Preparedness for when

mardatha

Calicocat, my own view is that this is all scaremongering by the Powers That Be to stop people using their own initiative. They can't possibly have time and manpower and money to sit in Whitehall and go through till receipts lol. And in wartime it was usually spiteful neighbours who phoned the police re hoarding.

nuatha

mardatha wrote: »

Calicocat, my own view is that this is all scaremongering by the Powers That Be to stop people using their own initiative. They can't possibly have time and manpower and money to sit in Whitehall and go through till receipts lol. And in wartime it was usually spiteful neighbours who phoned the police re hoarding.

Whitehall would need to do very little other than order the supermarkets and the likes of Amazon to hand over the data. Spiteful neighbours is still likely to be an issue.

mardatha

But they'd need the manpower to go through a hell of a lot of stuff and they cant afford to pay them lol

nuatha

mardatha wrote: »

But they'd need the manpower to go through a hell of a lot of stuff and they cant afford to pay them lol

Actually they'd need to decide what foods might be hoarded. In honour of GQ I'll pick on Fray Bentos pies, query the supermarkets for the average consumption, list all those customers who buy triple that amount, of those customers what other items do the buy above average amounts. It would take me 10 minutes to write the query. all the work would be done by the supermarkets. What the government would need to do would be correlate addresses from the various companies, again a simple task for computers.
If they ran this same data against the HMRC databases they'd have an even better idea of who is spending a large percentage of their income on bulk buying food.

Seriously it wouldn't take an army of civil servants, everything is computerised, its more a case of working out what information you need.
Doing something about it - that needs people.

GreyQueen

Morning all.

Spent the best part of 5 hours on the allotment yesterday and when I got in was too tired to interweb it. Had to lie on the couch with a book.

Re hoarding, the usual method of controlling the civilian population during times of trouble is to set groups against each other. Typically by whipping up 'patriotism' and encouraging people to snoop and inform on each other. This was mentioned as happening in parts of American in the novel The Last Town on Earth (set in the last months of WW1) with housewives informing on their neighbours and bragging about it as respectable matrons were carted off to the cells.

Hoarding can be whatever TPTB decide it is going to be. Civilian populations have been stripped of their stored food, valuables, tools, weaponry, land and livestock for millennia with no greater technology than hands, horses and the occasional cart or boat. Ultimately, if you have a home you are a sitting duck. Which is why they are still finding treasures buried in pots in the ground hundreds or even thousands of years after their owners hid them.

These very hands have held a coin from the reign of Philip II of Macedon. And he was assassinated in 336 BC. Father of the more famous Alexander the Great. That's a small chunk of rather attractive stamped silver which could tell some tales, hey? It was found Somewhere in Europe in relatively modern times. And it's still valuable.

Compare and contrast our present fiat currency, base metal coins and paper notes, whose only value is what the government and the populace agrees it is. My 500,000 million dollar Zimbabwean bank note is worth all of £2 on the open market, f'rinstance. There are other degraded defunct fiat currencies floating around the curio markets for pennies, too. Every single fiat currency ever made has degraded to zero.

The worst risk of holding fiat money outside the banking system is that the currency goes into hyperinflation and it loses all its purchasing power. And you have some pretty coloured toilet paper.

The second risk is that the grubbyment decides to re-issue the fiat without allowing the 'old fiat' to be redeemed, or fixes the redemption rates at below present value, or assumes anyone holding cash in quantitiy is a criminal unless they can prove otherwise.

Actually, given what I read in the snoozepapers, the latter is already true. And a 'a large sum' seems to be anything from the high hundreds to a thousand or two. Which given what it will buy, isn't really that large at all, is it?

I think it would be prudent to keep shopping for the deep stores, or shopping in quantities not plausible for fairly immediate consumption by a household of your size, off the loyalty cards and online ordering altogether and to pay cash. To bring it in yourself, from diverse sources a little at a time, and to conceal it in multiple places around the home, in case one source is compromised by inadvertant exposure or deliberate search.

One branchlet on my family tree (emigree Brits) have been living in northern europe since the early 20th century. Not a bundle of laughs living on a Brit passport in a German-occupied city, but it happened. My rellies did some very fast work with appropriating some leftover tea chests from the retreating British army and the country branch of the family (which got them) was able to keep the city-dwelling family tea'd up for the whole of the occupation. Proving you can be an ex-pat and still true to the tea-drinking core values of the culture.;)

They tried to get ship from a channel port to the UK but couldn't. Some people who did bought their passage with gold. As have many refugees from many conflicts both ancient and modern.

At the moment, what we do could be seen as a game, an affectation, a whimsy. When and if the balloon goes up, it will suddenly become a matter of deadly earnest. After all, habits which mark a person out as a bit of a looney tune right now could easily be viewed in a different light should things become very difficult.

Keep your Armageddon Cupboards and preptastic supplies and skills close, and your families closer.

ETA nuatha, I'm honoured to be the Queen of the Tinned Pies. None of which come from the supermarkets btw. I don't own loyalty cards of my own but I do shop sometimes (not for preptastic supplies) on two of them belonging to my mother. Good luck with anyone trying to analyse her household and my consumption. I don't ever buy more than 3-4 of any shelf-stable goods at a time as I've learned that cashiers do comment on it, and recall what you do.

That reminds me, I have cooked 3 of the pies and must buy 3 more to keep the stash up.

But yes, IT does enable fast searches of data and can throw up stuff to be given a closer look. Which is why the tinhatted amongst us like to keep our heads down.

Frugalsod

If they looked at my online orders they would attract attention but the good thing is that they are so infrequent that they might actually get missed.

Frugalsod

nuatha wrote: »

I can think of many such scenarios, but those I consider more likely involve or will be seriously complicated by government action - of those you mention, government action could seriously complicate any of them.

Widespread use of woodburners will bring its own problems, not least of which is insufficient forestry.

The two situations that I think are most likely are another serious financial crisis and wealth inequality leading to serious social unrest. Both of which I would blame the government totally for creating. The fact that they are completely unwilling to reform the banks means that we will inevitably have another banking crisis, and it is only a matter of time. I will be minimising my balances within banks for just that reason.

I think the necessity for mass wood burning would be very minimal, I think riots would be common everywhere if things got that bad. I suspect that a gas shortage might be minimal of a few weeks and that will create enough problems that the government had to come up with a long term solution. Renewables are a very good long term solution apart from the problem that the government is full of NIMBY's

Fracking has more than enough things against it and it is only a short term solution anyway.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-05-15/taxpayers-pay-as-fracking-trucks-overwhelm-rural-cow-paths

thriftwizard

Hmm - the idea of the Grubbyment going through T*sco's databanks has me worried on behalf of all large families. Not so much of an issue for me now that more than half of mine have wandered off & now live elsewhere & buy their own food, but any family with more than the "norm" to feed is quite simply going to have to buy more food than most. Probably seems that that's obvious, but when I ran up against T*sco's online ordering limits & tried to explain that I wasn't being greedy, we just go through more bread etc. than most families & I only had sporadic access to transport, they were downright rude to me & threatened to limit the amount of stuff I could buy instore too, "to protect other customers". Even though I was paying full price, and had offered to pay for two delivery slots... it was a long time before I darkened their doors again. Not that they noticed.

(Quick aside, please don't be offended but I've had to fight this corner many a time - just in case anyone's thinking, serve 'em right, bunch of dole-scrounging layabouts - most big families of my acquaintance well & truly pay their own way, and many became big families by adoption or fostering. We never received a penny other than child benefit & child tax credit.)

During the tanker drivers' strike, the manager of the little local supermarket told me that they'd been instructed to ration bread supplies to one loaf per household, per day. That's probably fine for a small family, and more than enough for a lone pensioner, say, but we'd have run out by lunchtime, if I hadn't taken to baking my own. It does worry me, that blanket rationing strategies thought up & policed by commercial interests (as I gather would be the case) will not make proper allowances for individual circumstances...

nuatha

thriftwizard wrote: »

Hmm - the idea of the Grubbyment going through T*sco's databanks has me worried on behalf of all large families.

Apologies if I've caused some worry.
If I was setting it up, I'd also be tying in with the HMRC/DWP database, which would show child benefits and adjust accordingly.

Not so much of an issue for me now that more than half of mine have wandered off & now live elsewhere & buy their own food, but any family with more than the "norm" to feed is quite simply going to have to buy more food than most. Probably seems that that's obvious, but when I ran up against T*sco's online ordering limits & tried to explain that I wasn't being greedy, we just go through more bread etc. than most families & I only had sporadic access to transport, they were downright rude to me & threatened to limit the amount of stuff I could buy instore too, "to protect other customers". Even though I was paying full price, and had offered to pay for two delivery slots... it was a long time before I darkened their doors again. Not that they noticed.

Frankly, short of a rationing situation (which includes maximum purchase numbers on special offers) it makes no sense to impose order limits. Not something I've come across before.

(Quick aside, please don't be offended but I've had to fight this corner many a time - just in case anyone's thinking, serve 'em right, bunch of dole-scrounging layabouts - most big families of my acquaintance well & truly pay their own way, and many became big families by adoption or fostering. We never received a penny other than child benefit & child tax credit.)

I've known several large families, and the only ones that fit the dole scrounging layabouts label were examples used by sections of the media - even then, usually inaccurately.

During the tanker drivers' strike, the manager of the little local supermarket told me that they'd been instructed to ration bread supplies to one loaf per household, per day. That's probably fine for a small family, and more than enough for a lone pensioner, say, but we'd have run out by lunchtime, if I hadn't taken to baking my own. It does worry me, that blanket rationing strategies thought up & policed by commercial interests (as I gather would be the case) will not make proper allowances for individual circumstances...

I worked for a major supermarket chain many years ago, I remember various shortages, including sugar, coffee and corned beef. In each case our regular customers who regularly bought larger than average amounts were looked after. (And strangers who tried to bulk buy got short shrift). Unfortunately I suspect there are few supermarkets where staff would know their regulars any more.

GreyQueen

The trouble with blanket rationing like 'one loaf per household per shopping trip' is that it's a very blunt instrument. One loaf would last a single person household like mine 5-6 days, or less if there was nothing else to eat other than bread, of course.

Blinking cheek Tosco telling you that they were 'rationing supplies' when there was no crisis on. You should see the shocking amount of stuff gets carted out of their stores in heaping trollies every week. I can't believe it all gets eaten before the fresh stuff goes off.

I have just been 'shopping in the storecupboard' by which I mean moving some previously-purchased tins up into the everyday food-cupboard where I keep anything from one to six examples of whatever it is, and then I refill the underbed rolling trollies when I see a good price on offer. I keep the purchase date, price and BB date on the top in pen. Where it isn't obvious, like not an own brand, I also note the store. Some trollies under the bed have 2-3 things in similarly-sized tins, in which case they have a letter code (TS = tomato soup, BB = baked beans P = peaches).

It ain't rocket science but it keeps me amused. I have also added one pie (a Princ*s pie rather than an FB this time) back into the supplies, will add two more discreetly over the next few days. Those tinned pies have their date on the bottom printed on dark blue, which is hard to read, so I stick a wee bit of masking tape on their lids, with the date written on that. Helps fast stock rotations.

With the carbooty season having started, I will be looking to add to my collection of coolbags for pence, as they can be very handy for holding tinned goods together and contained and dust free. I have a few of these in a deep cache, with a mixture of proteins, carbs like spuds and fruit, and tinned veg in them. The idea in a total chaos is that they would contain a few days' balanced food supply.

You'd be surprised what you can stash in a tiny flat if you have a creative imagination and don't mind thinking outside the box.:rotfl: