consuming doom 2 of 2

CONSUMING DOOM 2

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note: we might be seeing a temporary glut in copper.  If so, take advantage but don't expect an end to Peak Copper:
https://srsroccoreport.com/big-trouble-for-copper-is-good-for-silver/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SrsroccoReport+%28SRSrocco+Report%29
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Culturally, I wish I was still back in the 1980’s.  The movies were better ( lower production values, sure, but at least some originality ), the female hair was better, the clothes were a bit too Miami Vice inspired but at least festive and gay.  Nobody had cell phones or other e-teets, the government was still pretty much out of your face.  Music hadn’t gone over to rap, which still left a lot of Metallic Hair and other crap but at least it wasn’t 100% wasteland noise yet.  People were more relaxed and less rude ( even in California! ).  Alas, you can’t go back, you can never go back.  Now, as far as traveling back in time to a much better economy, the 90’s were hard to beat.  That was the last of the cheap and free flowing oil.  North Sea and Alaskan oil hadn’t seen production in the toilet yet and Russia was pumping all out ( plus the middle east was playing by our rules ).  The last Petroleum Party, consumption wise.  Any general recall of prices are enough to get your nipples tingling. 

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$5 bags of wheat kernels, $20 auto tires, $99 SKS carbines.  $500 a month apartment rents, which was two rooms AND all utilities paid.  You could still shop around and find plenty of sub-$10k cars.  Used autos were littering the ground at sub-$1k.  Silver was $5 an ounce and gold $300.  World War II surplus guns were still under $100 each with plenty of ammo.  And jobs!  My goodness, there were actually jobs!  I was making more then than I am now.  There were more positions than willing warm bodies.   It was too easy to prep for Y2K.  And now?  You are looking at the end of days, as far as comfortably prepping for End Of Days.  It wasn’t just low prices back then but purchasing power.  None of that silly nonsense now-we are squarely back into the Gilded Age of corporate profits and peon wages ( you presently have a very small window of moderately reduced prices due to systematic commercial failure, and just prior to far more unemployment ).  It isn’t corporate greed alone of course.  If the bankers had their way we would all be making better salaries so as to be in more debt with those phat interest payments, and government would itself love to see more wages and consumption to boost its tax base.  The pie isn’t just shrinking anymore but actually imploding.

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Now, I’m not talking about doom and gloom in and of itself right at this moment.  We should have all gotten the memo eight years ago that This Suckers Going Down.  We should all be squared away prepper/debt avoidance/job security-wise.  A lot less consumption and money grubbing isn’t going to kill any of us.  What I am talking about is the permanent end of an age of consuming to prep.  Yes, I’m screaming from the rooftops to go out and consume with your remaining company chits while you still can.  Never again in history will wheat be so cheap and abundant.  Never.  If you are not a complete moron, you’d be buying $300 in your primary weapons ammunition reloading primers.  That’s 10k primers and you’d best buy them now as they will never be as cheap or available ( if nothing else, expect another shortage closer to the elections ).  I just split the cost of 300 watts of solar power with my Old Lady ( who is turning out to embrace survivalism to a small but satisfactory way ).  Can I afford that right now?  Not especially, but I’m always spending too much on a prep item then counting my pennies for the next couple of paychecks to compensate.  Was I going to pass up the very last of the surplus 303 ammo selling for 28 cents each after shipping?  Of course not!  I dipped into my savings and paid it back over the next month.  You can also force yourself to take advantage of these savings.

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But you do of course realize this is the last gasp of our consumer society.  It really is this time.  We won’t get a second chance.  I know you don’t want to hear it again, but global Peak Oil was 2005.  Less free flowing cheap oil did in our economy two years later.  The banking industry, absolutely dependent on the growth of oil for their growth in debt paying their growth in currency, won’t survive the death of growth ( take comfort in the death of the Federal Reserve Bank, after a century of empire ).  It is cannibalizing the western countries economies to survive up to this point ( and yes, Optimistic Oppies, this especially includes the US.  You think Chicago, Detroit and Stockton are mere exceptions? ) and that is almost over.  Chinese freefall in exports was the death knell for the global consumer economy.  How long do you think you have before you cannot consume anymore?  Almost everything to buy in the USA has components from elsewhere.  What you are seeing RIGHT NOW is the death of consumerism, the death of the PetroDollar and the economic crash all rolled into one.

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Yes, it is natural to be upset about the end of consuming to prep.  It was how we rolled for sixty years as survivalists.  But consuming was never more than filling up the life raft.   We knew the food would run out quickly and we’d have to learn to forage on our deserted island soon enough.  Those who dismiss consumption for preps are usually quite happy selling you that advice.  Garden now, you can’t store enough food for the rest of your life!  Well, duh.  Thanks Captain Obvious.  But food for seven lean years is sure not a bad idea.  And, it might be pointed out, not everyone has been food self-sufficient for the last seven thousand years.  Earning barter units by work to buy food has been around since the first agro empires were founded.  Buying storage food is just cutting out the middle man of growing the stuff.  Of course you will have to start producing your own food as soon as you can kill off the original inhabitant of the nearest farm ( I know this is politically incorrect, but that is the historical method of turning from trader to farmer after a collapse, if vacant land isn’t available.  It will be the way of the future, too, so take this as a heads up ). 

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It would be swell if we could just keep working a crappy job and buying our pathetic pile of prepping goods to assuage our fears, but all signs point to that paradigm ending.  Prepare to adjust.

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