I forgot to mention that gun thing, I suppose because they are just part of the norm for me around here - I build them myself for long range shooting competition, load my own ammo, and all that, just a normal thing and many of my neighbors at least reload so as to have better ammo, and to make more shooting affordable - here, it's like golf is in other places, a reason to get together with the other well-off sorts and shoot the breeze and make deals and whatnot. I wonder though - about all the gun people I know are truly non-violent types (nothing to prove), it would take quite a bit for them to use one in anger. Most don't even hunt, and we live in hunting heaven here. Some don't even shoot the penguin targets with handguns, because they don't want to get into the habit of shooting human-like things at all reflexively (I am one of those, a bullseye works for me just fine). I'm sure any of us could, in the extreme, but it'd have to be the real extreme. So far, I think that's all good.
But since they are everywhere, literally, they become something we don't think about all that much as weapons related to human targets. A hunter dropped by this morning, and we jointly admired his 7mm mag by Weatherby - pretty gun, light, powerful, accurate. Didn't talk about possible uses on other than deer. He'd just taken an unusual for here 260 yd shot with it, and if I may pun, "dead on". Since that deer was on my land, he'll be sending my freezer a little present. Nice!
Viewing those vids on Argentina (not done yet), wow, in some ways real similar to here. It is of course possible to privatize state outfits in a good way - but they sure didn't do that, that was crony capitalism in the extreme. We seem to be catching up, though by a slightly different path. I wonder if anyone has pulled off the public-private transition in a good way historically. I know the Soviets didn't either.
Funny how we just did the same thing, in effect - stuck people with the bills - but called it socializing the private debts of banks. Same thing, different spin.
It took me a long time to realize how bad our government had been corrupted. As a consultant, most of my business was with large firms, but most of those were privately held, well run, and in no way corrupt, so I felt that must be mostly true of all of them. I worked at the very top - ownership level, and all my customers were really stand-up guys - which showed - their employees flat loved them.
When I did do work for the really bigs (Microsoft, Texas Instruments, Microchip), of course I didn't get in at board level like I did with the mere billion dollar outfits, so I didn't see any shenanigans - only that they were more troublesome as customers due to not working from the top with them, so there was always that "have to check with the higher ups" BS going on with them.
But various things have opened my eyes, the homework I do for trading being one (follow the money), and the fights over "EYE PEE" another (best laws money can buy).
I'm aware that a lot of people want to get off the US buck as the reserve currency and that some deals have been done already. It's amazing how much inertia there is on that one, though. I think it will take some time, unless we do some really egregious stuff to speed it up (and we might). But the writing is definitely on the wall there, just that it's not happening tomorrow or this year most likely.
And I think that if we are going to have a truly bad situation here, that will be the thing that finally triggers it, else we're just going to have a long, bad, painful slog. The boiling frog syndrome.
Now that will make PM's really a good bet should it happen, and it's likely to happen after some time. If that happens alone, and the whole fiat world doesn't collapse, then
everyone with a stack is going to look like a genius. However, should it get a lot worse than that - no or almost no oil, JIT general systems fail, disorder, starvation - and it's possible, though more of a tail risk, then other things will look even smarter, again all in my rarely-humble opinion.
Diversity!
Now, about that boiling frog. I read a post somewhere where someone said if X happens, that'll be when they buy that land and bug out. I really have an issue with that, based on my own experience of doing just that when times were better than they are now, not worse. It takes time to find land, time to find a seller at a price, time to find the good stuff, and most important of all - time to learn how to live on it decently, add whatever infrastructure it's missing and a long list of related tasks. Those first few years were pretty tough for me, and as a younger, more vigorous guy. My take on that one is - if that's what you'd do then,
why wait? Do it now! Have the adventure while things aren't that bad yet, when you can really do it and be a success at it. If you were going to do it anyway...again, go ahead, I give you permission!
The more of us like minded people who are truly set up to handle anything, the better for all, or so I think. Most people rationalize that yeah, it'd be tough, and they're almost making it picking up pennies in front of the steamroller we all know is coming - better the devil they know for now. But what if you slip? That steamroller is coming for certain in whatever form.
I point this out over and over, not as a fear monger, but to share the fact that since I did it, and finally got it all working for me, my life has improved so much as to be hard to describe how much better it really is. No more butt-kissing for me. No having to seek approval from anybody. No need for a credit rating. Knowledge that almost no matter what happens, I'll be fine, and will even be able to help the less prepared. I'm living good
now - no need to wait for things to get bad to have the excuse!
But as I mentioned above, unless you have infinite dough (and maybe even if you have quite a lot) it takes work and it takes time to learn the new skill set and get it all going for ya. Waiting for the last second is therefore not wise if this sort of bugging out is in your plan-space. It won't be easier if the world is collapsing around you and things can't just be ordered on the web and sent to you by UPS. No way you're going to make a plan on paper that handles it all - you have to learn this one in the old hard-knocks fashion. I know I did my homework, but still didn't know enough about country living until I was trying to do it. Luckily, since I wasn't part of a
flood of people all trying to do it at once, the locals kind of adopted me and took me under their wings to teach me how.