Economically, how can concerned Americans prepare for the worst?

[email protected]

Remember your local community is one of the most valuable resources. Get to know your neighbors, invest in your social capital.

I remember coming across post in a /r/collapse on reddit that poked fun at a lot of peoples plans. He stated he was in a war torn country and found a lot of plans revolve around personal survivorship instead of community based. And the immediate local community is the one that most people fall back on and the one that often times helps out the most.

[email protected]

I’m going to say a few things about food and also assuming prices will go up and not quite reach an economic collapse:

Secure your food, learn to prepare cheaper, more plentiful foods in a way that is tasty to you (look to rice and beans). Consider purchasing or creating emergency food reserves. Consider purchasing more canned foods which can last for years. If you have freezer space, consider vacuum sealing food to keep them for longer.

Generally, look for ways to reduce extraneous cost and rely more on yourself and your immediate community. (This will be difficult to do, no mistaking it)

[email protected]

As another has said, strengthen your local ties. In the event of a collapse, we're all going to be affected in one way or another. I think the biggest thing is fostering a culture of cooperation rather the competition. That means avoid prepping by emptying store shelves to store goods en masse in your basement or shelter.

I think a good first step would be to look for local mutual aid groups. Just Google your town or state + "mutual aid". These groups are already out there directly servicing those most in need, and are the most ready to spring into action when a disaster strikes (here is some about mutual aid group action during Hurricane Helene)

Oftentimes these groups are open to volunteers or donations and will be active during natural catastrophes, and I'd imagine economic ones as well.

[email protected]

Emigrate?

[email protected]

Friend, you need to be a pepper!! I feel so good having extra of everything I need!

[email protected]

Nobody wants us any where mate.

It ain't as easy as people think it should be lol

Best chance is finding some nice foreign person who loves you enough to get married and import you into their socialist paradise.

This tactic works better for women generally lol

Nobody wants a broke middle aged cuck haha

[email protected]

As a teen we went through the collapse in the 80s when (in Canada) mortgage rates hit 21%. So Get your mortgage rate locked in now and don't have a renewel pending in the next 2 years.

For my family in the 80s it meant most income was going to the mortgage and we had to be very frugal. We ate a lot of potatoes and beans, no restaurants ever, and no extras. My dad also hunted, left over meats went into soups.

We are currently living frugally for reasons. We buy bulk dried chick peas, kidney beans, lentils (various kinds), frozen peas, rice. We stock up on potatoes , carrots, onions and canned tomatoes. With a large selection of spices and occasionally other ingredient we can make a wide variety of dishes. Weekly grocery shop is around $35-50.

I expect for those in the USA the luxury of lavish meals will need to become more like my frugal diet.

Drop extra services...do you really need more than one streaming service, could you go without and scour the thrift store for BlueRay / DVDs , the libraries have free rentals of new releases.

Carpool. Barter between neighbours to exchange services.

[email protected]

Barter between neighbours to exchange services.

Facebook groups and market place is great for this.

Always go there for first. And remember in order to make this work, got to buy AND sell.

Each second hand transaction denies the parasites profit!

[email protected]

Build a garden if you can and join community efforts like mutual aid. We are strongest together

[email protected]

Do any vehicle maintenance you can now. Look up common issues for your vehicle and maybe buy those parts as they might be extra expensive due to tarrifs. If you need to you can sell them later.

[email protected]

Learn about gardening and join a shooting range I guess.

[email protected]

Also check out https://buynothingproject.org

[email protected]

or that mainstream (S&P, Nasdaq) financial investments were no longer sound, what can one do to prepare for “the worst”?

Investors that factor in world markets would probably do okay as long as you're talking just U.S. economic troubles. e.g. right now VT (total world stock ETF) is weighted 64.70% U.S. market due to market strength. So in theory if the U.S. tanked and other countries have better markets for investing then the weights would slip to the other side and maybe being closer to 30% U.S. vs rest of the world's markets weighted towards 70%.

[email protected]

Save money and get to know your neighbors.

Trump probably won't cause total collapse, so a basement full of beans is unlikely to be useful, but anyone relying on welfare or part of a minority group will need support. Savings will help with that, and could come in handy if you yourself get fired, either because of discrimination or economic recession.

[email protected]

The free options will still be there. Banning a few pirate sites will make it less convenient for streamers, but bittorrent isn't dependent on those sites and tools like Tribler can find them straight off the DHT.

[email protected]

We'll see hopefully they have to play whackamole and keep having to go to court and waste their time.

[email protected]

Too bad you didn't stockpile your r's

[email protected]

You've been downvoted but this is pretty much what my elders told me.

[email protected]

That might potentially work if you timed it exactly right but I'm skeptical of the idea of gold as a store of value, I think it will get hammered like every other asset class if we're talking about the end of the US as a liberal democracy governed by the rule of law. Especially if you have actual physical gold you need to keep secured, if things get bad enough that becomes a real liability. If its not physical gold will it still be there without the US legal system to enforce your rights? I would much rather have a pile of freeze dried food than a pile of gold or a pile of GLD ETF shares if it's actually a worse case scenario.

[email protected]

Think of what a bar of gold is worth. 1,000,000. That's 25 pounds.

I don't have that much money so for me the weight would be significantly less. That would be super easy to conceal and head some where safe. If the US fell the gold can be converted to any currency. Even if it took a year or two for another country to pick up and be a stable place to go, the gold would still be good.

So that makes gold a solid place to store the value. Go back hundreds of years people still wanted gold. Hundreds of years from now people will probably still want gold.

If it's a serious crash but the US dollar comes back. Gold will still be a good solid place to store the value. If the US changes from dollar to something else, then gold still works.

The only question is timing the market, but to me still not a big deal since generally safe gold goes up in value.

agnos.is Forums

Economically, how can concerned Americans prepare for the worst?