Isn't plumber's solder for use on potable water lines a silver/tin alloy?

I get furloughed for a couple of weeks every year. Been going on for a while. Because I work in the private sector, nobody cares. But a government employee? Heaven forbid, the world will end!

The world won't end. This will be short lived as it always is. No special preps are really needed. If this shutdown lasts until the end of the week, I'll be surprised.

There is a category of federal employee - "permanent,less than full time" These folks are furloughed without pay for somewhere between two weeks and a month each year. Not the greatest thing, but it is predictable and known in advance. The shutdown is a bit different.

One of the reasons government work at lower pay used to be acceptable was that the work was steady, but that was then and this is now.

Well, it looks like NASA's website server is down. Probably couldn't afford the electricity bill for the server or maybe they have NASA employees on large hamster wheels to power the server who were told to go home. A solar PV panel or two could easily solve that problem.

www.nasa.gov

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma-YdIGDoC4

I have been self-employed for most of my adult life, so I've never had the luxury of a clockwork-regular paycheck. Even when I'm working, I can't invoice until I have achieved certain milestones in a project. Then, it can be 30 days (best case) or 90+ days (it happens) before payment comes my way. And long-term, there is usually one really lousy year in every five year cycle; often this happens following completion of a large, difficult job that kept me away from the network that keeps my name in the game.

Needless to say, this influences how I handle my ongoing finances. Debt is poison, and doubly so when the cash flow comes in fits and starts. You don't spend money until you have it in your hand. There has been a decades-long push to create what I call the "castle keep" -- the backstop situation that ensures I am fed, housed, and have financial resources for bad times. I sacrificed a lot to acquire a country property with a creaky old unfashionable house, but it's paid for; and now as long as I can come up with $1500 a year for taxes, nobody can take it from me.
I haven't travelled the world like some; I've driven a lot of high-mile Japanese cars; I don't have a fancy wardrobe or the newest shiny everything. But I don't have to panic at the latest hiccup in the economy either. Believe me, my lifestyle is less stressful than friends who are big spenders and who survive paycheck to paycheck, hoping nothing goes wrong.

I guess my lifestyle isn't for everyone. But with frugal pioneer grandparents on both sides, I guess I come by it honestly. I'm a rabid fixer, scrounger, and recycler -- as much for personal offbeat entertainment as anything. I have also kept up a wide range of "blue collar" skills that I can draw on for casual income if the professional work hits a severe slump (haven't needed it, but I like having options; I might even get a basic steam/boiler ticket and a Class 1 "big rig" licence one of these days, just for entertainment).

Sorry, this is becoming a biographical novel. Hope you can glean something useful from it -- if only this simple message: with persistence and the right attitude, it is possible.

"With 16 staff employees being placed on furlough, Ted Stout, chief of interpretation and education at Craters, told KBOI 2News that no one was looking for 63-year-old Jo Elliott-Blakeslee Tuesday morning, but a handful of staff members will be back out in the challenging terrain in the afternoon resuming the search."

http://www.kboi2.com/news/local/Craters-Moon-Idaho-Jo-Elliott-Blakeslee-Amy-Linkert-225988051.html

Yes, eventually precious metals will lose their value, but there is a critical period during a collapse when fiat currency hyperinflates virtually overnight, while precious metal will gain in value substantially. It won't last, maybe only a week or two, maybe a month, depending on how quickly individual surpluses are diminished, and people are left only with what they feel they must have. That's when gold and silver markets will fall. Those two or three weeks are when you can catch peddlers who, being unwilling to do business in dollars, will still want some form of currency they can recognize. Business owners will want to try and continue unloading stock, so they will fall back to something. They'll look to something easily recognized as currency, and for a time a person with some junk silver or some gold coins could probably find some really good deals.

Consumables, such as food and fuel, will likely quit trading in anything but like kind once the local surpluses get depleted and no restocking occurs. That will be the turning point for precious metals. Since just in time restocking is a SOP for all the big stores, they have at most 3 days until their shelves are picked clean. But it will take some time for that to spread into the rest of the market.

At some point, the economy ought to recover, maybe a matter of months, maybe years. When it does, there must be some form of currency that people can rely on. No one will want a fiat currency again, so a standard will be adopted. People with level heads during the crash will be in a good position when the recovery starts up.

It won't last, but there is a window of opportunity, and a prepared person could capitalize on the situation to great effect.

That worked because they still have a functioning economy. As was said above, precious metals are a buffer, but anyone that thinks it's the be-all and end-all for economic stability is crazy. IF, however, there is still a functioning economy outside the "zone in question," then it probably does make sense. Ie, Argentina still had a relatively stable economy in the surrounding continent. The Jewish ghettos still had the rest of Europe. Heck, even medieval Europe had medieval Europe.

Anything outside of a pure barter system relies on some sort of item with intrinsic value. Yes, gold and silver are obviously the standard. That's only because society made it the standard. But if the world has some sort of calamitous economic meltdown, who knows. TP and toothpaste might be the new standard.

Is gold/silver a waste of money? No. But I think that, if you're using it in place of dollars (or Euro's, or whatever), then it's kind of silly to think of it's value in dollars. Really, you should be planning "This amount I would give for X item." Get a bunch of junk jewelry from your local pawn shop, not pretty Canada Maples or something (if nothing else, you'd have to start going back to the 2-bits type of system). I bet few people are going to be willing to give up anything for a bunch of 50-'s era nickles.

"Not political, just funny..."
Thanks, Russ. I needed that.

I see "800,000 Federal workers furloughed" repeatedly in the news, but I'm assuming that workers who are not direct employees of the Federal government (like contractors) are not included in that number. And businesses that normally rely on Federal workers as customers or on tourists to Federally run places are certainly hurting and not reflected in the numbers either. For example, the businesses near Yosemite have been hit with a double-whammy this summer. First the Rim Fire shut down the main road during the peak of the season and now Yosemite is closed due to the shutdown.