when collapse?

WHEN COLLAPSE?
A reader, perhaps smelling blood in the water and moving in for the kill, wanted to know why I'm soliciting funds if I'm convinced that the end is nigh and we are all going to die. Why worry about money, right? A pretty darn good question. It is legitimate. Most prep suppliers are selling short term peace of mind to you. Buy our incredibly overpriced slop and you can sail smooth through the next levee break or winter storm. Even the multi-generational collapse people tell you that there is plenty of time to prepare because we are in a long slow collapse. You envision a lifetime business for them, not a quick buck artist profiting before the collapse. Perhaps it makes good business sense to not panic anyone, even the preppers. I really believe that we are going to fall off a cliff. I could be wrong, but I'm working to position myself as if I'm right. The thing is, I have no idea when it all falls apart. How long it is until we go over the cliff. I'm prepared for tomorrow to be it, but of course the more time that elapses the better I'll position myself. Two years food is good and will do for now, but five is even better. After that, if there is time, I'll shoot for ten years.
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A related question was at what price does oil signal that it is too expensive and starts our collapse. I think the right answer is that it isn't about price as much as it is about availability. Yes, our economy has been made to run completely on cheap and abundant oil. But does it really have to be "giveaway cheap"? There have always been swings in price, and adjusted for inflation I'm sure that $70 a barrel isn't a collapse point price. I think the deciding factor has always been its abundance. Supplies could build back up and lower the price, or conservation could help things out. As long as we knew it was always available. We acted like it was never going to run out, and we built life time investments ( business, retirements, investments ) on that assumption. I'm not saying that $500 a barrel oil is feasible, just that its future supply is very important. We're still paying prices on a lot of goods as if oil was still over $100 a barrel ( metal, fertilizers, etc. ) and we are still surviving. It may not be sustainable but it has only caused a slowdown in excess rather than true shortages. It just seems that since the true global supply has started going down, all our economic problems started and won't correct. That is why I wonder more about supply than price.
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Now, getting back to panic by example, why am I living in our consumer society if we are all going to end up in the stew pot? If I thought that we would collapse by the end of the year, I would be finding the most remote top of a mountain I could, haul up all the supplies I could beg, borrow and steal, and completely drop out. I would send a really nasty note to wife #2, tell her what a foul little horrid troll she was ( I have a bit built up ), tell the kids and my parents I loved them, give the finger to work ( nothing personal, I'm just a bit peeved I still have to work so many hours ) and slowly go insane in anticipation of the coming zombie hoards that would try to storm my fortress. But I have no idea when any of this will happen. If I really knew, you would be paying $200 a year for this newsletter and I would be selling you stock market advice. Look, I know I'm not the sharpest crayon in the box. I read a heck of a lot and try to connect the dots. My only talent ( at least as far as I'm concerned ) is stripping away the wishful thinking. I love to RoundUp those green shoots. It isn't so hard to anticipate the direction we are headed. The hard part is making yourself believe. I have no talent for timing those events.
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That is why, as much as I'd love to live a lot more prepared, I have to compromise. A hundred miles from any town, with a twenty year supply of grains. That would be ideal. The reality, the compromise, is the need to keep sending my court appointed welfare case most of a paycheck. Does anyone end up okay in jail when the apocalypse happens? Of course not. I'm staying out of jail, even if it makes me much more vulnerable. It could be years until we crash. No, not decades, but certainly years are feasible. Not guaranteed. But very probable. No survival plan is perfect because of the need to compromise with the incessant demands of the hoards of parasites that surround us. Family is usually the worst. But of course you give in because it not only is the right thing to do, you hope they would do the same if needed. The government is always there, grubby nasty paws held out. If you stay legal and have a piece of property, there will always be the sharply rising taxes on it ( junk land will be the same, but sharp increases in the single digits are much more affordable in an emergency that triple/quadruple digits ). And you always need some kind of income and trips to the store. No way around it. The lucky ones merely minimize it.
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Now, please don't use any of this as an excuse to be a total slacker and not do enough preparing for the inevitable. My point is just that you can't be perfect. Compromises must be made. But never stop trying to shoot for perfect. And do it soon, because no one can time it so just assume the worst.
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