Preparedness for when

ALIBOBSY

GreyQueen wrote: »

Quite a bit of ancient archaeology is under the North Sea and under the North Atlantic, esp off Portugal and Spain. The thing to understand about sudden catastrophes is that they can be deal-breakers for advanced urban cultures.

Such as the eruption of Santorini, the volcanic island north of Crete, which entombed whole towns there and sent earthquakes and a tsunami down to Crete. Which the advanced and sophisticated palace culture, which we refer to as the Minoans, never recovered from, and then fell prey to invaders from elsewhere in its weakened state. Crete of the legendary hundred cities, in its winedark sea, with its wooden walls (its famous fleet), its diplomatic and trade connections to pharonic Egypt, all swept away.

This destruction is believed to be the kernel of truth behind the legend of Atlantis.

Plenty of affluent ports globally have silted up and lost their prosperity, plenty of croplands have washed and blown away, one river in the Far East switched courses in a few days, leaving a town high and dry in a desert area (in historic not modern times).

Funnily enough I have been thinking about how a major natural disaster in a western country at the moment with our fragile world economies could have a knock on effect felt around the world. In particular I was reading about the cascadia fault line that runs along the coast from northern california all the way up Vancouver in Canada, if this goes all along the fault-and it has many times in the past it could easily be a mag 9 quake followed by a huge tsunami along that coast. Apart from the local loss of life and huge infrastructure costs the knock on effect on the US economy and then the world would be massive. Top experts believe the chance of it going in the next few decades are around 30-40%.

Or naples in europe with both versuvius and campi flegrei right in the centre of town-crazy italians. Its just a crisis waiting to happen. Or Iceland where Bardabunga is still rumbling away and may erupt again soon.

Now tbh you can't sit and stress about these things, but fault lines will move eventually and volcanos unless extinct will erupt and the effects could be felt worldwide.

Don't get scared or stress about them, but we can get prepared and be aware-oh and don't live inside the caldera of a massive volcano like part of Naples lol.

Ali x

[Deleted User]

ALI love, cope with it IF it happens, we have absolutely NO control over natural events big or small so to worry will only give you grey hair and sleepless nights. All any of us can do is to keep ourselves out of trouble by being aware of what's going on in the world, in our country, in our neck of the woods and on our home patch and by making sensible provision for those things we CAN have some control over. The rest of it, events large or small will happen IF they're going to without any help from us won't they?

GreyQueen

jk0 wrote: »

Don't attempt if over 40 though. I think you'll do yourself a mischief.

If God wants to run me over in the short period of time I'm retrieving my BOB from the boot, bring it on.

40 years of age or 40 mph?!

Your back seat probably has a split about one-third of the way along, so position your bag of necessities behind the smallest section. Be a good idea to practise this manoever parked up at home, to check that it's do-able in general and in specific to you. I'm not as bendy as I once was, I know.

In the past 30 years, the market price of my parents' very ordinary terraced ex-council house has been as low as £1.5 k and as high at £100k. Its value is about the same; 3 bed/ 1 reception/ on-street parking. In one four year period, the identical home next door grew its price by £40k. Nothing physically changed in that house and the pay for ordinary working people was falling in real terms. Market price doesn't bear any relationship to the utility of the home or the income of the present or potential occupiers.

If houseprices did fall by 50% across the board, there would be financial mayhem and some people would be in severe amounts of negative equity and suffer. Other people would feel poorer, because their house price had gone down but, if every house price was going down proportionately, their next-house-purchasing-power would be about the same. You only really benefit from rising houseprices if you inherit a property you don't intend to keep and want to sell it and trouser the profit.

I've mentioned it before, but I do have real concerns about the number of first time landlords who are launching themselves into property ownership at what is probably the top of the market. I can see a lot of people getting their fingers burned and most of them with be Jo and Joe Soaps, with one or two properties only, bought instead of their pension plans, and ill-equipped to handle a sudden reversal of fortune.

News last week is that the Bank of England is going to have to print more notes and make more coins as so much currency is being hoarded in people's homes. I'd like to think none of us would be so anti-capitalist and untrusting as to hoard cold hard cash................:whistle: The average home has over £300 in it, can you imagine that?

ivyleaf

GQ, what tickled me was the spokesman's insistence that distrust of the banks wasn't the reason for people keeping cash at home :rotfl:

mardatha

Excuse me !! I'm a Munro and I ain't having all these damn McInnits up here on this hill - jellybabies or no jellybabies!
Vikings are ok though. Within reason.

Frugalsod

jk0 wrote: »

Don't attempt if over 40 though. I think you'll do yourself a mischief.

If God wants to run me over in the short period of time I'm retrieving my BOB from the boot, bring it on.

Over 40? Miles per hour or years. :rotfl:

Frugalsod

Blue_Doggy wrote: »

Is this why the government are having to beg the Chinese to fund infrastructure projects here?

(Question from a non-economist.)

That is nothing to do with the governments unwillingness to invest. If they really wanted to build it they could. This is more a matter of ideology in that they want to privatise everything and what better than a foreign government. Much of our postal and rail services are owned by European state owned enterprises. It is purely ideological as there is no real merit for most of these privatisations as they will need subsidises for years. Just look at how much more the rail network costs us now compared to the British Rail era.

GreyQueen

ivyleaf wrote: »

GQ, what tickled me was the spokesman's insistence that distrust of the banks wasn't the reason for people keeping cash at home :rotfl:

Yeah, I was grinning cynically at that, it was like the populace had accidentally managed to accrue that amount of cash at home, like 20 million hubbies leaving their pocket change on the bedside table, or 20 million wifies having too much change in the housekeeping purse. We've just been a wee bit distracted and let it mount up at home, bless us; nothing to worry about, nothing to see, move along quietly.

As I knew they were in trouble, I did my bit; paid for groceries in change to the tune of £1.10 in silver (90p) and copper for the rest this morning. Every little helps, hey? Never let it be said that GQ doesn't hold the interests of the Bank close to her wizened heart at all times. Why, I care just as much about them as they care about me.

Don't know if this has ever happened before (the need to make extra physical money because of hoarding) but can't recall ever seeing it reported. Has anyone else ever seen the like?

Of course, keep your eyes and ears peeled for any mention of the words Don't Panic - get your panicking in nice and early before the rush. It's like the sales only you get to get what you already own, rather than new stuff, if you're quick enough off the mark.

jk0

Frugalsod wrote: »

Over 40? Miles per hour or years. :rotfl:

I really would be asking to get run over if I got out to go to the boot at 40mph.

Frugalsod

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

ALI love, cope with it IF it happens, we have absolutely NO control over natural events big or small so to worry will only give you grey hair and sleepless nights. All any of us can do is to keep ourselves out of trouble by being aware of what's going on in the world, in our country, in our neck of the woods and on our home patch and by making sensible provision for those things we CAN have some control over. The rest of it, events large or small will happen IF they're going to without any help from us won't they?

Yes natural disasters like volcanoes etc are unpredictable but prepping means you will have a better starting point than others should it ever happen. Knowing what to do when it happens is also the best prepping strategy. Not having some sort of back up plan is worst of all.