Ivan Shishkin, Winter, 1890
Ivan Shishkin, Study, 1890
Ivan Shishkin, 1832—1898, is a beloved national treasure in Russia.
Have you wondered what a collapse would really look like? Look around. The long predicted disaster is upon us. We're rafting a waterfall into what looks to be the deepest depression in history.
Nasty epidemics are a natural thing. Turning the country into East Germany circa 1960 isn't. "Non-essential" businesses have been ordered to shut their doors and face ruin, the population is under house arrest and the job market has collapsed into a smoldering heap. Almost ten million people became unemployed in only two weeks, an off-the-chart record.
St. Louis Fed economist Miguel Faria-e-Castro, projected that unemployment could hit 32 percent in the second quarter as more than 47 million workers are laid off as a result of the pandemic, which has forced swaths of the economy to shut down. That would exceed the 24.9 percent peak during the Great Depression.
Food bank pantries are seeing demand at least double or triple
If civil order breaks down America may become all but ungovernable, even under martial law
Civic life and the economy are in a stark, staring, terror-stricken panic. The details are fascinating but unhelpful. "What's next" is the question that matters. We know this is just the beginning, the lowery sky and chill wind before the storm. The gloomy preppers had it right. Now we'll see if the doomer preppers have it right as well.
All preppers learn from the past and present to prepare for the future. Stockpiling alone is not prepping. Committed preppers have mastered food gardening and dehydration and home canning, they've trained and equipped for medical care beyond first aid, they're well practiced with firearms and preparing game, experienced in woodcraft, can do credible carpentry with only hand tools, and so forth.
But opportunities are closing as an effect of the lockdown. One vivid example: garden supplies, including seeds, have been declared non-essential and can no longer be sold by Walmart and Target in Vermont
Beyond prepping comes self-sufficiency. This means an off-grid homestead. It's a hard and austere life of relentless but rewarding labor, a step too far for most. Some form tiny communities with members selected for critical expertise. After self-sufficiency comes survivalism, a set of skills and practices to endure or outlast extreme events in hostile environments, long term, using minimal kit and as-found resources. This is too demanding for all but the hardiest among us.
Which you choose depends on what you believe is next. But have a care, what comes next may make the choice for you. It's best to be decently prepared on all fronts.
For my part it's as it's always been, continuous tweaking. If it comes to hoofing it, I've upgraded my bugout bag from three day capability to four without adding much weight. Next up is improving my water pre-filter kit. What I have on hand is good enough, this is a convenience thing. I use coffee filters, they're good for removing gunk down to ten or fifteen microns, which relieves the purification filter of the additional loading and delays clogging.
Too much? Not enough? As I said, events will make the call.
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Peanut butter is one of the best, if not the best, source of vegetable protein, vitamins, minerals and most importantly, calories from fat, about half by weight. The ingredients for true peanut butter are: roasted peanuts. Usually salted. When I lived in Philadelphia there was a place in the Reading Market that sold peanuts and would mill them for you.
Commercial true peanut butter in jars will keep for years. Perhaps the best known is Smuckers. Be aware, makers of peanut butter also labeled "Natural" have replaced the peanut oil with palm oil or another emulsifier, with added sugar or molasses or both. It's a fair substitute for true peanut butter, useful for short term prepping, and there's no stirring needed if that's important to you. But it goes rancid sooner, which defeats a major advantage.
Peanut butter on saltines is a credible survival food even though the crackers are only about fourteen calories each. Saltines are little more than hardtack with yeast. The "ine" in saltines comes from the alkaline soda added to counteract the acidity of the yeast. "Butter crackers", Ritz for one, are sixteen calories each.
The last time I went grocery shopping, which may literally be the last time for a long while, peanut butter was limited to two jars per customer. People are catching on.
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Is it just me or does Anthony Fauci, director of NIAID, remind you of Joe Biden? What he said last month he contradicts this month. And what he says this month he'll contradict next month. The tell is his impeccable credentials, never a good sign.
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Organic Prepper warns of a coming food shortage and the violence it may lead to. An excerpt:
A source at a Walmart Superstore recently confided that the trucks were only delivering a fraction of the items needed to restock shelves. Imports aren’t arriving in California ports, at least not anywhere close to the degree they were before.
... The people who suspect you may have food will show up at your door one of these days when they run out of food. First, they’ll come asking for it. Then they’ll come demanding it. And not just from you but also from local businesses. The ensuing theft and violence will lead to harsher crackdowns from law enforcement and vigilante justices as people stand up to defend their homes and businesses.
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Zero Hedge has the numbers for the panic buying of firearms.
While actual gun purchases aren’t tracked in the U.S., the FBI system is largely considered a proxy for sales by the firearms industry and the table shows a 41% surge year-over-year (and a 33% spike month-over-month).
... Jurgen Brauer, chief economist at Small Arms Analytics, told Bloomberg News, that handgun sales increased 91.1% year-over-year, per Brauer’s analysis, and long-gun sales were up 73.6%.
1915. Quaker Corn Puffs magazine ad
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The filth flees and spreads disease, says Vox Day.
This is why you don't ever want to live in a fashionable retreat for the urban elite. The narcissistic bastards don't hesitate to destroy everything they touch; the irony is that since they were too stupid to even consider modifying their behavior and leaving their urban hellholes when it mattered, they're taking their diseases with them to a place that is considerably less able to treat them when they fall ill.
Of course, this is also the fault of the towns themselves. If they had been willing to declare a quarantine earlier, they could have kept out the city dwellers. But they were too stupid to foresee the obvious and the inevitable in order to defend the interests of the locals.
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The run on common over-the-counter flu meds, thermometers, inhalers, sanitizing alcohol and the like is accelerating.
In response, AmerisourceBergen is limiting how much pharmacies receive of certain drugs to ensure they get at least some product, a policy the company calls “fair allocation."
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Suspicion is growing China is planning to attack the US militarily, perhaps in the western Pacific. William Gensert makes the case at American Thinker
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A comment at Zero Hedge by "HopefulJoe" sums up a common theory about the coronavirus pandemic:
1942. Los Angeles, California
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The Z Man takes a look at the escalating panic and shutdowns over the coronavirus outbreak. An excerpt:
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New York Governor Cuomo has ordered the National Guard to confiscate medical supplies and equipment from upstate hospitals, then "redistribute" them to the hardest hit areas, meaning New York City. Bob Lonsberry has an opinion about this. Some excerpts:
He mishandles his state and its largest city, creating a worse situation than existed in Italy, and puts New York on track to be the hardest-hit region in the global pandemic, and decides to devastate a region which had the good sense to be prepared.
1944. Germany
Update from a reader: The picture is of a British Sherman with direct vision slot in hull front and three pice transmission housing also the tanker in the background has a black beret. the tanker in the fore ground is carrying a tea pot.
