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Tuesday, June 14, 2022

How does today's economic crisis compare to the Great Depression? Resources to help cope…

 

Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…

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A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

 


How does today's economic crisis compare to the Great Depression?

Resources to help cope…

As I write this, the Dow Jones index has plunged by 20 percent since its highs at the beginning of this year, spurred on by central bank tightening and interest rate increases that many "experts" claimed would not happen. They said the Federal Reserve would "never" raise rates into economic weakness and would continue stimulus measures for as long as needed to keep the markets afloat.

What these people do not understand (and probably never will understand) is that the Fed does not care about the U.S. economy or U.S. markets. They only care about "the agenda," and the agenda is about the global centralization of everything.

To achieve such a goal, the globalists need what they call the "Great Reset," which I believe represents a worldwide economic disaster event engineered specifically to bring down the U.S. dollar and cause an inflationary crisis in multiple nations. In the wake of this calamity, the globalists hope to then institute a new system built on a single global digital currency, a single global central bank and, eventually, a single global government. In other words, order out of chaos.

The Fed raising rates into weakness reminds me very much of what happened at the onset of the Great Depression when the central bank went from an easy money policy that fueled the epic stock market rise of the 1920s to the stock crash of 1929, after which the Fed hiked rates and crushed any chance of easy recovery. This action is what led to the prolonged deflationary crisis of the 1930s all the way through World War II. America's return to economic success was not because of war spending... it was due to the fact that the U.S. was mostly untouched by the destruction, leaving only American manufacturing intact while the rest of the world was in ruins and rebuilding.

This time around, the triggers for collapse are somewhat the same but the circumstances are far different and far worse for the U.S.

Differences between the Depression and the "reset"

Today, the U.S. has a minimal manufacturing base, which means we do not have the capacity to produce many of our own goods. We rely on other countries to provide those products, and some of those countries are hostile.

Another problem is that this time we are reliant on the world reserve status of our currency, which one might think is a huge advantage but in reality, it is our Achilles heel. You see, the dollar is circulated widely around the planet as the primary mechanism for international trade, but what happens when large exporter nations like China dump the dollar and refuse to accept it? This could lead to a domino effect in which multiple nations stop using the dollar, and the dollar's value begins to plummet. In turn, all those trillions of dollars once held overseas now come flooding back into the U.S. causing even more inflation than we already have. Prices skyrocket and the economy grinds to a halt.

Finally, at the time of the Great Depression, our country had over 25 percent of people involved in farming and over 50 percent of the population lived in rural areas. Today, less than 2 percent of the population is involved in farming and only 14 percent of people live in a rural area.

We often hear about how the unemployment level during the depression was around 30 percent of working-age Americans, however, there are really no stats that measure the level of self-sufficiency within the nation. Farming communities, despite the failing economy, were at least still able to feed themselves and provide necessities. Without that rural self-reliance, the depression would have been far worse. It is impossible to accurately measure how many deaths were directly connected to poverty in the 1930s, but it certainly did not become a food crisis akin to those we have seen in the Third World. Today, though, this is definitely a threat that should be taken seriously.

What we are about to witness is a very different type of collapse than the depression; we are now at the beginning of what will be called a stagflationary crash. This event will have mixed elements of a deflationary crisis and an inflationary crisis; meaning, prices will continue to rise or remain high on most necessities while other parts of the economy will implode. Wages will remain stagnant compared to inflation, GDP will decline and sales will falter yet prices will not drop in response.

One factor that cannot be fully calculated in this mess is the number of preppers within western nations, specifically those in the U.S. I believe, according to my 16 years working within the movement, that preppers make up around 10 percent to 15 percent of the American population overall. That is to say, at least 10 percent of the country has some kind of emergency stockpile or lives in a rural area and has the ability to produce necessities for themselves by nature of their lifestyle. This percentage changes according to where you live in the country, though.

In major cities there will be more preppers in terms of numbers, but not in terms of percentage. You will be lucky to find one prepper among a hundred people within a major city in a blue state, while you will find at least one prepper among every ten people in an average city in a red state. The more preppers an area has the safer and more economically stable it will be during a collapse. Preppers are the wild card in this scenario. There may be even more than I estimate here, and their existence changes the dynamics of the crisis.



Survival mechanisms during the depression

During the depression, people coped with poverty in many ways that might seem alien to us now, but these strategies for survival will likely make a comeback very soon.

There were millions of migrant workers at this time; not illegal migrants as we have today, but millions of American citizens traveling from state-to-state looking for employment. These people would sometimes only stay in one place for a week or a month and then move on to the next town or county, hopping the rails or hitchhiking when they could. Many men would leave their families for months at a time to work a job in another state and send the money back home.

This has already happened in a way, with many conservatives escaping the draconian COIVD lockdowns of blue states and relocating to red states where they can be free as well as more economically prosperous. But as the national economy and the dollar begin to break down and it becomes evident to the normies that things are not going back to the way they were, do not be surprised to see mass movements of working-age men traveling everywhere looking for jobs. Also do not be surprised when retail and office-based jobs evaporate and all that is left are technical jobs involving skilled labor.

From the 1930s well into the 1940s, it was common for people to seek work in farming areas just for easy access to food sources. If you live in one of these places you will see refugees, small groups and perhaps even large mobs scouring rural areas for sustenance. Industrial farms may not even be in operation due to high costs, but people will go to them anyway looking for work or handouts.

During the Depression, there was considerable charity from farmers for the random travelers and hobos that passed through, but this is all reliant on circumstances. There are those that think giving anyone anything will just lead to them demanding more for free. I'm not so nihilistic about charity, but I understand the concern.

From the depression well into the 1950s, it was also common for people to grow what they called "victory gardens," which were designed to offset food shortages and rationing during the war. I am actually seeing a lot more of this happening in the U.S. today, with people trying to counter food inflation by growing their own supply.

Gardening is a high-level skill that requires experience. Practice and failure create good gardeners over time, it is not something that you can be an expert at by reading books or watching videos on YouTube. Climate and micro-climate greatly affect what you can grow and how you grow it. The types of soil and fertilizers you have access to change the level of production. Even the age of your garden makes it more or less viable (3 years minimum for a new garden before it produces at a high level). This doesn't mean you should not try; it just means that you should not expect success right away and the sooner you start the better off you will be.

Understand that even with efficient gardening methods like raised beds, you will need at least an acre to feed a small family through the winter into spring. Without efficiency methods, you will need an acre per person. So, if your garden is smaller, treat it more like a supplemental food source rather than relying on it as a primary source. You will need "many irons in the fire" as they say. This may include some hunting or trapping in rural places or considerable prepper storage in most other places. Your garden will be used to stretch out the life span of your dry food supply.

People during the depression canned their garden foods regularly, which is why Americans used to have actual pantries with shelving. Most homes don't have this space anymore, which is unfortunate. That said, it doesn't take much skill to simply set up a bedroom or office room as a pantry area with some shelves from Home Depot. I recommend that this room be set up within the house rather than the garage where canned items might freeze or overheat and be ruined. Also keep in mind that many foods can be canned, from vegetables to meats.

Shrinkflation is a form of inflation where you pay the same amount of money for something, but receive less than you used to.

We’ve seen this in 10oz packages of food selling for what 12oz packages recently did. And we’ve seen it in reduced staff, longer waits, and worse service.

 


Food storage will be essential in the winter months unless you live in a perpetually warm climate, and even then, there is almost nowhere in the U.S. outside of southern California or southern Florida that is safe from winter freezing. Anyone that claims they have a "year around" growing season is probably lying to you and does not understand what it actually takes in terms of growing to feed people through an entire year.

Foraging was also used as an option during the Depression, but not in the way many primitive survivalists might imagine. Knowing what kind of plants you can eat in a place is one thing, finding them in large supply is another. You will probably end up wasting far more calories searching for wild edibles than you will consume when you come across them. It's a zero-sum game and not practical for long-term health.

During the Depression, people would simply eat what was around their homes. Dandelions, miner's lettuce and cattail roots were big staples during the crash because they could be found everywhere in large quantities. People didn't spend hours out in the woods looking for berries, wild onions and rare mushrooms, they just went out into their yards and grabbed what was easily picked.

Finally, let's talk about crime during economic hardship because I think we are seeing this problem developing rapidly today. It is a fact that financial crisis increases crime dramatically, often in states that supposedly have the best social welfare programs. The thing is, we are once again dependent on specific circumstances of society and the crash itself.

During the Great Depression, crime increased in the beginning and then leveled out over time. This may have been because liquor was legalized again in the mid-1930s, and the mob no longer had this market to rely on and less people were being arrested for possession and bootlegging. Common crime was also less pervasive, again, because far more people were self-reliant at the time. Today, all it would take is grocery stores being empty for more than a week and crime rates would explode, especially in the cities where the most unprepared people live.

One factor that I think many Americans do not consider is the problem of economic interdependency. Even now, the insane COVID lockdowns in China are impeding massive amounts of exported goods from coming to the U.S., and we are seeing shortages as a result. In Europe, sanctions against Russia are limiting certain energy and food items. Cooking oil is now being rationed in countries like Italy and I expect similar rationing to hit the U.S. sometime this year.

Inflationary crises don't just affect prices, they also affect production and supply. Inflation leads to price controls, and price controls lead to production limits, and production limits lead to shortages, and shortages lead to government rationing. This will happen in the near term, perhaps within the next year.

Americans faced very little threat of supply chain problems or price inflation during the depression, but our generation will see these disasters in ways no generation has seen for centuries. Not even Weimar, Germany suffered the kind of economic struggles we are about to deal with because even amid currency collapse they still kept considerable production within their own nation. The U.S. corporate oligarchy has outsourced almost everything, and it has set us up for disaster.

The biggest difference is that there will be consequences for the elites this time

One thing we do have that people during the Depression did not have is a movement that is awake and aware of the impending threat. Only a handful of economists in the 1920s predicted economic collapse, and almost no one listened to them. This is not the case today, with the alternative media dominating the mainstream media and the truth being spread far and wide. Millions upon millions of Americans and many Europeans are preparing for the coming crash, and, we also all know who engineered the crash.

This means that economic disaster will not just lead to a "Great Reset," but a great conflict against the globalists. They will find out that their agenda for global centralization is not accepted widely and that they will be targeted for retribution. Things are going to change in ways humanity has not seen for a long time, but not in the ways the globalists expect.

To truth and knowledge,

Brandon Smith

 

RELATED:

According to a brand new Wall Street Journal-NORC survey that was just released, the percentage of Americans that believe that the state of the U.S. economy is “poor or not so good” is 83 times larger than the percentage of Americans that believe that the state of the U.S. economy is “excellent”… The same survey found that the percentage of Americans that are “not at all satisfied with their financial condition” is the highest in at least 50 yearsYet, there are still lemmings out there who still support incompetent Joe Biden?!

 


Living in style with a shrinking income…

Several books come to mind which provide useful money-stretching tips…these can be found on eBay & other booksellers.

Living Well on Practically Nothing by Ed Rommey

Penny Pincher Book Revisited by John Mustoe

Lessons from the Great Depression For Dummies by Wiegand

Survival Series-5 Pak Bundle-Recession-Money Handbooks for Trying Times

https://www.ebay.com/itm/255300682910

 

The Middle Class Misery Index escalates under Biden AND they don’t care!

Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class

He’s declared War on the Middle Class & America!

Lenin supposedly once said, “The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”

https://nypost.com/2022/05/26/team-biden-might-be-purposefully-crushing-the-middle-class/

 


Get a better understanding of free enterprise vs. the slavery of socialism…

The Road to Serfdom, which became a touchstone of the campaign to preserve personal and economic freedoms. The book argues that Western democracies’ attraction to socialism will take them down a path to authoritarian dictatorships like those in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Government planning of economies, Hayek declares, must result in arbitrary and unfair edicts, as well as a loss of individual liberty.

FREE PDF here:

https://cdn.mises.org/Road%20to%20serfdom.pdf

 

25 Weird Foods People Ate During The Great Depression

After the stock market crash in October 1929, the nation headed into an economic slide that lasted an entire decade. Unemployment was high, and many Americans had to find ways to survive on little to no income.

But Americans are nothing if not creative. Flour sacks became dress material. Cardboard became shoe insoles. And in the kitchen, families came up with new recipes that made use of whatever foods they had on hand...

25 Weird Foods People Ate During The Great Depression

 

America's economy is definitely changing. And that means we need to prepare now

5 Ways to Free Yourself From Debt

Here are easy steps you can take to get rid of your debt.

 

There are basically two survival modes to take when times get bad:

"Bug out" - meaning flee with a backpack of essential items to a safe (preferably remote) location. 

Or...

"Bug in" - meaning hunker down in your current location with all your essential survival needs taken care of. 

A bug out scenario would consist of door-to-door confiscation of weapons, forced vaccines in a community, war, civil unrest, etc. 

 

Hope is not a course of action…

The real lesson:  Be Prepared!

 

100 Best Bug Out Bag Items

 


Here it is, the ultimate list of bug out bag items! Now to be clear, this is not a checklist. It would be very difficult to squeeze every one of these items into a single bag, nor should you. Rather, it is a list of suggested items from which you could create any number of awesome bug out bag configurations.

There are countless bug out bag lists on the Internet, but since everyone's needs vary depending on who they are and where they live, you're better off coming up with your own list. The purpose of this post is to make that as easy as possible. Before we get to the list, here are a few tips you should keep in mind when packing your bag...

Get a High-Quality Bag - Make sure you use a bag that is durable and large enough, with multiple compartments and a frame. For more info, check out these 5 things to consider when choosing a bug out bag...

100 Best Bug Out Bag Items


You may also like...

100 Dollar-Store Items to Stockpile

 

 

Natural disasters don't wait for a convenient time

And you shouldn't wait to prepare either. In some cases there is little to no warning.

Prepare now to lessen the impact of disasters and emergencies

 

Remember:  You can’t buy life insurance after you’re dead!

When you think about packing up items to help you survive a natural or human-made disaster, you often think of backpacks. And there is good reason.

Backpacks are sturdy, lightweight, and with multiple pouches and pockets, they allow you to stow a large number of essentials. They come in expandable widths and sizes to fit even your smallest family members. And the best part is that your hands remain free with a backpack.

Super Emergency Survival Kit

  •  Solar phone charger
  • 72-hour 4Patriot emergency food pack [25 year shelf life
  • 4Patriot Greens sample pack [Power supplement]
  • 3 Luna Nutrition bars [assorted]+Sunmaid raisin pouch
  • Cleaning Wipe Pack
  • Steel River Emergency Tent
  • Mini  First Aid kit
  • TRS 5N1 EDC folding tool
  • 3-package meal sampler
  • Paracord bracelet w/ compass
  • Reusable Face Mask
  • Personal Water Filter Straw
  • 11-Piece Emergency Survival Kit 

And more…

https://www.bonanza.com/listings/Better-Safe-Than-Sorry-Super-Emergency-Survival-Kit/1143536466

 

CREATING AN EMERGENCY FOOD SUPPLY-FOOD SURVIVAL REPORTS-FREE

Compliments of: The PoorManSurvival team

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AgMpmQI6plfXiBqUHg-8SkA59L8f?e=YJZavA


 

Useful Resources from our storefront-See new items!

You Can’t Buy Life Insurance After You’re Dead-Prepare NOW for Emergencies…

A portion of our proceeds is donated to charitable Veterans groups such as Wounded Warriors & the VFW!

 


Support our efforts by shopping my storefront…

http://RetroGuy.net

 

 

 

6 comments:

Peter said...

America seems to be one step away from a complete crash thanks to an incompetent, morally bankrupt Biden Admin-only thing keeping us going is welfare.

Bill said...

My relatives survived the Depression and all of said today's generation can't cope, especially without their umbilical cord cell phone!

Mindy said...

Today's generation is a whole lot less self reliant...

Scott said...

Once again-terrific resources...you're the best!

Candy said...

COPE we MUST!

Gary said...

During the first Depression, Wall Street screwed America; during this next one, it's government & lack of leadership that will screw America.