Tuesday, October 3, 2017

death to prepping


DEATH TO PREPPING

I just finished stating that Trump didn’t kill prepping because the last time the economy was good ( it sucks, but the perception is that it has improved ) the prepping industry was awash in spending.  Good economies don’t slow disaster spending, they increase it.  Now, you could say that the prepping industry killed itself, so desperate for sales growth to pay for all the debt they incurred ( new print magazine start-ups, more freeze dried equipment ) that their Boy Cries Wolf constant doomer blather eventually killed off customers.  And I’m sure there is something to that.  But it can’t be all.  I had also just talked about how there will always be customers for doomer equipment, just that it will once again become a boutique industry with high prices ( or a low cost hobby business ).  The doomer industry will never die, but it will shrink and eliminate companies in debt or hooked on growth.  But, still, we are left with the question of why they are dying off.

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Granted, industry greed drove some away.  Economic contraction drove many away.  Yet, when you look around at the masses driving to view the solar eclipse, see the roads chock a block full of traffic 24/7, wonder how so many folks can eat out when it costs twice as much as it did five years ago, with worse tasting food, see all the shiny new cars that START at twenty grand, it is hard to see how consumer spending is suffering and you wonder how the prepper industry has fallen on such hard times ( the illusion of prosperity given by the stock market and the crowded restaurants won’t drive away potential preppers.  Perhaps those only serious on a camping trip duration emergency, but these were never serious preppers, just industry wet dream potential new customers ).  I have no definitive answers ( and I usually take great pride in coming up with them when all others are stumped ), but I have a few theories I’d like to try out on you. 

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First, the industry sabotaged itself.  Not by the Boy Cries Wolf issue of turning everything into fear mongering, but by actually pacifying everyone.  The fear mongering actually reduced fears by trivializing any warnings, and so most eagerly embraced the Business As Usual with the industry which was a combination of both Yuppie Scum Gear Buying and the Panic Enough To Buy But Not Enough To Leave The Consumer Stable.  In other words, despite the illusion of Doomer Porn being normal, the effect was to get everyone to focus on ONLY short term disasters.  Most preppers probably looked at “EMP attack” or “solar flare” or “Yellowstone erupting” as they did “Gore Warming Will Kill Us All”.  They discounted the hype and easily convinced themselves that they just needed a month or three of food and plenty of guns and ammo.  The sky high prices kept them at a lower planning duration.  Oops, that is what is known as cutting off your nose to spite your face.  Great profits at first, but then no customers.

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So, with the de facto emphasis on short term prepping, when you get done with three to six months worth of food, you are done.  You are no longer a customer.  So companies had to get more and more marginal, less fanatical or dedicated customers.  They also started selling a lot of crap that was unnecessary and too costly.  Which, I’m guessing, quickly moved over to Amazon from the niche doomer companies.  The Chinese see a profit item, boom, the knock off crap is weeks away from filling up a cargo ship.  And plenty of Americans, seeing no employment out there, are only too happy to see an opportunity to open a doomer business with that nonsense.  But Amazon has got your ass beat on prices.  They don’t even have to invest in inventory.  A third party vendor is only too willing to put his money into that.  Amazon just cashes in on its eyeballs.  If you have a hard time visualizing this, just look at the zombie novel publishing industry.  Ruined by amateurs flooding the market with zero start up costs, now reduced to the need to give their crap away for free with Kindle Unlimited and write a lot of sequels. The writing quality equals that of the cheap flashlights or filters or whatever Amazon now offers to frugal preppers. 

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Then there is the old issue of Wives Permission.  I don’t need to elaborate, you all know the pain and suffering.  If you lucked out with a good wife, you were allowed a bare minimum of prepping budget.  Then, hours were cut and medical costs went up, and the prepping allowance stopped.  The eating out ( I used to have a wife that insisting on eating out regularly regardless of how it effected the budget.  Perhaps I’m not alone ) and the newer cars, they don’t stop.  My theory for that is that less males work as more females do, plus the age old control afforded to the wife in all household matters to include the budget, and the two pronged lifestyle paradigm is reinforced.  First, females are geared towards form over function.  Just their nature-not a judgment.  Second, as we moved more towards a digital reality, everyone is more aligned with a unicorn glittery unreal fantasy world.  If the economy LOOKS good, it is.  And if the car LOOKS good, you don’t have to worry about it breaking down as much.  If the eating out meal LOOKS better than homemade, it must be.  If the illusion is supported there will be more illusion. 

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So, why do you need MORE prepping supplies? It looks like enough, right?  The budget is tight, so no more prep supplies.  You have enough for the hurricane hitting and a week of no electric.  The collapse of western civilization?  Are you insane?  Even if your neighbors can’t find a job, The Donald is getting money to them. Everyone is driving cars, eating out and we got Fracking Forever.  If you are allowed or even want more prep supplies, just get them from Amazon.  No need to pay more through the Doomer Vendors.  That is on top of the advertising model of business failing, on top of the mass unemployment.  Remember, it’s never just ONE cause, right?

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2yq0dmB )
 
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18 comments:

  1. In my opinion, the core reason is that fewer and fewer people feel the need to prepare as they become more and more inculcated with a "hive mind" (hat tip to Scott Adams of "Dilbert" fame for that expression). Everyone has a smartphone that has destroyed their sense of situational awareness and reduced their world to a four inch screen filled with a steady stream of electronic pablum. Friends? I have hundreds of those on Facebook. Entertainment? Excuse me while I stream this movie over an overloaded cellular network that was never intended to support that sort of bandwidth. Food? The store shelves are always full of ready-to-eat foods and I have my pick of restaurants. Power and light? They've always come on when I flip the switch and my only concern is finding an outlet to plug in my phone charger. Critical thinking and a serious study of history? That's an old-fashioned nonsense concept that was thought up by a bunch of old racist white men.
    Why do I need to worry about tomorrow when my government and the media assure me that as long as I trust them and do what they tell me, everything is under control and always will be?

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    1. It makes you wonder if one of the primary benefits of pushing PC is to completely program out the last of any critical thinking. Just what a declining civilization needs from the drones.

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  2. It appears that the companies and their greed contributed a lot to the ridicule associated with prepping.

    It's very similar to the incredible stories that flourished in print and TV from the 80's on about 4WD and SUV saving a person's life (generally a woman's). Turned out those types of vehicles were the only one where the manufacturers could still make a profit. they pushed these cars as far as they could (now everybody has one).

    Jim, I fear that all those cars you saw and the dining out were fueled by credit. The same goes for preppers, too, I guess a lot have obscene amounts of ammo, tin cans and everything else, all bought by debt. It's just the "normal" thing to do in a consumer society.

    The "hobby" survivalists have probably been a market for publishers, back in the days when people read books. I find that the internet is nowhere near the quality of these books, except your glorious blog.

    Of course, survival is very big on adapting and improvising (and overcoming...), so building up a knwoledge base would be actually more important than building up a cache of food and ammo (except your knowledge won't magically produce calories out of thin air...).

    Most people not only have no money left, they also have neither the time nor the peace of mind to review their life choices, their preparation options and the evolution of the world around them.

    Perhaps we could call the "hobby" survivalists actually "full-time" survivalists instead :)

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    1. Short term thinking at its best. I recall fiction stories a while back glorifying short term thinking. The gist of it is that since we could react to events quickly, there being no need for long term planning, we would win militarily by being more agile. Even JIT Inventory was admired. Can't remember any authors-it was pretty embarrassing.

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  3. Part of my troubles with prepping are the costs of what was state of art becoming ridiculously inexpensive. Years back, I purchased a Brunton SolarPort 4.4 for nearly $200. Price solar battery chargers now and you see why I grind my teeth. I see one on ebay NIB for $50. Damnation !

    The same went for water filters. Where were the Life Straws and Sawyer units back when I was purchasing water filters for $100 plus a unit for half the amount of life.

    Le sigh.

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    1. Ummm, you know I'm one of the most pessimistic pricks around, and I'm DELIGHTED at the situation you describe. More back-ups where before they were unobtainable. For once, I can't see your pessimism.

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    2. Actually, these are the most expensive pieces in one's preparations.

      The Yuppie Survivalist think he has to buy another set of stuff because it says" survival" on it (survival corckscrew, survival spice rack - these exist, for camping).

      On the other hand, 90% of the sutff you need you can buy cheaply and unconspicuously at most supermarkets : gas stoves, all the food, first-aid stuff etc.

      Even the weaponry does not need to be expensive or specialized, second-hand hunting rifles or surplus rifles will do 100% of what you need them to do.

      All this unconspicuous objects do not fall in the "survivalist" category, and thus the industry that is retracting is the extra stuff nobody really needs. I'm sure a lot of people stock extra food at home and extra ammo for the deer rifle, nothing of which appears on any "survivalist watch" radar.

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    3. I think I've bought from a survivalist company a total of five times in thirty years. Once when I lived in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Twice when one was just a short drive up the road in Fl for Y2K. The other two times wasn't even really needed, just putzing around with small storage containers living out of the Hippie Bread Van. So, yes, what purpose do they really serve except to Yuppie Scum who can't Do-It-yourself? And aren't Yuppie Scum losing their jobs the quickest, being better paid? Good call-thanks.

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    4. I once gave a life straw, to my idiot gun guy.
      He actually wondered of what use could it possibly be? As he has artesian water available, just like I do. Had to explain that the lifestraw was for when he had to run...
      But, but he stated...with all my guns...why on Earth would I ever need to run ? This being the same man with virtually no food storage...

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    5. Why run? Gator soup, fried gator, boiled gator, BBQ gator :) Or python, obviously.

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    6. Not on the island he loves on, just a shit load of people and houses. Very little wildlife. I tell him that long pork will be very popular with all the yuppie scum living around him. Remember this is the same dude that would buy a gun , then a month or two down the road sell it to me for half of retail.

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    7. Sells you a gun at half price, so...he's a LOVEABLE idiot. ps-I was channeling Forrest Gump.

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  4. Couple of ideas...

    First, only a limited number of people are preppers. Let's say 5% of the population. These people were freaked after 9-11, the 2008 housing bubble, and the possibility of Hilarity as president. So they prepped. They have all the basics. They may add a few things here and there but for the most part, the big spending is done.

    Second, a lot of new prep stores opened up. Too many survival stores going after the same 5% of the population. There was an overshot and now the inevitable pull back.

    Third, after the housing bubble debacle, people's homes don't seem that secure. Plus, our society has become very mobile -- moving all the time for jobs, unemployment, renting, etc . When you are insecure in your housing, it doesn't make sense to invest in things you may have to leave behind. So why not spend your money on vehicles (that you can take with you) and eating out.

    Fourth, doomer fatigue or aka I'm all dressed up for the apocalypse and nowhere to go. Things seemed pretty dire there for awhile but we have become use to this plateau --not realizing that another step down is coming. I have to admit that the various stages of the collapse are being drawn out a lot longer than I anticipated. Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing (more time to prepare), just unexpected.

    Idaho Homesteader

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    1. I hadn't considered the "renter factor". Since the banks won't let go of their surplus housing, to prop up prices ( a shame to let millions of houses fall apart, all those resources, just to jack up the profits ), many more folks are renting at a temp job. Home ownership would be much lower now except all those underwater who can't leave by law. Thanks!

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  5. Well, I'm being greedy I guess. I see your point about buying multiples of the unit now (actually sounds like a good idea for the battery chargers, only have three in total).

    Sometimes, the better product is later purchased at half the cost - isn't it supposed to work the other way around (Buy Now to Save Future Price Hike ) ?

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    1. That is the way it worked for thirty five or forty years. Now, as we enter into year, whatever, three or five of the global factory overcapacity and death of consumer spending after too much automation and overpopulation and growing unemployment, and dare I say production decline of oil, prices are forced to fall to achieve any sales at all. A short glorious prepping time. Take advantage, do it now, stock deep and cheap, because as soon as the PetroDollar dies true inflation and real unemployment are here. No pressure, of course :)

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  6. Most peppers are of the older generation.
    I think most feel with the little time they have left why keep prepping.

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    1. True-after a certain age you know you don't have that much time left, especially now with the medical industry imploding.

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