Money & Economics

[bigredfish]

Interesting as I think the 3 of you with posts immediately above this have the exact same questions I do and think the same way.

Yep I thin k you have to prepare for Sm/Med/Lg SHTF scenarios.

@Sybertiger you hit on my own debate back and forth about owning physical gold. I have good secure places to put it (off site) out of reach from the zombies, and after the BIG one it will likely be a good store of value that outshines cash and the dollar, but it wont help to buy goods with in the short term, not practical.

Ammo is right there with food/smokes/booze and TP for barter

And as was mentioned, if the Interwebs go dark, good luck getting anything out of a bank account. Hell go Monday morning and try and withdraw $50K of your own money

 

[97JeepXJ]

Ammo, guns, food, water, and heat source for comfort and cooking

 

[David L]

For now, I prefer to keep a certain amount liquid as is possible so I'm in Fidelity mutual funds at around 5%. Maximizing interest while remaining liquid. It is true that 5% mutual funds may not last a long time so it makes sense that some folks prefer to lock in rates via CDs. I just hate like heck locking in for 1 or two years if I can avoid it. I realize you can always get out of the CD if you really need to. On the one hand I just said I like to stay liquid as possible but on the other hand I do in fact have long investments. Ones that go 1.5 years to 7 years. However, the 1.5 year investments are returning 10 to 12% (trust deed investments). Yes, higher risk than CDs. The 7 year investments are looking like 22% return (private equity real estate). It's one of those things you cannot nail down 100% the return until the deal is done. Again, higher risk than CDs but higher risk than trust deeds. Again, risk vs reward.

What I'm really interested in and why I monitor this thread is I'm wondering if anyone can comment on the plan for "shit hits the fan" scenario. I'm not talking about water, food, shelter. I'm taking about beyond that regarding your wealth if we can survive the SHF splatter. People talk about preserving their wealth with gold/silver but I'm not convinced that's very practical. If someone holds your gold/silver what's to say the safe wont' be empty when you try to pick up your bars. If you choose to physically own it then good luck trying to hold $100,000+ worth of silver. That's a lot of metal to sit on especially if you find the need to be mobile. You can't eat gold/silver. Not practical to carry around a file to shave some off some gold to pay for goods. When people find you have gold/silver good luck defending it from armed mobs. Ya gonna bury it and have a secret map where X marks the spot?

Is the answer land ownership? When SHF event is over you can reclaim your right to land which holds value? I think there are different levels of economic difficultly one may expect. For a recession/depression then gold/silver might be the answer. But, somewhere between that and a great catastrophic pandemic, huge natural disaster (the big one hits the west), civil war, EMP attack, invasion (think the movie Wolverines) earthly or other, etc. What is the answer? Maybe it all falls back to water, food, shelter in the end and be grateful (or maybe not) just to be alive damn the lost wealth?

I am like you, don't have the answer. We were just told tonight our son-in-law just bought some gold coins in which he plans to keep in a personal home safe. He also purchased land and built a house on it recently. He got out of the stock market, he as already doubled the worth. He said he was sick of others controlling and making money off his money. Not all of his money is in those things, he has money of course in banks, CDs, Bonds, etc.

I think the key is spread out your wealth. When the SHTF I would not spend those coins locally, and be sure to wear old clothes like Jed Clamplett

 

[David L]

Well if it happens like the Nazis did to the Jews, we are all screwed. They all ended up with nothing, everything was taken from them. I am sure many citizens will become Nazis just to survive, they will turn on their neighbor and rat everyone out. I would start now telling everyone you know that you lost most all your money gambling...

I think the fat people are screwed..."OK we know you have food, look at your belly" LOL Might be the best excuse for me yet to lose weight, for the coming the Zombie Apocalypse

 

[Gargoile]

Yeah, those brokers talking about what a bull market it's gonna be right before the bottom drops out.

That is what exactly happened leading up to 2008

 

[JNDATHP]

Well, I’m putting a thousand gallon propane tank in my front yard, under ground.

Currently, our investments are in notes and trust deeds.

 

[Gargoile]

I would start now telling everyone you know that you lost most all your money gambling...

I lost all my money trying to buy food for my table during a boating accident. Because the people coming after you will be in the same state.

 

[97JeepXJ]

I lost all my money trying to buy food…

That’s just a normal trip to the grocery store these days

 

[David L]

I lost all my money trying to buy food for my table during a boating accident. Because the people coming after you will be in the same state.

There is a recent movie we watched, "Leave the World Behind" A scene where a neighbor goes to try to get some medicine from a neighbor who is prepared for The End (stock piled)



The movie is a good if the SHTF story...worth the watch...

 

[JNDATHP]

There is a recent movie we watched, "Leave the World Behind" A scene where a neighbor goes to try to get some medicine from a neighbor who is prepared for The End (stock piled)



The movie is a good if the SHTF story...worth the watch...

And produced by the Obama’s. Foretelling?


Former U.S. president Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama executive-produced the film through their Higher Ground Productions banner. Obama included the novel on his 2021 summer reading list.[4]

Leave the World Behind (film) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[samplenhold]

I watched it. It was Ok, but had some woke crap in it. Not too bad. But the crap about the animals made no sense at all. Supposed to be a country wide cyber attack, so how does that impact animals?

 

[JNDATHP]

We watched it, too. Before knowing it was produced by the Obama’s.

 

[samplenhold]

What got me interested in watching it was a video of one scene that I saw. The part about the Teslas self driving into each other. I thought it was going to be some kind of sci-fi movie.

 

[David L]

It had a happy ending, the girl got to watch her "Friends" TV series, lol

I was told the kid had radiation sickness, why his teeth were falling out...

I think the animals were taking their land back...lol

 

[Sybertiger]

I think tangible assets spread out are what you need to have. You could say dollars are tangible but really as it was pointed out it's nothing more than monopoly money. It's like holding confederate money after the civil war...good for starting a fire. And if you go to digital currency then forget it....game over, wealth vaporized. You could even say that about money markets and CDs. It's just paper saying "pay to the holder". That's why I thought land could weather the storm. Of course good luck kicking the squatters off.

But as it was also pointed out, there are different levels of disasters. Mild inflation up to zombies looking for brains to eat. If that happens the brainless libs will survive. If you will, you could say there is Defcon 1 up to Defcon 5. I'd say we are at Defcon 2 and some could argue we are at Defcon 3 or just about to trip over to it. Defcon 5 would be the zombie apocalypse or similar severity.

Every disaster movie....you how it goes. Roving gangs with guns. They don't worry about stocking up for SHTF....except for guns and ammo. They will take what they want. It would be nice if communities could band together but you know most of your dipshit neighbors have 2 days of food on hand....and they'll be coming for you and your food.

I have one of those pallets (a bunch of boxes of canned food) from Sam's Club (Augason Farms) food kits for one person, one year. I'm screwed regarding water unless I want to drink the sludge from the creek in the backyard. Not easy to store a year worth of drinking water...LOL!

 

[David L]

I think tangible assets spread out are what you need to have. You could say dollars are tangible but really as it was pointed out it's nothing more than monopoly money. It's like holding confederate money after the civil war...good for starting a fire. And if you go to digital currency then forget it....game over, wealth vaporized. You could even say that about money markets and CDs. It's just paper saying "pay to the holder". That's why I thought land could weather the storm. Of course good luck kicking the squatters off.

But as it was also pointed out, there are different levels of disasters. Mild inflation up to zombies looking for brains to eat. If that happens the brainless libs will survive. If you will, you could say there is Defcon 1 up to Defcon 5. I'd say we are at Defcon 2 and some could argue we are at Defcon 3 or just about to trip over to it. Defcon 5 would be the zombie apocalypse or similar severity.

Every disaster movie....you how it goes. Roving gangs with guns. They don't worry about stocking up for SHTF....except for guns and ammo. They will take what they want. It would be nice if communities could band together but you know most of your dipshit neighbors have 2 days of food on hand....and they'll be coming for you and your food.

I have one of those pallets (a bunch of boxes of canned food) from Sam's Club (Augason Farms) food kits for one person, one year. I'm screwed regarding water unless I want to drink the sludge from the creek in the backyard. Not easy to store a year worth of drinking water...LOL!

Dig a Well?

 

[Sybertiger]

Dig a Well?

I was thinking about putting in a shallow well. Here in central Florida you can go down 20 feet to get a good source of water. You can do it yourself with a garden hose to blast down through the sand. Then put one of those old fashioned hand pumps on it. You'd still want to Brita filter the water at a minimum. A couple of neighbors have such a well for irrigating the lawn. Use a jet pump to pull the water up.

 

[Sybertiger]

It had a happy ending, the girl got to watch her "Friends" TV series, lol

I was told the kid had radiation sickness, why his teeth were falling out...

I think the animals were taking their land back...lol

Speaking of which don't forget to stock some potassium iodide tablets. And a basic med kit with antibiotics. Do all that preparation for the end just to die by a rusty nail.

I'm off topic. Guess we need a survival thread.

 

[David L]

Speaking of which don't forget to stock some potassium iodide tablets. And a basic med kit with antibiotics. Do all that preparation for the end just to die by a rusty nail.

I'm off topic. Guess we need a survival thread.

Yeah I will end with we have a 1/2 area pond, not sure how long we will live if we have to drink that water though but the cows on the other side of the pond drink from it , we all eat cow. lol oh just found our source of meat when the SHTF, haha...they have pigs too...oh and guns too, nevermind
There is always rain water that can be collected...unless God has a drought included with our End of Days...or our Gov't controls the weather, haha

 

[Ssayer]

Pond water is no problem as filters for drinking water are cheap. Example:

https://www.amazon.com/Survivor-Filter-Squeeze-Kit-Purifier/dp/B06WWQMRFY?th=1

Deep well hand pumps will set you back say... 800 bucks to a few grand so...

Once again, the problem isn't having this stuff, the problem is keeping it. You think people are turning to shit now? Heh....

Edit: I see some Amazon disclaimer was added to the end of my post (not by me...).