Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

Morning all.

JaynceC, I don't know if you follow this blogger, Jason Heppenstall, but he has done more or less exactly what you're contemplating; buying a woodland to use for woodland products and to generate a different way of living.

http://22billionenergyslaves.blogspot.co.uk/

That's his main blog but he has one dedicated to his woodland, too

http://talesfromfoxwood.blogspot.co.uk/

I found his blog some time ago via The Archdruid Report. He and his family now live in Cornwall, having tried the good life in Spain and the conventional life in Scandinavia. He wrties very well and I thought if you weren't a reader already, it would possibly be something you'd find interesting and helpful.

I'm smiling slightly at the thought of people having stashes of £50 notes at home. I've only ever seen three of them in my life. Two were in the hands of two foriegn tourist lassies who each wanted to buy a ticket costing less than a fiver to a show I was selling tickets for (and for which I had a £20 float, lol) and the third was put among the sterling given to me by a foriegn bureau de change, until I stopped them and asked for nothing bigger than a £20.

A thing to remember about banknotes is that they aren't money, they are currency, promissory notes, and are only as good as the government who issues them. They can be devalued by quantitative easing (printing more of them), changed, withdrawn and made worthless. They can also be eaten by mice, burned and spoiled by water. Notes, and non-precious metal coins are fiat currency, and have no intrinsic value.

Some people fled the Russian revolution with sheaves of high-denomination bank notes. I've seen them in the hands of my curio dealer friend and they are very pretty. And utterly worthless as "money" when the government issuing them was overthrown and the new government re-did the currency. And some other people legged it with 5 ruble coins, which still weigh exactly what they did, back in the day (just over one-tenth of an ounce) and are thus saleable anywhere in the world.

ginnyknit

Good point armyknife but no, they were caught after a long surveillance and part of a bigger op. Its all over the papers.

nuatha

ginnyknit wrote: »

Hollyberry guessed you would take it as I meant it :rotfl: Apologys to male posters but married men are well known for the annoying stage but Bob you dont have that problem and Nuatha you sound like a sterling chap.

Herself will disagree, at least some of the time. I can be extremely annoying and pedantic - and when I agree with her, I'm sometimes reasonable

Jaynec sounds like a plan, look forward to hearing about your journey.

Seconded.

GreyQueen wrote: »

I'm smiling slightly at the thought of people having stashes of £50 notes at home. I've only ever seen three of them in my life. Two were in the hands of two foriegn tourist lassies who each wanted to buy a ticket costing less than a fiver to a show I was selling tickets for (and for which I had a £20 float, lol) and the third was put among the sterling given to me by a foriegn bureau de change, until I stopped them and asked for nothing bigger than a £20.

I've occasionally been paid in £50s and while they are preferable to a rubber cheque (had a few of those over the last couple of years) my first port of call is to bank them (and watch the tellers scruntinise everyone - apparently there's a lot of forgeries around). I don't know a single business around here that will take £50s, including ones selling fairly high value goods. The emergency cash in my bug out bags was a mix of 5s 10s and 20s with a separate envelope containing 4x5, and 3x10, easy to spend and not too painful if I've got to give up some cash.

A thing to remember about banknotes is that they aren't money, they are currency, promissory notes, and are only as good as the government who issues them. They can be devalued by quantitative easing (printing more of them), changed, withdrawn and made worthless. They can also be eaten by mice, burned and spoiled by water. Notes, and non-precious metal coins are fiat currency, and have no intrinsic value.

Which is why, when I'm rebuilding supplies, the last thing to be replaced will be the emergency cash for the bug out bags (rebuilding the contingency funds on the other hand will be a higher priority)

Some people fled the Russian revolution with sheaves of high-denomination bank notes. I've seen them in the hands of my curio dealer friend and they are very pretty. And utterly worthless as "money" when the government issuing them was overthrown and the new government re-did the currency. And some other people legged it with 5 ruble coins, which still weigh exactly what they did, back in the day (just over one-tenth of an ounce) and are thus saleable anywhere in the world.

I used to know someone who escaped with his mother just ahead of the revolution, her jewelry was the main reason they could establish a comfortable life in the UK, the suitcase of banknotes was worthless, though was still in his possesion in the 80s.

RAS

A number of my college and university friends used to pack a small rug in their case when they came back to the UK.

It avoided currency regulations, customs just about accepted it as student furnishings and it could be converted into hard cash if needed. Some of those rugs came in handy after the revolution.

ALIBOBSY

GreyQueen wrote: »

I'm smiling slightly at the thought of people having stashes of £50 notes at home. I've only ever seen three of them in my life. Two were in the hands of two foriegn tourist lassies who each wanted to buy a ticket costing less than a fiver to a show I was selling tickets for (and for which I had a £20 float, lol) and the third was put among the sterling given to me by a foriegn bureau de change, until I stopped them and asked for nothing bigger than a £20.

MIL said not so long ago about how she couldn't recall even seeing a £50 note certainly not in the last 20 years. FIL decided to get her one from the bank as a little jokey Chrimbo pressie, which she could spend later so OH was dispatched to the bank lol. I suppose its more thoughtful than a gift cert and can be used where you like.

To be honest I rarely pay for anything more than about £40 with cash and use my card, which I guess for alot of people means we rarely use or see £50's. Plus of course so many shops wouldn't be too happy with taking £50 notes.

Interesting article here about peak oil

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/What-Happens-When-the-Oil-Runs-Out.html

Plus some interesting comments, I think like the author less a big crash and more a slide into a no oil world which will have to be more locally based because of lack of cheap transport.

I also saw somewhere that its possible we will never use all the oil on earth, it will simply be too expensive to make it economically viable and like someone on this thread said earlier a car will be a novelty for the super rich.

Makes us want a small holding/some land even more as we made need space for a pony and trap lol. Interestingly as we are semi rural we regularly see horse riders and some pony traps in this area.

Ali x

GreyQueen

Evening all.

Thank you for the interesting link, ALI. I enjoyed that and have bookmarked it in case there is more to see.

I think the slow decline into the reduced oil age is the way it's going and a lot of educated observers think that we will be noticing substantial changes by the middle of this century. I might get to see the beginning of the end, should I live to be a very old lady, but there are plenty of people alive today whose future will be lived in "interesting times", not to mention all the children who will be born in the next few decades.

What worries me isn't that the slow decline into a future with much lower levels of technology is inevitable. What TERRIFIES me is that there is no real acknowledgement, beyond the blogosphere, and some strands of the Green and Prepperish schools of thought, that this is inevitable.

You could argue that politicians and their advisors are uniformly moronic, and they certainly try to demonstrate this on a regular basis. But, tempting though this is, I don't believe it's the case for all of them.

Given that EROEI is down to cold hard physical facts, and that we probably can never get our mitts on a lot of the oil which remains, this blindness seems quite deliberate. I suspect that the wealthy and powerful are going to take the rest of us for everything they can get before hunkering down and hoping to ride out the conflicts, the starvations, the refugee fluxes caused by climate change.

I wouldn't even be at all surprised if the elite were making serious preparations to get off this planet before our wastage of our natural resources is too far gone for us to have the energy to throw spacecraft up out of the gravity of poor dear planet Earth. And that they'd be quite happy to leave the rest of us to rot.

westcoastscot

Hi Guys,
apologies if this has already been highlighted - haven't had chance to read back yet
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/22/police-home-secretary-approve-use-water-cannon-austerity-protest
wonder what's coming to prompt this???

[Deleted User]

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craigywv

west coast ,interesting reading apparently we have all the cannons over here well I can tell you all the part about "refilling from the hydrants" is completely wrong I watched with my own eyes the cannon being filled from the drain in the street after a bout of rioting also seen them being filled withwater from river lagan.............toxic so its crap about kept at 5 degrees etc certainly do not believe all you read. I live in area where the rioting occurs . and during the summer months they don't care about the water. I think we all heading towards civil unrest in a larger scale with food prices and jobs going the way they are. thank you for highlighting that piece in the paper its getting scarier and scarier. on another note I was in mr t tonight and near had a fit the bloody jelly has jumped from 44p last week to 57 p .............................I predict a riot!

thriftwizard

I wouldn't even be at all surprised if the elite were making serious preparations to get off this planet before our wastage of our natural resources is too far gone for us to have the energy to throw spacecraft up out of the gravity of poor dear planet Earth. And that they'd be quite happy to leave the rest of us to rot.

GQ, ever read Ben Elton's Stark? That's the basic premise of the book. Well disguised & not exactly brilliantly written, but as usual with his humour, the idea itself is entirely plausible.

WCS, to be honest that's terrifying, that they are seeking a blanket permission like that. If they'd said it was to control riots, fair enough. But to control demonstrations? Surely we are allowed to demonstrate peacefully our disquiet at some of the extreme measures being pushed through, that are hurting & frightening vulnerable people who don't deserve this anxiety? Whilst the fat cats just get fatter, on our backs?