We live in a world of plenty. Unlike most of human history, we not only have everything we need but we mostly have too much of what we want. While most of human history is an endless pursuit of sufficient calories to keep yourself and your family alive, in modern times obesity is more of an issue than starvation.
Despite abundant food and clothing and shelter, we are also in a place where the gap between the wealthiest and the rest of us is growing by leaps and bounds. Bill Gates and his wife announced they are divorcing after 27 years of marriage and will have to somehow get by with about $65 billion each. This comes on the heels of Jeff Bezos of Amazon divorcing his wife. The two wealthiest women in the world both got rich by marrying wealthy men and then getting half of the wealth those men created in a divorce. Feminism!
At the same time the wealth gap is growing, economic instability is also looming. Small disruptions can interrupt the supply chain and lead to sudden shortages. A container ship blocking the Suez canal had huge ramifications for global supply. A bioweapon virus that posed very little threat to 99% of people caused widespread panic leaving stores stripped bare of things like toilet paper and bottled water.
You can live without toilet paper, unpleasant though it may be, and bottled water, something relatively unheard of until fairly recently. Most other consumer goods are completely non-essential. There are a couple of things that are not optional if you want to go on living and right after air on that list is water and food.
Water is the most critical, not only do you need to drink enough water to stay alive but we use water for a lot of our cooking and basic sanitation. I have never been in a situation where I was concerned about having enough water, and that is true for virtually all Americans but that might not be true forever.
Lack of available water is going to likely soon be a serious issue. Check out these two videos….
As a thought exercise, where is your nearest source of water if the power goes out and can you safely drink it?
Most people give no thought at all to water because it comes out of their tap like magic. If they opened the tap and nothing happened? They would be as befuddled as prehistoric man trying to explain the internet.
Food is the other gotta have essential. I have been talking about this for a while but food price inflation and food instability is a significant threat in the near-to-intermediate future.
The Argentina government announced its suspension of beef exports for 30 days on May 17, citing increasing demand from top-buyer China over recent years.
“Prices have experienced a sustained rise as a result of the growing demand for these products, mainly from Asian markets,” the Argentinian government said in the official gazette. “There is a price distortion that goes beyond the general inflation rate for food and prevents the normal supply of food products to consumers in the domestic market.”
Did you know that the price of corn has risen 142 percent in the last 12 months? Of course corn is used in hundreds of different products we buy at the grocery store, and so everyone is going to feel the pain of this price increase. But it isn’t just the price of corn that is going crazy. We are seeing food prices shoot up dramatically all across the industry, and experts are warning that this is just the very beginning. So if you think that food prices are bad now, just wait, because they are going to get a whole lot worse.
These are just a couple of the articles that are popping up all over.
Food instability is more complicated for most people, I can find water to filter in lots of places around here but food requires you to either raise it up from seeds, kill and butcher an animal, or if we are being honest, take it by force. It is not coincidental that Mark Zuckerberg is buying up a ton of land in Hawaii, away from mainland. Nor is it a coincidence that the world’s billionaires are snatching up farmground (see: Like Feudalism Without The Peasants) Without a certain amount of land, you can’t feed yourself and you then become vulnerable and that is right where they want you.
This is for certain, food and water is going to keep you alive or it is not, and the difference between surviving and not surviving will come down to water and food. As Bison Prepper wrote, there are two golden rules for survival.
The first is from Ol Remus and it is to stay away from crowds. The more people around you, the more likely someone means you harm.
The second golden rule is simple: It Is All About The Food.
Following those two rules is not enough to keep you alive but failing to follow either one means you are dead.
It should go without saying that having stores of food and access to clean water isn’t much use if things go sideways without the means and will to protect what you have. You might think your neighbor (or you) would never kill someone else and take their food or water but if your kids and your wife are starving? I don’t know about you but I know about me and I know that I would do whatever I had to do to keep them alive. I mean anything and everything is on the table.
Pay attention because the wealthy oligarchs have their greedy eyes on the sources of our most basic necessities. Their vision for a new, better world doesn’t have room for you and they have shown time and again that they are perfectly content to kill you to see their vision become reality. The most counter-cultural thing you can do is survive and live long enough to see them against the wall.
Exactly. Once read that in (a particular) African language, "good" translated to "has food" while "bad" translated to "doesn't have food."
Food for thought.
That sounds simplistic but all of the models and theories about economics don't mean shit if you are starving to death.
It actually is not simplistic, but it is likely true.
A not-so-old Chinese greeting translates literally to "have you eaten rice today." The Chinese symbol for contentment consists of the symbols for woman and pig beneath the symbol for roof, ie. if you have a wife and food in your house, you are "content."
As an aside, the symbol for discord is two women beneath a roof. LOL