poison aka warfarin as an anti-coagulent. A not so insubstantial percentage of Americans are on MADs; mood altering drugs. Got the blues, take a pill. Your child a bit hyper, we have lithium and if it doesn't work, we can try other drugs.
Daily we here about the drug traffickers and the financial and sociological drain on our society. And during the news broadcast come an advertisement that includes the statement, "ask your doctor if ______ is right for you?"
So what is my take on all this?
The majority of the medical professionals are high priced mechanics and chemists. Most of the highest paid are parts changers or service station attendants. We can swap out a hip, heart or a kidney. We can add an additive to the engine to relieve constipation, lower blood pressure and help with erectile dysfunction.
Then we have the vanity body and fender specialists. They will bob your nose, increase your bust size or turn black to white.
Then lest we forget, we have the software engineers. We will sit you down and ask you how you feel about _______ and then precribe MADs.
"She goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helperAnd it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day." Rolling Stones
Am I condemning medicine and the practitioners. Nope. We get what we are willing to pay for as long as the desired outcome is within our capacity as a patient and medical capability. I just ask why?
Why do we pursue a lifestyle that by all metrics increases stress. Just like a machine, the more you stress the machine, the greater the likelyhood of something wearing out or failing. Stress has been linked to immunilogical responses. Just like a machine, if we don't fire up the boiler regularly, the thing rusts and corrodes. The bearings fail. The pump leaks.
We are the culmination of millions of years of evolution. Rather than attempt to live within our design parameters, we think we have a better idea. Rather than accept the harsh reality that not every individual is a viable organism, we spend inordinate amounts of money and energy to sustain a lemon.
We have come to the mistaken belief that every individual is so damn precious that we have lost sight of reality. Not every individual is viable. We have an epidemic of C-sections in this country. Partly due to tort prevention, but also because we think that women who have too small of a pelvic openning MUST live and reproduce the same genetic flaw.
We have become a nation of lemons. We reproduce lemons. We demand that every lemon must be preserved for as long as possible. We pass laws and programs to protect lemons.
"In the year 2525, if man is still alive." Zager and Evans
Monday, March 22, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
More Smoke and Mirrors
Well the latest Obama budget will put the ole USA even further in the toilet. It goes by many names, but Economic Stimulus is the catch phrase for borrowing and spending our way to recovery.
Nobody wants to talk about the fundemental problem. For the sake of social responsibility, we unwrite leisure. Oh this leisure has many names; among them are government programs for retirement, medical care, unemployment, national security and the list goes on and on and on.
The effective majority (small groups of vocal proponents) have clamored for every form of social program, more and better smart weapons, more environmental efforts and protecting too big to fail corporations from failing.
Only one problem exists with all thes dubious efforts: nobody can afford them. There isn't now or will ever be a large enough tax base to fund these programs.
So how did this happen? Emotional pleas that prey on the fears of the voting public. It could happen to you! Can you afford to take care of your parents if ... ? NGOs ply the TV airwaves with emotional pleas to save the ..., contact your Representative, help with relief efforts in ... . You get the idea.
Throughout human history, we have worked until we died. Survival demanded it. Effective work produced food and shelter. Post WWII inflation provided the illusion of prosperity and disposable income. We became a consumer-based economic power. We buy crap that we never needed for labor-savings and recreation. We rapidly moved away from actual producive work and moved into a service-oriented philosophy where we bought crap that we couldn't fix. So we hire a repairman to fix what we never needed to begin with. More money down the toilet. Now the USA doesn't make squat. We import it.
People are afraid that they will become destitute. A bit of reality please. The typical US citizen is an idiot. Idiot, n, incapable of learning. If you can't feed yourself, you are a malignancy. Malignancies never get better with time. The bag-lady is better prepared to survive than the members of a household in the suburbs. Being destitute is not the end of the world, slavery is.
If a citizen lacks the knowledge and skills to provide for their basic needs, they are forced to swear fealty to whomever ladles the soup into their bowl. Recall the old saw, "Never bite the hand that feeds you?" I hope that bowl of soup was worth your soul and self-respect.
But you say, "I have a mortgage that's underwater and my hours were cut." You chose this path in life. You have two options. Slavery or just walk away and begin a new life without all the modern trappings. The word trapping comes from the root word; trap.
It has been my observation that people define themselves by their possessions. This takes the form of job, family, home and toys. Their identity is stuff, not self. Don't believe me? Ask someone to tell you about themselves and listen to what they say. I'm a ..., I drive a ..., I have 2 ... and a wife that's a ..., I belong to the ... . Ain't a whole lot of self in this, but a whole passel of crap about their possessions.
So is there an answer? Can people escape this trap?
In the vast number of cases, no! People fear the unknown and self-sufficiency is completely unknown. If you aren't self-sufficient enough to provide for your most basic needs, you are a dependant and a dependant is a slave to their provider. These people's provider of choice; government.
If this were just about government's ability to tax, this wouldn't be near the problem. However government can tax the future by borrowing money today and tax the future by inflating the money supply. When you can inflate the monetary supply, the true value of the money declines. Prices for goods and services goes up.
Until now, we have been fairly successful in dodging the inflation bullet by outsourcing our manufacturing overseas. But, it has caught up with us. We are up to our necks in useless crap and forgot to flush the toilet. Once this toillet over-ran, everything is ruined. So we will continue to take in one another's laundry and gleefully declare that we are happy with a job that doesn't require us to clean our own soiled linen. And our most benevolent government takes a chunk of every paycheck to feed more and more useless drones.
Our only jobs growth sector is government. Welcome to our brave new world.
I like the analogy of the good shepherd. The sheep are happy with the good shepherd. He keeps them safe from predators and keeps them fed. It is a large herd, so few notice that a bunch of the lambs disappear to the slaughterhouse. Everyone agrees that there is a cost, so a minor annual fleecing is acceptable. Everyone hopes to be put out to pasture without realizing that the pasture is pretty bleak (don't waste good pasture on the old and infirm.)
In the end, everyone dies. It is just a matter of picking your own poison. Though Social Security is three years away for me, I know I will never be able to retire. Work has never been my enemy. Government spending is. I have no social responsibility beyond live and let live. I will die soon enough. Government and their communitarian allies might expedite it. Or not.
Nobody wants to talk about the fundemental problem. For the sake of social responsibility, we unwrite leisure. Oh this leisure has many names; among them are government programs for retirement, medical care, unemployment, national security and the list goes on and on and on.
The effective majority (small groups of vocal proponents) have clamored for every form of social program, more and better smart weapons, more environmental efforts and protecting too big to fail corporations from failing.
Only one problem exists with all thes dubious efforts: nobody can afford them. There isn't now or will ever be a large enough tax base to fund these programs.
So how did this happen? Emotional pleas that prey on the fears of the voting public. It could happen to you! Can you afford to take care of your parents if ... ? NGOs ply the TV airwaves with emotional pleas to save the ..., contact your Representative, help with relief efforts in ... . You get the idea.
Throughout human history, we have worked until we died. Survival demanded it. Effective work produced food and shelter. Post WWII inflation provided the illusion of prosperity and disposable income. We became a consumer-based economic power. We buy crap that we never needed for labor-savings and recreation. We rapidly moved away from actual producive work and moved into a service-oriented philosophy where we bought crap that we couldn't fix. So we hire a repairman to fix what we never needed to begin with. More money down the toilet. Now the USA doesn't make squat. We import it.
People are afraid that they will become destitute. A bit of reality please. The typical US citizen is an idiot. Idiot, n, incapable of learning. If you can't feed yourself, you are a malignancy. Malignancies never get better with time. The bag-lady is better prepared to survive than the members of a household in the suburbs. Being destitute is not the end of the world, slavery is.
If a citizen lacks the knowledge and skills to provide for their basic needs, they are forced to swear fealty to whomever ladles the soup into their bowl. Recall the old saw, "Never bite the hand that feeds you?" I hope that bowl of soup was worth your soul and self-respect.
But you say, "I have a mortgage that's underwater and my hours were cut." You chose this path in life. You have two options. Slavery or just walk away and begin a new life without all the modern trappings. The word trapping comes from the root word; trap.
It has been my observation that people define themselves by their possessions. This takes the form of job, family, home and toys. Their identity is stuff, not self. Don't believe me? Ask someone to tell you about themselves and listen to what they say. I'm a ..., I drive a ..., I have 2 ... and a wife that's a ..., I belong to the ... . Ain't a whole lot of self in this, but a whole passel of crap about their possessions.
So is there an answer? Can people escape this trap?
In the vast number of cases, no! People fear the unknown and self-sufficiency is completely unknown. If you aren't self-sufficient enough to provide for your most basic needs, you are a dependant and a dependant is a slave to their provider. These people's provider of choice; government.
If this were just about government's ability to tax, this wouldn't be near the problem. However government can tax the future by borrowing money today and tax the future by inflating the money supply. When you can inflate the monetary supply, the true value of the money declines. Prices for goods and services goes up.
Until now, we have been fairly successful in dodging the inflation bullet by outsourcing our manufacturing overseas. But, it has caught up with us. We are up to our necks in useless crap and forgot to flush the toilet. Once this toillet over-ran, everything is ruined. So we will continue to take in one another's laundry and gleefully declare that we are happy with a job that doesn't require us to clean our own soiled linen. And our most benevolent government takes a chunk of every paycheck to feed more and more useless drones.
Our only jobs growth sector is government. Welcome to our brave new world.
I like the analogy of the good shepherd. The sheep are happy with the good shepherd. He keeps them safe from predators and keeps them fed. It is a large herd, so few notice that a bunch of the lambs disappear to the slaughterhouse. Everyone agrees that there is a cost, so a minor annual fleecing is acceptable. Everyone hopes to be put out to pasture without realizing that the pasture is pretty bleak (don't waste good pasture on the old and infirm.)
In the end, everyone dies. It is just a matter of picking your own poison. Though Social Security is three years away for me, I know I will never be able to retire. Work has never been my enemy. Government spending is. I have no social responsibility beyond live and let live. I will die soon enough. Government and their communitarian allies might expedite it. Or not.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Heads I Win, Tails I Break Even
Heads I Win, Tails I Break Even
The evidence is becoming overwhelming; our politicians and their cohorts are attempting to prevent an economic firestorm that would destroy the value of our money. Effectively this is gonna take the mess and drag it out as long as possible.
Everyone watching the economic news knows inflating the money supply reduces the purchasing power of the money. With our current accounting practices, debt instruments are money. So not only is my bank savings account available for loans, but so is the mortgage papers on my house. Well, not my house as it's paid for but rather your house. It's like this, the bank loans you money to buy a house, then the bank takes the mortgage as security and claims the security of the mortgage papers is a deposit and loans money based on the deposit to someone else.
Our country prints money, spends it, claims it is part of the national wealth and taxes it. This is the gist of GDP. It has little to do with increased productivity and everything to do with money churn. Churn generates taxable revenue. Therefore, thou shalt not save and it is preferable that you but consumables rather than durables.
We have to not only allow inflation, but we must. Every year we have additional people entering the workforce. Without inflation, the current workers would be forced to accept a cut in pay. BUT, any and all infaltion MUST be directly in proportion to increased productivity. Government jobs are NOT productive and in fact are net consumers of national wealth.
So with all the background stuff out of the way, just how does this relate to the title of this posting?
Though I live at the ragged bottom of the economic ladder, I paid off all my bills. I cut up my credit card and chose to live with the absolute basics. Every dollar I wish to move into the disposable income column must be removed from essentials. Every day, there is a fixed cost to existing. If I buy potato chips, the basic allowance for food is reduced. Cooking from scratch makes this possible however sooo boring. Beans and rice makes for a ho-hum meal.
I try to keep a running list of what would make my life easier and profitable when the econonmy tanks. Many times it is just an additional couple of cans of vegetables or a 5# sack of sugar over and above my current needs. Sometimes it is a particular tool. I always have a list of books that will help me or a friend build or maintain something.
With my buying pattern, if the economy goes down the toilet tomorrow, I have prepared as well as I could. If the economy goes into a protracted slow decline, I bought tools, food and books cheap. I will use them either way. By abhoring debt, I have only the criminal element to fear and they won't find much here of value. Something to remember, a torque wrench has little value to a person lacking the skills to use it.
Oops, let the cat outa the bag. Every manual skill will have some value to the community. The scarcer the skill, the more barter value it has. History has amply proven; If you want to win, invest in sin. Our nation was only 4 years into the '29' Depression when Prohibition was repealed. The people wanted and were getting alcohol regardless of prohibition. Government needed the tax revenue. Whether it is the economics of the home or of the country, it is all about income vs out-go. I'm not avocating breaking the law, but rather pointing out that the lowly skill of the beer-maker will find a place in the poverty-stricken community.
The evidence is becoming overwhelming; our politicians and their cohorts are attempting to prevent an economic firestorm that would destroy the value of our money. Effectively this is gonna take the mess and drag it out as long as possible.
Everyone watching the economic news knows inflating the money supply reduces the purchasing power of the money. With our current accounting practices, debt instruments are money. So not only is my bank savings account available for loans, but so is the mortgage papers on my house. Well, not my house as it's paid for but rather your house. It's like this, the bank loans you money to buy a house, then the bank takes the mortgage as security and claims the security of the mortgage papers is a deposit and loans money based on the deposit to someone else.
Our country prints money, spends it, claims it is part of the national wealth and taxes it. This is the gist of GDP. It has little to do with increased productivity and everything to do with money churn. Churn generates taxable revenue. Therefore, thou shalt not save and it is preferable that you but consumables rather than durables.
We have to not only allow inflation, but we must. Every year we have additional people entering the workforce. Without inflation, the current workers would be forced to accept a cut in pay. BUT, any and all infaltion MUST be directly in proportion to increased productivity. Government jobs are NOT productive and in fact are net consumers of national wealth.
So with all the background stuff out of the way, just how does this relate to the title of this posting?
Though I live at the ragged bottom of the economic ladder, I paid off all my bills. I cut up my credit card and chose to live with the absolute basics. Every dollar I wish to move into the disposable income column must be removed from essentials. Every day, there is a fixed cost to existing. If I buy potato chips, the basic allowance for food is reduced. Cooking from scratch makes this possible however sooo boring. Beans and rice makes for a ho-hum meal.
I try to keep a running list of what would make my life easier and profitable when the econonmy tanks. Many times it is just an additional couple of cans of vegetables or a 5# sack of sugar over and above my current needs. Sometimes it is a particular tool. I always have a list of books that will help me or a friend build or maintain something.
With my buying pattern, if the economy goes down the toilet tomorrow, I have prepared as well as I could. If the economy goes into a protracted slow decline, I bought tools, food and books cheap. I will use them either way. By abhoring debt, I have only the criminal element to fear and they won't find much here of value. Something to remember, a torque wrench has little value to a person lacking the skills to use it.
Oops, let the cat outa the bag. Every manual skill will have some value to the community. The scarcer the skill, the more barter value it has. History has amply proven; If you want to win, invest in sin. Our nation was only 4 years into the '29' Depression when Prohibition was repealed. The people wanted and were getting alcohol regardless of prohibition. Government needed the tax revenue. Whether it is the economics of the home or of the country, it is all about income vs out-go. I'm not avocating breaking the law, but rather pointing out that the lowly skill of the beer-maker will find a place in the poverty-stricken community.
Everyone Is Entitled To __________ (fill in the blank)
Everyone Is Entitled To _________ (fill in the blank)
We are assailed everyday with one special interest group after another loudly proclaiming their group has a right to something; usually public monies. The cost is usually small compared to the national budget. Many times a comparison is made between some boondoggle and their worthy cause. Anyone foolish enough to question the supposed right will be castigated in the public forum. More than one politician has succumbed to the firestorm.
There is no escape other than complete collapse of the economy and the draconian spending cuts that WILL happen. There is only so much wealth generated each year. Most of this wealth is NOT new wealth, but rather a redistribution of existing wealth.
Lets call this wealth an elephant. Although an elephant is an enormous source of sustinence, its size seems overwhelming. It is possible to eat it if you just keep to one bite at a time. If you invite other diners, you will have more bites per given time period. Invite enough other people to the feast and soon the elephant is reduced to bones. Now you have a problem.
Very few of the people feasting contributed to the feast. Some provided nothing more than bringing their own eating utensils. But now the elephant is gone. The people are waiting to be fed. Few if any have developed the skills needed to deliver another elephant to the masses. Oh-oh, the masses are getting restless. What do we do?
You have a problem. There are fewer and fewer elephants. There are more and more mouths to feed. Dumb-ass you, you kept feeding them elephant. They are procaliming they are community and attaching every resource, you included), as a community-owned property.
Is it too late to leave the party? Oh yes. The age of hunger is just beginning and nobody gets out of here alive. People are going to die. Everyone of us. We can stack the odds in our favor for a long and prosperous life, but nothing is certain.
Nobody is entitled to anything beyond their civil rights. Life, liberty and the right to pursue happiness. In accepting these as our rights, we must defend others having these rights. However, the rights don't equate to society paying for your right to life by footing your living expenses. No, the right is all about your right to be relatively free from interference in your chosen lifestyle or lifespan. It is relative simply due to the possibility of "shit happens."
It is not a duty of the people to insure your health, nutrition or place of domicile. It is not the duty of the people to make sure your investments are secure and profitable. Most of all, you aren't entitled to happiness but rather the freedom to pursue it.
I won't deny that there are people in our country with serious problems. The problem is the spokesman for these people demand that everyone pays for putting the lipstick on the pig. Our taxed individual wealth doesn't cure any problems, but rather maintains the problem. We have legislated away nature.
In every natural system, an organism succeeds by industry. It may be nothing more than eating or it may be by participation in a collective effort. Failure to engage in a minimum level of industry results in death. Please understand, I'm not advocating euthanasia. I am advocating for NO PUBLIC MONIES to be expended on non-productive individuals or groups. We have legislated mandatory charity.
It really doesn't matter though. We have set our course for economic meltdown. In the end, we all lose. People will die from the "seven horsemen" while the government will daily proclaim its successes and admit to minor continuing problems with law enforcement, food distribution, utilities failures, yada, yada.
So just what of your resources will your neighbor claim as an entitlement. After all, we are all in this together. Aren't we all equal?
We are assailed everyday with one special interest group after another loudly proclaiming their group has a right to something; usually public monies. The cost is usually small compared to the national budget. Many times a comparison is made between some boondoggle and their worthy cause. Anyone foolish enough to question the supposed right will be castigated in the public forum. More than one politician has succumbed to the firestorm.
There is no escape other than complete collapse of the economy and the draconian spending cuts that WILL happen. There is only so much wealth generated each year. Most of this wealth is NOT new wealth, but rather a redistribution of existing wealth.
Lets call this wealth an elephant. Although an elephant is an enormous source of sustinence, its size seems overwhelming. It is possible to eat it if you just keep to one bite at a time. If you invite other diners, you will have more bites per given time period. Invite enough other people to the feast and soon the elephant is reduced to bones. Now you have a problem.
Very few of the people feasting contributed to the feast. Some provided nothing more than bringing their own eating utensils. But now the elephant is gone. The people are waiting to be fed. Few if any have developed the skills needed to deliver another elephant to the masses. Oh-oh, the masses are getting restless. What do we do?
You have a problem. There are fewer and fewer elephants. There are more and more mouths to feed. Dumb-ass you, you kept feeding them elephant. They are procaliming they are community and attaching every resource, you included), as a community-owned property.
Is it too late to leave the party? Oh yes. The age of hunger is just beginning and nobody gets out of here alive. People are going to die. Everyone of us. We can stack the odds in our favor for a long and prosperous life, but nothing is certain.
Nobody is entitled to anything beyond their civil rights. Life, liberty and the right to pursue happiness. In accepting these as our rights, we must defend others having these rights. However, the rights don't equate to society paying for your right to life by footing your living expenses. No, the right is all about your right to be relatively free from interference in your chosen lifestyle or lifespan. It is relative simply due to the possibility of "shit happens."
It is not a duty of the people to insure your health, nutrition or place of domicile. It is not the duty of the people to make sure your investments are secure and profitable. Most of all, you aren't entitled to happiness but rather the freedom to pursue it.
I won't deny that there are people in our country with serious problems. The problem is the spokesman for these people demand that everyone pays for putting the lipstick on the pig. Our taxed individual wealth doesn't cure any problems, but rather maintains the problem. We have legislated away nature.
In every natural system, an organism succeeds by industry. It may be nothing more than eating or it may be by participation in a collective effort. Failure to engage in a minimum level of industry results in death. Please understand, I'm not advocating euthanasia. I am advocating for NO PUBLIC MONIES to be expended on non-productive individuals or groups. We have legislated mandatory charity.
It really doesn't matter though. We have set our course for economic meltdown. In the end, we all lose. People will die from the "seven horsemen" while the government will daily proclaim its successes and admit to minor continuing problems with law enforcement, food distribution, utilities failures, yada, yada.
So just what of your resources will your neighbor claim as an entitlement. After all, we are all in this together. Aren't we all equal?
A Few Acres and a Cow
A Few Acres and a Cow
As always, every time there appears to be a collapse of the economy, the talking heads start promoting a small farm purchase. Every time they trot out their arguments for this action, I see failure in store for those who follow this ill-founded advice.
Here are the problems:
#1 People moving into a rural area are immediately suspect. You have no friends or family. You have no established reputation. You probably have no skills that the area is in need of.
#2 Living in rural environments requires an entirely different mind-set from suburban or urban areas. There is no corner store; big-box stores are miles away. Most all of the supplies needed to afford a reasonable lifestyle are imported to the area. Rural areas are NOT self-sufficient. The days of rural self-sufficiency went away decades ago. Succesful farming is corporate monoculture with plenty of access to credit.
#3 The homestead type farm is an illusion for the major part. It takes skills and experience to grow a garden. With minor carpentry skills you can build a chicken coop, but I'd bet money that your flock will die off within a few months. The skills needed to just maintain a subsistence lifestyle are almost overwhelming. It can be done, but you won't learn the skills in weeks or months, but rather several years.
#4 During this steep and exhaustive learning curve, you will need access to lots of money. You lack the skills to provide for yourself, so you will have to purchase them from others. You will buy skilled labor or you will die.
#5 If Federal Reserve Notes become worthless due to hyper-inflation, you better have something valuable to barter with that is in actual demand. Almost everything you own is total crap with no value in a subsistence environment.
#6 Most people will attempt to buy property based upon location, location, location. You live in a mind-set that still operates with investment potential as the prime driver for your choices. You will choose your land based upon the following criteria: On a well-travelled road, close to town, close to neighbors, ... etc. All of these criterias will put you square in the sights of the hungry masses that will have easy access to your assets. Survival success demands remoteness. The more remote you are, the greater the survival and farming skills you will need.
#7 Long-term success demands income from off the farm. Once again you are faced with lack of marketable skills in a rural environment. It is almost impossible to succeed without getting supplies you can't grow or make.
#8 All the talking heads promoting a bug-out farm fail to grasp the economic realities of rural life. I state all because all of the above reasons. You will not be an asset to the community, but rather a competitor for the limitted resources available. The most capable of surviving will know that you and your family will die, but until you do, you will drain away resources and put everyone else at risk of failure. The people will eliminate you from the herd. You can't survive without the herd.
Death is NOT an option. It is inevitable. You can stack the odds one way or the other on the time and place, but odds are for Las Vegas. So when you decide on "Going Up The Country"* bring lots of toilet paper, sugar and salt. The decending hoards of hungries will kill you and clean you out, but they are too stupid to pack off toilet paper and salt.
Don't depend on government for anything. Government produces nothing and consumes everything. Besides, their hands will be full with the hungry masses left in the cities. Remember those corporate monoculture farms? They are effectively owned by the USDA and all their production will go to the cities on government trucks with armed escorts.
So the question for me is, am I prepared? No. But I am established in the rural community and after beaucoup years I have developed the basic skills needed to survive. None the less, bring lots of toilet paper because the shit will hit the fan.
* "Going Up The Country" special thanks to Canned Heat. If only the water tasted like wine.
As always, every time there appears to be a collapse of the economy, the talking heads start promoting a small farm purchase. Every time they trot out their arguments for this action, I see failure in store for those who follow this ill-founded advice.
Here are the problems:
#1 People moving into a rural area are immediately suspect. You have no friends or family. You have no established reputation. You probably have no skills that the area is in need of.
#2 Living in rural environments requires an entirely different mind-set from suburban or urban areas. There is no corner store; big-box stores are miles away. Most all of the supplies needed to afford a reasonable lifestyle are imported to the area. Rural areas are NOT self-sufficient. The days of rural self-sufficiency went away decades ago. Succesful farming is corporate monoculture with plenty of access to credit.
#3 The homestead type farm is an illusion for the major part. It takes skills and experience to grow a garden. With minor carpentry skills you can build a chicken coop, but I'd bet money that your flock will die off within a few months. The skills needed to just maintain a subsistence lifestyle are almost overwhelming. It can be done, but you won't learn the skills in weeks or months, but rather several years.
#4 During this steep and exhaustive learning curve, you will need access to lots of money. You lack the skills to provide for yourself, so you will have to purchase them from others. You will buy skilled labor or you will die.
#5 If Federal Reserve Notes become worthless due to hyper-inflation, you better have something valuable to barter with that is in actual demand. Almost everything you own is total crap with no value in a subsistence environment.
#6 Most people will attempt to buy property based upon location, location, location. You live in a mind-set that still operates with investment potential as the prime driver for your choices. You will choose your land based upon the following criteria: On a well-travelled road, close to town, close to neighbors, ... etc. All of these criterias will put you square in the sights of the hungry masses that will have easy access to your assets. Survival success demands remoteness. The more remote you are, the greater the survival and farming skills you will need.
#7 Long-term success demands income from off the farm. Once again you are faced with lack of marketable skills in a rural environment. It is almost impossible to succeed without getting supplies you can't grow or make.
#8 All the talking heads promoting a bug-out farm fail to grasp the economic realities of rural life. I state all because all of the above reasons. You will not be an asset to the community, but rather a competitor for the limitted resources available. The most capable of surviving will know that you and your family will die, but until you do, you will drain away resources and put everyone else at risk of failure. The people will eliminate you from the herd. You can't survive without the herd.
Death is NOT an option. It is inevitable. You can stack the odds one way or the other on the time and place, but odds are for Las Vegas. So when you decide on "Going Up The Country"* bring lots of toilet paper, sugar and salt. The decending hoards of hungries will kill you and clean you out, but they are too stupid to pack off toilet paper and salt.
Don't depend on government for anything. Government produces nothing and consumes everything. Besides, their hands will be full with the hungry masses left in the cities. Remember those corporate monoculture farms? They are effectively owned by the USDA and all their production will go to the cities on government trucks with armed escorts.
So the question for me is, am I prepared? No. But I am established in the rural community and after beaucoup years I have developed the basic skills needed to survive. None the less, bring lots of toilet paper because the shit will hit the fan.
* "Going Up The Country" special thanks to Canned Heat. If only the water tasted like wine.
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