I think we have different knowledge than we did back then. Back then every man knew how to shoot a gun, sharper a knife, identify trees, etc. Now we know who won what game or what stock has been doing well. People used to be more rural and grew up spending some time outdoors. I've made it a priority now to get my kids out into the parks because they don't have the opportunity to grow up outdoors like I did. Our vacations are state and national parks and forests and the rest of the world thinks were strange or boring because once you have seen one park you have seen them all while I look at them going on vacation only to find the nearest mall or walmart because to me once you have seen one of those you. have seen them all.

Hi Sue,

I agree with your thoughts on another Depression. I don't know how even my friends will cope. I suspect that as long as the power is flowing they can play video games and watch movie rentals/surf the net.
If the power goes out I can't imagine how most people will cope.

I'm not sure if this should go into another thread or if this will be a quick tangent, but...

Sue, what are your thoughts on the transportation of food/goods in a greater depression than version 1 (the one that happened). My thoughts are that most everything will work as before, but that the prices will be prohibitive. Certain items (like a 10,000 mile kiwi) will be a thing of the past (along with the awesome selection). My concern is that people today are so disconnected from farming/nature etc. that they would be in danger of starvation.

-NIM

I agree with this, for the most part. Many rely on others to do the tasks the almost everyone used to do for themselves. One of the things I try to be in order to be more prepared for things I may encoutner is to improve or learn skills. Limited success with knitting so far. Better in other areas.

As far as biological attacks, the Soviets also used them during WWII. They used rats to infect German forces with tularemia, which helped them win at Stalingrad. The tularemia also came back to Soviet forces. See: http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/90/363/14923_tularemia.html

As far as the general topic, I cannot see living out of a pack for ten years. I doubt a pack would survive intact for five years of constant use. I could see having a pack as something with which one might start out using, and then using skills, knowledge, tools, etc. to build more.

Hi new here cant help wondering, though I do not know how far back tooth brushes and floss go, but there is a way to help with keeping your teeth is that when you have a minor problem you get at it quickly and I have some experience here, is that you use salt in high concentration to gargle and rinse as often as possable that will prevent the beginning of painful swollen gums from becomming a big problem. As for chewing on sticks that is probably where tooth picks started from. Oh and swisshing high quality alcohol helps too.Like good scotch?

Hi NIM, thanks for sharing the kit! Despite the naysayers I think you have a great plan that would most likely lead to an eventual colony in the remote areas as more well prepared folks arrive to areas that the unprepared will never be able to reach.

I live in a moderate sized, poor city with one of the highest violent crime rates in the US. Having been employed as a LEO through a few large scale emergencies and a major riot I do not wish to imagine the environment that people will encounter if Western civilization shudders for even a brief period. An atomic war or other semipermanent event worsens that scenario exponentially.

Your plan to go to very remote areas and make it a go is very noble and I would rather face the wild threats than the 'civilized' ones any day, even if it is only our family attempting it.

It seems like transition to the remote areas can be a healthful and pleasant experience now if you can do it. For the past several years I've been seeking employment on the fringes of remote areas, I did take a new 'corporate' type government job that is better suited to large universities, nuke/chemical plants or diamond mines since I'm now too old to transfer to a Park Ranger job (plus the pay cut would be a little drastic right now). It will only be a matter of time before we will be moving.

Thanks again and keep up the good work!

I see the reliance on others a lot. I see guys around me having garages full of tools, much more than I have, yet they pay someone else to do every little thing. Time for an oil change, call and schedule an appointment with the dealer, request time off work so you can drop the car off, have the wife take time off work to pick him up and take him to work. Then call every couple hours to see if its done, have the wife leave work early to pick him and go to the dealer, its pretty much an all day event. Me, I take 10 minutes and change the oil, letting it drain while I rotate my tires and wash my windows.
Same with anything else, faucet drips, spend a day call three plumbers for quotes and scheduling a day off work for them to come do the work. I just swing by a hardware store on the way home from work and buy a new faucet and replace it before dinner.
People say their time is too valuable to do things themselves but it always seems to take longer to have someone do the work that it does to do it yourself.

I really can't see anyone living out of a pack for years either. You really need to be raised that way, to have those youth years being taught by someone who does live that way and gain experience with that person there watching over you. Even then your still not very likely to survive all that long and if you are on of the few that can then you become a legend like the few who have in the past.

Good points and people also have to remember that even the old mountain men, explorers and early settlers returned to civilization on a regular basis to restock and in many cases stay for the winter as it was much easier to live with the modern conveniences of the time then it was to survive out in the wild on their own.

"Sue, what are your thoughts on the transportation of food/goods in a greater depression than version 1 (the one that happened). My thoughts are that most everything will work as before, but that the prices will be prohibitive."

I don't visualize such a pretty picture. I would think it would happen as a domino effect.

Right now, we've got kind of a credit problem, home prices are dropping, more and more jobs are being outsourced to other countries, and our government is spending money we don't have like a bunch of drunken sailors on shore leave.

What happens if a large number of people default on their credit bills? What if people buying on credit is what is keeping many/most of our industries alive?

What will happen to the banking business? What happens if people start quietly withdrawing what little savings they have and hoarding cash? Part of the blame for the Great Depression was laid on the Federal Reserve, due to issuing a great amount of paper money, which led to the rise of the stock market, and when that bubble broke, the Great Depression followed. Do you think the way the Federal Reserve operates has improved, or is it a liability?

If existing homes can't sell for even for what is owed on them, will the construction industry start to fail? If the construction industry goes under, what happens to all the businesses that sell to them?

Right now, the cost of fuel is raising the prices of all goods. Is everyone's paycheck increasing to cover the difference? Unless a lot of people use even more credit (that they can't pay off), they are getting less product for every dollar they spend, and they only have a limited number of dollars. What are they giving up? Is what they're not buying causing manufacturing business owners to lose sleep?

When manufacturers realize that their sales have dropped, they're going to lay off people and try to stay alive by producing only their best sellers. They could try raising prices, but if peoples' buying power is dropping, what do you think will happen?

Most American farmers bought into the big farm/single crop/high debt pipe dream, and they walk a narrow line between profit and loss. What happens if crop prices fall to the point they can't make any profit at all? Just pick one, like corn or soybeans. A lot of America's farm crops are sold overseas. If they try to raise the price there to offset their losses here, what do you think will happen?

Our money has no value, it is based solely on faith in our economy. What happens if a large part of America looses faith? (That's what the Stock Market Crash of 1929 was, and it got worse by 1933.)

If businesses can't make enough money to stay in business, they go under. If enough businesses fail, the resulting unemployment gets a trifle severe. If more business fail than are operating, how does the State pay unemployment? And when your six months of unemployment ends (if you got it), and there is still no jobs in sight, what do you do then?

I think NOTHING would work as before. If we even reached the point where only bare necessities were being produced, our unemployment would probably be very high. (In the Great Depression, unemployment was about 25%, but most women didn't work, so might we be looking at a 50% rate or higher?)

Last month (November, 2007) the total number of unemployed people in the U.S. was 7.2 million (4.7%), out of a total of 154 million. If 50% is a reasonable figure, we're looking at maybe 75 million destitute people.

But the price of gas might go down.

Sue

Good points Sue!

Your post reminds me of a presentation I watched recently: Dr. Albert A. Bartlett's

Arithmetic, Population and Energy
(or the you tube title: The most important video you will ever see!)

As a caveat: this is NOT a crazy survivalist TEOTWAKI video. The clairvoyance and perspective this presentation provides is critical to decisions that must be made for the eventual apex of "growth" in all forms. If you were on the fence about preparation before...you will not be after this video. This simple presentation with math and historic examples demonstrates how fragile our systems are and how much we really do need to prepare for emergency.

Be sure to watch all the parts:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8

Please don't take this personally, Nemo, but you forgot to include:
"Part 9, The Final Solution: Forced Abortion, Mandantory Sterilization & Elimination of the Useless Eaters"

This is just another rehash of two hundred year old Malthusian nonsense.

To paraphrase: "I've noticed that all the people who are in favor of population control happen to be born already."

I'd like to ask him if he considers himself more deserving of life than one of my 5 children, and if so, which one? If he's not more important, and he really believes what he's saying, why hasn't he killed himself? Oh, I forgot, we NEED him to preach to true gospel! Population controllers always exempt themselves.

He reveals how small his own personal world is when he defers to a science fiction writer as THE authority on "human dignity". I suggest he try to become a bit more well rounded and expand his world (its never too late in life) starting with something like Humanae Vitae

Back to whence you came you sad little old man! Back! Back to the Carter administration, BACK!