Preparedness for when

ALIBOBSY

Jazee wrote: »

GreyQueen, I have seen a bumble bee today too, but haven't planted my potatoes yet.

AliBobsy, what will I do if they take away my pointless little office job? I'm not really skilled at anything else!

Sunny here today but oh so cold because of the wind.

Aw sorry hun, I have always worked in offices and currently do freelance stuff online so my "work" will disappear as well lol.

I was honestly thinking more of the communications/equality type jobs or anything with liason or strategic in their titles.

I'll bet most preppers either have or will be gaining other skills, such as gardening, foraging, preserving etc.

Ali x

Si_Clist

GreyQueen wrote: »

Small persons will have to be trained when potatoes do not come in placcy bags from the supermarkets.

That's just reminded me that I was recently in Waitrose, pretending to me Middle Clarse, and I happened to pass a wench putting packed tuna sandwiches out on the "I have a busy lifestyle" chiller. She was putting them in the section marked "vegetarian".

"Since when have tuna been vegetarian?" says I.

She looked at the pack in her hand, thought for a second or two then said "Well, I suppose it depends what they eat."

And she obviously meant it ...

paidinchickens

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Still had 12 months date code on them maybe they are using cheaper tin, I have never had it happen to me before either

I would have taken some pictures and emailed them off to the shop you got them from, cutting corners? or a cunning plan to stop us stock piling :think:


I don't eat meat and I stopped eating fish after I read about them covering up the damage by a certain nuclear leak :eek:

The kids and I only used to eat tuna as I have a severe allergy to sea food, as I found out after the cod liver oil tablets nearly killed me (not sure why I was ok with tuna though). Not to panic though as DH is allergic to penicillin and as I've always said if he gets a moldy cheese sarnie and I get a prawn salad it's time for a divorce :rotfl:

PiC x

mardatha

Even if TSHTF I still wouldn't eat tuna. I'm sure it's KittyKat in a different label.

craigywv

morning all, lovely morning here,yesterday planted my potatoes dug them deeper as read gq post few days ago about early planting. got a wash on as its so lovely over here will dry quickly. oh away to work, manchild still sleeping ,kids all off school today over here. does anybody know if its too early to plant out tomatoes in greenhouse. I planted seeds in pots a few weeks ago and put them on window sills around the house well the cherry toms are starting to trail like ivy towards the floor, maybe just tie them around sticks? watched some of the link about the downfall of our country someone had posted quite un nerving, shall watch the reat later. have a good day all xxx

GreyQueen

Si_Clist wrote: »

That's just reminded me that I was recently in Waitrose, pretending to me Middle Clarse, and I happened to pass a wench putting packed tuna sandwiches out on the "I have a busy lifestyle" chiller. She was putting them in the section marked "vegetarian".

"Since when have tuna been vegetarian?" says I.

She looked at the pack in her hand, thought for a second or two then said "Well, I suppose it depends what they eat."

And she obviously meant it ...

The scary thing is we've contributed by our taxation to that nitwit's education. Is there any way of getting a refund?:rotfl:

jk0, interesting, have listened to half of the talk on that link, won't have time to get to the rest today. Was grinning wryly at his description of public sector workers being so much better paid than private sector? Really? That'll be why we can't fill certain posts (not able to offer comparable salaries to the private sector) despite advertising many times. And why our people keep burgering-off to the private sector. And the length of time quoted for the average public sector work week.....LMAO. I guess the trouble with stats is that you can twist them to reflect whatever argument you want to make.

Our standard workweek is 37 hours. Anything less is part-time. There are a lot of part-time posts in the public sector, reflecting that there are a lot of women employed there, women who often have to fit their work around child-raising responsibilities. I guess my 60% fte core hours contract is draggin' down the average, despite my working over other people's (unpaid) lunch-breaks to maintain continuity of cover.

And it amuses me that money paid to public sector workers like myself is always referred to as if it is somehow lost to the rest of us. Really? About 50% of my net income goes straight back to my public sector employer in the form of council rent and council tax, after the grubbyment have taken their cut off the gross salary, of course. The rest I spent on such debaucheries as utility bills and groceries.

And these lush public sector pensions which we are all supposed to be accruing? Yeah, right, typically under £4k per annum after decades of public service.

I like the public but some of them are vile and, unlike private sector companies, we can't refuse to serve certain people. I know council employees who have been attacked with machetes and samurai swords, held hostage at knifepoint, had stones thrown at them, had cars driven at speed up onto pavements to attempt to kill them. Not to mention the frequent rudeness, bad language, lies and other misbehaviours.

I can't imagine that many such people would be welcome in the retail or other premises of the private sector. Indeed, some of them have had to be temporarily deprived of their liberty because of what they've done to us, inc assaulting customer services peeps like myself.

We've got injunctions against some of the General Public, to keep them away from staff and out of our offices. We'll provide services by phone, post and email, but they've proved themselves far too dangerous to interact in person.

D&DD

People do seem to be losing social skills at an alarming rate tho don't you think? I was having this discussion the other day with my mum after spending a fair bit of time in hospital waiting rooms over the course of two weeks.


It alarmed me that literally as each person came in and sat down ,out came their phone.. No smiles,nods,by your leaves and each room was silent,bar me jabbering on to DS2!






We seem to be going through a phase where seeing as 'gadgetry' is available to the masses a lot of people struggle to balance their time spent on it with real life.


How many times have you sat down on a bus and watched a mum give her child her phone to keep them quiet in their pushchair when I had mine you used to interact with them and play to keep them from getting bored.


Now don't get me wrong I LOVE tech and gadgets and they make my life a lot easier and to some degree as with the ability to post on here they keep me sane *ish* but I remind myself all the time not to overdo it,a lot of people just don't seem to have that OFF switch now.

Frugalsod

jk0 wrote: »

Remember we were talking about pension ages the other day folks?

It's even worse than I thought:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ibcORs4I4

There are huge errors in there. Including unfunded liabilities is a great way to get push for pension cuts, yet it completely ignores the uncollected tax revenues for those pensions. Since the government operates a pay as you go pension system todays NI contributions are nominally used to pay for todays pensions, and unemployment benefits as well as the NHS. Yet future government incomes are ignored in terms of covering these potential outgoings.

He missed the point about why the surge in National debt since 2010, which is solely down to the financial crisis. Also a government that can print its own money can NEVER run out of money, so the unfunded liabilities argument is pointless. Ireland had a budget surplus before the crisis and yet is close to insolvency because of the banks. Our government debt is also considerably higher because of the banking crisis, but also because we bailed out the banks substantially. Far more than official records report, as some have been banned from ever being released even under the 100 year rule.

The comments about public sector pay is down to the fact that private sector wages have collapsed since the financial crisis, and if there were a real recovery the private sector wages would recover far faster. This is more of a "beggar thy neighbour policy." For years the public sector had lower wages but made up for it with a decent final salary pension. The private sector pensions have been robbed blind by companies taking pension holidays, governments raiding pension funds and final salary schemes richly rewarding those who have big pay increases at the end of their career such as bosses. An average salary scheme will end this abuse. Those old enough to remember that Mrs Thatcher eliminated all the pension surpluses and the financial sector failed to meet its investment promises and so very rapidly pension funds have become more and more underfunded. So pension contributions over the last 30 years or so were clearly insufficient, which is why companies have closed final salary schemes to new members. If people were to save sufficiently to retire they will need to be saving close to 30% of their salary for their entire career. Now that figure could be split between employee and employer but even the normal contributions are a third of what is required. Hence retirement ages will have to increase as few will be able to retire without needing the state pension.

The governments Zero interest rate policy is also damaging private sector pensions by eliminating safe returns for annuities. So I expect that many will have invested heavily into risky investments to boost returns. This strategy will probably be disastrous as interest rates rise and those who still have debts are crushed by debt deflation, where their assets fall in value but their debts remain. Anyone who was in negative equity unless they have significantly overpaid their mortgage will fall into this category when house prices fall. We are going through all the same problems as Japan since 1980 which is still deflating. We could be facing another 20 or 30 years of austerity.

His comments about personal debts are fine, we do have too much personal debt but he completely missed company debts including the banks which are so large that they dwarf the rest of the debts including the government debt. As a percentage it is all closer to 600% of GDP, including personal debt, government debt corporate debt and bank debt.

Though the commentator makes a fundamental error in describing government figures like a household budget. While it makes it easier for the viewer to understand it actually is counter to reality of collective decisions. What is good for one household to do is disastrous if we all do it at the same time. It is called the fallacy of composition. Just look at the impacts on the supermarkets right now with them struggling. People are trying to cut their debts and while that may be good for them personally it means that supermarkets will start to lay people off. So on a larger scale it fails.

So while I do see significant problems ahead they will be the fault of bad policy rather the what the public have done. The government are failing to collect the taxes that are being avoided by corporations which would eliminate the deficit overnight and imposing further cuts on services that the public need instead. This will lead to a slow death for the economy and eventual civil unrest. It could take years but wages will continue to fall and eventually people will struggle to make ends meet. It will move further and further up the income ladder and more and more people will be in poverty.

What should happen is that governments should run deficits to allow households balance sheets to recover. Though with the government cutting the deficit the households have insufficient economic power to push for decent wages and so they will continue to get less and less and then gradually the companies struggle as the households are in a constant race to clear debts on an ever shrinking income.

Many think that Thatcher invigorated the economy with reforms but what really boosted the economy was that credit restrictions were eased and so people were able to borrow their way out of trouble and as a nation we have done the same for decades. Our government is trying to get us to borrow more to spend to restart the economy, the problem is that people are being sensible and paying down debt. Though still not enough to get disposable incomes up.

[Deleted User]

Don't you think that a couple of generations now have had access to X boxes/game boys 24/7 and been allowed/chosen to use that as an activity in their spare time along with the perpetual and ubiquitous mobile phone/texting usage rather than have any interaction with 'real' people? It's really no wonder that social skills and interactions have almost faded away and that those who play all the violent 'war/combat' games might have a warped appreciation of how to act and communicate with the outside world. If you spend all day killing things on screen and have no reality it isn't a huge leap to thinking that is real is it? Plus kids are stuck in front of videos or Mums mobile phone and seem to be regarded as an extra to the 'real' world of texting. No wonder so many of the population have mental problems too if their perception of the real world is coloured by the games they play.

jk0

GreyQueen wrote: »

The scary thing is we've contributed by our taxation to that nitwit's education. Is there any way of getting a refund?:rotfl:

jk0, interesting, have listened to half of the talk on that link, won't have time to get to the rest today. Was grinning wryly at his description of public sector workers being so much better paid than private sector? Really? That'll be why we can't fill certain posts (not able to offer comparable salaries to the private sector) despite advertising many times. And why our people keep burgering-off to the private sector. And the length of time quoted for the average public sector work week.....LMAO. I guess the trouble with stats is that you can twist them to reflect whatever argument you want to make.

Our standard workweek is 37 hours. Anything less is part-time. There are a lot of part-time posts in the public sector, reflecting that there are a lot of women employed there, women who often have to fit their work around child-raising responsibilities. I guess my 60% fte core hours contract is draggin' down the average, despite my working over other people's (unpaid) lunch-breaks to maintain continuity of cover.

And it amuses me that money paid to public sector workers like myself is always referred to as if it is somehow lost to the rest of us. Really? About 50% of my net income goes straight back to my public sector employer in the form of council rent and council tax, after the grubbyment have taken their cut off the gross salary, of course. The rest I spent on such debaucheries as utility bills and groceries.

And these lush public sector pensions which we are all supposed to be accruing? Yeah, right, typically under £4k per annum after decades of public service.

I like the public but some of them are vile and, unlike private sector companies, we can't refuse to serve certain people. I know council employees who have been attacked with machetes and samurai swords, held hostage at knifepoint, had stones thrown at them, had cars driven at speed up onto pavements to attempt to kill them. Not to mention the frequent rudeness, bad language, lies and other misbehaviours.

I can't imagine that many such people would be welcome in the retail or other premises of the private sector. Indeed, some of them have had to be temporarily deprived of their liberty because of what they've done to us, inc assaulting customer services peeps like myself.

We've got injunctions against some of the General Public, to keep them away from staff and out of our offices. We'll provide services by phone, post and email, but they've proved themselves far too dangerous to interact in person.

Sorry GQ & Frugalsod, I did not mean to offend or criticise you by posting that link.