Posted On: Tuesday - March 5th 2019 7:56PM MST
In Topics: Music Preppers and Prepping Inflation
Peak Stupidity has not spent much time on Prepper posts. There are lots of good sites out there, John Wesley Rawles SurvivalBlog being perhaps the most well known and useful. Besides the old Zerohedge commenters, who had lots of very good advice in the past, there's Mac Slavo out there with his SHTFplan blog. This guy has spent time in Bosnia during the worst of times there just over 20 years back. His big gimmick in the past was to write in terrible English, to prove, IMO, that he was a bona-fide Bosnian or something. Anyway, upon looking at that site just now, it appears to be a newer, lower-key version of Zerohedge now, in terms of the article topics. (It really looks pretty interesting.)
How is the discussion about politics on ZH and SHTFplan even prepper stuff at all, the reader may ask. Well, let's discuss some different levels of this preparedness. Preparedness for what? That's the question. Long term readers, or anyone who has read our "about" page, would know that Peak Stupidity's big theory is that stupidity will peak and drop drastically once the financial crash coming delivers serious economic pain, and likely, political turmoil to most of us - especially those who are of the non-prepper persuasion (more on what this means below).
On the top of the post, you see the high-level prepper creed. If one has an inkling that the turmoil to come will end up in a real collapse of our just-in-time, highly complicated modern economy, with shortages, power loss, and reversion to 19th century medical care, i.e., TEOTWTWAWKI (pronounced like it's spelled*), then this stuff, taking a whole lot of work, will be deemed necessary. I highly respect the folks that are working on the family or neighborhood level to make their lifestyle sustainable even through the near worst-case scenario. Stocking up of diesel fuel, long-shelf-life foodstuffs, guns/ammo, along with thousands of items that could help enable survival, along with learning some of the old ways with some of the new technology good stuff.
One can read the websites in which proper ways of canning, distillation, re-loading, etc are endlessly debated. Is it going to be all for nothing, though? There is no way to have a good time-line, so this work can seem futile and even embarrassing at times. None of us know how things will go down, as history doesn't exactly repeat itself, it just rhymes. We don't know the next line.
Will this once-great nation slowly slide into a multicultural low-trust, high-stress society like Brazil, with no particular Shit hitting any Fans, but just a low-keyed worsening of the quality of life? Will certain regions finally break up after having enough of
Your plans should certainly be different depending on how you think it will go down. Rather than a complete change of lifestyle requiring basically a 2nd job as a prepper, the next level, based on the anticipation of the Brazil scenario, may require re-thinking job prospects or a relocation to an area with the biggest concentration of your kind, as politics get more tribal. Is it even worth hanging on here, if no one will fight, and the people slowly morph into people that aren't worth fighting for anyway? Maybe a complete bug-out to start the family off in a new land (even better, with others of like mind).
There are plenty of other levels lower or in between. For all anticipated major changes, thought must be put into the issue of MONEY. If one is a prepper at all, besides holding onto real property and resources, one must consider what will happen to the US dollar. The high-level preppers are well aware of this. They have discussions on junk (meaning specifically NOT made of junk) silver, gold and other forms of REAL MONEY. Others, who don't anticipate being truly "off the grid", favor bit-coin and other cryto-currencies (as discussed by Peak Stupidity before, it's a great form of currency for transfer, but is it a great store of value?).
This brings us to the lowest level, people who are wise enough just to store items to avoid inflationary losses. They may not think of themselves as preppers at all, but buying items in bulk when they are on sale, understanding shelf lives of materials and rotation of foodstuffs, etc, sure is prepping to me, if only for the one thing, higher, maybe hyper-inflation to come. Peak Stupidity had one short post on prepping for inflation 2 years ago.
No matter what level you are on, and whether you consider yourself a prepper or not, if you are very concerned with the near-term future of the US of A, and you make plans accordingly, YOU ARE A PREPPER. As a definition to distinguish who are NOT PREPPERS, I'd have to designate those who live paycheck-to-paycheck as non-preppers (see also Credit? Forget it! You got it? You get it!). After all, if it will be a crisis if the family has no income for even one month, even during these "good times", then one is not prepared for anything!
* OK, we'll just explain the acronym with an REM song - the term is about the only thing you may be able to make out, out of Michael Stipe's rapid-fire lyrics.
This band, REM, has been featured here and here already, if not another time or two.
Since I didn't publish the band members' names in those previous posts (I really try to do this for musical artists, REM was**:
Michael Stipe – lead vocals
** He just died - I had no idea!
Peter Buck – lead guitar, mandolin, banjo
Bill Berry – drums, percussion, backing vocals
Mike Mills – bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, occasional lead vocals.
Comments:
Moderator
Saturday - May 11th 2019 10:27AM MST
PS: BTW, I'm not saying I mind these comments, but you probably won't get replies from anyone but me. I just responded to a comment from summer 2018 that I'd missed, haha!
Moderator
Saturday - May 11th 2019 10:26AM MST
PS: Keep the squirrels OUT OF THE ATTIC though. No, not the bullets or bourbon, but the toilet paper is a problem.
How about cigarettes for barter, or just inflation, if nothing else? I've never gotten a good number on the shelf-life of them, though, as a non-smoker myself.
Please comment on some current posts, if your are at all interested. I always appreciate comments!
How about cigarettes for barter, or just inflation, if nothing else? I've never gotten a good number on the shelf-life of them, though, as a non-smoker myself.
Please comment on some current posts, if your are at all interested. I always appreciate comments!
Peyton Fahrquahr
Friday - May 10th 2019 4:38PM MST
PSToilet paper, Bullets, and Bourbon.