Seeing that hyperinflation on a global scale isn’t too far off in the future, I wanted to take the time today to address an important issue: when did the mass of Venezuelan society realize that they were living through hyperinflation? This is how things played out here…
Were there people initially deemed as crazy for shouting that hyperinflation was coming?
Hyperinflation was not an effect many people could foresee. The opposition party tried to warn about this, but with the ongoing war between the official party and the Other Side, fake news was rampant. Relying on information coming from one side or the other was challenging. That is the main reason why the inflationary tsunami caught (almost) everyone with their pants down.
The reality was that the trust level in the official party and their censorship diminished to negligible levels, where it remains until now.
That beings said, most of the economists had a good idea about what could happen. When they talked about our economy, any predictive bad news was credible. Our purchasing power had started to erode steadily in 2012. I noticed some alarming indications during this time.
Were there societal signs of hyperinflation?
Another indication of hyperinflation was the treatment given to the people suddenly called “hoarders” by the mainstream media. Some of these “hoarders” were indeed resellers looking to make easy money, but I am sure some others were only people looking to build up a pantry, just like any of us.
Prison and prosecution were the immediate consequence, even if the supplies were for their own consumption. The prestige of the enforcing agents would rise proportionally to the number of hoarders they could catch. It didn’t matter if these enforcers ruined some innocent’s life. That wasn’t a factor. What mattered was personal glory.
Every year after May 1st, when the President (way before the communists) announced an increase in salaries, prices rose. The merchants did this to absorb their rising costs. Of course, regular people who did not understand the economy could not care less about buying at a higher price because they had money available. We, regularly smart people, got some personal credit by middle February (merchants expected new inventory and were desperate for space) and could get good deals: white line, brown line, tires, etc.
Things went more or less stable those ten years until the actual thugs took the Main Office. Just see the Statista chart and see by yourselves. After Hugo’s disappearance, our economists issued plenty of warnings predicting a near economic downturn.
Did hyperinflation impact how people invest in Venezuela?
The relative stability the country once enjoyed back in the lapse between 2003-2012 was because of Uncle Hugo’s iron grip on the meaningful aspects of the economy. The current laws allow seizing whatever foreign or local company they want, paying the owners the amount they decide, and delaying the payment in real terms as long as they seem fit (usually years). Anyone looking to invest is (or should be) aware of this.
The country enjoys huge reserves of many commodities and strategic advantages such as cheap, abundant energy, natural gas, and qualified people (mostly willing to come back!). A well-managed company could be incredibly profitable.
Nevertheless, this lack of trust was another of the causes of hyperinflation. Once Hugo disappeared, every Venezuelan knew an incoming disaster was on its way. Maybe people didn’t dare to speak it so openly, but you could feel it.
What we never expected was the economy to tank so deep. My take at the time was that there was going to be a major political crisis, followed by a meltdown. A brief meltdown, though. I never anticipated it would be such a prolonged mess.
Were there things that protected you from hyperinflation?
Having a second income was an incredible advantage: with only $50, I could buy groceries for a couple of weeks. I did manage to put away some basic preps like solar energy, a large fridge, a ham radio, and a water well (in our subdivision, we could drill one in our front yard) before the collapse as well.
When I told other people what I thought was coming, and why they should prep, the mockery made me quickly avoid the subject, even if someone else brought it up within conversation.
(I highly recommend watching the entire episode above. That is what happened here.)
Did the media deny hyperinflation?
The official media? Sure they did. Once it could no longer be denied, they started to blame the usual faceless enemies banana regimes use to stoke division: “right-wing extremists,” the “economics war” of “Evil Capitalism,” and so on.
Those guys are experts in diversion, deception, and masking facts. The official media told us “inflation is above normal” because of the “economics war unleashed over our homeland.”
The ones to blame were never those under the red roofing – the “capitalists” were. Their “greed” and “lust for power” were responsible, said the official party line. It was more of the same, boring, hate speech the banana dictatorships in the Caribbean have been using since the 60s.
Of course, oil-rich Venezuelans swallowed all the crap the think tanks delivered. The independent media was (and still is) censored, so unless they are outside the Venezuelan borders and their journalists and staff are safe from politically motivated violence, they can’t tell the truth.
(Want to learn more about building up your food storage? Check out our free QUICKSTART Guide to our 3-layer food storage plan.)
Did the public at large deny hyperinflation?
Nope. We have always had inflation to some degree since 1981. It was a constant in my childhood, a ghost over our shoulders in my younger years, and now a demon in my adult age casting shadows in the distance, albeit we seem to be safe for the time being.
Here is the thing: many people were so used to an inflationary process for so long that when things went out of control, they just remained astonished, money in hand, without the ability to understand what was happening. The spiral was already in place.
It is not like people were in denial. They were never expecting such a sudden increase, even though it was to be expected. Most people stood astonished like the French government when they realized the Pervitin-fueled German Army was running full throttle towards them.
Did the government initially lie about hyperinflation?
Of course, they did. They had to put so many zeros to the currency that it made Zimbabwe’s money look like a joke. The real reasons for the hyperinflationary process were because of a plan, and we are slowly realizing that.
Forcing a couple of million people to leave the country would work to ease the demographical pressure and slow down the demonstrations. They didn’t think the people’s response was going to be so massive and traumatic. I remember members of the socialist party dismissing some of the IMF news in a shameless attempt to cover what was going on.
(For further reading, I recommend this independent report. It goes into great detail on all the major happenings and is easy to read. I’m sure you will find it valuable.)
I suppose one could say that…empty scaffolding (I refuse to use the word with ‘G’ referring to them) didn’t exactly lying about hyperinflation. They just refused to talk about it. This is yet another common technique in such regimes – opacity – to keep people immersed in confusion and chaos so that they could then be ruled over and done with as TPTB please.
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What was the tipping point for people? When did they finally realize that the ship was sinking?
Migration increased to numbers we’d never seen before. Crime spiked up in some places, as desperate thugs needed to provide for their addictions, but there were fewer and fewer people on the streets to rob. And when the unlucky remnant were robbed, they didn’t have as much money on them as the thieves were used to taking.
Suicide rates increased exponentially. Companies started to close because there wasn’t enough work, and when they did, they never paid the mandatory unemployment liquidation funds to their employees. Why? Because their bankruptcy was total.
My coworker’s group started to crumble apart: in less than six months, 15 engineers and technicians had quit their jobs by 2017. The next year was even worse.
What happened when that tipping point was reached?
People saw the writing on the wall and started to flee away in ever-larger numbers, as you can see HERE and HERE. Patrimony used to pay for basic stuff like food, house, or car repairs. People went bankrupt. Goods were lost. Unpayable debts were subject to arbitrage and paid with goods. Price controls generated a black market like we never thought we would see. If you want numbers, the hyperinflation in 2018 was 65.000%. Some still know this year as the Year of the Mangoes.
It is interesting to learn that, after talking a lot with friends and family that stayed since I came back, most of them told me that should I have stayed too. They say my situation would not have been so bad. I had a home, some savings, and our mountain cabin was in good shape back then. It would have been possible to endure the tsunami, being just kiddo and I.
I write so my experiences can be a lesson for everybody to learn and a message of hope for everyone out there.
Stay sharp, keep tuned, and be safe!
What signs are you watching for? Do you see any similarities to Jose’s experience? Share your thoughts in the comments.
About Jose
Jose is an upper middle class professional. He is a former worker of the oil state company with a Bachelor’s degree from one of the best national Universities. He has an old but in good shape SUV, a good 150 square meters house in a nice neighborhood, in a small but (formerly) prosperous city with two middle size malls. Jose is a prepper and shares his eyewitness accounts and survival stories from the collapse of his beloved Venezuela. Jose and his younger kid are currently back in Venezuela, after the intention of setting up a new life in another country didn’t go well. The SARSCOV2 re-shaped the labor market and South American economy so he decided to give it a try to homestead in the mountains, and make a living as best as possible. But this time in his own land, and surrounded by family, friends and acquaintances, with all the gear and equipment collected, as the initial plan was.
Follow Jose on YouTube and gain access to his exclusive content on Patreon. Donations: paypal.me/JoseM151
Sounds eerily familiar. All too familiar. Question: what happened to people’s investments and retirement funds? Did those things get confiscated?
Dear Amy,
In my own experience, after 14 years of working for the oil industry, the hyperinflation and the subsequent removal of zeroes to the currency ate everything what the company gave me for my services. At the end it was not worthy 200$. Once they closed my payroll bank account after I resigned, the bank took everything what was left without further explanation.
I was left with nothing, broke, jobless, and with a kid to support.
That is how my life has been since 2017.
How did that 65,000% hyperinflation look compared to wages?
If a loaf of bread cost say, 200 dollars, were wages also inflated? So the real cost of the bread was expensive, but not a million dollars compared to the buck fifty you just paid?
If the government adds 5 or 6 zeroes to currency, but also to the currency you are paid for wages, then it would be no problem if a loaf of bread cost 2 million dollars but you have 150 million in your pocket…
Where does it actually break down? In the countries inability to pay foreign debt in its hyperinflated currency?
I’m not an economist, by any stretch. I guess I’m wondering about price inflation (goods) versus currency devaluation. Probably not a fair question to ask tbh.
*the buck fifty you just GOT paid*
Eh, the article doesn’t really seem to have answered the question in its title very adequately, does it? From what I’ve read of actual historical hyperinflation situations (i.e. Germany, Austria, and Hungary between World War I and World War II and Zimbabwe during Mugabe’s dictatorship), I would provide a Jeff-Foxworthy-style list of observations (“…then you may have hyperinflation!”) something like the following if I were writing the article:
1. “If you see debtors ruthlessly hunting down their creditors and mercilessly demanding to pay their debts off early instead of the (more usual) opposite situation…”
2. “If you’re getting raises at your job every week (or worse, every day), but you still can’t find or afford to buy the necessities on your list when you go out shopping…”
3. “If you stop seeing coupons and specials and the like on offer at grocery stores and restaurants and other mundane businesses…”
4. “If your national and local governments are constantly passing more laws against ‘price gouging’ and then blaming their political opposition for the empty shelves at stores and other highly visible shortages (e.g. of gasoline at gas stations) that inevitably result…”
5. “If you see not coins, but paper currency left lying in the street (as in one of the images in the article above) and not even beggars and children bothering to pick it up because it’s just that worthless…”
6. “If everyone—including that one jerk who used to mock you and other people in your informal trading circles (i.e. your fellow preppers) for being so old-fashioned—is engaging in barter these days…”
7. “Speaking of barter, if you see people offering to trade barter goods even for non-necessities—like tickets to a concert or a sporting event—and those offers being accepted…”
8. “If almost everybody you know everywhere you go (including yourself) has got some alternative currencies (foreign, crypto, or local scrip) stashed in their purses/wallets/digital accounts these days…”
9. “If you see poor people in rags casually burning paper currency to kindle burning barrels, camp fires, cigarettes, lanterns, or other kinds of open flame…”
10. “If merchants at shopping malls and other open markets in your area keep temporarily closing down for half an hour or so in the middle of the day for ‘lunch’ or ‘restocking’ or some other such excuse while they jack up their prices…”
11. “If you get hit with ‘premiums’ or ‘service fees’ or other unexpected charges when something you ordered earlier is delivered you (e.g. a meal at a restaurant or a package from an online retailer like Amazon or eBay)…”
12. “If local burglars, larcenists, and robbers routinely pass up taking any currency from their victims in favor of any and all material goods they can carry…”
13. “If your government keeps ‘re-indexing’ and issuing new currency (e.g. Rye Marks in Wiemar Germany and ‘Strong’ Bolivars in Venezuela) that’s declared to be worth large multiples (millions or billions or trillions) of the old currency…”
Hyperinflation is an expense in itself. It takes labor to change the shelf prices ever ten minutes, and mental effort to decide whether to buy that million-dollar loaf of bread when you have 150 million. You can’t price-compare to see whether the other store has it for 800k because it will be 1.2 million when you get there. Such phenomenal waste of effort means the standard of living will go down.
I do not recall the article I read, but it was a break down of inflation and hyperinflation.
What stood out to me, the author noted that by the time you actually reach the definition (which was some number/% of elevated inflation over a given [short] period of time.) ( Kinda like how we define a recession as two consecutive months of negative GDP growth.) By then, when we have an “official” data point that hyperinflation is really here, inflation has already done most of the damage leading up to that point.
Just like the hype of this being a “transitional” inflation that was supposed to be short lived, as told to us by various govt “experts,” I expect them to deny how bad things are or are going to be.
Wait, they are already doing that.
However, last Monday both Biden and some yahoo at the WEF in Davos did state the transition from a fossil fuel economy to a “green” one was going to be painful. What they do not say is it is going to be painful for us, and not them.
Now, if the cities from 1st world countries, fall into something that looks like Venezuela, how are they going to spin that one as a success?
Granted, it could be argued some US cities already look like that (e.g. San Fran, LA, Chicago).
nice article again Jose! they (the powers that are..) boil the frog slowly over the years and destabilise society completely. Smart phones are the best tool to destabilise society.. everyone has some silly opinion and no one stands together. Hyperinflation is coming worldwide for the Davos crowd WEF=the old Bilderberger =just hyperinflated criminals that we allow to destabilise us all.. as 1stMarineJarHead states, its already in US.. they pull the stings and we sing. the Rothchild banking system must fall first, but that’s another story never told since WW1 Germany and why WW11 was brought about, just like the sinking of the Titanic for the US Federal Reserve founding by the Rothchild’s..
Thanks Kurt. I´m sure it is coming, that´s why we need to return to a simpler life for a while, until the clouds disperse and we can see what is coming next.
1StMarine,
most people think the difference between inflation and hyperinflation is a matter of numbers and zeroes. It’s not, and it’s not even about currency.
Hyperinflation is a totally broken-down, failed state and system. It means “Everything went to crap, survival mode on”.
People, businesses and even the government’s technicians and bureaucrats lose reference of everything. No one can keep up with the speed of change, it’s impossible to adapt so you just react.
Whereas in inflation or even high inflation, it’s obviously hard and the population more than anyone else suffers greatly – but there’s order, process, some structure and functionality. You can adapt.
Not sure if this helps painting a picture, it’s difficult if you’ve never been into it.
And there’s something else: in highly inflationary or hyperinflationary countries, you can somehow defend, or protect, from the meltdown by investing and dealing in stronger currencies, as hard as it may be (black market, etc.). This can ease the pain for those who can run to that.
What happens when the strong currency, or reserve currency (USD) melts down? What’s the safe haven then? No one knows, but I sure don’t want to find out, and I’d guess no one else does, either!
“What happens when the strong currency, or reserve currency (USD) melts down? What’s the safe haven then?”
It’s gold and silver. I suspect that gold and silver are easier to find and buy in the U.S. than many other countries. There are 2 coin shops in my small city, but their prices are high, compared to the spot price. There are many online dealers in the U.S. and their prices are high compared to spot too. Right now, in the U.S. there is a high demand for gold and silver so there is a disconnect between buying physical gold and silver and the spot price. The spot price is based upon the gold and silver futures market “paper gold or paper silver”. Whereas, buying physical gold and silver, that you can keep in your pocket or safe, costs more.
However, I regularly attend the coin club in my small city and there the coin and silver sellers (all except me) don’t seem to understand this disconnect and sell closer to spot than the dealers. This sometimes happens at small local coin shows too.
It won’t be terribly easy to buy food and other items with gold or silver when everybody is hungry. But gold has been “money” for 5000 years, and silver as well. For this reason I don’t own any 1 ounce coins. Most of mine are less than 1/4 ounce and many are 1/10 ounce or less.
I mean I don’t own any 1 ounce GOLD coins. I do own 1 ounce and smaller silver coins.
“It won’t be terribly easy to buy food and other items with gold or silver when everybody is hungry.”
I think your approach is spot on Scarlet. Trading gold and silver for food places the exchange rate firmly with the seller of the food. I think Selco has covered this before. Perhaps better to trade goods and services at that time like bars of soap for beans, toilet paper for tomatos etc. Where the value of your gold and silver will really shine (parden the pun) is after the event when its true value should be able to be realised. Too many people view the metals as an investment but there is a reason it does not pay interest – it is money, a real store of wealth – a genuine store of previously expended labour, which you hold if you can till you get to the other side.
Right you are Joe Silver. The list of possible trade goods is long. Maybe Daisy should re-publish one of her earlier articles on the subject.
Dear Scarlet,
Too few Venezuelans were left with anything like silver, much less gold, to barter with in the first place.
The ones not losing 30 pounds with this situation were those with land, work labor to make something grow on it, and to watch it at night to fend it against the starving trespassers.
The success what they’re trying to do is Bill the Legacy, build Allegacy. They see us and everything we do and everything we have that includes our thoughts and ideas has somehow belonging to them. We are the resource that they are trying to control. I will say that again, We the People our work our sweat our ideas our hopes our fears are everything is the resource they want to control. They have created money and laws to do that and that’s why when cities and countries collapse they do not care because they have created a truly safe place to be. The best way to handle this is the way they fear the most and that is living Our Lives and ignore them by creating our own Networks and our own Supply chains by staying local so that we do not rely on electronic communications. They are afraid that we will stop loving and worshipping them and keep our stuff for ourselves, friends and family. We we will survive without cities and without them they cannot survive without us they will simply try to herd us into new places to try to control us same game different name I hope this helps you to understand we are the resource they are trying to control.
So Davos is that conference that Trump and company (Jarred, Ivanka, Don Jr., etc) go to each year right?
James H Gregg,
Bill Clinton went once.
Trump went twice.
Biden did not go himself, but sent a delegation to the JAN22 meeting.
Both Trump and Biden are currently in the US, and while Biden was overseas earlier last week, he did not attend.
I for one keep my friends close and my enemies closer… I talk to my patient but I also ‘interrogate’ the lab results, Xrays and other imaging and so forth. Know Thine Enemy…
And both Biden and Harris
have chief economic advisors from WEF crowd
When faced with large inflation, spending money is in your best interest, NOT saving money! Buy the things you will need before they increase in price or become unavailable. OWN things and don’t keep too much fiat currency on hand. But don’t buy things that will require much expensive upkeep. Be careful about paying down debts, because if inflation ramps up, it will be easier to pay them off later with devalued fiat currency.
“Be careful about paying down debts, because if inflation ramps up, it will be easier to pay them off later with devalued fiat currency.”
Absolutely correct….to an extent. That is exactly what governments will do but it may not work out so well for us. It is great to think you could pay off a large mortgage by lunchtime during a hyperinflationary event but Bankers (elites) do not like to lose and after the event they will move through the courts to have a percentage of debt reinstated in whatever new fiat currency emerges. This is not without precedent. It happened in 1923 after the hyperinflationary event in Germany.
This is all accounted for in the book “When Money Dies” by Adam Fergusson. An inexpensive must read for anybody who wishes to see what is coming by reading what has come before. An interesting fact is there were many winners in this time of misery, for example, trading a bag of potatoes for a grand piano etc.
You´re right. Wise spending can save your backside.
I believe and I could be wrong that physical cash that has existed in it’s basic form as long as most of us can remember will still have value since it is a SCARCE commodity but is MUCH more common and practical than gold or silver . Don’t believe me? How much cash do you have in your wallet right now? How much cash do you have in your safe/mattress? The money that the US “prints” is virtually all digital. We are almost in a cashless society. That cashless society exists because there is electricity. Crypto currencies can ONLY exist with electricity and the electronics that run on electricity.The amount of cash in circulation is very small. Don’t get me started on NFT’s
The $20.00 bill with Jackson on the face will have worth. The Harriet Tubman $20.00 will be worthless after the collapse. Hopefully they use Charmin for the paper it is printed on. I will never accept one from a bank or as change since I consider it worthless before it even comes out. New bills with extra zero’s will also be worthless.
I am not eloquent in the least. I think in blocks that do not flow together but I hope I have made my perspective clearer than mud.
“The $20.00 bill with Jackson on the face will have worth. The Harriet Tubman $20.00 will be worthless after the collapse.“
Why? They’re both federal reserve notes. For collection value? They’re both paper. Fiat backed by a broken promise. There will be simple people (most people actually) that don’t know there is a difference between currency and money, so, granted, initially (for an undetermined amount of time) dollars in hand will reign supreme. But, that will be a very short amount of time, relatively speaking.
As far as pm’s, meh.., I have a little. It’s nothing I could “ buy land with a gold coin” kind of deal. Pm’s Have their place. The two you mentioned are valuable precisely for the reasons you mentioned.. they’re scarce and not commonly available. But! They are immediately recognized as valuable by everyone with a pulse. So, I disagree that they are impractical for use as money. 5000+ years of written history backs my statement. Don’t matter what language that history is written in, any European country, China, India, Burmese, Latin American, Southwest Asia, African..everyone everywhere knows that pm’s have value and are money. Everyone.
I wish I had more, but, alas..that ship sailed long ago when I bought cattle. Which, incidentally, has a 5000+ year history as money also. So, in all, I fell ok I guess.
“I wish I had more, but, alas..that ship sailed long ago when I bought cattle. Which, incidentally, has a 5000+ year history as money also. So, in all, I fell ok I guess.”
About 10 years ago I purchased a bicycle for my son from a friend who is a cattle farmer for 1 ounce of silver. I tried to get him to start putting some metal away for a rainy day. He said I have the beef and you have the silver, when that time comes you’ll have beef and I’ll have your silver. Yes Jim, you already have your precious metals in your cattle.
All you farmers and ranchers here be ready. When the hordes head to the country they will be after food and they will not think twice about shooting your livestock and wastefully butchering it in the field. Hide your livestock in your barns and sheds and keep them as quiet as you can. There is a reason that in Biblical times people kept their livestock in the house at night. It’s a shame you can’t hide the fish in your ponds.
How exactly do the hordes get 20, 50 or 100 miles out of the city to the farms and ranches?
As Selco has noted, by the time you realize SHTF, it is already too late.
Case in point, just read an article about the gas situation in the Ukraine. Two working gas stations on a major highway for hundreds of miles. Cars lined up for a mile or more.
Go to your local Wally-World and look around. How many of those people look like they could strap on a 30lbs pack and hike it 8-10 miles a day? How many of them have a pack to make the hike? How many of them have water filters? Proper footware?
What would it be like on the open road? IIRC, Selco mentioned something about snipers, and road blocks.
“Go to your local Wally-World and look around. How many of those people look like they could strap on a 30lbs pack and hike it 8-10 miles a day?”
I don’t know. 1 out of 100, 1 out of 500? NYC 8,000,000 / 500 = 16,000. They won’t all come to your farm, but some will.
I’m in the US, as are you. There is at least one gas station at every exit and every small town. Once you run out of gas, your walking. Walking! All prepper wisdom says you don’t walk on roads, you walk cross country. You think everybody is going to just lay down and die when they run out of gas?
You underestimate the problem and people’s will to live. You do that in every comment you make. Just because most of us were never Marines, that doesn’t make us incapable. You are a snob!
“How exactly do the hordes get 20, 50 or 100 miles out of the city to the farms and ranches?”
Simple answer – They walk.
“9 meals from anarchy”
I would most certainly walk any distance to save my son if it came to it. Water / no water, pack / no pack, fuel / no fuel, doesn’t matter. Whatever it takes to get my son fed, whatever it takes !!!
Once again I implore the readers to get a copy of “When money dies” by Adam Fergusson. Page 182 of my copy details the situation near Linz in Austria around 1923. “We noticed a troop of about 80 to 100 men and women”, They ransacked farms in the area and slaughtered the animals where they stood “and the meat torn from its bones”. “The cow shed was drenched in blood”. “The monsters had slit up the udder of the finest milch cow, so that she had to be put out of her misery immediately”. “The towns were starving. The countryside had had a bumper harvest.”
Desperation can give a person incredible strength and resilience, training or no training. If a person can be desperate enough to cut his own arm off with a penknife to get out of a bad situation (as I read somewhere before), then surely others would not hesitate to walk a while to get food for his kids.
“Simple answer – They walk.“
Joe, you seem like a nice guy, determined also. My hat is off to you. But, unless you have trained..mentally and physically, you have no idea what you are talking about.
“Walking” seems like an easy task, sure. Do it under duress. Do it under duress cross-country. Do it under duress cross-country for days (nights would be better. Further slowing your progress)until you reach your countryside as described in 1923 Austria to steal a dairy cow’s udder (btw, that is a bullshit story if I ever heard one. There are two main veins running to the udder of a “milch” cow from the thoracic cavity bilaterally, commonly called “milk veins”. Cut her udder and the “milch” cow will be dead promptly. As in moments, not minutes.)
These killer zombie horde stories are boring. Be men and lead. Damn!
“Joe, you seem like a nice guy, determined also. My hat is off to you. But, unless you have trained..mentally and physically, you have no idea what you are talking about.”
Hey Jim, thank you for the compliment “you seem like a nice guy” that is. As for the rest I do know within myself what I am talking about. I well know my own capabilities and shortfalls and my personal plan takes account of this. I don’t intend to be the one walking if I can avoid it – I would be prepared to if I had to and no doubt I would be the one that dies trying. That’s exactly why I am on this page to be as prepared as I can be so I don’t have to do the walking. I’m not saying that many would make the distance but many would try.
I readily acknowledge I’m not trained and I’m too old now. I’m talking about the 1/500 that Scarlet spoke of that will take that walk and visit us in our rural havens. I’m just making the point that some will come (no doubt the ones with the training that you speak of) and when that happens I will have no choice at my age but to “greet” them from my front porch.
Die walking, die staying (or maybe even survive what comes) – all we can do is do our best and be at peace with our decisions.
I am grateful to the OP articles that I have learned a lot from and most definitely from the comments which make me constantly rethink what I thought I knew.
Dear Scarlet, exactly that happened down here, and cattle robbery is rampant every day in the most far away and less easy to defend haciendas.
Thing is, ranchers down here don´t have any weapon to defend what´s theirs.
“All you farmers and ranchers here be ready. When the hordes head to the country they will be after food and they will not think twice about shooting your livestock and wastefully butchering it in the field.”
My family has already “been there, done that”. My great grandfather was a Hungarian immigrant who fed his neighbors off his first farm during the depression and bought a second farm during the mid-end of it. Fed people off that farm too. I’ve read a few blistering comments here before on what-ifs concerning the “hordes”. IMO the “hordes” are real but limited by individual needs and will act impulsively without plan or direction. Otherwise, they’d be prepping ????. The lessons learned during the depression were drubbed into us boys by my grandfathers.
No, I’ll care for those that are deserving of my good will, build up those whose morale is weakened, feed my neighbors, build a strong community starting with my own house first, and for those that wish me ill.., well, I’ve every confidence that I can solve all their worldly problems too.
Helping your neighbors is all well and good, but risky. You can’t feed hundreds or thousands and when it gets out you could be overrun. News will spread that you have food by the ones you turn away or the trouble makes you throw out.
Please have a plan to deal with the risks of your proposed actions.
The bad guys in the country are already there. Violence is everywhere. The rising tide lifts all boats.
Dear Jim, actually, if you have gold coins like Krugerrands or similar ones, getting land down here would be WAY easier. The only one over gold would be Cash $.
Seeing it coming wasn’t the issue for them and isn’t the issue for us. The question is at this point, “What can we do about it?…”