401 mKay ( article two of two today )

401 mKay ( article 2 of 2 today )

Sometimes I really hate answering the tough questions. Most of the time I stick with the easier ones. I mean, you might THINK it is a hard call on whether to kill children or women, for instance, but that is actually easy since it comes down to tribal imperative. No, I'm talking about the kind of hard questions that might screw people up if you aren't exact in your logic. Like, “should I cash out my 401K, or not?”. That is NOT as easy as I make it out to be. It might be easy for ME, but you have a lot more riding on it.

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Me? I always figured that money for retirement is just like money for your whole life. Stop worrying about getting MORE, and worry about needing LESS. For me, Social Security is more than enough, a minimum of double what I make now. If Social Security isn't going to be around, neither is your private savings, as the whole enchilada already imploded. But you'all, as I am constantly reminded, ain't me. You want cars and grid electricity and hookers and blow. I can only nag you so often before you tire of me. So I'm forced into your world.

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The average guy smart enough to read me is probably smart enough to have a good paying job, and hence will have a 401K from back when times didn't suck complete ass. I'm sure a few of you on public pensions wish you had a 401K right about now as your city is in multi-billion dollar deficits and shortfalls. So, the question remains, what should you do? If I ONLY answered softball questions I wouldn't be the Survivalist King Of The Universe. The short answer is, the lesser evil.

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The long answer is, that is certainly NOT an answer. Without knowing the future how can we know what the lesser evil is? I mean, we KNOW how the future is going to be. As painful as it is, go watch “The Road” ( the book was great, as one of the most bleak PA universes ever, but I've never wanted to re-read it because it simply isn't entertaining. Yet, that was far and above better than the movie. Which did a decent job of staying true to the book. Which ALSO didn't make it very entertaining ). That is the future. We just don't know the timing.

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And when I say “that is the future”, I certainly do not mean the overcast natural disaster aspect. I mean more along the lines of depopulated and without resources. How folks do not view our extraction activities with stories high excavators ( with each tire costing what a reasonable house would ), and not worry that means there is ZERO for future generation confounds me. How they think you can pump the dirt full of chemicals and compact the ground with heavy machinery, then believe it can instantly go to organic smallsteads is equally a mystery.

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To be perfectly honest, any rational person would NEVER have believed the US could pull a miracle out of its ass with the Petrodollar and survive losing its gold, its military hold over colonies and its industry. Any thinking adult surely cannot explain how we are STILL not joining the other civilizations in a dirt nap. I mean, you could envision what it would be like from the outside looking in and our existence exactly mirrors Rome months or just a handful of years before its sacking. You understand that NOTHING working as designed means only one thing. But you are still unsure about the timing.

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If a person almost fifty years ago couldn't see how we were going to save ourselves, surely, you say, we ourselves could be under the same delusion. I mean, no way in hell we have another fifty years. But my point is that it is too easy to get our best guess about the timing wrong. That right there is what is going to screw most of us. Since the system keeps NOT collapsing, we think we have another grace period. Which we could. Or perhaps not.

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I've been acting like tomorrow is The End, for a very long time. To me, it is normal. But I have to keep reminding myself that no one else is like me. Nobody else could possibly fixate on the apocalypse to the extent I do. Most folks just want to live their life, with prepping a necessary insurance program. Me, that IS my life. But don't cry for me, Argentina. I LOVE this life. Might be faulty mental wiring. Or, Baby Jesus is speaking through me. Hard to say. But, yeah, you worry about how your survival preps will impact your budget for the rest of your life.

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It is natural to want to keep hold of your savings. So far, no apocalypse. But what you have seen, time and again, is your friends and family lose employment or get into a bind with medical bills, or whatever, and you know you need savings to survive THAT quasi-apocalypse which is orders of magnitude more likely in the short term than a civilization collapse. Bullets and band-aids will NOT pay the bills, only cash type money ( not even precious metals, which ALSO keep screwing the pooch in expectations and won't explode upwards. At least not yet- all in good time ).

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If things limp along, no savings means you could lose your home, or your ability to drive. Just because I hate houses and cars doesn't mean you do. I'm all about worse case scenario, and that is fine. For your preps for the apocalypse. But it isn't fine for your financial planning. I'm not just black or white. You might agree with me but in shades of gray. It can be a sliding scale beyond just agree, don't agree. After all, I myself had way too much cash on hand for many years. It is not my prerogative to dismiss your desire to do the same.

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If you hate the thought of being savings poor, you should simply keep the 401k. If you more often have nightmares of being without enough post-apocalypse supplies, you probably don't have to worry about one. It depends not on what I say, but what your Lizard Brain says. And I'm as serious as a heart attack. Either way, the choice is wrong. You end up broke living like a bum, but with plenty of supplies, or you have a cash cushion that will disappear. And I don't mean to frame that like cash is stupid. Without the cash, you will be dropping like a stone in your standard of living.

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There are other considerations, such as supplies being just as vulnerable as cash in the bank. We just talked about the scourge of crackheads. Not that THEY will do a home invasion. But they do represent the break down of law and order, don't they? Things will just get worse. Look at Turd World countries. Still relatively stable, still feeding everyone, but crime is at insane levels. This, and more, continued tomorrow.

( .Y. )

( today's related Amazon link click HERE )

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note-I do not advise buying the Home Despot orange lid for the five gallon bucket.  They might have a better lid, but don't buy the orange one for sure.  They are now hunks of crap, the inner ring too thin of plastic that is easily bent and torn, leaving an imperfect seal.  Bad enough they took out the gasket, now you can't even get a solid plastic seal.  And I was even using a proper rubber mallet and still had about 30% failure rates.  First time I've had issues with a bucket lid after dozens and scores of them over the years.  
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