How to survive a deep recession: what should/would you do?

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How to survive in a deep recession: what should/would you do?

Food funding (food-stamps) and education grants and unemployment benefits and disability and (SSD/SSI/SS) retirements benefits will all be lost or cut, along with housing grants and everything else the government funds as well as the privet sectors as banks and government collapse due to the bursting of the economic bubble, money would become basically worthless, large families (as in people with a lot of children to support ) would be hurt badly and would most likely shuffle many of the children off to other relatives ( or parents ) in order for all to survive, pride and ego and naivety would be many peoples downfall, prestige would collapse as well, many of the upper and middle class jobs would fail.

As for my self, depending on who I can take with me, because if I can not take them with me I wont move (family).
I have a rather large family with much privet land to where we can help support each other and grow our own foods.
My family survived the great depression and we most likely will survive this one as well, provided we stick together.
not only that but I lived on the streets before for a good many years so I know how to survive off the land and during hard times.

bump...

I'm starting up an online business, and I plan to use the money to buy a piece of land in one of the few farmable valleys in Nevada and live off the grid. I think that huge cuts in welfare will eventually have to be made, and many aspies will be dumped onto the streets along with a lot of other disabled people. We may get a Soylent Green or Nazi situation where extermination camps are set up to get rid of all the extra people.

Google 'ferfal argentina'

a blogger from argentina who writes about live & survival following the economic crash in 2001. yes, its a bit mad max!

My strategy: i cant afford land or large quantities of precious metals. Both can be taken from you anyway.
Knowledge is key, knowledge will keep you alive, make you valuable. The ability to mend things, to see food all around you (grasses,weeds etc) in the middle of a food riot.

By the time TSHTF im hoping to be getting a large amount of my food from foraging & be able to shun dependancy on the GM/chem muck they have planned for us.

Last edited by psych on 09 Jan 2009, 12:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There's no indication that the current economy will develop into something similar to the great depression. My wife's grandfather lives with us and he talks about life during the depression all the time (he grew up next door to our current house). He said money wasn't worthless - people just didn't have money. His family ended up giving away potatoes to people because they didn't have the money to buy them and would starve otherwise.

I do think it's unrealistic for people to think the "good times" we're going through right now are going to continue. (I think we're still in good times despite the economic contraction). It's obvious the US Government will need to reduce spending at some point to pay back its debt. That means less social security, less medicaid, fewer social programs, etc and more of a burden on individuals. It has been selfish of the country to continue spending this way and would be selfish to continue.

Very interesting topic! Some people around me are saying that a world war would solve the economic crisis....

Some Depression Babies collected canned food or cloth. My grandfather collected tools, and kept them in usable shape. He always figured that if another depression came along, he'd be able to use his skills at woodworking, carpentry, and engine repair to survive. I think the key is to have a skill that's in demand, and that people will trade food or scarce money for.

The people who always get it in the neck during depressions are unskilled workers, including retail clerks and other general service workers. Most of today's homeless who were recently made homeless (not mentally ill, chronic addicts, or veterans) are unskilled workers or office drones. During the 30s all the factory workers and subsistence farmers were the ones who wandered the countryside begging for potatoes.

I was scrolling through the police log for a small town in rural Nevada (about 30,000 people) in the town's online newspaper recently, and I noticed that most of the crime was by welfare users, laborers, general unemployed, and methamphetamine addicts. And it was mostly property crime, theft, larceny, robbery for money/valuables, and such. Just desperate people trying to make it, with some tweekers mixed in.

I've noticed a lot of scams lately, I get approached a lot by young males calling themselves "mobile dent repair specialists" in grocery store parking lots demanding that I pay them money to fix dents on my car, and then turning enraged when I turn them down. There is no such thing as "mobile dent repair", they wheedle money out of you and then flee. Many times they use stolen vehicles, one guy had a Ford truck with the dealer's paper plate still on it, and no temporary tag visible. Several have screamed obscenities at me when I rejected their "offer". I haven't been challenged to a fight yet, but I expect that to happen too. Everybody is desperate.

It would, other then now days its all done with a push of buttons.
we need (sad to say) eye to eye combat.
it would lower our level of population, reduce the male population, and increase job opportunities.
with push button technology few of our populations would be affected and our male population would still out strip the females.
we need a reduction in population and less males -v- female population.

If I were everyone in the world I could fix this issue by increasing public spending. If people don't spend money, it gets worse. These recessions happen about once every 15 to 10 years, and just help balance the economy, and bring some prices back in check. Yes they can do a lot of harm, but we will recover from it, depression won't happen unless everyone hordes all their money.

"Food funding (food-stamps) and education grants and unemployment benefits and disability and (SSD/SSI/SS) retirements benefits will all be lost or cut, along with housing grants and everything else the government funds"

IMO, recession is good news for people who receive state fundigs, disability pensions, retirement, etc.

These benefits will not be cut, much the opposite (the "common knowledge" with economists is thar, in recessions, givernment shoud increase is spendings). And prices will go down.

The problem of recessions is unemployment and bussiness failures, but, for people already without employment and for people with a very safe employement, recessions are "mana from heaven".

The only reason recessions happen is because people are not spending as much money as when the economy is in growth, so if people horde everything, the economy gets worse, but if people continue to spend money, the economy will balance itself out again.

money is created out of debt (see fractional reserve banking) therefore if there was no debt, there would be no money.

IMO the boom/bust cycle is manipulated. In the boom, banks inflate the money supply, by creating new money that is backed only by the borrowers promise to repay. As they only create the principal loan amount & not the interest, at any point in time there is never enough credit in the system to pay them collectively back; the worlds population is always indebted to the banks. The effects of this debt are not felt however, as long as the money supply is continually being inflated...

This leaves us in a vulnerable position, because anytime the lending slows down a bust is initiated. The population is called upon to repay their debts, which of course is impossible because their simply isnt enough money in existance. Then its payday for the banks: they get to help themselves to all the real material wealth - property, land, shares, possessions etc, having taken no risk whatsoever.

Its madness. You deposit $100 into a bank, they can turn that into $190 (or whatever the fractional reserve ratio allows) Theoretically your money has now lost almost half its value. The current system is an outrage, worse than that though it is unsustainable - total collapse is inevitable. Far better to end it now & endure the consequences, adapt as best we can than head on towards oblivion. Thats why id advise everyone to pull all their savings out of banks, deal with fiat currencies as little as is possible.

This vid explains it better than me
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 2583451279

# one most important thing is not to spend money that you don't have. ie. Credit cards, borrowing. Best thing to do is save, if you are able to.

I'll most likely be alone when that hits, so I'll be reading up on solitary survival tips.

I look forward to the day when our homes are again constructed by our bare hands, and the food we eat is the food that we grow. Maybe then people will stop complaining.