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Date Posted: 14:39:16 06/26/08 Thu
Author: Ari
Subject: shit storm

You guys watching the markets today? Crazy shit. Oil up 4%, stock markets down about 3%.

Read some interview yesterday with General Motors where he assured investors that despite losses they have enough cash to ride out 2008 and maybe 2009. Wow, how completely reassuring. Not.

I've been stocking up on shit I think will be handy. Bits and pieces and tools. I'm thinking it's smart to do some food shopping and keep Macha topped up with food, water, diesel, kerosene.

It still feels really weird to me to be saying this shit out loud. I'm not a survivalist; I'm a computer geek. But being a geek, I trust numbers over some instinctive faith in the status quo. And friends, the numbers don't look good lately.

As someone else posted here, if everyone has a tank of gas, that gives the initial shitstorm a radius of approx 10.5 gallons * 20mpg = 210 miles from the average city center. Having that extra jerry can in your trunk might get you another couple days walk out of dodge. That's not a long term solution, but as we saw in Katrina, these crises tend to follow the "inverse square law." I.e. being twice as far from the center of the crisis probably means one 8th the drama in the short term.

Of course, I think having a boat is a far better choice in the long term. I'm reading Dmitri Orlov (guy who survived the USSR collapse and has good advice for the US collapse) and he says better than being rooted to any one homestead, ideal is to keep mobile.

Another idea I've actually overheard two friends discussing out loud now is that in a total social meltdown -- any marina is full of brand spanking new sailboats that never leave the dock. Including charter boats and absentee owner yuppie boats. I would never advocate theft, especially on a public forum. I'm just saying... if the shit really goes down, a pair of bold cutters to snip padlocks might be the best investment you could make.

My continued hope is that gas prices are allowed to float naturally up, and Western Petro-Civilization comes to a soft landing.

But as the economic situation deteriorates, layoffs or shortages, or ??? could provide a tipping point where large numbers of people just spontaneously lose their shit.

Don't mean to be an alarmist! (but hopefully all of us here are past the point of alarm to deliberate planning and prep).

However this shit plays out, it's clear that we're blessed and cursed to live in interesting times indeed!

- Ari

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