travel down

TRAVEL DOWN
Well, I’m feeling much better than yesterday, thanks for asking, showing concern and lighting a candle for me. I guess I’m spoiled, having no difficulty at all always getting a good nights sleep. Being out in the semi-boonies helps a lot in this regard. The only sound out there is the train and I’m used to that. So, whenever my sleep is cut short I think it takes a lot out of me. Perhaps more than it should. Back in the day when I was working management it was normal to get crap for sleep. Now that work stress is above my pay grade it is rare to have a bad nights sleep. Today I would like to go over the old ground of retreating and bugging out. A certain unnamed blog had an article, rather long, on bugging out by airplane. I would have read it, but my plan is to have Oompa Loompa’s come rescue me in their edible candy hot air balloon fueled by pixie dust and we will sail away to a magical land far from the mundane troubles of this planet. My plan is much better and more than likely more achievable by the average person.
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As I was living 300 miles south, living in the trailer park, I envisioned a bug out plan for myself. Three gas cans and a full tank and I could have made it up here to Elko. The good part of this plan was that it would have been as easy as could be to afford that. Anyone on the smallest paycheck could do that. And since I was already in a trailer I would have pulled my home and my supplies up with me. The bad part of that plan was that it wouldn’t have worked. One government checkpoint, one run on the gas stations after the Straight Of Hormuz was chocked off, any small change from normal and I most likely wouldn’t have made even that small of a distance. If just a small percentage of Californians panicked and fled east the highways would have been gridlocked and I would have run out of gas. In all probability, nothing so drastic would have happened. But it would have been stupid to bet my life on it. In my case, it was stupider NOT to move. I went from paying a four hundred dollar lot rent to paying a hundred dollar land payment. In five years I had paid a very nasty individual almost fifteen grand to live in Carson City. He was gouging by at least thirty percent. If I stay long enough on this lot close to town I’ll eventually pay half that amount and then I’ll own it. Yes, the price I pay here is a very cold commute whereas in town I was a half mile to work. Nothing is free.
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In the case of our Superior Person In The Form Of Yuppie Survivalist More Worthy Of Life After The Collapse Since He Makes More Money And Shall Fly Above Us Peons To Avoid Breathing The Same Air As We, he stays in the city to work a well paying job. I simply traded minimum wage for minimum wage. The only trade off was a less laid back boss. In the case of His Lordship he can’t go to the boonies without cutting his pay , I don’t know, fifty percent perhaps. You would figure at that pay level they could easily telecommute at something. Maybe he was a doctor and needed to keep examining rectums up close and personal. But I wonder if he’s thought of the possibility of air travel restrictions. Or does he think he can escape early? I know a lot of you are thinking that you are smart and would always leave early, giving Katrina as an example. But how many global changing events are going to come with a warning? A middle eastern nuke strike. A major solar flare. Declaration of martial law. I’m sure I’ve missed a few good ones. My point is that you should be thinking of Black Swans.
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Yuppie survivalist gurus warn that living at your retreat is the only good answer. They tell you that even if you leave in your super jacked up chrome wheel four wheel drive SUV and get parked in traffic, so you roll out your handy ten thousand dollar dirt bike and go shooting through the countryside, once you get to your super deluxe concrete fortress, chances are good the supplies have been looted. Okay, great advice. The same I’m giving you. Retreating/bugging out is a fool’s strategy. Too much can go wrong. But the Yuppie Strategy usually gives the average middle class prepper no option but to plan on getting to a far away retreat. So much money is required to “properly” prepare that there is no choice but to stay in the city to get the big bucks. They can’t take the pay cut even if they could work from home. Not to have all the required tens of thousand’s of dollars worth of food and weapons and night vision and radio gear. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of prime real estate.
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This kind of contrary advice, that which tells you to do the impossible so as to cover the authors butt, reminds me of Forbes magazine. They never called the Great Depression. And throughout the beginning of the Greater Depression they are singing the Green Shoots song. “Obammy. Obammy! Our hero, Obammy! He’ll give the banks trillions and oil wells will fill back up and as long as CEO’s get billions our economy will be saved-OBAMMY!!!” The Green hoots song, ladies and gentlemen. I wonder if I should patent that. Well, they took a one page article and ran it in the back of one issue, vaguely suggesting a les than perfect future. There was everyone’s warning! Idiots. I used to love that magazine, pre-Enron. Another slight detail you might have missed- your job will disappear eventually anyway. Probably before the mortgage is paid. Remember that three years running oil import drop? The economy is doomed. Bug out now. Not tomorrow, not next year. Prep cheaply so you can relocate cheaply and work cheaply. I know it isn’t perfect advice. Try finding a job anywhere, right? But living in a city where crime is increasing is playing Russian Roulette with your life. A super retreat hundreds of miles away doesn’t stop a car jacking or mugging. And even if you are armed, that will do little good if you are ambushed with a criminal packing a submachinegun. It’s all about playing the odds, and counting on escaping at the last minute stacks the odds against you.


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