Prospering in Adversity
November 6th, 2012 - 10:00 pm
Now that we faced with four years of possible economic difficulty it may be time to stop hoping that politicians will turn things around. A commenter requested an open thread to host suggestions and discussions on how we can all turn lemons into lemonade.
One advantage of conservatives over the collectivists is that they can exercise initiative. So most of the stuff that is discussed will probably have to be implemented by whoever wants to. That’s how it works.
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
Buy gold.
The problem is that we needed a mandate, and we found that we have a house divided. So, we as a nation will have to learn the very hard lessons the hard way. This means:
*The country will be bankrupt
*The country will be attacked by a thousand cuts from within and without
*Events will overtake this government
*Our enemies will become emboldened and will attack and compromise us and our allies
*Our freedoms will be curtailed and attacked
So much for the litany of doom and gloom. It is what it is. My suggestion, if you have not done this already, better take care of yourself and your family, neighbors you care about, and your friends. Build up from the grass roots so you can weather the storm. We will be going through some hard times before we get to fair skies. Buck up. We have lots to do.
Sigh. Breath. Sigh. Breath. Sigh……. swallow. Breath. We aren’t in Kansas anymore. Where are those ruby slippers.
Well, for one thing, don’t sell it as lemonade or the gigantic federal bureaucracy will lock you up and throw away the key. We are going to end up so regulated that perhaps the best thing you could do is get a job as a regulator. Those will be the only jobs left.
I argue that now is the appropriate time to begin to seriously rebuild America. We know what America is, having enough history and some of us at least experience from our distant past, to create America again, maybe from settlements on the beach. America can rise again from he sewage that is America proper today; but America need not be restricted to the ground of our nation: America is of the mind, a place of understanding and a matter of person and character, attributes that we don’t lose just because we move or are moved from place to place. Here in Iquitos, Peru, where I sit typing at this late hour, I am in America itself. I am America here in the Amazon, and nothing about the jungle around me makes my space less America than it would be were I sitting in Manhattan or some small town in Idaho. Everywhere is America if one creates America from the ground. The world is America in waiting. It might well be that America-formal will have to wait to catch up to the rest of the universal America in the making. Somalia, for example, could well be America before America becomes itself again. But America is available to whomever, whenever. One simply fights for it till one wins. Happily for me, there is no need to fight for my America here in the jungle in Peru. This is the America we have lost. Maybe we will someday drive America back to the homeland from many nations, imposing freedom and Americanism on the unhappy slaves of The United States.
Filibuster for Universal Modernity! America for all!
http://www.themodernsurvivalist.com/archives/2451
Start spending your money. It’s going to be taxed or inflated away, otherwise. Might as well spend it on yourself.
On a more positive note:
Ryan 2016
The only way to turn lemons into lemonade is to squeeze the crap out of them and find some sugar to sweeten it up.
There are going to be lots of people trying to put the squeeze on. I guess it might as well be us. Don’t know where to find the sugar though.
From a purely mercenary standpoint, clearly the money is going to be made by the apparatchiks, the people who throw in with the would-be aristocrats. Get a government contract, carve our a fiefdom of some sort, I guess. Just keep a couple of things in mind if you go that route. 1) the pensions won’t be there, so play for cash on the barrel as much as you can, and 2) keep a low profile, some of the sheep will turn out to have fangs.
If you prefer to make a less disgusting living, I’m not sure. I suppose you could specialize in some critical service, like fixing all the stuff that’s going to break without any replacements available because factories will be closing. Then just gouge the hell out of governmentocrats.
Trying to re-create the post that was eaten (my fault).
Now is the time to devote ourselves to winning the game of life in ways that are not denominated in the currency of the secular government. Our rewards should take the form of psychic pay. Time off. Time spent with the kids. Time learning new skills that are not economic, but valuable nontheless. Learn to grow food. Learn to hunt and fish with genuine purpose. Reduce the need for an income that requires working longer hours, too many of which will be confiscated.
Take up the saxophone, or learn to play the electric bass. Sit down and organize that family genealogy and the massive photo collection. Do so with less. Don’t make as much money that will be taxed by the government. Sit down and take a break. Atlas can shrug, or squirm, or start doing pilates.
For the long term, give your kids the counterprogramming that will help them understand what is coming, how to survive, and how not to be a victim.
No conspicuous consumption. Just get by.
And maybe rebuilding America from the ground up by running for HOA President. School board member. Councilman. State Assemblyman. All the things that have been done by the Progressives for the last 100 years, bringing us to this inflection point.
I also have a harsh word about taxes. Raise ‘em. Make it a flat/regressive VAT that NOBODY escapes. Not the criminals, not the illegal immigrants, not the poor. Give them our Cloward-Piven in reverse. But stop being one of the top earners who is paying out the nose for the privilege of working hard and playing by the rules. Make them play by their rules. And, finally, I would go so far as to suggest that maybe it is time for the idea of the tax exempt entity to disappear. All the foundations and churches and charitable organizations can start rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s. And maybe the plate offerings/pledges to liberal churches should be directed toward helping the needy, instead of supporting a liberal bureaucracy that asks the for-profit sector to pay more and more. Drop the mortgage interest deduction that favors the blue state 1% hypocrites. Lift the limit on salary subject to payroll taxes.
Did I mention live like the 47% while doing this?
Dag Walker @ 5:
I have to admit that I laughed out loud while reading your post! Thank you for really putting things in perspective. America really is a sort of wonderful dream, and it is something that we carry with us wherever we go, regardless of whether it is here in Deep Blue California, Australia, or the Amazon.
The Gramscians in our institutions have stolen the souls of our children for nearly fifty years now. They recognize no absolute standard, and are taught to react to subjective feelings rather than the results of observation, analysis, and critical thinking, acting on deep conviction. Remove the capacities for critical thinking and civil discourse and you have effectively undercut the basis for a free society exercising its will through a representative government. This is precisely where we find ourselves today.
In addition to becoming active in “independent” Tea Party groups (as opposed to proxies of certain political parties), perhaps the best thing to start to do is to intentionally reach out to the young people in our lives and teach them the skills that they will need for self-reliance. I am not talking about survivalist skills or anything crazy but more like how to balance a checkbook, how to present oneself for an interview, how to examine the world and view it with a critical (as opposed to cynical) eye and make strategic decisions. Along the way, teach them about America, about the Constitution, our history and how our system is supposed to work. Teach them about ethics and morality and give them a foundation for the confidence that comes from self reliance. And do not be afraid to give them example among some of their peers to show the results of bad decisions.
When I wrote earlier of identifying upcoming modes of failure, the idea is to have a cadre of young people who will know what to do to help those around them survive, endure the consequences, and help them see for themselves what went wrong and how it got that way. As long as the dominant “progressive” class is able to continue to define us as racists, bigots, idiots, or whatever else, our message will fall on deaf ears. So practice political and cultural ju-jitsu, quit pushing against them, anticipate the direction of their momentum and when they over commit or the ground gives way under them, use it against them to your advantage. Learn their patterns and repeat as needed.
The last thing that the world needs is more ideologues, but it is in desperate need of principled idealists. Traditional American ideals have stood the test of time, until we took them for granted and allowed them to be papered over and forgotten by those growing up into the new generations. I have been pursuing this with my nephew and some of his friends, who have recently graduated with no skills and no prospects in a dismal job market. I have found the best place to start the process to be my old 1980 edition Boy Scout Handbook. There is more valuable information just in the civics and government section than I received through high school and college. And the knots, orienteering, and first aid skills are good to know, too.
The undermining of our civil society has found its culmination in our youth. It is through our youth that it will be restored, if we take the time to foster that smoldering spark and nurture it within as many young lives as we can reach. Raise these self-reliant young people to be ready when the Morlock machines begin to grind to a halt and the Eloi begin wondering what to do, and I have faith that they will take care of fixing things for themselves, and do so in a way that will reflect honor upon our founding principles and those before who strove to uphold them. Despite my disappointment in this evening’s electoral results, my faith in America and its people still stands.
May God bless America, in each of us, wherever we may be tonight in this new diaspora. We may not be the ones we have been waiting for, but we are all each other’s countrymen, for we carry America in our hearts.
As an Australian, I’ve watched these events with a certain amount of curiosity, but no real urgency. While there are implications to me, they aren’t as immediate for me. This leads me to another perspective, one I’d have some problems with myself, but one I can see me needing eventuly anyway.
There comes a time where ANY investment MUST be abandoned, lest it destroy you. You’ll have to judge for yourself’s how close the United States of America are to that point. And, if you have to walk away, where do you go?
How bad are things getting over there, and how far are you going to fall in the next 4 years? I don’t know. All I know, is that this has some unplesant implications for Australian politics, and that I might have to move somewhere that hasn’t fallen as far, myself. Where that is? That, too, I don’t know.
Good luck. And…. Don’t be afraid to act, even in a radical way. It may well be the only chance you have.
Get to know some farmers.
Get to know some farmers.
Actually that is great advice. The recent disaster in New York points out the vulnerability of cities to any kind of large-scale disruption. Here’s an intellectual problem for you. How would you create an ad hoc emergent distribution system that could take over in an emergency from a collapse in the normal system? It should operate on a profit.
How do you generate a spontaneous black market with some kind of rationality?
One thing that concerns me with the idea that “after four more years of this administration and the damage it will have done to our country, that surely, the American people will come to their senses,” is the fact that the opposition gets a vote too. With enough immigrants where entitlements are given to, the media’s support, and the shifting of blame to Republicans in congress (e.g. If they don’t pass budget or tax increases because of military cuts, Obama can have 1 or 2 positive things in there and say its the repubs who won’t pass them, and most Americans buying this manure), I see the situation only getting worse
Anger
Well my powers of prophecy have taken a big hit, but I’ll try one more time. It’s going to be simple, their electorate is going to have to be fed (money resources, etc) constantly or they will either lose them or worse. We have the political “cheese” and they’ll need it. As we are not going to be persuaded ideologically or politically compulsion will be the only route for them. If we can deny the cheese they starve and lose support.
Much of the task of my generation of conservatives (I’m 55) will be obstructive and destructive. Obstruct whatever the Left tries: viva gridlock! But we must also put concentrated effort into bringing down the institutions that have corrupted our country: the public schools, the universities, the oldstream media. It’s not enough anymore to provide alternatives to these. We need creative thinking about financial and litigious means of shutting them down. The economic depression we’re going to experience will provide opportunities.
My respect for David Horowitz’s insight into the struggle we’re in has grown exponentially literally overnight as we’ve watched an honest, moderate man who (whatever his political faults) believes in the American experiment of ordered liberty lose to a leftist demagogue and would-be Fuehrer.
Reconstruction, if it proves possible, is going to lie on the shoulders of our children and grandchildren. The historical burden particularly on the homeschooled and religious-schooled evangelical and Catholic young people of the next generation is going to be well-nigh crushing. They are the only block of young people who have been educated to believe in objective good and evil, and if they don’t succeed where my generation of conservatives has failed, the lights will surely go out until some historical cataclysm forces a civilizational restart.
The true revolutionaries of this century will be the parents whose children learn to THINK.
They are welcome to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Benghazi did happen, and al Qaeda is getting stronger. The media cannot protect us from that. Neither can drone attacks. Obama care is on the way, too.
I plan to be calm, cool, and collected, so that I don’t have to say “told you so” next time. This is the time to plant seeds of doubt that will grow into an electoral majority next time.
Cash out your portfolio before the crash. After the crash buy gold and siver coins and their junior mining stocks–preferably mines you don’t think will be taken over by criminals. I’ll be shopping for some propane appliances that will get me thru power cuts. And ammo. Defaults and currency collapses are coming. After that we can rebuild the economy.
wretchard @13
“How do you generate a spontaneous black market with some kind of rationality?”
Modern tools like Craig’s List might be great for one-off transactions but spontaneity isn’t particularly a feature in a resilient underground market driven by unavailables in a money and trust-poor environment. Under the radar markets must be developed. Wherein a certain level of trust earned through friendship and demonstration is the first hurdle in creating a viable resistance market.
It’s nearly [exactly] like living in an third-world city and/or the days of the local regional village market…But with better comms. It behooves a man to have a diverse group of like-minded friends (such as with a fraternal organization…Or dare I say, a ‘gang’) he can call upon if he’s got a specific problem that needs fixing, or some unavailable thing he’s looking for. We all to some extent have developed the seed of such a group which passes along info on who’s looking for what, or who needs help with some thing…Then factor in Sauron’s 59 million greedy eyes.
IOW: Everything old is new again.
So get to know farmers and have something they need, be it customers or commodities.
Most of all: don’t pine for lost freedoms. Be free.
We need to create an economy that will provide for us and our families, and will meet our real needs. I suggest barter and other means. We have a great example in the fall of the USSR. While the govt lied to itself with their planned BS economy, 50% of the economy was the underground economy because the people had needs that still needed to be fulfilled.
Even if the present regime taxed all the Rich People (TM) 100% the present govt would never be satisfied. There is not enough money in the world to feed the black hole of the federal govt. So, like Truk Island and Rabaul in WW2 it must be bypassed.
I see a grass roots movement that will take care of itself while the regime flounders and bankrupts itself. Things will adjust to meet the new realities and economic systems and society will have to be sustainable to survive.
I also see the end of the democrat and republican parties, and independent people getting together to further things of common interest. I also see widespread economic doldrums in Europe, possibly a collapse, and serious economic problems of the same magnitude in China and the US as demand decreases.
I see skirmishes and war as nutcase regimes feel their oats and fill the power vacuum. Those that prepare will weather the storm. Those that do not will be caught up in the hard times. We made our own nest, now we live with it.
Wretchard @ 13 –
How would you create an ad hoc emergent distribution system that could take over in an emergency from a collapse in the normal system? It should operate on a profit.
1) Start by acting as though you were the quartermaster of a ship. The old whalers made voyages lasting years isolated from the land.
2) Manage up! I got Obama et al to leave the BP Macondo 252 well shut in despite the pressure building within, against a unanimous desire by Chu et al to re-open the flow into the Gulf of Mexico, and then I got them to allow BP to run the “static kill” to kill the well, despite their continued belief that the relief well was the “ultimate solution”. They looked awfully stupid when they pulled the blowout preventer off the well head and nothing flowed out. Thad Allen became a footnote to the 24 hour news cycle.
And Judgement Day is rapidly approaching in New Orleans, February 25, 2013. Tomorrow, the private parties will have their say on the settlement between them and BP, clearing the way for the Main Event, the Private Sector vs. Governments.
Wait ’til the public hears about Benghazi at 5000 feet in the GOM! That the well could have, and should have, been shut in by late May or early June 2010, not on July 15 2010? All those oil covered sea birds and dead dolphins were Obama’s fault.
http://tinyurl.com/a7ccvar
CHU LIED, DOLPHINS DIED!
3) Have fun!
4) Learn something new every day because knowledge is POWER!
Obama successfully kicked the can past the next election. Now he has to kick it “FOUR MORE YEARS”. Does he have the range??
5) The customer is always right. They wanted solutions, they did not get them from Romney or Obama.
Back in 2010, they wanted the flow of oil into the Gulf to stop. I came up with the plan that stopped it.
Who do you think will get the order come February??
BftP @ 15:
Cool resolve, brother.
I am reminded of the scene in Yojimbo where the Samuri has finally provoked a war between the two clans and the resulting bodies mount up. He sees the local undertaker weaping and asks him why he is so sad. With all the dead he should be rejoicing over all the business he will get. The undertakers reply is telling. When you get this many dead they don’t use caskets.
When you get this many lemons, there isn’t enough sugar to sweet it, only water to dilute it.
Junodavid @ 24 is right now. It is too early to plan how to prosper in the storm of disaster now arriving, for it seems certain that Obama and his legions of evil angels in bureaucracy, academe, banking, pop-culture, etc. can be nothing but a disaster to America, and all mankind. Preservation, perseverance, preparation. Take extra efforts to stay healthy and sane, to avoid conflict with the debasing forces now rampant, with the bureaucrats and officials ready to pounce, emburden and ravage. Then pray that G-d provides, for our, or His Own reasons, opportunity. In many needed ways we are smarter and able than the deluded. But they have the kind of massive hydraulic force masses of the deluded and amoral have. Divert them, hold fast to whatever wealthhood and healthhood one can, learn, train, prosper to the degree one can. Then wait for opportunity. Trust that Providence will, in due time, provide that opportunity.
Don’t seek to make money from fools, for a chasing a fool’s money makes one a fool too.
“…Benghazi at 5000 feet in the GOM!”
Please, for us slower knuckle-draggers…what does that statement mean?
being somewhat late to this thread, here is what I suggest to do:
1. If you don’t yet have a gun, get a license and buy one.
2. Get to know your neighbors and make sure to build trust among them. You may need them and they may need you…
3. Plant a vegetable garden in your backyard and start raising chicken.
4. Keep a stock of nonperishable food for several months.
5. start recycling old Soviet Union jokes… there are lots of parallels to the universe the Democrats inhabit and are trying to drag the rest of us into.
We need to defund the federal government by simply not paying taxes. We still pay taxes voluntarily for the most part. Get 5 million small businesses to stop paying taxes, united and at the same time, and you have the start of a revolution. Ask millions of employed makers to adjust their paychecks so that no federal taxes is removed and then on April 15th, don’t send in a check. This will get the attention of the takers right fast.
Wiredman 28,
I will thank you to nor propose criminal activity or draw unwanted attention to a place that I frequent.
How about a “The Day The Earth Stood Still” approach?
The 53% all decide to shut down the week of April 15-19. Mail no tax returns, make no purchases, do not go to work, do no financial transactions, etc.
The buffoons in DC talk about shutting down the government? Let’s shut down the private sector. Message: without our acquiescence you are powerless. Without our cooperation you are nothing. We fund everything that you do. We feed you, clothe you, and provide you shelter. Let’s remind them that the phrase “You work for us” was not merely a campaign slogan.
Of course, some portion of the 53% voted the wrong way and will go about their business in solidarity with the regime. Still, 60 million people choosing to stay home for a week might get some attention.
Failing that, we could always try the simultaneous jump off of a chair to knock the Earth off its axis.