Another Survival Forum Hostile to PMs
 

I tried to help out some younger guy wanting help with investing in silver. Wanted to know how to invest $10,000...I made some decent suggestions about keeping some gold, silver, and cash on-hand, dollar cost averaging in, etc. and promptly got jumped on by several members for even suggesting PMs.

Man, are they clueless about gold and silver! Apparently they have not been following the markets...they couldn't see the need for PMs at all, even after I told the kid to get his priority preps in order first: food, water, guns, ammo, safer location, etc.

I guess that's what can I expect from a mostly GUN Group...their idea of survival preparation ain't mine. :smokin:

Re: Another Survival Forum Really Hostile to PMs
 

Most have no civilization skills.

Which are inescapeable, in any scenario.

Re: Another Survival Forum Really Hostile to PMs
 

Yep.......sounds like a bunch of Rambos with an average I.Q. of 60

:rolleyes_m:

Re: Another Survival Forum Really Hostile to PMs
 

We do talk a lot about guns here in the survival forum, but I'm certain that most of us here at GIM realize that they are not the end-all be-all of surviving a)economic depression b)currency crisis or c)SHTF.

Re: Another Survival Forum Really Hostile to PMs
 

Well, I have gone back to that forum and I am trying to reason with some of them...a few appear to be at least listening.

I have recommended they check out discussions here on GIM, to broaden their perspectives a little...

So Y'ALL BEHAVE! :D

...Don't want run any potential newbies off..

Re: Another Survival Forum Really Hostile to PMs
 

I suggest they check out the religion and conspiracy forums first then.:sarcasm::wink:

Re: Another Survival Forum Really Hostile to PMs
 

You mean, our guns are bigger than their guns??? Whew!!! :wink:

Re: Another Survival Forum Really Hostile to PMs
 

:rolleyes_m: No,Master_Ho

They will have to barter their guns and ammo for food...we won't.

:bear_w00t::bear_w00t::bear_w00t:

A truck load of worthless paper and a gun isn't going to cut it.

:D:D:D

So sorry...

Re: Another Survival Forum Hostile to PMs
 

I believe you should have a quarter of each. Food, guns & ammon, gold & silver and cash. Who in the F knows what is to come? This way you at least have a fighting chance with what you have.

Re: Another Survival Forum Hostile to PMs
 

That and a bottle of booze. If the SHTF I'm going to need a drink.

Re: Another Survival Forum Really Hostile to PMs
 

"Goodies" are part of any decent survival plan. :D

Peak culture
 

I've noticed that a lot of people who allow themselves to consider any level of shtf scenerios, immediately just jump straight to the bare survival case. They skip the more likely scenarios (e.g. another Argentina type hyperinflation in which we get to be "Argentina") and fixate on the worst possible outcome (say, neighbors become cannibals, and they'll need to shoot to fend them off). Quite a few people I've talked to about $ crash, stock crash, etc... get this attitude like, "if anything like that happens, then civilization will basically collapse, and it will be every man for himself, and pm won't save you. So why bother to prepare at all if the police state or thugs will confiscate what you have, so we'll have to be armed to the teeth and just take what we need."

Put in TA terms, it's like people think there isn't any support on the graph between current (just now crumbling) uptrend of endlessly booming markets and technological advancement, and any major break is feared to set us back thousands of years, culture-wise. It's strange to me, but I have had this same conversation with several people who all took it to that most extreme degree. I wonder if this isn�t part of some psy-ops project to demoralize us by making some of us think that once the uptrend in the culture curve (if you will) gives way, then next level is Mad Max, so they may as well give up.

I don't buy it a bit; we will be fine even though we will get a HARD landing of the US economy. We ain't getting to subsistence level in the US, not even close. There is a mile of territory between our recent unprecedented peace and prosperity, and utter chaos. PM will be needed for survival in all but those most extreme cases of the continuum. Maybe Hawkeye or somebody could gin us up a chart of civilization and let us know where the next support level is.
:smokin:

Re: Peak culture
 

I have been saying the same thing here for close to two years this way (and you can take over for me cause I am worn out - it gets real old real fast)..........I accept the POSSIBLITY of total collapse, and have things set up to cover that as much as possible..........but while I think its POSSIBLE, I don't think Mad Max-world is PROBABLE.

Sure, things could get ugly in some places for a bit.......no question.......but, over all, humans (I am not even saying Americans, tho I could, but to make it even more general, humans) tend to pull it together and work together to survive..........

People around here seem to see things in black and white..........whereas there are many shades of grey.

Sometimes I wonder if some here aren't just enjoying the fantasy of total collapse like it was a movie or something.......

Again, I can see the possibilty, but, like you said, and I have been saying all the time I have been here - sure, prepare for the worst - but historically people have always expected the worse (wasting their lives braced for something that rarely, if EVER, happened)..........and the PROBABLITY is that it won't happen here either.....

Re: Peak culture
 

i think the fright or flight in most of us requires the initial fear of mad max, etc. if we stay there it may say something about us.

on the other hand when oil has depleted to about 20 % of current levels i think serious wars are likely .i just don't know if we attack iran & this is sooner or geology does it in 5-15 yrs; or depression & it depletes in decades later.

Re: Another Survival Forum Really Hostile to PMs
 

:rolleyes_m: Posted by Cassandra:

No...not exactly a mind game.

1 LEO per 10,000 sheep is raw math.

Run the numbers and start building your bunker in the morning.

Statistically your chances of survival in the event of a collapse that escalates very quickly into mass rioting and urban warfare are very slim.
One massive bank run or food shortage will be enough to tip the fine line of control in favor of raw force in numbers.
No LEO in his right mind would take on a thousand armed,rioting citizens unless he had a death wish...he would grab his family and run like hell.

Once law and order is removed from the equation Mad Max will look like a fairy tale.
I suspect our government would not hesitate to take out entire cities to stop the violence with extreme and deadly military force.
A slowly degenerating economy with a soft,harmless slide into starvation with millions of unemployed,homeless roaming the highways like sheep is not going to happen.
They will become extremely violent and groups will form to take back what was stolen from them.
If you're depending on religious conviction or morality to win out over raw survival instinct and rage you are in for a rude awakening.

Expect the worst...you will either be a dead statistic or a survivor.

Coming soon to a neighborhood near you...

:bear_w00t::bear_w00t::bear_w00t:

Re: Another Survival Forum Hostile to PMs
 

what forum was that anyhow. oncet a while we used to swarm and invade another forum. let's organize a forum raid. state your user name so we know who's on the "right" side. LOL :D

another thing-- why do you care? rule one of survival is dont waste energy & resources. Time and energy you are wasting on these idiots.

Re: Another Survival Forum Hostile to PMs
 

You Be right...I gave up. I think they are a bunch of armchair survival, back-slappin' bubba types...clueless. (Note: No insult to you good bubbas here on GIM.) :wink:

Re: Another Survival Forum Really Hostile to PMs
 

Ok, lets review recent history.

During Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans got pounded. The residents of the Gulf Coast had at least a five day warning. Any one with BRAINS left. Some had been prepared and had ridden out other hurricanes. NOTHING CAN PREPARE YOU FOR SHTF, just like nothing had prepared the residents of the Gulf Coast for the monster hurricane named Katrina.

Then we got to see it when all those camera crews who literally RACED to the death and destruction began broadcasting their stories nation wide. In the next week, we saw the remaining residents of New Orleans strip the shops bare of anything and everything.

After that first week, we saw the beginings of return to law and order as both the LANG and LEO's from across the country descended on NO. THEN FINALLY, FEMA SHOWS UP about two weeks later.

Well GUESS WHAT? In a true SHTF, it will be nation wide, if not world wide.

It won't be televised because YOU won't have electricity, except where you see the occasional report from your local area that may OR MAY NOT be rebroadcast nation wide. You DO have a shortwave receiver, RIGHT? If so, make sure it still works NOW and stock up on batteries and cycle them through usage and replace them with new ones every six months (minimum).

State National Guard units? Hell, they will have stripped the armory and the motor pool of EVERYTHING worth while and skipped back home. Law Enforcement? Take a hint, MOST New Olreans LEO's were NO WHERE to be found. Except the ones who were in the mob stripping the stores of everything not nailed down.

Again, if it's a true shtf, it will be nation wide at the very least. World wide at the worst. So you will be 'on your own'.

And you and yours will have between 24 and 48 hours to get to where ever your bug out place is, assuming you live in a large city. Given 95% of the population in the US LIVES in the largest 135 cities, that pretty much guarantees most everyone will be told to 'remain calm, it's just a passing storm' type of thing.

It will take somewhere near a week to ten days before EVERYONE realizes that help ain't coming, and what they got is what they got.

Good luck.

I've post this link several times before, but this will give you quick view behind the curtain of the horror that will be SHTF. Especially when those of us who are constantly in 'condition yellow' are ready to drain the fuel from local gas stations underground fuel tanks with our own pumps when this starts.

http://lonestar-mvpa.org/events/2005/05_Katrina.htm

Hey, SC, as you've 'given up' on that 'other survival forum' how about it? Let US know which one it was. PLEASE? PRETTY PLEASE? Honest, if we've been here for any length of time, we can 'take' what ever they wish to dish out. Honest.

Re: Peak culture
 

Excellent post. I agree completely that if things go south here, it will be very similar to what happened in Argentina. PMs will be very useful in that situation.

Re: Another Survival Forum Hostile to PMs
 

Anty Ep has this nailed down.

I'll go you one farther.....I've actually met quite a few folks off the internet that participate in "survival" boards over they years..... 99% of them are totally full of crap....keyboard commandos that live in a subdivision somewhere with a closet full of guns, some aging MREs and some vague plan to "bug out" somewhere if things get tough. They are great at theorizing from dusk to dawn, and have yet to ever put the first seed in the ground, or shuck the first rabbit out of his coat, or ANY ONE of a hundred other things of a practical nature that would be quite handy to know whether we suffer economic hard times or a nuke attack.

As a result, I have gotten way more selective with my time and advice, as most of it simply goes in one of most folks ears and out the other without slowing up a lick.

And I do have to remind myself from time to time that most of the internet, like TV, is simply there for the entertainment. :D

Re: Another Survival Forum Really Hostile to PMs
 

I for one take an all hazards approach

I cant see the future what I do know is that I have no idea how it will all go down or what events may conspire to put my family in a "survival" situation

I prepare for all of them
Economic collapse (gold, silver, food)
Social collapse (food, weapons, books)
Governmental take over (weapons, food, tactical gear)
Complete civilization collapse (tools, seeds, bow, liqueur, books)
Natural disaster (tools, food, weapons, water, fuel, generator)
Nuclear & Biological (gas masks, NBC Suits, food)

Most of the items I store are usable in multiple situations I think its naive to have a one situation response plan

Re: Another Survival Forum Really Hostile to PMs
 

We have many collapses in living memory so we can see how things go down. In the US, the Great Depression, the collapse in Argentina and the USSR.

Unless you add civil war, like Rwanda, Somalia, and the former Yugoslavia, you don't get a mad max world.

That is why I always post against civil war. You lose the women and children in that scenario.

My community is likely to pull together and has quite a bit of local food production.

I rarely drink and the wife doesn't at all, but we bought several cases of hard liquor for trade goods. If we never need them for that we can serve them at parties and have saved a lot of money as inflation runs up prices. We try to think of most of our preps that way -- life saving in disaster, money saving if we just keep getting more and more of a third world economy.

I think the mad max outcome is low probability, but not zero. And there may be a short period of near mad max conditions if the government does pretty much everything wrong. It did in Katrina, so it might.

Re: Another Survival Forum Really Hostile to PMs
 

Sorry but if and when the shtf, pms are on the bottom of the barrel for trading, real goods will be first in line, food stuffs for food stuffs, ect. Please show in the great depression or the inflation currently occuring in Africa or the meltdown in Russia years ago how and where metals protected anyones purchasing or bartering powers, it was sustainible goods that were needed and wanted.

Re: Another Survival Forum Really Hostile to PMs
 

:rolleyes_m: Wake up people.

The Federal and State governments are run by morons who only have one motivation...keeping their jobs.

You have under qualified,uneducated NeoCon drones running disaster agencies and making life and death decisions they have no interest in.
Their interest is in their next golf game and their next pay raise.

At the first sign of panic or an approaching disaster,the people who depend on them to save their bacon find out the local cable repair guy has more brains than the governor of the state.

As we move up the ladder into Federal authority territory we find the agency directors all graduated from college with degrees in fine arts,cooking,or flower arranging.

And you honestly believe these morons can hold up under pressure and make intelligent decisions to cope with the unexpected ?

What world do you people live in ?

All I see on a daily basis is outright stupidity and incompetence from the local level to the highest office in the land.

Somebody is watching way too much television and ignoring the obvious.

The system will fail just like Katrina...idiots running the show all the way.
Their track record speaks for itself.
After a perfect score of 100% failure and gross incompetence it should become crystal clear nobody in charge has a clue about anything.

You want to trust these people to protect you and your family from danger if TSHTF ?

You have my sympathy...

:yes::yes::yes:

Re: Another Survival Forum Really Hostile to PMs
 

Kash, you are putting me on, mate!

In Zimbabwe, inflation is 100,000%. The Ministry itself admits it is so high it cannot be calculated. What do you suppose a round of silver or a copper penny is worth there?

Let's see, Silver=$14US. Zimbabwe Dollar=1USD in 1984, now 4,000,000/USD and rising faster than can be counted. 4M x $14 = $56,000,000 Zimbabwe dollars per silver ounce. This is money because silver can be traded out of the country through any third currency to get your local dollars.

I don't know what goods prices are--the real problem is shortages since everyone is bartering--but $56,000,000 has to buy SOMETHING.

I've posted this before. Go check your history, mate. What did VietNamese boat people use to pay their escape? What currency was used to smuggle people out of Turkey or the Iron Curtain? What goods were used by illegals fleeing WWII through Scandinavia? What material still had value when they started a new life in North America? Not Reichmarks, I wager, not Rubles, not Confederate Notes, Agentine Pesos, not stocks or bonds of these countries, or companies located therein. With what did other countries pay the US for war materials? Here's a little story from Soviet Hungary, about 1/3 down: http://www.321gold.com/editorials/fe...ete081106.html If you're not a big reader, have you seen "Cold Mountain"?

I'd be hard pressed to find any social upheaval where PMs did NOT increase in value. To reach a level where they are worthless requires mass starvation. Up to that point you can payoff the shopkeepers, border guards, police, and judges with them.

Some papers retain their value: expired Iraqi notes in Kurdistan for instance, BECAUSE there was no one printing more of them any longer. But paper tends to fly up and down. PMs are right inconvenient to use, but do not fly around in value.

I'd be amazed if you could find a war zone, inflation, or depression in history that DIDN'T increase their purchasing-power value.

I'm not saying they're a must have. Food, fuel, safety, and the means of keeping them are certainly primary. But it would be like having a toolbox with no hammer. The hammer is ALWAYS useful.

Here's the chart on the Depression and Homestake mining:
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_98/hmstkmng.gif

But maybe that's a fluke. Here's the chart of gold as far back to 1344:
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials...fox032404d.gif

It's been well established that gold does BETTER in Deflations than inflations as Bonds go bankrupt and people flee to un-defaulting assets. Here's an article on that:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogsp...ion-hedge.html

I can give you links and books supporting this all day, but you get the idea. WTSHTF, GOLD is what gets you out of hock, out of Pokey, and out of the country with a new pair of shoes. Nothing else is certain to do that. Not food, not land, not guns, not contacts. That's WHY it's been the money for 5,000 of human history, ESPECIALLY wtshtf. I won't bet against that trend.

TS

Re: Another Survival Forum Really Hostile to PMs
 

Just what your neighborhood needs wtshtf. Drunks with guns.

:banghead: America is doomed I tell ya!

Re: Another Survival Forum Really Hostile to PMs
 

Hear, hear!

I've been rewatching The History Channel's GOLD! DVD set recently, and man does it cover this aspect so well. It is absolutely amazing the role gold has played the past several thousand years. :D I have no doubt it will continue to do so as long as men are around to lust for it.