Okay, I don’t want any rabid fans of Rawles ( Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse
) to get all butt hurt and bent out of shape. So here’s a bone thrown. Thursday had the amusing link at his page on how Wal-Mart had raised prices 6% in one month. Now, coming from the deep dark Arkansas interior, there have been quite the cast of characters lately. Sam was of course celebrated for his common sense and small town manners. Bill was an example of a good ol boy that never got over the thrill and excitement of his first taste of nookie. But the guy that is in charge of Wal-Mart now must have been the result of three generations of first cousin marriages ( On the marriage of first cousins
). Of all the stupid, bonehead, banjo playing retard things to do, trying to save the company from bankruptcy court. First, you get rid of a good portion of your generics and go the Target route of middle class foo-foo glitzy Martha Stuart looking crap. Not a bad strategy in that a lot of these yahoos bought houses of one inch insulating board covered with stucco. It might have cost an extra ten years wages, but it looked so pretty. However, Yuppie middle class is an endangered species. Their numbers are dwindling. And the poor are multiplying. So why throw in your lot with a shrinking customer base? Free consulting advice, you jerks. You want to stay with your original customers, whose numbers are growing to compensate for their shrinking disposable incomes. Then, the idiots raise prices six percent in one month. Here’s another news flash- more and more of your customers have a lot of free time on their hands as they go from two income households to one. They are going to sit around and discuss this. And they won’t decide to blame inflation. To some degree, sure. But the overriding verdict will be corporate greed and price gouging. We all know a lot of it is your overbuilding and over-indebtedness, but not won’t be viewed as a legitimate excuse.*
I know a lot of think that I sit around plotting the downfall of the Yuppie Scum Survivalist. Not that they are in any danger, seeing as how 99% of newbies are attracted to the shiny sparkling glitter of AR-15’s and freeze dried foods ( Mountain House #10 Can Beef Stroganoff with Noodles (10 -1 cup servings)
). “OOOO! AAAAH! Look, Mabel, we can continue to live in decadent luxury long after western civilization melts down into a puddle f non-petroleum goo. We only need apply lots and oodles of cash. Only a quarter million bucks buy in! Wow, that might be a tinsey bit out of our price range. You wouldn’t mind losing that ass so I can pimp you out, do you Mabel?” Look, I don’t mind a lot of Yuppie advice. As long as you take immediate action to protect yourself cheaply, then slowly trade up. I’ve always hated Yuppie survival for its implied attitude that I wasn’t worthy of survival since I didn’t have money. The poor need not apply. I choose to be poor, as I prefer it. The more I made the more I paid the parasites, so to me it wasn’t worth it. A personal choice. But survival is not dependent on wealth. Luxury survival is. If you want to go the Yuppie route I won’t try to stop you. You are even welcome to continue reading here ( throw me a bone every once in awhile with an Amazon purchase ). But if you are going to preach Yuppie, at least let folks know there is an alternative. Now, to the point. I still must poke fun of yuppie survivalists. I can’t help myself. You should know this. So here goes. A contradiction in strategy. Yuppies think they have all the time in the world to prepare, but all their crash scenarios are either fast pace or don’t include economic disruption.*
I think we will crash quickly. But I don’t think it will be quick enough to avoid being hurt by the economy. Yuppies, almost universally, work at a high paying job in an urban area and plan on bugging out. This plan isn’t perfect, but to be honest no plan is. Not even mine. It does allow for them to have the best of both worlds. Lots of money and a concrete bunker complex in the boonies. But, is their bunker protected from foreclosure? Is their job going to last until 11:59 PM, one minute to the balloon going up? Of course not. Can’t they see how things are going the last two years economically? Cops are being laid off, for goodness sakes. Does that sound like a sane thing to do right before crime soars from rising unemployment? Or does it sound like a rapid economic collapse ( The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse
)? So, once again, we go back to a survival plan being only for the rich ( at least those plans that are universally available in book form or preached by 99% of survival writers- Rawles is the current incarnation, not the source of the evil ). For a time, just like home ownership or college, some were conned into thinking the middle class could play the rich mans game. Now the game is up. It becomes increasingly clear that Yuppie Survival was Rich Mans Survival in Lite form. *
You work in town and mortgage the perfect survival retreat. In the event of Bird Flu ( Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching
), or an EMP attack, or a nuke attack on the middle east oil refineries or a similar Out-Of-The-Blue event, you bug out to your perfect fortress. Magically, that mortgage is no longer relevant. Now, here is what is really going to happen. You are up to your ass in debt, both financing survival plans and keeping the Yuppie Whore happy. Your job is outsourced to India, or your local government goes broke. You lose it all. Yes, lately foreclosures have been put off by banks to keep things looking rosy. You want to bet that is going to save you indefinitely? Being out of debt and owning junk land is far better than a mortgaged dream retreat. Only the rich, with cash in hand, can prep using conventional advice. You can’t only have a crash without economic fallout, realistically. Look at Yuppie survival manuals. Economics are always downplayed to allow wiggle room. Realistic? In a Happier Place, perhaps.END
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15 comments:
Top post big man!
Ive a treat for you at my gaff!...and she aint no "yuppie whore"...;)
Dave I check Rawles's site almost as often as I check yours but I don't take him too seriously. He, like a lot of armchair generals is way over the top on the rambo-military survival scenarios and ignores many more likely ones. But I figure that if his followers (yuppie scum to you) want to spend their money on mouse guns and gucci-flage that is their business. Rawles is just trying to make a buck and they have the money. Don't let it get you down.
If yuppies are "Young urban professionals" What happens to them when they turn 50 or so? Maybe they are then "Muppies"? (Middle aged urban professionals) If a yuppie can hunt, fish, trap, build things with his hands, fix his own machinery etc... Is he still a yuppie?
Yes, we are still paying on the land with our concrete bunker. It was the cheapest we could find and still have a doable drive to places with work.
We both have young children. (I have one, Best Friend has one)
While a healthy adult can handle an RV on junk land in the middle of NV, young children would have a harder time of it. Not impossible, but I'm pretty sure both of us would have DHS called and our children taken away, probably by our own mothers if we attempted it.
We're paying off the mortgage as quick as we can, and the hope is that even if everything goes to shit, maybe with 4 adults we can pick up enough work and/or grow enough veggies to keep the land/house out of the banks' hands.
As you say, nothing's perfect. We all have student loan debt, that not even bankruptcy can get us out from under. If we don't work, we run the risk of action against us ranging from seizing of property (that rv and junk land would be gone) to possibly debtors prison. (I've heard rumors) Not to mention wage garnishment and credit score trashing, only a factor if TWAWKI doesn't end, but that is a chance and I have to plan for it just as I plan for TEOTWAWKI.
We wouldn't be anymore secure in an RV on paid for junkland. period. Best Friend and I can't get out from my student loans, and that's just reality for our group.
If the world ends tomorrow, yea we'll be hard pressed to make it. But if it doesn't, that's one more day to squirrel away gold and wheat and pay down the mortgage on the land and student loans. Straddling the fence isn't easy, but it's the best we can do in the current circumstances.
Great post, O Lord Bison, owner of "Blago" grade hair, a desert fortress and a pair of stainless steel clangers. Continue preaching to the loyal choir. The stupid yuppie loser fucks who need this info will never take advantage of it. As an example, my local feed store sells dried corn, double cleaned and aflatoxin tested for 8 dollars a 50 pound bag. A true survivor will grind this into kick ass cornmeal muffins and biscuits. A yuppie leach fuck will shy away in terror. EW! EW! ANIMAL FOOD! I CANNOT POSSIBLY EAT THAT! I had an aunt who survived the great depression, one of her memories was going down to the welfare office and getting a 50 pound bag of corn meal for the month. She survived, altho she never liked cornbread afterwards. HAIL FUCKING DARWIN !
The Bison wit. It is easy to point and say look at they Yuppies with their 1/4 million dollar retreat plan and say it won't work. I think maybe you should point out more on how to work together. Junk land and lone survivalist is not a perfect plan as you pointed out. I agree it is far better then the mindless masses in the cities with no plan. But a suggestion maybe talk more about finding the right people that are willing to work together for survival might be an idea.
One of the big problems that most people have is logic or, rather, a lack of it. That's how so many people - including bankers who should be a bit more analytical and therefore know better - got sucked into the housing bubble.
Geez, one doesn't have to be Einstein's reincarnation to figure out that you cannot have housing prices go up faster than wages forever. Even if the difference was 0.1%/year, that game would be over someday, yet another of the endless variations of the old Greater Fool theory of making money (there'll always be a greater fool than me to buy me out). Of course, the difference wasn't 0.1%/year, it was more like 5%/year for a couple of decades, so that you had people in much of Kali go from paying a barely sustainable 3x gross earnings for a crappy house to an utterly unsustainable 8x earnings (and those earnings were likely on the puffed-up side of things). Simple - its just exponents.
Similarly, as you've mentioned, people worried about 1 or more catastrophic events don't think logically about them. Outside of a very, very sudden event, such as an EMP, nuclear war or a pandemic on a scale like nothing that's ever been experienced in all of recorded history, commerce will go on. Yes, some of the players will come and go, but the system will remain - including the courts and the cops who evict people from foreclosed property. I also question whether someone will be ABLE to bug-out in such a catastrophe. Look at an EMP - even if you have a vehicle that works and adequate fuel to reach your destination, you have to travel maybe 200-300 miles (or more) over roads that are blocked randomly by stalled vehicles and others in various states of destruction, and you must by-pass roadblocks set up by people who are armed and looking to rob and kill people just like these yuppies.
You have it exactly right - something secure comes first, even if it isn't luxurious or prestigious, later you can trade up. We all have our "want" lists - and they differ considerably from our "need" lists. My Amazon Wishlist is 3 pages long - and has been built up over a couple of years. I pick off an item or 2 here or there as the money becomes available. I'll only get it all at once (plus a lot more) if someone arranges for me to win the lottery.
Hey James--I love the Yuppies. After Y2K I was able to stock up on everything for cheap--corn, wheat, Country Living Grain Mill ($35). It was like dying and going to heaven.
Let's hope the collapse doesn't come before Dec. 12,2012. I'm already getting excited about the garage sales.
Regarding freeze-dried foods, I am a cheap survivalist. However, once we were given a bunch of survival food, 30 years old, to feed our chickens. This stuff was top of the line in #10 cans. The wheat, of course, was in great shape and we put that in our storage. The dehydrated stuff was bad to really bad. Some of the stuff I wouldn't even feed my chickens. The freeze-dried stuff was perfect--just as good as the day they packed it. We ate 30 y/o peas, pears, apple slices, etc. and it was GOOD.
Since then I have started adding a little freeze-dried food to my multi-year basic food storage. Mostly cheeses, strawberries, meat, etc.
I don't personally care for the prepared entrees like beef stew or stroganoff. I think they taste yucky.
I think basic freeze dried food items are a good ADDITION to your multi-year supply of wheat, corn, rice, dried milk, etc.
Idaho Homesteader
I'm sure I"m in too late to get this posted but GREAT POST this is why you write, this is why we prep.
There's a strong streak of Calvinism in the US, in case you haven't noticed. If you're poor, it's because you're sinful and all that. Well, in recent decades to some extent this has been fairly true, but now we're in a game-changing time.
And I also, am very skeptical of having money. The more you have, generally, the more problems. It's very hard to have a lot of, or even a fair amount, of money and not have problems.
Finally, R.I.P. Harvey Pekar.
I am so sick listening to how people thing living in a RV is so hard.
I have lived in my RV for over 10 years and it is paid for!
I have all the bells and whistles a brand new one has got, six golf cart batteries,solar,6.5 kva generator,1000 watt inverter,holding tanks for gray and black water, and 2 big tanks for filtered drinking water. All the extras were paid for with the money I didn't waste on a house payment.
It is one big survival retreat! To be honest I didn't originally think to much about its value in a survival situation but after being enlightened by the great Bison I sure am glad I got it.
I just fixed on it to live now and didn't give any thought to when the shtf.
Boondocking,trailer park or rv park,or cheap land, it is cheaper than any house,condo,or apartment and can be moved. I can break camp and be 100 miles away in 2 1/2 hours.
People who are given a brand new Trailer by FEMA because the slum shack they were living in got flooded are beyond my understanding.You would think they of all people would understand the advantage of being able to move their home.
Instead, all we hear is how hard it is to live in a "trailer" and how they can't wait to rebuild their shack so they can sit in "ghetto luxury" and wait for the next hurricane??!!
I remember a few years back during the California fires. They came around with checks to pay for temporary housing and one guy used his money to rent a U-Haul. The only smart one in the bunch.
Yuppie is just another word for frigging moron.
You're right. As soon as I get laid off from my high paying job, I'm going straight to Utah to crash at our place. We'll live in the insulated hole you dug, and chop all the wood.
Or I guess we'll go to the place that's paid for where my parents live, with land, water, guns, cattle, etc. It's probably only worth $100k, but my Grandpa paid way, way less than that (about 60 years ago).
All we need to do is get there...
Live below your means. Pay it off as soon as you can. Use cash whenever possible, buying only want you need. Use as many tax breaks as you can get, then spend the money you saved on beans, bullets and Band-Aids. If your car runs, passes inspection and you ain't fixing something on it every other week, who cares what it looks like to the neighbors? Plant some veggies. Learn to can, hunt, fish, trap,hike,swim, shoot. Teach your kids the same skills, whether they want to learn it or not. Eat what you grow, catch, trap or hunt, don't shoot for trophies, go for fish records, or waste land, water, or fertilizer on flowers or a putting green yard. Buy in bulk on the non-perishables like toilet paper, and aluminum foil, then any extra money you have left, use it on Quality survival items like cast-iron cookware, Mason Jars, good boots, etc. If this offends any Yuppie Sensibilities, thanks for dying off sooner than me and letting me steal your gasoline from your SUV and riding lawnmower, your beer and wine collection, and anything else that isn't nailed down in your McMansion that I could use a few months after TSHTF, because you wouldn't prepare on as low a budget as some of us do.
Texan is right. Bugging out would be hard IF, you went by land. You could go by ultra-light experimental aircraft. They are cheap, easy to fly, and land on a relative short runaway. Yes, there are drawbacks to that to. But, for every drawback there is a remedy. I think that going by low atitude ualtra light is deserving of consideration.
The second bugout route is by water. Of course that drawback is the dams we have put up every ten miles, or having to go upstream to your hidiehole. The drawbacks for escape by water can be overcome also.
The third thing to keep in mind is YOU CANNOT PLAN FOR EVERYTHING. Pick a general survival plan that is most likely to happen in your neck of the woods and stick with it.
Close only counts in horseshoes, and a survival mentality is between your ears not what you have or have not. The timid will cower, the weak will die and only the strong will survive. Military experience will help, courage will help, planning will help, but it all comes down to what you will do to survive. K.I.S.S. and endure. Because man will rise again either for the better or worse.
I've been reading up on food storage techniques and twice now I've come across statements that garbage bags have pesticides added to the plastic. This is in addition to the problem with the non- food-grade plastics which also have cadmium usually (a poison)used in the plasticizer. I'm mentioning this because you said something about putting wheat in a garbage bag to protect it from the bucket but my research shows that adds to the risks.
Don't get the shiny AR-15! Get the black one!
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