death in the citi

DEATH IN THE CITI
If you just now tuned in from last Monday, I've changed my mind again and will start posting Monday through Friday.  Until I get pissed off or stressed again and give up for a few weeks.  Hey, what can I say?  I suck writing fiction, and I need to write something every day to get my fix.  I posted one last Friday if you haven't already seen it. ( today's article is long as I wrote it last week over two days-don't get used to it ).

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I want to thank Sam for the very generous donation.  Prime rib, and books. Hmmm.  Okay, I can live without the prime rib, but with french fries.  French fries....hmmmm.  And I've been eyeing Diderot Pictrorial Vol. 2 ( old school mechanical ) for some time.  Perhaps the survival book from the Argentine dude.  You wanted me to enjoy myself with it, and books with a side order of fries beat song or wine any day.  Cheers!

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If all you ever do is put aside a few hundred rounds of ammo, a six month supply of beans and rice and a water filter to survive short term disruptions, you don’t concern yourself overly much with system wide collapse. Those of us with an unhealthy dose of paranoia or way too much time on our hands so they can keep worrying, there is involved a never ending quest to survive the worse case scenario for decades or longer. The problem isn’t that we are unsure if it will happen or not. Of that you can find a few dozen reasons why it should and will. The problem is timing. You have to survive in the present system while preparing for the future. This isn’t very easy to do on a budget. The Yuppie Survivalists work in the city, or marry a rich sugar momma, and have a retreat. The retreat idea is flawed, but so is every strategy that doesn’t involve you holed up in the wilderness with someone sending you a check. Having a retreat is the best working yuppie preppers can do. Rawles, the present but certainly not the first leader of the spend-and-survive movement that caters to the “more worthy through riches” crowd, has certainly earned his position through hard work. But how many of us can duplicate that? A retreat is as good as it gets. And, just a reminder, I don’t think Yuppie Survivalism is a bad idea. In a lot of ways it has more to offer than a frugal plan. My issue with it is that the slow and steady strategy can get you killed if TSHTF before you are done. Of course, my other issue with it is that the de facto attitude is that only the well off are worthy of surviving.

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Here is the gist of the problem. A year beforeY2K, you have almost all the supplies you need. But you need to leave the city, to avoid the zombie mobs set to riot and loot at 12:01 AM. You quite your job, leave town, buy a cabin and wait for apocalypse. Nothing happens, the cabin is repossessed by the bank, you can’t get your old job back. You hawk all your supplies to survive ( you can eat off your stores but it doesn’t provide rent ), end up homeless and die from a fellow hobo stabbing you for your shoes which have far fewer holes than his. The problem is the velocity of the collapse. It won’t allow you to live without repaying your debt. Short of a nuclear or asteroid strike, few calamities will happen fast enough that you can count on living in a mortgaged shelter through the end of civilization. But all of us are going to lose our jobs and have our indebted toys taken away. That is why I harp on the perfect farm being a bad idea if it is mortgaged. Far better a piece of junk land that is paid for. In a collapse, those in power eat their young. No one is going to allow you to stay on the farm just because you are good at growing food. They will sacrifice you in a desperate attempt to save/make money and have no regard to their future dinner. Why was the last tree cut on Easter Island? Why will the last barrel of oil be used to package a Beanie Baby and ship it over from China? Why is next years seed corn eaten in a famine? There is no choice because all the wrong choices were already baked into the cake. The system survives a collapse just a little while longer by destroying itself, but nobody realizes it ( outside of a few environmentalists who discredit themselves by cheering for human die-off to save the red tailed two headed asexual reproducing grub worm of the lower Louisiana delta, or guys on the street corner with crayoned signs helpfully reminding you that the End Is Nigh ) until it has passed the point of no return. I guess that is why the optimists chap my ass so hard. By blowing smoke up your ass they give you a deadly sense of false hope.

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I’m sure there will be a few lucky homesteaders that are overlooked and stay on their farm, as the bank that co-owns it goes under and nobody buys their assets. Which will be about the time famine and grid failure start. But the vast majority will lose their jobs and be kicked out of their homes while the system is functioning. Not functioning well, mind you, but functioning enough that you will be homeless. And don’t think that the government will nationalize your mortgage and solve all your problems. Remember, the banks own the government, not the other way around. And the banks, because they will be desperate as the system collapses, will not want to wait thirty years for your money. They will want money instantly. So, the government can guarantee your loan all it wants but that doesn’t help the bank. Kicking you out and getting paid ten cents on the dollar will be preferable. This could fall under environmental camouflage. The house is energy inefficient and must be destroyed. Or, all suburbanites must relocate to a centralized location as the gasoline disappears. So the house is dismantled and used to rebuild in some socialist centralized plan to cram everybody into a small area. Less energy, no transportation, minutes away from an Obammy Health Care Clinic And Euthanasia Center. Or, Death Camp, with your life hanging on the probability of the next heating oil or ration delivery being made. Or a designer disease not being purposefully introduced.

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Or, you keep your home, it is paid off by the government, and you go to work for them. Remember the last government sponsored forced work program they had? Ask a Jew how those labor camps worked out. The Germans weren’t interested in genocide, they needed free and disposable workers for their own survival. Genocide was the result, not the intention. After we reach the point where there isn’t enough natural gas to provide enough fertilizer to feed all of us ( and “us” is increasing at a geometric rate as our resources are declining ) and food becomes scarce, a government work camp is not the place you want to be. You will work yourself to death while being underfed. You are not an asset to the system. You are a cog in the machine. I just read somewhere how the workers will not be sacrificed because those in power need them for taxes and consumption. That is true, except that in a collapse there will be no one else to feed the system. If you don’t have income, your assets will be taken ( including your life ). Remember the seed corn being eaten in a famine? You won’t be allowed to stay on your mortgaged farm, you will become one of many in a manual labor gang working whichever land. Centralization of agriculture is already the norm. Federalization of everything is already the trend. All civilizations crash after the energy to maintain centralized food systems declines. We will be no exception. The details are the important thing, and I think that it is rational to expect those in power to hang on tooth and nail to power. The banks are today’s power, as they control the money supply ( with a government granted and enforced monopoly ).

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A suburban home you might be allowed to keep, if you can be easily transported to a work camp. Or work online ( all signs point to Internet control soon, all the more reason to ease out of making a living with it ). But that is the beginning of the collapse. As things get worse, the controls will tighten. Which means centralized control of your location. Okay, perhaps with implanted chips the government can keep track of you and you are allowed the illusion of freedom. Such as staying in your old McMansion or on your farm. The government pays the mortgage and you and your descendants owe the government X amount of the crops, the beginning of the new feudalism. That could happen. Obviously no one knows the path. But I can guarantee you that if you are in debt, the bankers through their government whores will own your soul. Not that those out of debt will be on easy street, but at least they will have options. If your farm or retreat is mortgaged, you have a very good chance of having no other options than giving in and going along with whatever option keeps our rulers in power. I agree that being able to grow your own food is the best option for surviving. But if the cost of that is being at the mercy of the banks, it is far better to stockpile grain and beans and hide in a hovel in the desert.

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In fact, you had better pray for a complete collapse rather than a partial one, because the current gang in power are some ruthless bastards. I would rather deal with a new local baron being a former Hell’s Angel. At least locally your chances of being left alone after you pay taxes are pretty good. The Feds can turn whole states into nuclear dusted wastelands ( they already have in the middle east ), starve entire populations ( ditto ), unleash biological weapons ( tainted polio vaccines, AIDS, swine flu in Mexico ), use warlord proxies to depopulate oil rich areas ( Durfur ), practice genocide ( AmIndians ) and allow corporations to profit off of peoples health ( nuclear power plants, natural gas processing, genetically modified crops ). And forget about Republicans or Democrats being in power. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. New boss, same as the old boss, as a loyal minion said. Why are they trying to kill everyone? To control the energy which allows growth which allows profits. So far, you benefited by being on the same side as the victors. Over-payment for work in Unions, welfare for anybody, nearly free oil, food, shelter. Everybody benefited, even surely minimum wage earners trash talking those on the government teet. But, as has already started, in an energy down scenario the only targets left are those on the same team. We are now suffering as those in power desperately try to survive living in the style in which they are accustomed. How hard is it to assume new rules to benefit them?

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If hyperinflation comes along, your debts will be indexed to the true inflation rate. All those on government payroll will receive payments on a far lower cost of living adjustment. How else are all the Baby Boomers, civil servant retirees, military pensioners, etcetera, going to be paid as the economy goes into free fall? The Feds have to take care of their obligations as well as the states. Everyone will get their checks, and they will have the value of a Zimbabwe Dollar. So why am I so worried about work camps or homeless homeowners if the government will just crank up the printing presses ( sorry, throw money out of helicopters )? Because government debt is just a side show circus. The real action is keeping the banks in profits. I’m sure I’m wide of the mark on a lot of this, but you should expect the unexpected. If we are all forced to pay for health care that we most likely will never see, and that is just to bail out a few insurance companies and screw over a few Medicare recipients, how far do you think things will go to bail out the banks from a half a quadrillion dollar derivative mess?

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