L.T.F.M. 2

LOW TECH FORCE MULTIPLIER 2

If you ever want to eliminate the need for all your tools and trades being dependent on infrastructure, you'll have to revert to Primitive Tech, or Stone Age tech. And since metal is a military ratchet technology, you probably really don't want to do that if at all possible. The Amerindians saw how wonderful steel was, but then, they also saw how super firearms were, and look how dependent that made them on trading with the White Devils. And trade wasn't even the bottleneck. It was lacking the infrastructure to feed and repair higher tech.

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We survivalists with our stockpiled lifeboats are in the same position as the indigenous population was. We have no infrastructure to support our tools. And trade makes you vulnerable. Look how vulnerable we were to the dictates of the Crown over trade. Remember how food rationing went into the 1950's in Britain, after she foolishly “farmed” out her food production to the Commonwealth nations? Recall how we spend a trillion dollars a year to keep control of the middle east so we have enough fuel to grow our own food? And the sad part is, we voluntarily allowed our fertilizer production infrastructure to shrink.

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The biggest strategic issue we are going to have is dismantling our infrastructure. Since the central bank runs our country, and since banks only care about money rather than security, everything was optimized for profit. Natural gas goes up in price? Oops! Bottom line in danger! Danger, Will Robinson, danger! Profit loss ahead! No problem, let the UAE or Qatar or such use its much cheaper gas to manufacture half of our national supply of artificial fertilizer. What could possibly go wrong?

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Oh, I don't know, perhaps that Food Is First! It wasn't bad enough that we are reliant on trade for our energy supply ( a “mere” 33% now, but back up to near 70% without fracking ), we had to endanger a big chunk of our food supply as well. If you have an industry, a infrastructure, and it is losing money in an economic downturn or during war, you can always nationalize it. You can keep it going. If it is overseas, that makes things a little more difficult. You should NEVER give potential enemies the keys to the front gate. But we did.

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It wasn't JUST about profit, although I'm sure that was the biggest consideration. It is also about falling net energy and falling energy per capita. As energy supplies contract, every bit of infrastructure must be maintenance deferred or outright dismantled. We usually look at it in dollar terms, and that is fine as long as you remember that money is backed by energy, ultimately. Even before oil, you needed food to feed slaves to mine the ore and wood to process the ore, to make weapons or machines-calories and wood is energy ( gold and silver are mere universal trading chits ).

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Recall that the Spanish rapine in the New World caused massive inflation back in Europe. And yet, California, Australia and South African's massive gold supply increase did not. At that time, increasing energy in the form of coal was simply met with that new supply of trading chits. And the gold mined in the last century, which was only possible with oil, due to its extremely diffuse nature, the necessity to process huge amounts of rock to reach the ore, went down in price-deflation-as the oil glut goosed the energy side.

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Ultimately it is all about energy for society, micro amounts of energy-calories-for the smallest units of human organization. Do you think it was any accident that during the 80's and 90's inflation fell as energy supplies came online anew, and that the last decade has seen inflation surge as we replace high net energy with low net? Homey don't think so. Lack of energy means-what? Infrastructure maintenance differed or dismantled. When we go Civilization Tits Up, that means your energy supply crashed. So what happens to the infrastructure that maintains your tools? That big tool, the environmental protection structure, is outright obsolete, barely worth salvage.

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When the oil from Saudi Arabia stops flowing ( and not by CIA drones this time, to keep the Sauds firmly in the PetroDollar camp, but by actual depletion ), your Happy Motoring days are fini, and all that personal transportation infrastructure just on your end, is now scrap price. See how easy it is to have the tools, but not the infrastructure for the tools? Without the Internet, how functional is your personal computer? As preppers, we warehouse our own supplies, the Alpha Strategy going a LONG way towards reducing our vulnerability. Alas, that just buys us time.

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Which is fine. There is no easy solution, just Least Worst ones. The Afghans did fine without arms manufacturing or ammunition factories, trading opium to continue maintaining their supply for repair, refurbish and recycling. But they also had an infrastructure for that, tribal trading networks into Pakistan. That infrastructure decreased their trade vulnerability. What survivalists SHOULD do, is to seek ways to reduce their vulnerability to supply without infrastructure, also. One very good reason to adopt the AR-15 is because the supply infrastructure is already in place. Is it a great firearm? No. Especially not for post-apocalypse. It is a souped up rimfire with the same fragility.

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But you won't run out of spare parts, will you? If the total global supply of AK-47's has been of sufficient supply to wage war throughout Africa and middle east continuously for decades, then half that amount of AR's in the US will be enough to keep the survivors here armed up far longer, much longer than the ammunition supply lasts. The AR is preferable for exactly ONE reason. It's infrastructure. It is the same reason you go with a Ford F-150 pickup truck, even if it isn't the best vehicle. It has an infrastructure.

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The reason you didn't run a diesel engine vehicle back in the 70's or even the 80's was the lack of refueling stations. It sometimes, depending on your location, didn't matter that it was a vastly superior engine ( as diesel fuel became available everywhere, regulations and computerization made the engine crappier ). Even in '91 I was driving out to a county fueling station for diesel, from a town of around 30k. Or, how about a better example. How many of you can drive down to a feed and grain supply, for some wheat? It ain't easy, is it? You not only need to be in farm country, but at the counties one supply location. Lack of infrastructure.

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UPS used to be about the only way to get resupplied in rural areas, for anything the mom & pop store didn't stock. Wonder why it was so easy for Wal-Mart ( spit, spit ) to put them out of business? It wasn't JUST low prices. Buying through the mail and paying UPS shipping wasn't exactly cheap. It was the fact you could actually find everything there you needed. They established an infrastructure. Of course, they also sowed the seeds of their own demise.

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When your business model is largely Everyday Low Transportation Cost, and then shipping crap from China and bouncing it around the US continent no longer is cheap, you tend to lose your biggest advantage and start cannibalizing your customers for profits being lost. The older model, using the infrastructure still in place, the mail order companies, start making a comeback. The niche businesses start up again, and the department store model devolves back to the Railroad Delivery Model ( how Sears and Monkey Wards got so big ). Suddenly, inventory is no longer a cost to be avoided but a profit center.

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Eliminating the higher tech Just In Time Inventory with its once dirt cheap but now increased cost transportation, going lower tech, becomes a winner.

Continued tomorrow

( .Y. )

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