Post edited 5:02 pm – October 18, 2010 by Marblesonac

Well the most pessemistic projection is the Grid goes down.  If that is the case, then it would get real bad for most.  We would be OK if we can keep our food a secret and we can get the grid back up in two years…

What I suspect the actual worst case scenario to be is a dollar crash/biflation.  That is hyperinflation in food and fuel and deflation in other things.

That would present an opportunity to invest my PM's at some point. 

Oh, for the average sheeple that scenario would be hell and would totally wipe out most all the rich and middle class. Some might starve to death.

Just curious, why the cheerful question?

I'm envisioning (and preparing slowly-and-steadily for) the following scenarios:

(1A) Natural disaster (worst case) — major earthquake requires mass evacuation.  Several years are required to repair the damage (as was the case after Hurricane Katrina and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake).  I'm prepared for this scenario (assuming I don't get crushed to death during the earthquake or get killed in any looting that occurs after the earthquake) in the sense my critical information are backed up online.  Once I get to an Internet connection at the evacuation center, I can pick up my life financially and move on.

(1B) Natural disaster (nightmare scenario) — major earthquake causes major damage, but not enough to require an evacuation.  Several months are required to repair the damage.  Grid and other utilities (gas, phone/Internet, and water) become intermittant.  Much, but not all, infrastructure (roads, bridges, stores, and businesses) are heavily damaged and unusable.  I'm not yet prepared to shelter in place for several months, nor am I prepared to handle a sudden large increase in crime and violence that might occur.

(2) Economic disaster (worst case) — very slow economy results in a Japanese-style deflationary spiral.  The Fed prints money via quantitative easing, but nothing works.  Then hyperinflation takes hold after some trigger event occurs (spike in energy prices due to peak cheap oil, resource shortages as the U.S. goes to war in response to some kind of attack, whatever) that causes severe inflation and then the public freaks out over the large supply of money in circulation — Weimar-style hyperinflation takes hold and runs its brutal course.  I believe I can handle the deflationary phase OK (I'm working to increase my ability to survive such a possibility), but I can't yet handle the hyperinflationary (or severe inflationary) possibilities yet.  Crime and violence are likely to increase slowly over time as people lose hope about their future and first responder services get reduced due to lack of money.

I'm making a "one major disaster at a time" assumption in the above scenarios.  If we have an EMP attack or a flu pandemic during a major earthquake while we are suffering from prolonged deflation, severe inflation, or Weimar-style hyperinflation, then I really am screwed.

I'm also preparing in such a way that I'm not wasting any money if what actually happens is not the worst-case possibility.  Having more food on hand than I may end up needing, for example, can be solved by donating the excess to charity or not adding more to my stock until I draw it down to a lower level.

Now for Sourdough's question: I see a dollar crash bringing about an end to the US as we know it….that series from Shenendoah "the Day the Dollar Died" is what I'm envisioning. Somehow, someway, the Gov't (with the peoples blessing) will try to 'take over' under martial law, in order to try to hold the shattering nation together. This never works….when the Gov't seizes the entire economy, the next phase in the collapse is utter poverty; but, there are enough knowlegdeable people left in this country that knows what that road will lead to and organize some kind of rebellion…they will know it will be better to make one last attempt to revert back to the ways of our founders and risk losing it all, then accepting the fate of a totalitarian regime that will bring us to the state of North Korea or Cuba or some slum in Africa, etc. What will really be the major blow during all this is major wars breaking out all over the world once 'the teacher has left the classroom' and when that happens, the world will truly end as we know it. But hey, this is 'worse case' scenario. Best case: the Tea Party movement could be the beginning of turning this whole mess around!!! You have to have hope!!!

Justin Case, Wow I had two anxiety attacks just reading that. I'll speak well of you when your gone…………

Well, how bad could it get? It's already pretty bad for some. I have friends that visit several amputee camps yearly to tweak a program of "micro finance" whereby we have encouraged people to start small family businesses to replace begging and charity as a means of making their living. For the people in these Amputee camps TEOTWAWKI was when their neighbor asked "Short sleeves or long sleeves?" while holding the machete that would be used to remove their arm at the shoulder "short sleeve" or the wrist "long sleeve". 

MANY people live without enough food, clean water,medical care and security already. But here in the states WOW there are soooo many possibility's the main three I am concerned with are EMP, PLAUGE type virus, and HYPERINFLATION. Of course there are others but there is enough doom n gloom in these big three. With these three we could lose some of the critical building blocks for a modern society to function. I know HYPERINFLATION may be a stretch  for this level of concern BUT the last time the superpower collapsed it was ROME and the known WORLD plunged into darkness.

If we lose the grid, as in transformers are going to need to be replaced after a CME (although not popular to say so here) it will indeed be the  1800's again.

With a Plague or Hyperinflation event in addition to the event caused suffering I would be concerned about the possible loss of people with needed skills to reestablish services and marshal law not going away after things settled down.

In any TEOTWAWKI event I would be concerned about foreign occupation.

I have basic preps covered so maybe that gives me a different perspective than I might otherwise have but I really think SECURITY is priority #1 because without security you really don't HAVE anything……. you are just storing preps for someone else who will come to collect them.

Crab Apple said:

 I really think SECURITY is priority #1 because without security you really don't HAVE anything……. you are just storing preps for someone else who will come to collect them.

I have really been reflecting on this for the last several weeks. And I always come up with the same unpleasant conclusion.