an expense, not investment

AN EXPENSE, NOT INVESTMENT


I wanted to talk about conspiracy theories today but realized that some readers wouldn’t count it as a real article. So I’ll just touch on that here and then move on to another subject. Not for the first time, someone made a nasty comment about my touching on conspiracy theories being a waste of time. Well, of course they are. But by implication, we should only be mindless robots toiling away paying the mortgage and in our down time learning such wonderfully fascinating post apocalypse skills as dressing gunshot wounds or training attack pit bulls. I would rather waste time. Do you think our forefathers worried about conducting a cost benefits analysis after they ate BBQ and lounged around the fire for hours on end, retelling stories of Og the great hunter, having great fun with farting contests and, one imagines, even having already perfected fermentation for delicious beverages? Those guys knew how to take it easy. And why not? The average life span was a few decades, you might as well enjoy yourself and relax. Of course everything must be balanced. Not only do you not want to waste time, but neither do you want to not relax enough. Plus, conspiracy theories are great fun. Don’t take them too seriously and you can have a blast picking and choosing from the unlimited variety of them. Sure, some or all could contain a kernel of truth, but you should still be careful not to get too worked up about them. I take exception to being screwed by the Powers That Be, but I rant and rave and concoct deliciously convoluted theories on their activities, and then it is out of my system for a little bit. You guys really need to enjoy life a little more.

*

Brother Creekmore, http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/ , gave me yet another idea to rip off, and I thank him profusely. His article on the mistakes preppers make inspired me to add one to the list. Thinking that you are making an investment rather than just shouldering an additional expense. Commonly made with gold. As in, gold is a terrible investment, earning no interest and giving bad returns in comparison to the stock market. I hope all of you see through that fake logic. Gold is an expense that protects you from inflation, deflation, or any government created theft of the money supply. Period. It isn’t there to “earn” you money. And of course, long term, the stock market will always lose all your money. Gold freezes your purchasing power indefinitely ( I would say the same for silver, as soon there will be no industry and hence no industrial uses for silver distorting the price ). There are those who say you can’t eat gold, but gold is not a food supply anymore than a shotgun is a sniper rifle. One tool does not build a house. Of course there are priorities, food coming way before wealth preservation, but they are separate tools.

*

Another misconception/fallacy is the statement that you should stockpile regular food and if nothing happens you can still eat it. While true, this leads one to assume storage food is an investment. No, storage food is an expense. You seal up hundreds to thousands of pounds of wheat and leave them in a cool dry place and they stay there, hopefully for decades rather than months, until you need it. Yes, you should eat what you store. Buy whole wheat flour in the store to supply at least half of your flour for baking. Or grind your own, it doesn’t matter. But you should not dig into your storage food to do it- that is separate. You can rotate and retire, but never touch the stash itself. It is too easy to find excuses and soon you are seriously short. Wheat, stored properly, lasts forever, so you don’t really need to rotate anyway. The other items such as lard that must be rotated must never drop below X amount of units. Don’t promise yourself you will make up the taken items. We lie to ourselves worse than anyone else. And justify much more masterfully.

*

While it is true that guns haven’t lost value for over a hundred years, and while true that they will jump in value after the collapse, since you aren’t going to sell them they aren’t an investment. They are simply an expense. I preach minimizing that expense, but I realize most of you are semi sluts. High or low, it is just something that must be bought. Don’t go overboard by fooling yourself into thinking you are investing. That is how you lose money, by thinking you are an investor extraordinaire. You suck, as witnessed by your illusion of slow collapse. I’m not investing for a total collapse, I’m bearing an additional expense to insure against it, so I don’t care if I’m wrong. By making an investment, you are putting yourself into a mindset of needing to be correct. An expense is just another cost of living. Do you see why it won’t bother me if life goes on somewhat normally? Not that it will. But, just in case. The great thing about playing devils advocate is that you can talk yourself into anything. Taking back wife #4, living off grid just to save $150 a month, eating cardboard flavored bread for most meals. I actually amuse myself.

*

A house is not an investment, even an off-grid, buried concrete bunker. It is an expense. You are buying shelter. You might be saving your life, but that is insurance, not an investment ( as I write that line, I’m reminded of an earlier article from the Three Amigo’s [http://tslrf.blogspot.com/ ] along similar lines. If I’m ripping them off also, it is unintentional. My subconscious thinking it is being original when it was just memory ). I could go on, but the basic point is that you are engaged in a very expensive hobby. Enjoy it, and don’t confuse its cost with a brilliant investment plan.
END
The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase. Thank you.