real precious metal 3 of 3

REAL PRECIOUS METAL 3
*
note: free book.  Zombies https://amzn.to/2LYYZFb .  Military Porn Zombies https://amzn.to/2KacFvg .  
*

I ended yesterday with “Essentially, you have to give up on the concept of wealth.  That is tough for most, given the last hundred years of extreme surplus we had the option of investing in the growth of wealth.  NOT a historical norm”.  I think this deserves its own article, because while we might have checked off the box “we’ll return to the Dark Ages” on your apocalypse research, you have no context to adequately judge that statement.  It is like telling a fish that water exists.  You are right, but the fish cannot conceive of what you babble.  I mean, come on!  He is a fish.  His brain isn’t exactly Einstein material, and he smells like unwashed crotch.

*

Even if you’ve been homeless you cannot conceive of there not being excess wealth.  Homeless guys live above Turd World Standards off of the trash we don’t even value any more.  What else do you want as proof that even today we still see the ability to grow wealth?  Granted, most people cannot see that, either.  They cry about income inequality ( as much as I like the general mindset of Chris Hedges, some times his PC libtard posturing annoys the crap out of me ) but they don’t do anything to recognize that in our society you don’t need much income anyway.  You are only poor if you follow the China-Mart lemmings over the cliff.  If you spit on car ownership and rent, despite the difficulties, and look at debt as incarceration, you’ll do just fine.  There is still enough surplus for that lifestyle, just not the SUV/McMansion one.

*

Yeah, you’d better feel bad.  You should be able to prep AND invest in wealth preservation even if you only work one day a week on minimum wage.  THAT is what junk land and lack of a car buy you, by the way.  That is how bad the system is gamed against you.  Sure, you get “value” for the other four days a week you work to buy “necessary” items.  Unfortunately everything you buy with that are the industries where true inflation is showing up.  $25k for a USED car, with 70k miles on it?  $20k a year college educations?  Houses under $200k selling like hot cakes?  Wow!  If that is “value”, I want nothing to do with it.

*

So, because even right before the collapse there is still the ability to generate excess wealth, even for the poor ( you don’t think silver isn’t worth at least several hundred bucks?  Historically, prior to the Carbon Fuel Age, it was.  That wheat isn’t worth at a minimum one hours wage a pound?  Is used to be, before insanely high energy dense oil was turned into food ), you really cannot wrap your head around the fact that excess wealth was rare, even for most heads of state ( the minor states, those without colonies ), for most of history. 

*

Most of us should be happy to have enough ammunition and food for the apocalypse.  That too isn’t normal.  Historically it wasn’t always easy having enough of both nitrates for the soil and for ammunition.  Colonialism was in large part about mining the deposits of the nitrates not available locally.  Without quality colonies of any great magnitude, Germany had to turn its coal into food.  Britain did much better stealing the oil it needed to do so.  Five hundred years of colonialism was essentially about little more than who had the surplus food.  And yet for all those centuries of war and famine, slavery and genocide, we look on our surplus food as a God given right and all that it means to be ‘Murican.

*

Yet all that surplus food was a form of mining, just as it had been for every empire and civilization ever.  Mine the soil and resources to win the population race to win the war.  Even our colonization efforts were about winning excess food.  First for tropical deposits of nitrates ( hello, Puerto Rico and Philippines ), then to control the oil that became nitrates.  We constantly had to expand to keep up with the soil depletion.  Now, soil is basically nothing but a sponge for artificial fertilizer ( besides, even if the soil is dead, the field is conveniently located under the sun ), eating our oil.  Historically, food is no where near as trivial as we look on it as.

*

I expect the average bear to see excess surplus as a normal state of affairs.  I also expect that loyal minions know far better than the average idiot out there.  If you don’t have one gram of silver, that should not bother you in the least.  If all you can afford is long term storage food and ammunition, you are already far ahead of the historical norm.  You must risk your life just keeping those items safe and sound.  But at least they have a tangible worth.  Defense and calories.  What is gold and silver?  One of the few non-modern cultural truths across the globe ( some others would be “women and children first”, “incest taboo”, and “proper gender roles” ) is that gold and silver are universal trading chits.  In and of themselves they are just pretty sparkly trinkets.  It is only in their trade value are they worth anything.

*

But food and ammunition IN HAND are far more valuable than the money that can buy them.  Even in good times, because once delivered the utility value is instant and isn’t effected by supply and demand in the future.  Not that I’m saying silver and gold are not constant in their value.  They are.  They always have the same purchasing power.  But if the crop fails, and there is no food to be had for sale, the food is priceless at that time.  Gold and silver only hold the advantage as a Bug Out Bank, or when there is no resource contraction.  During normal times.  Not during violent upheavals, except as the escape thereof.  Unless your escape destination is low on food also.  Oops.

*

Precious metal cannot always be used in trade.  That is its downside.  Its upside is that is will always return to its store of value.  That just doesn’t always help you out when you need it.  If you are of limited means, the translation being “you can’t always get what you want”, you get to choose between concrete needs or abstract wealth that isn’t always liquid.  The poor must cut out middlemen.  The poor grow their own food, they don’t buy it ( historically ).  They build their own home-they don’t pay someone to do so.  And they have what they need so that they don’t need a currency unit for buying those items ( barter is extremely inefficient.  So is peasant farming.  But that inefficiency also buys redundancy and safety.  Barter does away with needing trading chits ).

*

The poor don’t need wealth.  They cannot have it, so they don’t create a need for it.  If you are “poor” ( relatively speaking, obviously ), you need to bypass the need for future wealth.  Granted, stockpiling isn’t as good as manufacturing, but for most of us it will have to do.  If you can eliminate the need for stored wealth, by already possessing what that would have bought, you insulate and protect yourself.  Now apply that to all you own or want and seek that to the best of your ability.

( .Y. ) 

( today's related link https://amzn.to/2JSINUa 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ).
*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or mail me some cash/check/money order or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle books, send me the money and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184
*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there