Ferfal will have some insight for sure.

Interesting read

true, but having a gun helps you keep what you (should have) been storing.



The people that think a gun will help them get what they need are so woefully unprepared its sad.  Not many survivalists and nobody knows who the good ones are anyway - can't rob someone of something they don't have.

After reading that and remembering the bosnia guy's blog, if someone isn't really preparing at least rice and beans, hopefully it'll get them started.  Having stacks of rifles and ammo is of limited usefulness.  Fun and interesting sure, but virtually worthless if you don't have food and water stored as well.

Very interesting

Democratic Socialism...Go Bernie 2016

They tried to pull the same thing in Argentina, in fact they did for 12 years. Thank God President Mauricio Macri is starting to put an end to all those scumbags. Curruptus maximus is the problem. A corrupt dictator takes over your country and in no time you see this. They will call it communism, but its not. Its plain old robbery. Cuba is communist. Yes, its stupid and fails every single time but what you have in places like Venezuela and in Argentina for over a decade is people dedicated 100% to stealing from the top of the government all the way to the bottom.
You cant eat a gun but you cant shoot someone with a bag of rice either. I happen to know someone that killed two people in Venezuela in self defense. Well, strictly speaking the first one was self defense, the second one was doing everyone else in the country a favor by killing the scumbag. He had a use for the Glock he used, and he had use for the 2.000 USD he used to get him out of the shitstorm he got himself into for killing those two in broad daylight.
Now food is a problem in Venezuela. Its been one for years now, ironically enough given the amount of food Latin America produces. I see Venezuela and think of Argentina and the steps to take are basically the same: Store food for SHTF, save money, have a gun for sure, and if things go Venezuela wherever it is that you are, just get the hell out of there before it kills you or drives you nuts.
It says there that food is the new currency in Venezuela. No its not. It sure is valuable, but the new currency in Venezuela is the same currency, the USD. With a clearly worthless Bolivar USd is what buys you what you need, including food. If you have a few USd in Venezuela you get all the food you need. Problem is, people over there dont earn Dollars, they earn Bolivares, meaning they keep earning less and less USd as the currency loses value. Its the same mechanism we saw in Argentina. Even with that taken into consideration, food and other goods are still expensive in such places even in USD price because of lack of availability. People in the blackmarket can push the prices up, 2x or 3x what you would pay for an item in a develped country.
The guy calling himself "middleclass" Venezuela, God bless him but he doesnt get it any more. There's no middle class in places like that any more. Its a mass of poor, some of them former middle class, and then a handful of extremly rich people. I feel sorry for a guy that cant even buy a plane ticket with 2 years worth of wages but he really should have left earlier. Timing folks, timing is key. If theres something to be learned here, besides how important it is to store a lot of food, a water filter, have a gun (which you know how to use well) and enough cash to get the hell out of there, the lesson would be to know when to leave and to do so. Know when to leave people. Again, this is critical for survival yet we have that denial mechanism which gets you killed. How many times have people posted here “im not leaving my country”? Venezuela wasn’t always as much of a shithole. In fact not that long ago it was pretty good for SA standards. Sure, it aint USA, sure, it aint Europe, but still denial gets people killed EVERYWHERE. Just a couple days ago a grandmother in Texas got herself killed along with her 4 grandkids during a flood. She made a bad choice and didn’t turn around when she should have done so. It’s the same thing. That denial telling you “oh its not that bad” , “oh, im sure it will pass”. Or even when you see the freaking tsunami wall of water heading your way “oh, this cant be real”. How about people getting killed by war in Ukraine, people that didn’t evacuate in time? Or Syria?
Keep your head cool, stay objective and make the rational decision.
FerFAL

Interesting read.

Obviously the US is a bit differently geographically and recourse wise but the bottom line around the world, is that the population threshold can not withstand itself without assembly line resource distribution.

Doesn't matter what causes the disruption but most population densities around the world can't support them selves without the recourses and supplies rolling in on a daily basis.

Mad max SHTF fantasies are just that, a fantasy.  A good CCW a good rifle and shotgun, an ammo can for each and you have more then you will probably ever realistically need to protect yourself.

A good base level of supplies, friends, family, and community are what pull one through real disasters.

Its not if, but when.  

Seems like the perfect time to head down there and rescue one of Those Venezuelen beauties and bring her back to civilization.
 

Since food was the #1 thing that was needed, why are people not simply growing food? What conditions are preventing that?

I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that:

1.  there are not that many farmers anymore, just like here.  
2.  the poor class won't have land to grow food on (maybe small lots would work?)
3.  crops take planning, don't grow overnight, and land can take a while to develop (takes foresight)
4.  going to have to have a way of protecting the crops, which is probably going to take a community working together to prevent stealing

Growing food is actually pretty difficult.  It takes more than a year of fertilizer and ground work to make an area suitable for crops. You can do it, but without that preparation, the yield will be pretty poor per acre and will take significantly more time and energy to produce.  Assuming you have an extra two or three acres to feed yourself and your spouse (figure ~1 acre per person depending on crops), you still have to protect the crops from people and animals, irrigate it, apply pesticides, know when to plant certain things and when to harvest.  Sometimes things don't look ripe, but it's time to pick anyway.  If you leave it out until it looks 'good', it'll be spoiled.  

All of that assumes you know wtf you're doing - if you don't you'll probably need twice as much land and even then, you probably won't get much of a yield anyway.  

I grew up working cattle and my grandfather had a good size garden (acre) that supplemented the groceries.  I learned a bit from him however at the time, I wasn't really interested in learning about crops.  A number of years ago I plowed out an acre of field and planted some various crops after doing some basic land prep.  I stayed on top of it, researched over the internet, books and local ag extension and still got a total pathetic yield.  I would have starved to death and I at least had an inkling of what I was doing.



ETA:  If you have a bunch of seeds stored up with visions of planting them and feeding your family, I'd really recommend starting to grow stuff now.

Check out my sig line .

 

But the sentiment is 100% correct, and I preach it all the time. Those "survival seed vaults" are a joke and a scam. Although for these people down in SA, I just don't understand why at least some groups don't band together to grow food. There must be SOME people that can be 'managers' to the fields, telling people what to do and when. They only have 3 day work weeks, so they have PLENTY of time.


I don't know the growing conditions down there, but for all the food that comes out of that part of the world, it can't be that difficult to grow food. Not to mention the massive coast line for fishing. Again, 3 day work weeks give a lot of time to put into food production, and there HAS to be old farmers that still know what to do.

Because this is where theory collides with the terrible reality these people live in.
First, its one thing to produce something and its another to produce everything. Very few people are 100% self sufficient foodwise and even those that are rely heavily on infrastructure these folks simply do not have. Second, the cost of buying the land and most of all getting the equipment needed to get started must be prohibitive in a place where a middle class person has to work 24 months to afford a plane ticket out of there. If you need anything you just drive to the nearest hardware store and get it. Seeds? machinery? Everything is available and at a reasonable price. These people, as hardy and they may be, they live in a country that has a hard time keeping vegetable oil and TP in shelves, imagine what they have in terms of fertilizer, gardening let alone farming equipment. Third, for those that farm, theres the problem of securing what they have. I'm sure its hard enough to keep desperate people at bay and the chances of keeping the ejercito Bolivariano at bay as well simply goes down to zero. In a place with such a regime I doubt you can plant much more than a square yard before Maduro crawls up you butt and nationalizes whatever operation you have going on. Im sure some do produce, and for those that do it does help, but its really not a large scale solution to a problem that has rotten the core of their society.
We’re talking of a large, mostly tropical and fertile country. As if that wasn’t enough, they have oil, which they sell in their own country cheaper than bottled water. Its ridiculous to expect everyone to grow their own food, they should have the minimum social skills to keep farms producing, import and export, trade, and basically function like any other country in the region. But again, a country that cant even stock basic staples and toilet paper. Their government is simply useless and that’s their biggest problem.
FerFAL

And as I was saying... I found this AFTER my previous post, but its really easy to see these patterns.
Venezuelan farmers ordered to hand over produce to state
FerFAL

get both

Oh this is going to be interesting to watch.

No kidding.

 

From the article: "Farmers and manufacturers who produce milk, pasta, oil, rice, sugar and flour have been told to supply between 30 per cent and 100 per cent of their products to the state stores."


Up to 100%

I did not consider the gov't taking everything that is produced.

 

Its all a wonderful case study, and a horrible reality.

As Nicodareus and Rat_Patrol have discussed, growing crops takes practice.  My wife and I have been developing our gardening skills for the past few years, and it's been a steep learning curve.  Even when you do everything right, something can come along and wipe out most of your crop.  We've grown potatoes for a couple of years.  The first year we did OK...but I was still learning about piling up soil ("hilling") around the growing potato plant as it develops.  The second year I knew better about how to pile up the soil around the developing potato plants, but then potato blight set in and thrashed our crop because I didn't recognize what was happening until it was too late.

Point is, growing crops can be a very steep and ongoing learning curve.

Never been to venzuela.  No interest.  But I have been to Cuba, and it was enlightening...

There is a problem with Socialism/Communism.  When motivators, such as hunger, are removed, you also remove a large incentive for much of the population.  When I was in Cuba, I saw much of the population sitting around doing nothing.  Not a damn thing.  Pretty much just groups of 20-40 year old men, sitting on their asses, smoking and joking.  I did befriend a couple of nice young cuban gals, and asked about it.  Their response: You get the same amount of nothing wether you work or not.  So why work?  In contrast, the workers in the hospitality industry busted their asses:  Tips, paid in US dollars, were highly motivating.

Case in point.  My daughter is busting her ass in college.  Direct entry into a doctoral program.  She's been pulling 100 hour study weeks to make the grade.  Why? Starting salary is $116,000 average, with 98% placement.  She has dreams, wants a nice lifestyle, and is willing to work for it.  

In contrast, some twit we know just bailed on college.  She feels its too challenging.  Of course, she's a foster child, so everything including college is free.  If its free, it has no value.  No the drop out moron just proudly posted its her first day at Burger King.  I give her one week.    Two at the tops.  And of course she's a big believer in the $15/hr min wage.

Socialism has worked moderately well in a few countries in Scandinavia.  Aint perfect, but tis okay.  Its worked there because there are relatively homogenous populations, and I suspect they still retain a sense of personal and collective responsibility.  When you get our current US situation -  I got rights, but failure is always some one else responsibility-  you have the perfect growing conditions for a massive, country wide failure.   States like NY are already collapsing under the weight of too many freeloaders with high expectations and not enough workers actually contributing to society in any meaningful way.

Eat long pork.

At the risk of opening that can of worms again…
You mention Cuba, which would be a clear example of how communism fails catastrophically. You mention Venezuela and Sacandinavian countries, which are traditionally very socialist even for their center-conservative politicians. I was born in Argentina in the middle of the junta, the "National Reorganization Process" as it was called. I was too young to understand lots of things. I didn’t understand why you weren’t supposed to set foot outside your house without ID or why my parents were terrified of the police. Those things I remember but only understood when I was older. The Process was a far right dictatorship. The recently departed Kirchners, although actually greedy criminals that worked along with banks stealing people’s homes, they raised the flag of the far left Montonero terrorists, which the Proceso was actively fighting against. The more I get to see of them, the less I trust politicians and I trust their so called afiliations even less. At the end of the day, I think that a moderate, middle ground generally works best but of much more importance is having good honest people, which seems to be the hardest thing to find in politics. Come from whatever branch of politics you want, left, right or center, if you truly want to work to improve the quality of life of the people you’re representing then that’s all that matters. You have the perfect example with Venezuela, a so called socialist country, which has zero similarities with Nordic socialist countries that have the highest standard of living in the world. The difference isn’t socialist, the difference is the corruption.  Its not socialism that is the solution, the solution is having skilled, hard working people with honestly good intentions. Just like corrupt scumbags come from all sides, so can good people. In my experience some of the worst, most corrupt people come from extremes, either left or right, but yet again what should matter the most should be honesty and zero tolerance to corruption, both legal and moral.
As for kids, I tell mine to be happy. Really that’s all I tell them. My youngest one got a 0 in his first Language exam when we first moved to Spain about 6 months ago. He spent his entire school years in Ireland, so English is the only language he was taught in school in spite of us talking Spanish exclusively at home and teaching him to read some Spanish. Last week he came with a 9.75 (they don’t just give away 10) in his last Spanish Language exam. For a 7 year old, that 0 he got hurt his ego so much he would read and practice on his own, even beyond what he had for homework. If anything I have to tell him to take it easy and not take exams to seriously. My oldest son is doing well in school as well but again, I tell them to do whatever it is they love doing and keep doing that when they grow up. At the end of the day, no matter what, if they love what they do they are likely to do it well and eventually excel at it.
FerFAL

Oh well, sucks to be them.
Currently 1 U.S. Dollar = 9.95 Bolivar

There are probably some well known Hollywood folks that wake up each day and smother their cornflakes with cheap Scotch because of this turn of events.
You know there will be calls to take a bunch of them all in here when SHTF happens.  We gotta have more voters to bring these multicultural experiences here too.  

I sometimes ponder how a lot of the central and south American countries with a high percentage of "deeply religious" Catholics have such a stunningly high crime rate.  

I'm not anti Catholic btw, I was raised it.


It's just one of those things that make me go... huh?

That's what Maduro wants you to believe, and like everythign he says, its complete BS. On the streets in Venezuela, 1 USD gets you 1000 Bolvares these days if not more. You see, they CALIM these stupid rates, but at the same time they BAN their people from changing the money. At the same time, no one outside Venezuela in his right mind would want to buy Boliveres any way so they think this lie works. For all that matters they can claim a Bolivar is worh a million USD. No one buys it and they sure as hell arent letting people buy usd.
Black-Market Bolivars Crash Past 1,000 Per Dollar in Venezuela

They are not bad people. Ive known a few and they are smart, capable people that hate Maduro as much as they hated Chavez. These folks end up as political prisoners, if not dead. They are trully fighting a dicator over there, which is never easy.

Thats easy to explain. South and central American prisons are packed full of evangelicals, not Catholics. They sure arent the same thing.
FerFAL

The guy might say he doesn't need a gun now. But when his house is being robbed or his wife is being raped, he might think otherwise. Or when he's coming from a distribution center with that precious bag of food and a gang takes it from him in the street.

Just look at Argentina - when the police went on strike and the whole country plunged into total anarchy for 3 days, what did the citizens turn to? That's right, guns. And whatever else they could use as a weapon - machetes, clubs etc.

There's that famous write-up from Serbia about the days of the civil war there. The guy was talking about having food and toiletries and lighters to trade. But he also said one needed guns, preferably automatic, and as many hands as possible to fire them. He said even in the present peacetime he has numerous AKs and pistols ready to go.

So to recap, everything is important - food, water, toilet paper, soap. But one without means to defend it will have nothing.

When I lived in Venezuela, most families of middle class or above often had a firearm, too.  They wouldn't publicize that fact, but it was around.

I remember that thread.  The take-away I got from that - solo fortress household doesn't work.  If it's just you, your guns, and maybe 1 or 2 family members, you are screwed.  You need a community.  You need others watching your back.  I thought that was very profound, and hadn't realized such before.  I've been more careful about maintaining friendly neighbor relations.  Occasionally there's a "man look at all that ammo, if it all falls apart, I know where I'm coming".  I encourage that kind of talk.  That's right, bring water and supplies.  Because you need a lot more trigger fingers than just you and yours for when the marauders start coming.  

Good neighbors and a good neighborhood social network are important if things get really bad in society.

With all I read about our deteriorating financial system (including the world players such as China, etc.) and our national debt, I can not help by wonder about a 'crash' of our system at some point - it seems that coupled with the shaky current political system if (or when?) a collapse happens, we will look a lot like Venezuela only worse given our class/race divides.  Hard to pull together when we are fighting each other

Always enjoy reading your posts FERFAL. But Please, use some damn paragraphs.

That happened nearby to where I live. I believe in this case the grandmother and the kids were at home in bed when they were killed. The rain came down pretty late at night. They were found washed into their yards in their pajamas. Not trying to take away from your point. Just sharing what I believe happened.

There were actually people in a bar nearby where water flooded up to the table tops before people left if I understood the story right.

 
Most people seriously underestimate the precariousness of subsistence level ag.  Even if you have a garden and have been growing some stuff for years, converting that into a level where you can actually subsist on it is going to be outside the scope of what most people can do without serious expertise, or a lot of other room for error (i.e, extensive preps, or having far more land than you need because your yields suck or you lose half your crop to something you don't understand).


Modern western ag is a highly developed science that allows massive yields with (relatively) low risk.  Your backyard garden, not so much.

 
Good governance is the key.  Scandinavia has it, South America does not. Most of what happens in these dictatorships has more to do with vast corruption than it does failures of political ideology...  After all, in spite of Cuba's issues, it's hardly the failed state that Venezuela is going to be shortly.

 


How do you store enough food for 20 yrs of decline....20 more years

of certain stagnation.....and another 20 yrs for the recovery?


You can grow your own if you have the space but you won't have it long if you can't defend it.

Video about Cuba's economic collapse after the fall of the USSR - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs6xoKmnYq8.  Everyone gets another job, growing food.

Interesting that they end up with a very similar infant mortality rate and life expectancy to the U.S, per the film anyway.

The U.S. infant mortality, poverty and murder rates are way too high for its GDP for a developed country. Life expectancy isnt as good as it should be either. For such a rich country its just slipping from its potential.
FerFAL

All 3 listed issues listed are due to one root cause: Gov't

 

 
Government that has largely enabled people to just waste away at the government tit, and no balancing social pressures to prevent it.

 
Sweden (or hell, even Cuba) isn't facing hyperinflation, catastrophic crime rates, and a no shit TEOTWAWKI scenario.  Venezuela is.  Obviously, the socialist theories are bunk, and will lead to stagnation.  And yes, Scandinavia's ability to outsource it's defense costs to the US helped it be able to "afford" it's vast social welfare state.  Yet at this point I think it's a tough case to make that Sweden is staring into the abyss of failed statehood.  


Why is this?  While you can argue that they simply made capitalism evil, I think that is a symptom rather than the disease.  Hugo and his buddies raped the fuck out of their nation, and whenever somebody caught on they pointed the finger at the evil capitalists.  Same thing in Zimbabwe.  Then they doubled down on the stupid, because they had no other way out of it.


I have a hard time looking at my Aimpoint and calling it the product of a state managed industry that fails to innovate.  And not to put too fine a point on it, but cough EOTech cough.  

I've never been to Sweden, but I have been to Venezuela.  I spent 23 months living there, walking through the slums, meeting the locals every day.  Corruption is a part of life there.  IIRC, we're talking about a country that had three consecutive presidents incarcerated for embezzling state funds.  People's homes are effectively cages to try and keep out robbers.  Smash-and-grabs?  Armed carjackings?  Shootings?  Yeah, witnessed all that and more as a part of regular life.

My point?  Cultural/societal influences can have a magnifying effect on government weaknesses.  Why is Sweden different than Venezuela though both have implemented a lot of socialism?  Culture.

Yea....
Hunger & starvation are great aphrodisiacs.

The problem is that state controlled economies are more ripe for graft and corruption.  When it's centralized and state controlled, the amount of money being controlled becomes, well, the GDP of the nation.  And nobody will miss it if I skim a little here... and here... And I'm the king baby, don't ask questions.   In homogeneous western societies, the societal norms and peer pressures help control that.  In other societies, not so much.

Considering that federal and state means tested welfare expenditures exceed $900 billion per year it certainly seems to me that the bad statistics are not a result of lack of funding.

That's about $9,000/year for every "poor" person in this country.

It usually isn't.  Certainly many other developed countries get better results spending less money. It's often how you use those resources that matters the most, not just spending money but spending it wisely.
FerFAL

Cuba is a different situation but when the revolution started is was surely a SHTF situation

for them. Many saw the writing on the wall and got out early. Many didn't and many of them were

gunned down in the town squares. Blood left on the ground to remind the locals of what standing

against the communists would get you. I have a coworker that was born there, her parents had

got married not long before the communists took over. They owned a piece of land that they planned

on building a house on. The communists took their land with no compensation because they did not

belong to the party. Her Father did odd jobs to survive. They eventually got out and moved to FL.





They were ruled by force and most were not wealthy to begin with. It is a far different situation than

exists in Venezuela this day.  



 

Do any of these women appear to be starving?

That happens to be an old pic from 2015. Still, I just watched a liveleak/Vice report that was current. Bunch of 300lb women bitching about how they were starving.

Why do I feel like I'm being lied to?

The hot women usually don't have to stand in lines.

Cuba is a complete disaster. People there have been living like animals for half a century. Prostitution is a fact of life for way too many women there, in fact it also is for many little girls. When the average wage is 20usd a month people do anything to survive. Venezuela was and actually still is FAR better than Cuba, in spite of their current issue with a government that clearly isnt going to last long. People in Venezuela can still purchase a variety of food items, its mostly the cheap staples that are hard to find.  In Cuba you dont have that option, and you havent had that option for decades. In Venezuela you can still own firearms, not so in Cuba.  Cuba is the cool Latino version of North Korea, a tad more lax in their idiotic communist idiology. If they didnt live in a tropical climate they'd be freezing and starving as bad as in NK.
FerFAL