Why we prep
Here’s another reason why you – and your friends and family – should prep:
Venezuelans ransack stores as hunger grips the nation
You can just tell the New York Times is gritting its collective (pun intended) teeth over having to report that the South American shining path, er, city on the socialist hill is about to go belly up. After years of failing collectivism, Venezuela, a nation with arguably the largest oil reserves on Earth, has reached a point where its citizens are eating their pets and the death rate for newborns in a hospital has gone from .02 percent in 2012 to 2 percent in 2015 – according to a government report.
For the statistically challenged, that means one dead baby for every 50 births.
Fortunately, though, such an apocalypse can’t happen here. (The “everything is fine gang” (EFG) is nodding its collective head.) After all, those people aren’t like us. They’re … well … brown. And foreign. And let’s face it, in a non-racist and completely non-elitist way … well, we’re just better.
Besides, they’re a bunch of socialists. For crying out loud, their corrupt government controls their elections! (The move for Washington control of elections) And the crooked national government controls all the police! (So you want to federalize local cops?)
And Venezuela’s evil masters run health care, control public education, regulate religious liberty, stomp on private property rights and apply a different standard of law for the elites over the citizens.
Yep … we’ve got it made.
Folks, there are millions of Americans who are preparing for the coming bad times, and with each passing day that number increases:
Prepping means being able to feed your family and your community no matter what happens – and no matter who makes it happen.
And that’s one of the reasons we prep.
Back in the dark ages when I was attending college, a professor of mine informed me that all of the sciences (astronomy, geology, engineering and even the life sciences) ultimately come down to physics. (Guess what kind of professor he was.) Despite the fact that I hated physics (but had to take a lot of classes in that subject in pursuit of my major) and despite the fact that I thought that particular professor was a dufus, I had to admit he had a point.
Well, I’ve similarly come to the realization that the base of all human and animal interaction is another subject that gives me hives: economics.
If you dig deep enough, all wars and revolutions, every exploration, each historical mass-migration, and every other human endeavor ultimately revolves around profit for someone … and often loss for someone else. And this is true whether it involves a despot moving an army, a worker angling for a raise or a lion eating a gazelle.
So today, I want to talk a bit about prepper economics. I hear from a lot of people (some in the comment section of my columns) that either they’d like to prep but don’t have the money, or that you’re an idiot to spend money on prepping, because it will ultimately be either unnecessary or will do you no good. Either way, they argue, it’s a losing proposition.
They’re wrong.
I’m here to tell you: I have always – always! – made a profit prepping.
Let’s say I’ve been prepping since 2000. Actually it’s been a bit longer than that, but it’s an easy point to start from. I’ve been storing food, equipment, and other tangible assets for 16 years, and adding to that storage each year. Sometimes I buy and occasionally I sell. And I can prove to you that prepping is profitable.
Let’s take a look at some graphs of six commonly collected prepper commodities:
These are the first ones I chose; no cherry-picking. Most of these graphs are representations of changes over time in the Consumer Price Index, which is defined as “monthly data on changes in the prices paid by urban consumers for a representative basket of goods and services.”
On average, the graphs show a relative doubling (or better) in prices over the past 16 years, except gold, which clocks in around a five-fold increase.
“So what?” you may ask. “It’s just inflation.”
And you’d be right. Mostly. But take a look at this graph:
Between 2000 and 2016, the average hourly wage in the U.S. only increased by 43 percent (uncorrected for inflation). I suppose you could call that inflation too … except it hasn’t kept up with costs.
My stores of sealed corn, rice, wheat, powdered eggs and more – all of my prepper food – has increased in value well in excess of the inflationary average income. My stored ammunition values have as well, and my precious metal stock (meaning those metals I can hold in my hand) have increased in value far in excess of inflation.
On Amazon, you can buy a 40-pound bucket of pinto beans that retails for $76. That’s almost $2 a pound.
Back in 2006, I put up 50-pound buckets of pinto beans for around $0.20 a pound, or $8 for a 40-pound bucket. Those beans are still perfectly edible. I could sell those buckets today to other preppers for a four-fold profit … and it would still be cheaper than the bucket on Amazon.
Now the next argument you’ll give me is you don’t have the room for all that storage. My first reply is, find some. But if that’s too simplistic for you, think about this: If you’d started buying just gold or silver in 2000 rather than shares of Solyndra or Lehman Brothers, you could have a shoebox-sized retirement fund. And that box won’t disappear if the lights go out.
The point of this article isn’t, “What a wise fellow I am!” It’s more along the lines of, “If a dummy like me can do it, so can you.” They say the best time to plant an apple tree is ten years ago. But once upon a time, it was ten years ago. If you plant that tree today – meaning, you start investing in the tangibles now – then in ten years, when someone repeats that complaint (whether they’re talking about trees, or being able to feed their family), you can smile and offer them a slice of investment.
And not to be too repetitive, but that’s one of the reasons we prep.
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