Preparedness for when

ALIBOBSY

In the middle of reading Russell Brands book Revolution so I am now starting to look at our economic system with an even more sceptical eye than I was.

He states alot of the obvious that we all know, but it kind of gets obscured. The current system is not the way things have always been and doesn't have to be the way things are. Currently there is a push to globalise and max profit at the cost of anything else. BUT that profit is only to benefit a select few rich and priviledged.

If the 85 richest people in the world own just over 50% of the worlds wealth something is clearly rotten in the state of Denmark (well the world actually lol).

Pretty much everything the state does is only possible with our tacit consent. Look at the poll tax as an example. If a small percentage of the populus refuse to pay a tax you can punish them hard, if a huge percentage refuse you have to back down. The whole system is based on us in fighting and not working out that the real "baddies" are the corporations and the rich/elite they fund.

When the banks were on the verge of collaspe their debts were in effect cancelled by being bailed out with our money, not the money of those who could afford it, but you, me our kids and probably their kids as well. Thats not just crazy its beyond immoral.

So my plan if I was in charge would be the cancellation of all personal debt, the creation of a new monetary system based on a system of barter and exchanging skills. Then see the elite deal with that lol.

Wouldn't Greece's immigrant problem be solved by dropping out of the EU? If they were no longer seen as a route to claim EU citizenship they would look a lot less attractive surely. Plus if they refused to deal with any kind of border issues the people could just travel straight through to other part of Europe?

Hmm just pondering here of course, maybe I am becoming an anacist in my mid life :eek: The current system is broken so we need to think outside the box and turn the whole thing upside down. Interesting (and challenging) times indeed.

Plus the bl##dy water is still off, some social media now suggesting this is more serious that is being let on in mainstream media, even saw suggestions of a terrorist attack/practice run

Ali x

[Deleted User]

The only plan I have is to be around and healthy for as long as I'm able to do so. My plans seem to all be contingency plans for futures that may or may not materialise. Without wishing to spread doom and gloom and fright I always try to imagine the very worse thing that could happen, add 10% and try to see my way through to the other side of it! There are some things that are too big to have a plan for and losing the water supply entirely is one of those. In the short term we'd need all the help we could find, in the long term if the problem couldn't be solved we'd have to relocate, along with everyone else from the area if there was somewhere to go to that had enough potable water for whoever lived there already and all of us incomers. It's a bit like all the migrants arriving in what they think of as the life of their dreams and then finding themselves caught up in queues and beurocracy and still having nothing more than they stand in at the end of it. I wonder if a lot of the behaviour from the migrants arriving in European countries is because of expectations being completely unrealistic and reality on arrival bringing total disillusion and resentment that there isn't a system in place waiting to welcome them with open arms, homes, jobs, health care, money, clothes, food, etc. If you have to cope with that, you'll blame whoever is there and kick up a rumpus in the hope you can bully your desperate way into getting what you most want. It's sadness all round really isn't it?

Frugalsod

I also think that even Greece is better than a war zone where you could be executed for having the wrong religion or sect of that religion, which is why I think that the refugees will still arrive even if Greece is outside the EU. Sure many will move on if they can, but not everyone or will.

Maybe the solution for Greece is to process passports for as many as possible and then allow them to leave to flood the rest of Europe legally.

1Tonsil

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

It's a bit like all the migrants arriving in what they think of as the life of their dreams and then finding themselves caught up in queues and beurocracy and still having nothing more than they stand in at the end of it.

Actually that sums up perfectly how a lot of ex pats and legal immigrants to Greece and some other European countries feel now. Many of them have been leaving in droves over the last ten years or so. They bought into the living the dream fantasy and it did not turn out that way. Fortunately we realised this very quickly, and adopted the local survival skills and a new mentality. We are here for the duration now, good or bad.Living in Thailand for eight months taught me how little I need to survive and how to cope when things suddenly go wrong.....

Frugalsod

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

Hmm just pondering here of course, maybe I am becoming an anacist in my mid life :eek: The current system is broken so we need to think outside the box and turn the whole thing upside down. Interesting (and challenging) times indeed.

You are not alone. I think many who are a little more independently minded and actually look around them and see things that contradict what they are being told. They might work out for themselves that something is seriously wrong. I did and made a concerted effort to cut my overheads and clear my debts. Only a five thousand left to go but I will be debt free by the end of the year.

I am learning new things that will also allow me further scope to cut living costs but not my standard of living. Learning new skills is something else we could all do.

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

Plus the bl##dy water is still off, some social media now suggesting this is more serious that is being let on in mainstream media, even saw suggestions of a terrorist attack/practice run

Ali x

The is probably a screw up by the water company failing to invest in the cleaning process infrastructure. We might never know especially if it increases the risks of calls for re-nationalisation. We might be given an acceptable (but untrue) reason to calm the public.

[Deleted User]

Thinking outside the box for the unforseen future, if you have musical talent you could earn cash as an entertainer, if you can spin a good yarn and there is no TV/Radio you could earn cash as a storyteller, if you have a talent for sewing you could make clothes/upholstery, if you can also spin and weave you have a cottage industry that will ALWAYS be needed. If you know herbal law you could make and sell soap, shampoo, cosmetics, ointments, herbal medicinal items, household items like polish, if you know how to forage you might find a living selling/bartering to others who are unsure what is safe, if you have ability as a carpenter you could make a living making/repairing/refurbishing household furniture and household infrastructure. If you know how to make pottery you'd never be out of demand (mind you you'd also need to know where to obtain the right clay and how to prepare it for use), if you know how to smelt ore for metals and cast/ make tools, weapons,ploughs,farm equipment etc. you'd always be in demand too. So would someone who could tan leather, someone who knew butchery, animal husbandry, preserving techniques, even how to sow and care for and then harvest cereal crops for flour/brewing. It's time maybe to think of an alternative to an academic career in preference to something practical that would keep you in self employment, it's a thought?

Frugalsod

I think many of those options would be more useful should be have a complete collapse in society, which I doubt. The real risks is of a financial collapse like in Greece which would require alternative methods to cope such as those you described. Though I would look at these extra skills as something to be used to cope with a drastic collapse of the economy. They may not make you much money but could be used to barter with for other items that you will need.

The problem with complete self sufficiency that many US preppers preach is that it is not totally viable for many in the UK especially living in a city. Though being able to do certain things to the extent that it could give you a skill to barter for food or something else is useful anywhere.

Eventually you will have to stand up and protest in order to get things changed. Voting Tory and then moaning about cuts to family credit are not going to cut it.

GreyQueen

I think that there is a powerful psychological leaning in the US back towards pioneer days and many people there probably have the notion that they, too, can cut the mustard as homesteaders and backwoodsmen. People who have probably taken just about every journey in their lives by car, who have always lived in great material comfort, but are fantasising that there is a craggy-faced sodbuster/mountain man/cowboy about to slip out from under their skin and face hardships with a laconic smile. Or that things will go Mad Max and they'll finally get a chance to shoot people with no consequences.

I rather like the blogger FerFAL, and he is pretty scathing about this rural flight idea. He saw what happened in his native Argentina when things went bad in their economy. People in the back country were subject to home invasions, murders, rapes and robberies, more so than in the cities. And there was no one there to hear them scream....

The reality is that if resources are scarce, they will be concentrated on areas with the most population; cities and big towns. And by resources, I mean things even of the nature of electrical and water engineers to get the utilities up and running. Such law and order as can be mustered, and such medical resources which are available, will also be concentrated in the urban areas. It will be where most of the medical personnel are living, as well as where the physical buildings and supplies are to be found.

If you're in a one-horse one-phonebox village like the one I was born in, you're a long way from help when things go wrong, and the first hour after an accident or an occurance like heart attack or stroke isn't called the Golden Hour for nothing. Being close to medical attention is often the difference between life and death.

Today, I was chatting to a Hungarian man, a generation older than myself, about his parents' experience of their hyperinflation immediately after WW2. About how you'd go to the butcher's shop and there would be scales for weighing the meat, and other, smaller scales, for weighing in the links and scraps of gold people were spending to get the meat. Because the currency was worthless, and only tangibles which could be traded for tangibles were any use to you.

FerFAL also has a video clip on his site when he shows some pieces of family jewellery, including a gold chain bracelet which his wife inherited from her grandmother. It had once been a gold neck chain, but had been sold link by link in Spain in desperate times to buy food.

thriftwizard

I'm going to put in a plug for all those slightly barmy organisations that keep old skills alive & passing down the generations. Guilds, re-enactors, living history types all have their place and can actually be quite a lot of fun; I doubt we'll return to needing to spin our own yarn in my lifetime, but not only do I know how, I enjoy doing it!

If you think about it, plenty of people of my mother's generation - and indeed, plenty of younger people too - think of gardening as a mildly-entertaining hobby that some of us indulge in. Not the money-saving, health-preserving, potentially even life-saving activity that many of us here see it as. As for foraging, more than half the people in our little town would - quite probably do - think I'm barmy, when they see me plucking bags of elderflowers or filling ice-cream tubs with blackberries, rose-hips, sloes & crab apples down at the riverbank. The sentiment's reciprocated... it's free, it's tasty & it's good for you! It doesn't have to be about surviving collapse, it can just be about having a good time in the sun & eating well within a tight budget, and passing the knowledge & skills on to the next generation.

Frugalsod

GreyQueen wrote: »

Today, I was chatting to a Hungarian man, a generation older than myself, about his parents' experience of their hyperinflation immediately after WW2. About how you'd go to the butcher's shop and there would be scales for weighing the meat, and other, smaller scales, for weighing in the links and scraps of gold people were spending to get the meat. Because the currency was worthless, and only tangibles which could be traded for tangibles were any use to you.

FerFAL also has a video clip on his site when he shows some pieces of family jewellery, including a gold chain bracelet which his wife inherited from her grandmother. It had once been a gold neck chain, but had been sold link by link in Spain in desperate times to buy food.

I think that goods that people make might also be useful, like clothes soaps etc. During the hyperinflation in Germany the only things that were demanded were food and clothing, until they both took more than 95% of peoples money. So much for property rental income being able to help. The rental income will not be able to buy much and so they will need to sell valuables to cope.

To get through any hyperinflation it will be the food that is going to crucial. All hyper inflationary episodes have lasted at most 5 years usually shorter. So if you have enough clothes and 5 years supplies of food then you could get through unscathed, but that would be unlikely.

Though for the next few years deflation will be the problem. With global capacity at unprecedented levels and demand at lows because of income inequality then the prospects are not good. We shall see this in falling sales and eventually profits as they can no longer sack staff to boost profits. As many companies have borrowed massively to fund share buybacks and takeovers those debts will come back to haunt them as their incomes fall and the real value of those debts rise. So a rise in corporate bankruptcies is likely.

There could be wealth as much as $40 Trillion being wiped out in the US alone as the debts overwhelm the ability of businesses and people to support them. Even more globally. This will impact the rich far more than the average person. These shocks could trigger loan defaults and even bail ins.