it's game over, bro

ITS GAME OVER BRO

You can still be a prepper. Can you still be a survivalist? I'm thinking that game is over, bro. You can still prep for weeks and even for months. For years? That is probably not in our budgets, nor is that quantity usually available in this new normal. Price increases have met widespread shortages. And the odds are good that isn't going to get better. You have to enter the apocalypse with the goods you have, not what you want. You can still prepare, but the choices blow and the prices are at least double.

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I hope none of you are at the starting point. But as just discussed, if you are, you go deep on bare bones. Carbs for food, even if all you can get is White Foods. If you can't afford enough ammo, go rimfire if you must. An Orange Man check still buys 10k rounds, two 10/22's and lots of mags ( don't buy the bottom of the barrel 4 to 4.5cent crap. Spend the extra half cent for a slightly better quality round. Especially if relying on a semi-auto ). You can still buy a plot of junk land with the Orange Man check. Again, bottom feeding. But you have only yourself to blame, waiting so long. What? You didn't think 2008 was a warning?

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My original thought when the lock-downs started was that just prior the banks had started seeing huge cash withdrawals. Suddenly, all retail was closed down, most importantly the bank lobbies. Now there were no more $10k withdrawals, just the $500 ATM limit. There isn't enough cash in the country for bank runs. There wasn't when it was all cash. Now that it is 90% credit/electronic, there is far less to have a run. I still think that plausible, since the banks own the country. But Jim, what about all the unemployed? What about them?

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The more unemployed there are, the cheaper the labor is. The cheaper the labor is, the more profit the big corporations make. The more profit the corporations make, the more debt they take out. Which benefits who? You guessed it, Debbie Dumbass. Consumer spending was already in the toilet, pre-Corona. Moving the profit center from credit cards to corporate loans makes sense. Corporations are already going to be profitable, with all the small business's knocked out after the Fake Black Death. Less consumption is just an excuse to add to the unemployment rolls.

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If a corporation now has far fewer workers, and has a monopoly on its retail sector, consumption falling fifty percent doesn't matter because it went from 10% of the market share to 99%. At less cost. Your cost as a customer is going to increase, from dealing with a monopoly but blamed on Beer Virus caused supply chain disruptions. Yes, all this is a power/profit grab. Banks profit up the Seneca Cliff, and down it ( most of the way ). But this is also an adjustment to a reduction in the supply of energy. To ignore that is to fool yourself about the future.

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Mass consumption is over. Infinite manufacturing on a finite planet was never sustainable. And we've had plenty of time to get used to the auction for resources as supply was never enough ( when China needed copper for construction, you didn't get rimfire ammunition. This SHOULD have clued in everyone that USA! USA! Wasn't the world's biggest economy anymore, but empty jingoism is seemingly a great cure for reality ). I'm not saying the economy will stop acting as it has, I'm saying the beginning of the end already started. You can still buy, dibs and dabs, until nobody can buy anything else.

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Preparation has to be about moving on from the shopping phase. Those cards have already been dealt. Hell, even during the last global drought and importation bans worldwide, in 2008, you could still buy the crap out of wheat, here. Now? Yeah. If you cannot buy bulk grains, you cannot prep for civilization crash. All you can cover is short term disasters. How is that junk land looking now? You solve the water issue, you can solve the food issue. You can still buy $2 bags of steer manure. Haul municipal leaves and other biomass to your land. While gasoline is cheap, and the cars are still running ( until the lack of parts catches up ), condition your soil.

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You think the seed shortage is bad now? Wait until the cow populations go way down, and diesel goes way up. No more bags of affordable fertilizer. If there is a place to buy it. Home Despot has most of their crap built in China. Will Ace Hardware still be open? Will nurseries, without Yuppie Scum buying expensive ornaments? Just more excuses for price increases. Buy the soil conditioners now, and keep hauling biomass to add to the soil and compost. A bicycle trailer might be a good investment ( if not, go to the Dark Green Mountain Dude for Turd World ideas on bike hauling, for doing it cheaper ).

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I'm not a flaming retard- I don't believe for a second a garden will feed you ( unless you are a rabbit, and if you are, I applaud your ability to read ). But it gets you off the Buying Solutions treadmill ( yes, you are INVESTING in a garden. You aren't buying, consuming, the end result ). If nothing else, you are growing seed for when you are forced to rip up the lawn ( and plant on your neighbors, for half the produce as rent ) and go all in on your own produce production.

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Now, yes, you can feed yourself. Eventually. No one gets there right away. If you hit enough stores in a metro area, you could get enough carbs ( even at a one bag limit ) to help you survive as you learn to garden ( master that first, then move on from vitamin plants to calorie plants to calories for you AND chickens ). You can garden now, not to provide your calories, but to provide the fiber and vitamin crops to supplement the empty calories of white flour or white rice you are stockpiling now. So, yes, everyone should be gardening.

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But don't expect much. I have one potato plant up, with another at about a ten percent chance of survival. Out of six plants ( mainly, finding out where to concentrate my soil building. Most locations are poor, no south facing dirt ). It accomplishes almost nothing except learning. But it also keeps me from seeing shopping as the only salvation. This is the main benefit I was unaware all the years I short-shifted gardening. It really does work as a placebo. So, tinker at something besides shopping. Build, bury, condition soil, meditate and get your head right. Time to inch away from just shopping. The system has already changed. Don't be left behind.

( .Y. )

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