Hard times have some flirting with survivalism: Americans stockpiling 'beans, bullets and Band-Aids’

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27244465/

Hard times have some flirting with survivalism
Economic angst has Americans stockpiling 'beans, bullets and Band-Aids’

SEATTLE - Atash Hagmahani is not waiting for the stock market to recover. The former high-tech professional turned urban survivalist has already moved his money into safer investments: Rice and beans, for starters.

“I hoard food,” says Hagmahani, 44, estimating that he has enough to last his family a year or two. “I’m not ashamed to admit it.”

“People keep asking when this (economic crisis) is going to clear up,” says Hagmahani, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that he be identified only by the pseudonym he uses for his survivalist blog, or by his first name, Rob.

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Long-lasting food in demand
Others more directly embedded in the survival industry say they, too, are seeing the biggest surge of orders since the run-up to Y2K, when angst surged over whether computers would survive the dawn of a new millennium.

“I’m getting slammed with big orders,” said Kurt Wilson, a distributor of freeze-dried foods and other provisions with decades-long shelf life, like canned meat, cheese and butter.

“I have customers who were spending 200 bucks a month now spending $5,000 to $8,000,” Wilson said from his warehouse in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. “I get little old ladies calling up, stocking up for their grandchildren.”

this article made me think about what I am buying at the market and how to better store what I have.

:kick:

is promoting this list:

http://www.thepowerhour.com/news/items_disappearfirst.htm

One commenter mentioned that with their guns, all they need to do is find 'expendable liberals'. The joke will be on them, since there are at least 2 /2 times more of us than there are of them. Here's a sampling of their list:

100 Items to Disappear First

1. Generators (Good ones cost dearly. Gas storage, risky. Noisy...target of thieves; maintenance etc.)
2. Water Filters/Purifiers
3. Portable Toilets
4. Seasoned Firewood. Wood takes about 6 - 12 months to become dried, for home uses.
5. Lamp Oil, Wicks, Lamps (First Choice: Buy CLEAR oil. If scarce, stockpile ANY!)
6. Coleman Fuel. Impossible to stockpile too much.
7. Guns, Ammunition, Pepper Spray, Knives, Clubs, Bats & Slingshots.
8. Hand-can openers, & hand egg beaters, whisks.
9. Honey/Syrups/white, brown sugar
10. Rice - Beans - Wheat
11. Vegetable Oil (for cooking) Without it food burns/must be boiled etc.,)
12. Charcoal, Lighter Fluid (Will become scarce suddenly)
13. Water Containers (Urgent Item to obtain.) Any size. Small: HARD CLEAR PLASTIC ONLY - note - food grade if for drinking.
14. Mini Heater head (Propane) (Without this item, propane won't heat a room.)
15. Grain Grinder (Non-electric)
16. Propane Cylinders (Urgent: Definite shortages will occur.
17. Survival Guide Book.
18. Mantles: Aladdin, Coleman, etc. (Without this item, longer-term lighting is difficult.)
19. Baby Supplies: Diapers/formula. ointments/aspirin, etc.
20. Washboards, Mop Bucket w/wringer (for Laundry)
21. Cookstoves (Propane, Coleman & Kerosene)
22. Vitamins
23. Propane Cylinder Handle-Holder (Urgent: Small canister use is dangerous without this item)
24. Feminine Hygiene/Haircare/Skin products.
25. Thermal underwear (Tops & Bottoms)

"Without it, food burns/must be boiled..."

If they're THAT ignorant about how to survive when all the McDonald's disappear, they are in deep doodoo.

:eyes:

heh...just go to any freeper rally; there will be about a hundred extra of those just lying around unused.

As soon as the Democrats look like they are about to come back into power, it's under the bed with a gun these people go. We know what the underlying situation here is.

If I was inclined to do this, I would have done it four years ago.

ads, memes etc. work because for the most part, people do as they hear and are told

sure i'm no different, i have a silly oversized bag of rice too

In fact, the word needs to go out that the freepers aren't the only ones who can anticipate disasters. And they need to know that brains are the most important thing to have in a crisis....so we win.

if we learn anything from disasters as cedar fire, katrina, ike, and so on, when there is a disaster and you have to move, most of that crap is not going with you -- the money you sunk in a 2 yr supply a food because you believed the mormons is gone forever and the food itself is mostly destroyed by the fire or flood as well

economic disaster is the same way, you lose your house or in their case i guess your crappy trailer cum bomb shelter, and guess what, that boatload of survival crap is not going to fit into the truck you can't afford to feed with gas

my new rule of survival, figure out what will fit in the SMALLEST most fuel efficient car i own and go from there, all this buying and selling of survivalistic crap is mostly just a scam to rip off hysterics and fools

think about the logic of buying a cabin in the country and living there with next to nothing in a miserable hand to mouth setting...because you're afraid you might lose your job and end up homeless in a crappy cabin living there w. next to nothing in a miserable hand to mouth setting

maybe the world will end and one day there will be no electricity, how does it make it better that they're already hiding in a hole w. no electricity and forced to fill an expensive generator w. expensive fuel?

it's just stupid, which is why the movement (despite the good points of knowing how to survive) seems to attract so many of the stupid people

my neighbors just lost their rental and have packed up their crap and put it in a storage unit, how "prepared" were they at the end of the day? their crap has a place to live and they don't!!! great skilz there dudes

Where I live people pay out the ass to get to live in a "crappy" cabin in the woods for as short a time as one week. Usually it is out of staters who do that though, natives tend to either have family camps or something similiar.

i'm saying that these survivalists who go off the grid into areas where there is no zoning, you're not being quite real if you deny that a lot of these cabins are crappy or even dangerous and wouldn't be tolerated in more urban/suburban areas for safety reasons

i used to know a man whose scam was selling survival foods and, well, it's one thing to have a summer cottage with some beans and rice in it, it's quite different to uproot your entire family and take them away from any chance of the kids getting health care or education, because you're a nut that wants to hide in the woods before the disaster even happened yet

if you read the article, one of the men featured prominently is one of these "nuts"

i guarantee you that his cabin is "crappy" and that his kids will grow up to resent being forced to live like that when he could have made other options

Except in movies. I do agree that taking your family into the wild for no reason other than distrust of life in society is more than a little odd, but in my mind if you aren't hurting anyone, do it up. Applies to people who want to live in self-built cabins in the woods as well.

get on a small canoe that can negotiate the bayous, get out and backpack in the backcountry a little bit

if you've never gone outside the area that is covered by the "universal code" then not sure if you've encountered survivalists to begin with, except for the con artist style who is happy to sell the dehydrated meals at hugely inflated cost and live in the burbs while taking the cash from the die hards

Last time I was grocery shopping, and I did buy them specifically because they are great staple foods and last a very long time. But I was more thinking about needing to cut spending down to almost nothing later this winter or maybe spring at the latest.


A major in the state Air Guard I know always says you can never have enough guns. He is right, they never really lose their value the way other objects do, and will always have some practical value as well. Great barter items if the apocalypse-dreamers ever turn out to be right.


I don't think any of that makes me a survivalist though.

four years ago. Nothing freeperish about it. I have long term storage food from Mountain House, medium storage like rice and beans and dehydrated foods, and short term as in canned goods. I also have a garden, heirloom seeds,chickens and an edible landscape.

With the just in time system we have in this country any blip could cause a breakdown in availability of food supplies. My father who was a Korean war vet did the same thing ie keeping a stock of supplies and it was how I was taught but it was not until the past few years that I began really doing it to the extent I have been.

My grandmother canned and dehydrated her own food from her garden. People used to be more self sufficient. I think the economic breakdown will take at least a decade to heal. Nothing wrong with self responsibility in provisioning oneself if one has the ability to do it.

If the world is truly running out of oil we will all be eating seasonal foods like we did in the past. Eating locally grown food is better for the environment. A sustainable lifestyle is a good thing. I like knowing that my foods are grown without pesticides. I like harvesting honey from my own beehive. I also like having a solar freezer which I bought after surviving three hurricanes in six weeks. Like Scarlett, as God as my witness, I will never be without ice again.

So I have some supplies (not 2 years worth). Since I was a kid we've been told to have some supplies for at least 3 days but my parents never got to it. I was pretty lax too, but since Katrina and Ike I realized that Fema is pretty useless so I have some basic supplies for a bit in case some type of situation happens. I have happened upon some survival sites in my quest for supplies. Those people are nutty. It is good to be prepared to take care of yourself in case of emergencies, but these folks spend their time planning for the end of civilization. Scary.

in an earthquake you might be able to take and use the 72 hrs of supplies just as in katrina i was able to take and use my 72 hrs of supples

however, most of the stuff was a dead loss for obvious reasons

in a survival situation where your house might be destroyed, or it might be lost to the banks, or whatever, don't buy more than you can carry is a reasonable rule if you want to be prepared

who was better off after katrina? the guy stuck in his attic with his supplies that were quickly getting overheated in the 108 heat index weather or folks like me who drove away with a few things but had cash/credit card/or debit card -- the answer is pretty clear, the person w. car and cash who took off had a much higher survival rate than the guy in his attic with his rice, his bottled water, and his guns

cash is light and easy to carry, "stuff" esp. water is heavy and not easy to transport

doing it. I am doing it because I want a sustainable lifestyle not because I am afraid the end of the world as we know it is coming. I like being prepared for a lot of contingencies and I get a lot of satisfaction in providing for myself so it is a win win for me.

A couple of years worth of food because you are worried about a nationwide disaster is :tinfoilhat: time.

website from our own govt. If there is an emergency they say we are on our own and I can tell you from watching their past performance I totally believe them. I went almost three weeks without power after hurricanes and had everything I needed handy. I don't drive so I have to shop in a different way than most.

where they shot themselves out of boredom.

:rofl:

You never know what could happen, we are a very disaster-prone nation.

Examples:

- A Cat. 5 hurricane could make a direct hit on Miami.
- 8.0+ earthquakes could hit on the San Andreas and New Madrid faults.
- A strong underwater earthquake off the coast of the Pacific Northwest could produce a huge tsunami.
- Wildfires regularly break out in the west.
- Anyone living near a major river is at risk of flood.
- Paralyzing ice storms like the one that hit Quebec in 1998 could happen in a lot of areas.
- The Yellowstone Caldera super volcano could erupt.