BW,

Many of us gold bugs believe that a financial crisis is looming, and some believe that our large cities will cease to function in the normal manner when this happens. Such as the "wall mart"effect, where when the trucks that haul our goods in stop coming, due to fuel and financial crisis, the where do we get our goods? We don't have hand-powered sewing machines like I saw being donated in the hundreds to Afghanistan (where a man could put one of his wifes on the machine and be in business!). We don't have nice 'victory gardens' in our neighborhoods, so scarcity is a likely aspect of economic collaps.

But I think you take it too far too fast. This may be an off-topic discussion, but as it is a core motivation of gold investors that economic shock should be good for gold, or that gold investments are a way to protection oneself from failed currency etc. But another, very respected view is that these changes will be more incremental than cathartic. We won't go from SUV to horse and buggy on a long weekend. We'll go to smaller, more fuel efficent cars, 4 day workweek, live close to work, perhaps bycicle more often etc. before we have to learn how to saddle and shoe a horse. We may see a resurgence in gardening to supplement costly grocieres. We may see more emphasis on regional production rather than great-distance shipping of food products.

We may see more builk grocery stores and more actual cooking than pre-packaged meals. Wives may start to bake again?

But the big difference beteen a cathartic collaps overnigth and an incremental one, is that in the latter case, one can get ahead of the curve by conceiving a lifestyle that is a few iterations ahead of the latest step as it unfolds in mainstream way of life. That is to say, those who restructure their lives by selling their homes in the suburbs, and then moving into smaller places close to centres of employment (that will continue operating in a tranformed economy), and within range of some local food production, perhaps with some degree of energy autonomay (partly off grid/solar wind) etc. With access to potable water etc. those are the people who protect themselves. Get out of the suburbs and into the small towns.

But buying guns raises the question: who is safer? - a well armed survivalist? or, - a member of an off-the-grid cohousing community with good gardening, in a rural area with some local food production, fresh water, lumber etc? I put it to you that mobs of people can easily overhwelm or otherwise burn out a survivalist, but members of a community will fair much better.

Or we can look to poor countires, so see how they continue to operate at some marginal level. Again, we see membership in some form of community a key factor. But you are right, those without will do anythying to feed their own dependants.

So I think your Protect Yourself list is a bit over the top, but maybe I'm wrong. I hope it will be more incremenal, taking 5 to 10 years for a complete overhaul of the standards of living and energy consumption, and the basic way people have to organize and live their lives.

That would be a good scenario for a prudent person to stay ahead of the curve. make some real wealth in precious metals, get out of suburbs, organize a semi-sustainable lifestyle within some form of community. By the way, remember the old fils "The Grapes of Wrath?" with James Stewart playing a farmer taking his family from Oklahoma to California during the depression? Well, this would be a dimension of your scenario. In British Columbia, during the depression, those living in the fruit orchards and small farms of the remote, small communities faired much better than urban people or famers from the prairies.

Somewhere there is a 5 acre hobby farm, or 30-family cohousing community on 20 or 30 acres near a small town -- that would be the place to ride out the restructuring of the north american / global (first world) way of life.

Should I feel guilty thinking these changes would be an opportunity?