OK, barter contract fulfilled. Now my 2 cents on what an urban/suburban dweller could do, today, for an event that is getting close. This is not an optimal solution since the time is potentially so short, but better something than nothing.

First a short summation on why I think the cities are just not survivable in a crisis. Water is the number one problem. Apartment dwellers do not have the room to store it or the means to replenish what is used. If the power goes out, or is sporadic, taking the stairs up and down (how many flights?) carrying any type of supplies past all the other floors makes just too tempting a target. Basically, the population density is against you and the building design is such that it is not livable without water and power.

So what to do? First thing is location. Pick a spot (area) that is livable. If you know someone in the country, preposition things there. This means you know those folks well and there is mutual trust. And it means you need to be in region far enough from the city to matter, but not so far that it takes days to drive. Don’t even think about a plan that has you flying out to somewhere remote. The drive needs to be well inside the range of one tank of gas.

Probably most people do not know someone in the country and aren’t quite rich enough for that second home yet. So how do you find a country host? And if you find a country host, what are you going to ask for?

Let’s take the second item first. The host gives you location. That takes care of your first priority. Then, in order, you need shelter, water, and supplies. Shelter, unless your host has a spare cabin to rent, is going to be a trailer. Get a used one, as large and in as good a condition as possible (or fix one up). For water, a stream or pond and a good gravity water filter plus extra filters is next. Supplies include the obvious plus heritage seeds and gardening tools.

Now, finding host suggestions: For the small towns in your drive time radius, seek out the local pastors. Tell the pastor you want to put a trailer on a farm property of a good family and you are willing to pay a small rental. You don’t need utilities, though they would be nice, but you would like a bit of a retreat place from the city to come to once in awhile. You would prefer an elderly couple on a quiet farm. Does he know anyone like that? You need to provide references, preferably from your pastor. You may have to ask a lot of pastors this question. If he does know someone, have the pastor come out with you (or buy a lunch/dinner meeting) so you, your landlord, and the pastor know exactly what is being asked. You can offer to sign a lease for the privilege (price negotiable). You can offer so many hours of labor or a combination of both.

You are buying location. Use the pastor and your sense of people as a landlord integrity check. You don’t want to come out and find you have been robbed. An elderly couple, or a widow, is your best bet. Times are tough and they can probably use the income (paying in cash helps).

At this point I assume you have enough resources for a trailer, supplies (at least 3 months worth, more if possible, whatever your best sense/budget allows). The heritage seeds are your bargaining chips for future food if things really go bad. Do not scrimp in this area and get lots of variety.

If you don’t have enough resources by yourself, perhaps some of the prepper sites like http://www.indianapreppersnetwork.net/ which another poster referenced might have location suggestions in your area and how to contact someone who can solve your location problem.

If the pastors do not lead to a likely location, you could try putting an ad describing what you want (a trailer location site) in the small town papers. Check anyone out carefully, including a visit to the local sheriff’s office. This is chancier for obvious reasons. But you are short of time and options.

Is this something that will fit any city dwellers needs? No, it is not. It is my stab at a quick, best I can come up with solution. How large your family is, what your health or special needs are, a whole range of things might say this plan is not for you. But neither is trying to survive in a city apartment or frankly most suburban houses.

This plan won’t work for all areas of the country either. Las Vegas and LA come to mind. Lack of water for the former and one tank of gas is not enough distance for the latter. Changing jobs in this economy isn’t easy and that is your biggest hurdle for location. So change jobs if you can but location is what you need to solve first.

Perhaps some other posters have other (and better) ideas. Your time is a lot shorter for preparation and I sympathize with this difficulty. I’ve been doing this for almost a decade and I’m still working on things. For instance, in the things I outlined you need, you need to stay warm in the north and that means a wood stove. And retro fitting a wood stove to a trailer. And having a source of wood. And the tools to cut wood. And the physic to cut and haul wood. So make your list and prioritize the things you need. Then start doing them.

Life will be difficult with just your own labor to count on. What you are buying at this point is time to get past the first riots. After that you are going to have to be ingenious. You have your labor, maybe your wife’s and the kids labor to harness. There is work to be done on any farm and you need to earn more than you eat. Not being afraid of hard work is a big plus in tough times.

Well that is my basic quick and dirty suggestion. I’m sure there are other solutions. The more resources you have to work with the better. Oh, and one final thought. You need a bug out plan in place and ready to go when your conditions are met that requires its activation. That means your transport is ready to go at all times and everything you need to get from where you are to where you want to be is on hand. Do not count on going shopping or buying things along the way. You want to get going quickly. Have alternate routes mapped out. Practice the bug out plan.

So much relatives ,so little preps

That is what keeps me awake at nite.

The history of the actions of the wealthy elite and then looking to the future doesn’t make me well with confidence as to our future.

The 10th amendment must be asserted, federalism with robust states’ rights, small and limited government at all levels. State sovereignty is alive in the Mountain West, we could lead the way, that is a goal.

Will all of this forestall the coming financial crisis? Not in the least. Citizens who have educated themselves in the conduct of freemen, willing to resist Leviathan in it’s Gargantuan trick of enslaving us(shitting on us), those who have skills that will be needed in a post-collapse society have to stand up.

Great story! Gripping, scary, and reeeeeal.

I EXPECT stupidity and blame from the Obama Admin. He is Ray Nagin, with a law degree and teleprompters. This is why the dollar’s recent dive (powered by the Treasury Dept.) and the plausibility of your Newsfeeds had me literally shaking for the first 4-5 installments. The whole probable reality of this situation is why I had so much difficulty reading Ann Rynd.

But then Real Reality set in, and your timeline proved more and more implausible. Nobody makes jackets any more in the USA, and unless they are already stockpiled in a warehouse somewhere, it’s a long boatride from China. AFTER the contracts are signed, the terms are finalized.

The Federal Employees that would have to “adapt to change” (and distribute the jackets!) are all unionized, and so they wouldn’t ever be at work on a weekend. Or work overtime, ever!

Obama can’t command a military (6 months for more troops in Afgh?). He CERTAINLY can’t do it with precision, as your account would have us believe. Joe Biden is a long-winded hindrance, not a help.

Well-scripted black males would have to be seduced from college during Spring Break first, then hired and trained and clothed and sent out and managed. After being convinced that they should work under combat conditions, for Gov’t pay. The Gov’t wouldn’t even have its head out of it’s backside in the first week. So there’s logistics issues involved.

Arkansas Nat’l Guard is still more about protecting the citizens than following orders from the Feds. Nobody wants to resort to violence or go against a local preacher in this region. This is the South, after all, and the preacher isn’t black. (Did I just say that?) Despite 13 months of Yo-Bama, they are absolutely still clinging to their guns and religion in Pine Bluff.

[Now, if it were the New Jersey Nat'l Guard in Arkansas, I'd believe it. But New Jersey wouldn't deploy that far in less than 4-5 months.]

The Arkansas doctor on a “fishy” list? And then his home ransacked? So soon? Consider for a second the Underwear Bomber fiasco, and the inability for the Feds to do anything on a weekend. You’re moving much too fast. Obama can’t even fire the people in his own administration, much less go witch-hunting on a Southern white man. What would Mike Huckabee say?

There are 250 million guns in the US. The chance that these owners could all be seen, individually, each by a live person, in a week, is zero. I can believe that somehow the people in your tale are all the first people in their community to be “Censused,” but it’s still quite a stretch.

I remember an apocalypse-genre book from the 70s-80s called “The Fall of New York,” or some such nonsense. I considered it to be the kernel for Will Smith’s Legion movie. It could give you good pointers on timeline/chronology.

The only nefarious group that could POSSIBLY keep up with such a “to do” list in a time crunch is Blackwater. So Mega-Kudos for bringing them in. Unfortunately for your future book, you’ll have to introduce the character that will Fight the Power (and face down Dick Cheney at the climax of the story) really, really soon in order to have time to develop the character.

A civil war, starting from the Utah/Idaho separationist region? quite a possibility.

Oh. and Finally,

Pastor Lewis “peeked,” not “peaked,” out of the back of the truck. That’s why I commented.

Keep rockin’ the boat!

How many days has it been in Haiti and still they cannot get the airport open and running getting much needed supplies to the people. Their stupidity is now getting more people killed.

This earthquake is going to make Hurricane Katrina look like a walk in the park. Disaster after disaster and they still cant get it right.

When the bad times come, you will have no one to help you but yourselves. Can you non-believers see that now? PREPARE FOR IT!

What is certain, to me at least, is that a currency crisis will occur. My certainty here is based on all the currency debasement schemes that have occurred in history. All have blown up and ended badly. Up until this point in history, a currency crisis was confined to one country or a group of countries that tried to inflate their way to prosperity. These countries either issued more and more currency and destroyed the moneyness of money or diluted the gold and silver content of their coinage so more coins could be issued for the same quantity of gold and silver, achieving the same end. But money should be rare otherwise it isn’t worth much. Which is why sand is not money and never has been.

The closest situation to today is when Rome, then the whole known world (from the Western perspective), started the money dilution process. It took centuries, but the politicians (and banksters) got the job done. What followed the Fall of Rome was the Dark Ages (again for the West). China and India didn’t fall because Rome fell. They had their own independent problems (and currencies).

But today, with the whole world a fiat system, different colors and sizes and names depending on the country, but all fiat, all backed by nothing more than government promises, this is the first time a worldwide currency crisis probably will occur. I say probably since a miracle could occur. And if a world currency crisis does occur, one of the outcomes could be Dark Ages II, the worldwide edition.

But people don’t study history. So they don’t learn from history. They don’t study economics either, and so they are easily defrauded. Many neither think or work but still expect to be fed. Things are so far out of whack, at so many levels today, that the first thing I do when I wake up is see if the world fell apart while I was asleep.

So I suppose one can debate whether the army will or won’t do that. Or debate if Japan’s policy will be to call in all the debts immediately. Or this event will occur at this or that time into the crisis. But is there really a debate on if we are going to have a currency crisis? I’d like to hear points on why such a crisis won’t occur.

If the debate concedes a currency crisis occurs, time indefinite, but soon (less than 5 years, more than 1 hour from now), then we can start talking about what that actually means. There is the global level to consider. There are the national levels to consider. And there are the personal levels to consider. Each level connects and interacts with the others. For certain (for me anyway) I don’t see the outcome being good. Living standards for large sections of the planet are going to fall. In some areas, where standards are at subsistence level, there is no room to fall. Any fall at all results in a Biafra moment. Many areas today think they are far from those conditions. And they are correct, for today.
Now the question becomes, how far from a Biafra moment are they during a worldwide fiat currency crisis? At the personal level, your inventory of goods and the means of production potentially buys you time. Time that a person with no inventory does not have.

The most destructive attribute of a currency crisis is the direct impact on commerce. As commerce shrinks, the world gets poorer. Those that don’t produce get poorer the fastest. How long it takes our world leaders to slow the fall in commerce, then stabilize it, then grow it, directly translates into how far, and for how many, living standards will fall.

Given the current crop of leaders, I think the risk is great for a long, hard fall. Then, if some make it through to pass along how and why things used to work so well, a Renaissance II might occur. But that gets us far ahead of the story here, where we are only 5 days into the crisis.

Just trying to maintain a little Perspective.