@Quix @Oceander @mystery-ak @CatherineofAragon @kartographer Quix, I have a good deal to say about this. First, I had conversations with Mac Slavo, owner of SHTF, a few years ago due to his reading prepper articles I wrote for a survival website. The articles are so many they could make a book. Also, a man named Selco, wrote many articles for Slavo's SHTF website. Selco lived in Bosnia, was a paramedic when war suddenly broke out. He was not prepared for that and he and his extended family suffered and tried to stay alive. After that war, Selco made damn sure he would never be caught off guard again. What he learned, he shared with us on the SHTF website. Some of Selco's teachings had to do with mental preparation for saving your life and your family's lives. Some teachings were horrible to read since they came from his personal experience, and they made a definite impression on those who read those. His teachings are the best I ever read coming from someone who had been there, done that and was still alive. Kartographer and I used to say, "When Selco speaks, listen."
Now, to Slavo's comments about the article:
“Editor’s Comment: The cashless society is catching up to all of us. Most of Europe has shifted that way, and now India is forcing the issue. In the United States, people are being acclimated to it, and may soon find that no other option is practical in the highly-digitized online world. Once that takes hold, the banksters, bureaucrats and hackers will have total information on all your transactions, purchasing behavior, profiles about consumers, political and social background history and even predictive behavior, allowing them to control the population with ease. If/when a major crisis hits,
nothing will work if the grid goes down; nothing will take place that isn’t strictly authorized – apart from a barter and precious metals exchange system that will be marginalized to the pre-digital ghetto.”
If the grid goes down, no one is going to "strictly authorize" anything. I have studied this since 1998, and prepared for the grid to go down. Absolutely everything stops if the grid goes down. No banks will be open, no one will go to work. You don't have to pay any bills you once paid. Trucks delivering food will stop as soon as the grid goes down. It will be every man for himself. A person will die after three days without water. That is the first deaths that will happen and some will be killed to get the water they have. A man will do anything to keep his family alive with water, and he will kill others to get it. Killing for food will come next.
Money: If the grid is up, and an emergency happens with banks, those with money will survive longer than those without money. For any emergency that affects banks, one needs to have small bills and quarters and I don't mean gold. If you don't have a stack of one dollar bills and quarters, get some. That is not as easy to do as you may think, as banks don't have much actual money - example:
About two years ago, I went to my bank and ask for one thousand dollar bills and five hundred dollars in quarters. It was as if I had asked for the moon. The clerks in the bank stopped their work and shuffled back and forth to put together this money. I sat for twenty minutes waiting for the money. I took every dollar bill they had and had to take some $5 dollar bills. I doubt they had many quarters left, either. Just because you want cash money that is in your bank account, doesn't mean they have the money to give it to you. If credit cards don't work, you had better have small bills and quarters. I won't go into bartering for goods with other goods, as that is a long process to explain. Except for this: NEVER barter with ammunition - it will be used against you to get what you have.
From the article:
“If you have any misguided notion that a cashless society is not coming, just keep telling yourself that every time you use a debit card, credit card or your phone for your next purchase. With the elimination of cash we effectively hand over our individual human sovereignty to the banks and the government.”
The above is another reason to have cash in your house. Credit cards are pieces of useless plastic if they don't work. In an emergency, what do you need to have to stay alive until the emergency is over? Store everything you use right now to stay alive. One day in 1998, in winter, I woke up, picked up pen and paper and practiced that there was no power, food trucks would not come, so what would I not have that I needed to have to stay alive. Bathroom first, right? No water, no toilet paper. It was cold, some way to stay warm. Into the kitchen, no power, no coffee would be made. We are talking serious trouble here - no coffee. Had to store coffee and food easy to cook and figure out a way to cook/heat food. No power, no light in the house, figure out a way to have light. I kept doing this, then thought I need to stop and wash some clothes - Rats! No way to wash clothes, figure out a way. I have prepped since that time. Been though hurricanes and no problem to be without power for numerous days, I've got it covered even to be cool in Texas without power.
Think about your family and do what you can to provide for yourself in an emergency.
