We're not talking about the extreme end, the "preppers" who are "New Mattress Stuffers" gone wild. They believe you have to be ready for a return to an almost primitive state of existence and survival.
No... that's wrong. Just because I value wheat and firewood does not mean that I expect to return to the Dark Ages three years from now. What it means is that I looked at the money accumulating in the checking account and tried to think how to convert binary digits into real wealth. That is, into things that human beings have always needed to survive and to be comfortable and happy. I bought military surplus wool blankets for $20 each. The first time I bought wheat, I got 50 pounds of the highest protein, longest shelf life (10+ years), organic wheat for $28 (it now sells for twice that). The pressure canner was a couple hundred dollars. The rechargeable batteries and solar battery recharger were maybe $100 or $120. I also bought a lot of classic literature and games. Was my money seriously better off sitting in a Chase account getting no interest, awaiting devaluation and bank holidays?
[Yes, I also own gold and silver. But at some point I realized you can't eat it, wear it, or use it to keep the rain off.]
The mainstream news engages in a kind of propaganda that disparages those with historical perspective, those who are not convinced that all is well simply because Twitter is still functioning and the ATM still spits out bits of green cotton. When I was growing up I read the Little House books several times over. The Ingalls family didn't live in the Dark Ages, they lived 150 years ago. And they nearly starved (and froze) to death, one winter. Trains that had been expected to deliver food were trapped in impassable snow-filled gullies and could not get through until May. They braided hay to burn in their stove in lieu of wood. A different year, locusts decimated their crops. Once, when the girls were left alone and a blizzard came up, Laura brought the entire woodpile into the house, terrified of freezing to death as some neighboring children had. She might have been 10 or 12 at the time.
Similarly, I've read 19th century novels in which one's proximity to the fireplace conveys one's social status. Warmth, it turns out, has long been a privilege. Were the gentlemen of 19th century Britain primitive savages? Hardly. In historical terms, the temporal distance between us and them is but the blink of an eye.
A bewildering tide of new technologies has made most Westerners believe that concerns about heat, clothing, shelter, and food are now, thankfully, obsolete. In fact, says the Western establishment, such concerns are absurd and paranoid. To put aside a month's worth of food for one's family is, according to the Wall Street Journal and every other mainstream news outlet, simply loopy. And yet, a 19th century man would not be able to comprehend our trust, our blind faith that the grocery store will always be chock full of food, the electricity will always be on, the gas or oil will always be there to fire up the furnace and keep us at 72 degrees. Americans used to value self-sufficiency. Now we laugh at it.
I watched a YouTube video put up by a Serbian man who had undergone Yugoslavia's currency failure in the early 90's. He talked about a pensioner who had used his entire month's check to buy a pound of good salami and a loaf of bread. The pensioner then went home, ate a couple of salami sandwiches, and hung himself. He left a note, saying "I don't want to die of starvation." This happened in the late 20th century, in Europe. It did not happen in 1702 or in Sao Paulo or Mumbai.
The mainstream media tries to laugh at "preppers" by implying, more or less: "Come on, now, your iPhone still works, doesn't it? The sports are still on TV, right? You can still buy 1,200 different food-like items at your local supermarket, eh? So let's not be paranoid!"
What I have is not paranoia. It's a respect for the human condition in history. It has very little to do with fear. It has to do with my understanding that 0's and 1's in a computer at a bank are intrinsically worthless. People who understand this take different routes: some buy junk silver, some buy wheat and a grain mill, some buy real estate in foreign countries and enough gold to bribe their way out of a failed state should the very worst somehow occur. Some do all of the above. But the point is, the 0's and 1's in your checking account -- and even moreso the binary digits in your 401k -- are purely theoretical and could lose all value in a moment.
Have some respect for your ancestors. Think about what they would have considered "wealth" and what they considered to be insurance against hardship. Stop putting unmatched funds into your 401k or tying up cash in stupid CD's and money markets. Stop being smug about your lifestyle, here at the apex of an empire, here in the last heyday of the Cheap Oil age. Buy a few real goods as a gesture of respect to those who have gone before you.
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