Prepping, survival and what's coming

Poor Man Survival

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ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

 

Follow-up Thoughts, Resources and Update to Fridays’ Virus Report

 

My wife and I ate out Friday evening at a local diner.  A friend had been planning to come with us but declined at the last minute due to fears about the virus…Frankly, I’m not that worried and apparently neither were many others in our community as the diner was nearly full.

Although we don’t go to Costco [the closest one is about 50 miles away], we see the newscasts as to how folks are decimating shelves…one of our customers told us he was not able to find toiletries at any of the nearby stores including Kroger.

Thankfully, as Preppers, we always maintain a solid stockpile of such items.

We plan to attend our area flea market and WalMart today however…we’re shopping for items not normally hoarded by the masses!

Dine-in is out in Massachusetts. The republican governor issued extreme orders to try to tamp down community spread of COVID-19. Governor Baker instituted a ban on all gatherings of 25 people or more in the state, with the exception of grocery stores and pharmacies. He also banned bars and restaurants from serving food and drinks on site, but they can offer take-out and delivery. And all public and private K-12 schools are closed for 3 weeks, though childcare programs are allowed open for now.

The announcement brought back memories of 9/11 when life seemed forever changed. These are strange times…

The following are from some of our contributors and merit inclusion this week in hopes of curtailing some of the fears manifesting in our nation…

Even people who have been irrationally dismissive of the Corona pandemic up until this point finally had to wake up and smell reality yesterday. The NBA. Tom Hanks. European travel ban.

Our human brains, while magnificent and inspiring, are also wired in bizarre ways. We’re filled with countless ‘cognitive biases’ which affect our judgement, usually for the worse.

Among them is that human beings often cannot accept the possibility that tomorrow could be radically different than today.

thinking through some potential outcomes that might have seemed inconceivable before this outbreak.

I’m not suggesting these are foregone conclusions. But they’re definitely possible.

1) Supply chains will break down

Nearly everything you buy at the store or online is the result of a ridiculously complex, global system of commerce, finance, and logistics.

This computer that I’m using right now was sourced from hundreds of different materials—plastics, metals, etc. that were mined and produced from dozens of places. The component parts were manufactured by different suppliers, assembled in China, and transported on boats and trucks to wholesalers, retailers, etc.

The whole process involves countless people, dozens of companies, and thousands upon thousands of miles.

This system works great under normal conditions. But it’s not resilient. It’s unable to cope with severe global shocks like we’re seeing now.

I think we could see (and are already seeing) factory workers stop coming to work. Mail delivery could be curtailed. Or just imagine there’s an outbreak at an Amazon Fulfilment Center, and the company goes down to minimal staffing.

All of this will have an impact in the smooth production and delivery of goods around the world.

I don’t think we’ll have any sort of Mad Max shortages. But the virus effect could likely create scarcity, especially for anything that’s manufactured outside of your home country.

2) Rationing and export prohibition

Countries will become increasingly protectionist, especially with critical items like masks and medicine. We’ve already seen the German government blocking a shipment of 240,000 face masks to Switzerland.

And demand for several items is going to skyrocket. You might have heard about the toilet paper heists across Asia, or fistfights breaking out in Australia over antibacterial cleansers.

Here’s a photo that a friend sent to me a few hours ago of the hand sanitizer section at Walgreens-- almost empty.

This isn’t going to stand for very long before the companies themselves start to limit purchases, or governments impose full-blown rationing. And that leads to…

3) Some people will become totally unglued. Others will be saints

Let’s be honest— there’s already so much anger in the world. Strikes, riots, protests, Twitter rants… even armed thugs in the streets (Antifa) physically assaulting people with ideological differences.

Introduce a little bit of scarcity into all that anger and a few people will become totally unhinged.

Just think about how violent some shoppers can be on Black Friday, punching each other’s lights out in WalMart for the last big screen TV on special.

4) Curfews and martial law

This one is extremely realistic right now given that we already saw martial law in China, and it’s happening in Europe now too.

It could easily happen in the US, with state governments deploying the national guard to enforce curfews, or even the federal government deploying the military to keep the peace. It already happened in New York state, and we could see a lot more of it soon.

5) The Federal Reserve intervenes directly in the stock market, cuts rates below zero

It’s not remotely unprecedented for a central bank to buy stocks. Central banks in places like Japan and Switzerland took their total equity holdings to more than a trillion dollars last year.

And it’s totally reasonable that the Fed begins printing money again and buying stocks directly to prop up financial markets.

I do think that negative interest rates are nearly a foregone conclusion. The Fed’s headline interest rate is already as low as 1.5%, and the real economic impact of the Corona Virus hasn’t even been felt yet.

Just imagine how low they’ll go once people start losing their jobs. They won’t be bound by zero for long.

6) Some incredible discoveries and developments will come out of this

I’ve written this several times before—the world is not coming to an end. But I think it’s reasonable to assume that all of our lives are going to be a lot quieter and simpler for the next few months. No big outings, no big trips, and a lot of time at home with the family.

And that’s going to be whatever we make of it.

Back in the mid-1600s after an outbreak of the Bubonic Plague (more than 300 years after it originally surfaced in Europe), the University of Cambridge made the decision to close its doors for TWO YEARS in an effort to reduce the spread of the plague.

Isaac Newton had just completed his degree at the time. But his budding academic career had to be put on hold because of the university’s closure.

So he threw himself into independent study, retiring to a small farmhouse where he spent the next two years developing calculus, optics, and gravitational theory.

In other words, some of Isaac Newton’s most profound and lasting work came from his own quiet period.

To your freedom,

Simon Black

 

Critical new Adams interview and mini-documentary on prepping, survival and what's coming

We have critical information for you today as the coronavirus pandemic continues to rapidly multiply across Europe and the United States, so far taking hold mostly in the left-wing cities on both coasts.

Dave Hodges interviewed me for an uncensored, "raw" talk about survival, preparedness, medications, nutrition, defenses and much more. It's a must-listen interview to help you save your own life.

Hear that interview here.

Today I've also released a powerful, important new mini-documentary video called, "For those who mocked preppers, your day of reckoning has arrived."

If you've ever been scorned for being a prepper (or simply for being aware), you'll want to watch this video.

See it in this article.

Finally, avoid the crowds. Right now all across America, the coronavirus is spreading through Costcos, Sam's Clubs, grocery stores and Walmarts. Why? Because that's where all the crowds are.

Avoid exposure. Learn how here.

 DoD bans all domestic travel for personnel and families amid coronavirus crisis
(Military Times) Pentagon officials late Friday announced a total domestic travel ban for all troops, civilian personnel and their families until May 11 in an effort to limit their potential exposure to the coronavirus.

What Does the Coronavirus Do to Your Body? Everything to Know About the Infection Process: A visual guide of coronavirus infection, symptoms of COVID-19 and the effects of the virus inside the body, in graphics.

Yours for a Socialist-Free America!

Bruce ‘the Poor Man’

 

USEFUL STUFF…

The Great Recession of 2009 almost led the United States into a Depression. And now there are signs that another recession could occur, spiking fear across the country. The question is: What can you do about it and how can you prepare?

 In the video below, the Youtube channel City Prepping goes over some steps you can take to prepare yourself and your family for the coming recession. Here's a brief summary:

 There are two types of preparedness when it comes to financial crises: defense and offense...

 How to Prepare for The Coming Recession

You may also like...

 17 Best Jobs To Have When The Economy Collapses

Is The Crashing Stock Market A Sinister Anti-Trump Plot? One Expert Weighs In

 

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Final thoughts…

I’ve been saying for years that, at some point, there will be a severe financial reckoning. We wouldn’t know how, and most likely, we would have very little advance warning.

As an example, in June 2018 I wrote “whatever causes the next major downturn can be something completely obscure and unpredictable. And no one realizes it until it’s too late.”

That day is now upon us.

Financial markets have crashed around the world. Stock markets from Britain to Japan to Australia fell as much as 7% in a matter of hours, and are off 20% over the past few weeks. Oil prices crashed as low as $27 earlier and are down by nearly 50% from just 2 weeks ago.

And bond yields have crashed to lows that have never been seen before in the history of the world.

You can now loan money to the US government for THIRTY YEARS and earn just 0.85% per year. Or you could loan money to the German government for five years and earn NEGATIVE 1% per year.

Most of this is obviously due to the Corona Virus.

First thing’s first: DON'T PANIC.

If you’re like most people, you probably spent a good part of the weekend watching Corona Porn.

There’s so much of it right now… people making scary videos with grand predictions that you’ll be dead in a week unless you buy a HAZMAT suit or load up on their special supplement.

And in a weird way that stuff is strangely entertaining for us. Deep down, fear stimulates our brain chemicals and body chemistry so profoundly that the effects can be somewhat addictive. It’s why so many people enjoy horror movies.

But seriously-- the world is NOT coming to an end.

According to the CDC, roughly 50 MILLION people worldwide contracted the FLU over the past five months.

That’s right. The flu. 50 million people. That works out to over 300,000 people PER DAY, which is pretty typical for a flu season.

Moreover, the CDC estimates that more than 50,000 people DIED of the flu during this past season.

But where was the mass panic? Where was the stock market crash? Where was the hysteria?

Frankly the Corona panic reminds me a little bit of life after 9/11 in the United States nearly two decades ago. People everywhere were terrified that terrorists would strike again in their home towns. They stopped going out, they stopped attending sporting events, etc.

In reality, though, people had a higher probability of being crushed to death by a vending machine than of being killed in a terror attack.

There have been around 4,000 people die in terror attacks over the past 40 years in the United States. Roughly the same number people died YESTERDAY from heart disease.

22 people in the US have died so far from the Corona virus over the past few weeks. According to FBI statistics, that’s half as many people who were MURDERED yesterday in Land of the Free.

As the media continually pushes the PANIC button, fear will be fueled…the result:

Economically, we’re almost certainly going to see a recession. Consumers aren’t spending as much, businesses aren’t investing as much, asset prices are falling… and neither the government nor the central bank has the power to stop any of it.

Thanks to Simon Black

Free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom!

 

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