business as usual

BUSINESS AS USUAL
Today's "Green Sprouts News". This fiscal years deficit is "only" $1.5 trillion. China "only" cut its US debt holdings by 3% in one month. "Only" five banks closed last Friday. Okay, enough of that, I don't want to take any of the thunder away from Uncle Obammy. My last article brought the comment that the reader saw no connection between body fat and semi-auto ammunition. Now, I know that this was a simple ruse to get me introduce today's topic which is business as usual. Thank you for the introduction. This is just another way of saying that nobody is looking for a forest through all the trees. You can't expect your semi-auto rifle to be restocked with ammunition after our civilizations collapse. And you can't think of fat as being a bad thing when it might keep you alive longer. The connection is that we need to totally adjust the way we think about things if we are to have a fighting chance at being the last one in the stew pot.
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It wouldn't be tactically sound to show up for the apocalypse with a flintlock rifle. There will still be millions of spare rounds available even after the government tries to quarantine the ghettos as they try to suppress the rioting after the genetically modified corn has been turned into ethanol for military use and the wheat crop has failed from the latest rust mutation ( this is all after the drought of course ) and famine grips the land. Until the last of the modern ammunition is used up it would be silly to try to fight 20th century arms ( the only thing even advancing the M-16 from the WWII era are the plastic stocks and metal alloys ) with your 19th century firearm. And speaking of the vile hunk of crap that is the M-16, be sure to check out the last comment on the Survival Blog from today about the AK article. Since some of you fail to genuflect quick enough as my name is intoned, this should reinforce how right I am about the unsuitability of that weapon. A flintlock is the weapon that will never run out of ammunition or an ignition source, but it is absolutely no match for modern arms. And since you need a modern arm to combat others with modern arms, a bolt action is a reasonable compromise. It won't run out of modern ammunition anywhere near as quick. And don't play me with the skill argument. 99 out of a hundred survivalists don't have the skill to conserve ammunition under the new stress of combat.
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Body fat will once again become both scarce and desirable. Since the vast majority of our land has been striped of its nutrients and only produces food through petroleum product imputes such as natural gas derived artificial nitrogen fertilizer, as soon as the oil becomes scarce enough that land won't produce enough food to feed even a fraction of our current population. We will see famine and pestilence and die-off, the only question is when. It is very unlikely that you will be left in peace to farm that land. Rather, the new local warlord will either kill you to take it over or work you as a serf. And you won't go unnoticed because after the fuel runs out everything is going to revert to local only. That includes the tyrannical government that will rule over every square inch in his domain. Right now you might go unnoticed by the state or federal capital, but later you won't be able to hide. I'm not saying farming is bad, only that no one acknowledges the risks involved. The point here is that we are still thinking about things as if it was business as usual.
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You think you'll have enough to eat. You think the government will protect you. You think Wal-Mart will never close. Oh, I understand you are stockpiling for shortages, but deep down you won't accept that things will fundamentally change. You have enough food for six months, then expect to farm to eat. You have a few thousand rounds of ammunition and expect law and order to resume before that runs out. You assume shoes will once again be made, trade will once again pick up. It isn't like you can do a whole lot of deep planning assuming otherwise. Our economy has switched over completely to debt and overseas trade. Even forty years ago there was a lot more self sufficiency built in to the economy than now. There were still shoe repairmen instead of the fake leather and glue shoes from China that closed them all down. A lot of small machine shops and fabricators. Much more practical trades than cubical jockeys. All gone now. Almost no one can afford to truly stock enough for much more than a short term disruption. That is understandable. What is less understandable is the assumption that it will be enough. We won't go back to business as usual. The last Dark Ages lasted centuries. Populations crashed severely. Farmland was depleted to the point it took hundreds of years to replenish itself. Law and order took that long to get reestablished. And that was going from an agricultural economy to the same. The infrastructure of outlaying areas feeding Rome failed, true. Now, we will have to readjust from global trade to local production or at most very short distance trade. In that our collapses are similar. The difference, what will make things even harder, is that we are devolving from industry/information back to primitive farming ( the Intensive techniques are an improvement but we are without the infrastructure to support a non-petroleum society ).
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I don't expect anyone other than a few bizarre folks to plan now for the total collapse. Other than escaping to a wilderness area and living off the land, you can't do much beforehand except short term stockpiling. But perhaps you should stop looking for green sprouts after the collapse. I don't think they will be any more numerous than during this "recovery". Paranoia is good.
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