Wednesday, November 10, 2021

The 12 Rules of Survival”

The 12 Rules of Survival”
by Laurence Gonzales

“As a journalist, I’ve been writing about accidents for more than thirty years. In the last 15 or so years, I’ve concentrated on accidents in outdoor recreation, in an effort to understand who lives, who dies, and why. To my surprise, I found an eerie uniformity in the way people survive seemingly impossible circumstances. Decades and sometimes centuries apart, separated by culture, geography, race, language, and tradition, the most successful survivors–those who practice what I call “deep survival”– go through the same patterns of thought and behavior, the same transformation and spiritual discovery, in the course of keeping themselves alive.

Not only that but it doesn’t seem to matter whether they are surviving being lost in the wilderness or battling cancer, whether they’re struggling through divorce or facing a business catastrophe– the strategies remain the same. Survival should be thought of as a journey, a vision quest of the sort that Native Americans have had as a rite of passage for thousands of years. Once you’re past the precipitating event– you’re cast away at sea or told you have cancer– you have been enrolled in one of the oldest schools in history. Here are a few things I’ve learned that can help you pass the final exam.

1. Perceive and Believe: Don’t fall into the deadly trap of denial or of immobilizing fear. Admit it: You’re really in trouble and you’re going to have to get yourself out. Many people who in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, died simply because they told themselves that everything was going to be all right. Others panicked. Panic doesn’t necessarily mean screaming and running around. Often it means simply doing nothing. Survivors don’t candy-coat the truth, but they also don’t give in to hopelessness in the face of it. Survivors see opportunity, even good, in their situation, however grim. After the ordeal is over, people may be surprised to hear them say it was the best thing that ever happened to them.

Viktor Frankl, who spent three years in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps, describes comforting a woman who was dying. She told him, “I am grateful that fate has hit me so hard. In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously.” The phases of the survival journey roughly parallel the five stages of death once described by Elizabeth Kubler Ross in her book On Death and Dying: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In dire circumstances, a survivor moves through those stages rapidly to acceptance of his situation, then resolves to do something to save himself. Survival depends on telling yourself, “Okay, I’m here. This is really happening. Now I’m going to do the next right thing to get myself out.” Whether you succeed or not ultimately becomes irrelevant. It is in acting well– even suffering well– that you give meaning to whatever life you have to live.

2. Stay Calm – Use Your Anger: In the initial crisis, survivors are not ruled by fear; instead, they make use of it. Their fear often feels like (and turns into) anger, which motivates them and makes them feel sharper. Aron Ralston, the hiker who had to cut off his hand to free himself from a stone that had trapped him in a slot canyon in Utah, initially panicked and began slamming himself over and over against the boulder that had caught his hand. But very quickly, he stopped himself, did some deep breathing, and began thinking about his options. He eventually spent five days progressing through the stages necessary to convince him of what decisive action he had to take to save his own life.

When Lance Armstrong, six-time winner of the Tour de France, awoke from brain surgery for his cancer, he first felt gratitude. “But then I felt a second wave, of anger… I was alive, and I was mad.” When friends asked him how he was doing, he responded, “I’m doing great… I like it like this. I like the odds stacked against me… I don’t know any other way.” That’s survivor thinking. Survivors also manage pain well. As a bike racer, Armstrong had had long training in enduring pain, even learning to love it. James Stockdale, a fighter pilot who was shot down in Vietnam and spent eight years in the Hanoi Hilton, as his prison camp was known, advised those who would learn to survive: “One should include a course of familiarization with pain. You have to practice hurting. There is no question about it.”

3. Think, Analyze, and Plan: Survivors quickly organize, set up routines, and institute discipline. When Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with cancer, he organized his fight against it the way he would organize his training for a race. He read everything he could about it, put himself on a training schedule, and put together a team from among friends, family, and doctors to support his efforts. Such conscious, organized effort in the face of grave danger requires a split between reason and emotion in which reason gives direction and emotion provides the power source. Survivors often report experiencing reason as an audible “voice.”

Steve Callahan, a sailor and boat designer, was rammed by a whale and sunk while on a solo voyage in 1982. Adrift in the Atlantic for 76 days in a five-and-a-half-foot raft, he experienced his survival voyage as taking place under the command of a “captain,” who gave him his orders and kept him on his water ration, even as his own mutinous (emotional) spirit complained. His captain routinely lectured “the crew.” Thus under strict control, he was able to push away thoughts that his situation was hopeless and take the necessary first steps of the survival journey: to think clearly, analyze his situation, and formulate a plan.

4. Take Correct, Decisive Action: Survivors are willing to take risks to save themselves and others. But they are simultaneously bold and cautious in what they will do. Lauren Elder was the only survivor of a light plane crash in high sierra. Stranded on a peak above 12,000 feet, one arm broken, she could see the San Joaquin Valley in California below, but a vast wilderness and sheer and icy cliffs separated her from it. Wearing a wrap-around skirt and blouse, with two-inch heeled boots and not even wearing underwear, she crawled “on all fours, doing a kind of sideways spiderwalk,” as she put it later, “balancing myself on the ice crust, punching through it with my hands and feet.” She had 36 hours of climbing ahead of her– a seemingly impossible task. But Elder allowed herself to think only as far as the next big rock. Survivors break down large jobs into small, manageable tasks. They set attainable goals and develop short-term plans to reach them. They are meticulous about doing those tasks well. Elder tested each hold before moving forward and stopped frequently to rest. They make very few mistakes. They handle what is within their power to deal with from moment to moment, hour to hour, day to day.

5. Celebrate your success: Survivors take great joy from even their smallest successes. This helps keep motivation high and prevents a lethal plunge into hopelessness. It also provides relief from the unspeakable strain of a life-threatening situation. Elder said that once she had completed her descent of the first pitch, she looked up at the impossibly steep slope and thought, “Look what you’ve done…Exhilarated, I gave a whoop that echoed down the silent pass.” Even with a broken arm, joy was Elder’s constant companion. A good survivor always tells herself: count your blessings– you’re alive. Viktor Frankl wrote of how he felt at times in Auschwitz: “How content we were; happy in spite of everything.”

6. Be a Rescuer, Not a Victim: Survivors are always doing what they do for someone else, even if that someone is thousands of miles away. There are numerous strategies for doing this. When Antoine Saint-Exupery was stranded in the Libyan desert after his mail plane suffered an engine failure, he thought of how his wife would suffer if he gave up and didn’t return. Yossi Ghinsberg, a young Israeli hiker, was lost in the Bolivian jungle for more than two weeks after becoming separated from his friends. He hallucinated a beautiful companion with whom he slept each night as he traveled. Everything he did, he did for her. People cannot survive for themselves alone; their must be a higher motive. Viktor Frankl put it this way: “Don’t aim at success– the more you aim at it and make it a target,the more you are going to miss it.” He suggests taking it as “the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.”

7. Enjoy the Survival Journey: It may seem counterintuitive, but even in the worst circumstances, survivors find something to enjoy, some way to play and laugh. Survival can be tedious, and waiting itself is an art. Elder found herself laughing out loud when she started to worry that someone might see up her skirt as she climbed. Even as Callahan’s boat was sinking, he stopped to laugh at himself as he clutched a knife in his teeth like a pirate while trying to get into his life raft. And Viktor Frankl ordered some of his companions in Auschwitz who were threatening to give up hope to force themselves to think of one funny thing each day. Survivors also use the intellect to stimulate, calm, and entertain the mind.

While moving across a near-vertical cliff face in Peru, Joe Simpson developed a rhythmic pattern of placing his ax, plunging his other arm into the snow face, and then making a frightening little hop with his good leg. “I meticulously repeated the pattern,” he wrote later. “I began to feel detached from everything around me.” Singing, playing mind games, reciting poetry, counting anything, and doing mathematical problems in your head can make waiting possible and even pleasant, even while heightening perception and quieting fear. Stockdale wrote, “The person who came into this experiment with reams of already memorized poetry was the bearer of great gifts.”

Lost in the Bolivian jungle, Yossi Ghinsberg reported, “When I found myself feeling hopeless, I whispered my mantra, ‘Man of action, man of action.’ I don’t know where I had gotten the phrase… I repeated it over and over: A man of action does whatever he must, isn’t afraid, and doesn’t worry.” Survivors engage their crisis almost as an athlete engages a sport. They cling to talismans. They discover the sense of flow of the expert performer, the “zone” in which emotion and thought balance each other in producing fluid action. A playful approach to a critical situation also leads to invention, and invention may lead to a new technique, strategy, or design that could save you.

8. See the Beauty: Survivors are attuned to the wonder of their world, especially in the face of mortal danger. The appreciation of beauty, the feeling of awe, opens the senses to the environment. (When you see something beautiful, your pupils actually dilate.) Debbie Kiley and four others were adrift in the Atlantic after their boat sank in a hurricane in 1982. They had no supplies, no water, and would die without rescue. Two of the crew members drank sea water and went mad. When one of them jumped overboard and was being eaten by sharks directly under their dinghy, Kiley felt as if she, too, were going mad, and told herself, “Focus on the sky, on the beauty there.”

When Saint-Exupery’s plane went down in the Libyan Desert, he was certain that he was doomed, but he carried on in this spirit: “Here we are, condemned to death, and still the certainty of dying cannot compare with the pleasure I am feeling. The joy I take from this half an orange which I am holding in my hand is one of the greatest joys I have ever known.” At no time did he stop to bemoan his fate, or if he did, it was only to laugh at himself.

9. Believe That You Will Succeed: It is at this point, following what I call “the vision,” that the survivor’s will to live becomes firmly fixed. Fear of dying falls away, and a new strength fills them with the power to go on. “During the final two days of my entrapment,” Ralston recalled, “I felt an increasing reserve of energy, even though I had run out of food and water.” Elder said, “I felt rested and filled with a peculiar energy.” And: “It was as if I had been granted an unlimited supply of energy.”

10. Surrender: Yes you might die. In fact, you will diem– we all do. But perhaps it doesn’t have to be today. Don’t let it worry you. Forget about rescue. Everything you need is inside you already. Dougal Robertson, a sailor who was cast away at sea for thirty-eight days after his boat sank, advised thinking of survival this way: “Rescue will come as a welcome interruption of… the survival voyage.” One survival psychologist calls that “resignation without giving up. It is survival by surrender.” Simpson reported, “I would probably die out there amid those boulders. The thought didn’t alarm me… the horror of dying no longer affected me.” The Tao Te Ching explains how this surrender leads to survival:

“The rhinoceros has no place to jab its horn,
The tiger has no place to fasten its claws,
Weapons have no place to admit their blades.
Now, what is the reason for this?
Because on him there are no mortal spots.”

11. Do Whatever Is Necessary: Elder down-climbed vertical ice and rock faces with no experience and no equipment. In the black of night, Callahan dove into the flooded saloon of his sinking boat, at once risking and saving his life. Aron Ralston cut off his own arm to free himself. A cancer patient allows herself to be nearly killed by chemotherapy in order to live. Survivors have a reason to live and are willing to bet everything on themselves. They have what psychologists call meta-knowledge: They know their abilities and do not over–or underestimate them. They believe that anything is possible and act accordingly.

12. Never Give Up: When Apollo 13′s oxygen tank exploded, apparently dooming the crew, Commander Jim Lovell chose to keep on transmitting whatever data he could back to mission control, even as they burned up on re-entry. Simpson, Elder, Callahan, Kiley, Stockdale, Ginsberg– were all equally determined and knew this final truth: If you’re still alive, there is always one more thing that you can do. Survivors are not easily discouraged by setbacks. They accept that the environment is constantly changing and know that they must adapt. When they fall, they pick themselves up and start the entire process over again, breaking it down into manageable bits. Survivors always have a clear reason for going on. They keep their spirits up by developing an alternate world, created from rich memories, into which they can escape. They see opportunity in adversity.

In the aftermath, survivors learn from and are grateful for the experiences that they’ve had. As Elder told me once, “I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. And sometimes I even miss it. I miss the clarity of knowing exactly what you have to do next.” Those who would survive the hazards of our world, whether at play or in business or at war, through illness or financial calamity, will do so through a journey of transformation. But that transcendent state doesn’t miraculously appear when it is needed. It wells up from a lifetime of experiences, attitudes, and practices form one’s personality, a core from which the necessary strength is drawn. A survival experpierience is an incomparable gift: It will tell you who you really are.”
Laurence Gonzales is the author of “Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why” (W.W. Norton & Co., New York) and contributing editor for “National Geographic Adventure” magazine. The winner of numerous awards, he has written for Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, Conde Nast Traveler, Rolling Stone, among others. He has published a dozen books, including two award-winning collections of essays, three novels, and the book-length essay, “One Zero Charlie” published by Simon & Schuster. For more, go to www.deepsurvival.com

"The 5 Stages of Economic Collapse”

"The 5 Stages of Economic Collapse”
by Dmitry Orlov

“Elizabeth Kübler-Ross defined the five stages of coming to terms with grief and tragedy as denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, and applied it quite successfully to various forms of catastrophic personal loss, such as death of a loved one, sudden end to one’s career, and so forth. Several thinkers, notably James Howard Kunstler and, more recently John Michael Greer, have pointed out that the Kübler-Ross model is also quite terrifyingly accurate in reflecting the process by which society as a whole (or at least the informed and thinking parts of it) is reconciling itself to the inevitability of a discontinuous future, with our institutions and life support systems undermined by a combination of resource depletion, catastrophic climate change, and political impotence.

But so far, little has been said specifically about the finer structure of these discontinuities. Instead, there is to be found continuum of subjective judgments, ranging from “a severe and prolonged recession” (the prediction we most often read in the financial press), to Kunstler’s evocative but unscientific-sounding “clusterf**k,” to the ever-popular “Collapse of Western Civilization,” painted with an ever-wider brush-stroke.

For those of us who have already gone through all of the emotional stages of reconciling ourselves to the prospect of social and economic upheaval, it might be helpful to have a more precise terminology that goes beyond such emotionally charged phrases. Defining a taxonomy of collapses might prove to be more than just an intellectual exercise: based on our abilities and circumstances, some of us may be able to specifically plan for a certain stage of collapse as a temporary, or even permanent, stopping point.

Even if society at the current stage of socioeconomic complexity will no longer be possible, and even if, as Tainter points in his “Collapse of Complex Societies,” there are circumstances in which collapse happens to be the correct adaptive response, it need not automatically cause a population crash, with the survivors disbanding into solitary, feral humans dispersed in the wilderness and subsisting miserably. Collapse can be conceived of as an orderly, organized retreat rather than a rout.

For instance, the collapse of the Soviet Union – our most recent and my personal favorite example of an imperial collapse – did not reach the point of political disintegration of the republics that made it up, although some of them (Georgia, Moldova) did lose some territory to separatist movements. And although most of the economy shut down for a time, many institutions, including the military, public utilities, and public transportation, continued to function throughout. And although there was much social dislocation and suffering, society as a whole did not collapse, because most of the population did not lose access to food, housing, medicine, or any of the other survival necessities. The command-and-control structure of the Soviet economy largely decoupled the necessities of daily life from any element of market psychology, associating them instead with physical flows of energy and physical access to resources. Thus situation, as I argue in my book, "Reinventing Collapse", allowed the Soviet population to inadvertently achieve a greater level of collapse-preparedness than is currently possible in the United States.

Having given a lot of thought to both the differences and the similarities between the two superpowers – the one that has collapsed already, and the one that is collapsing as I write this – I feel ready to attempt a bold conjecture, and define five stages of collapse, to serve as mental milestones as we gauge our own collapse-preparedness and see what can be done to improve it.

Rather than tying each phase to a particular emotion, as in the Kübler-Ross model, the proposed taxonomy ties each of the five collapse stages to the breaching of a specific level of trust, or faith, in the status quo. Although each stage causes physical, observable changes in the environment, these can be gradual, while the mental flip is generally quite swift. It is something of a cultural universal that nobody (but a real fool) wants to be the last fool to believe in a lie.

Stages of Collapse:

Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in “business as usual” is lost. The future is no longer assumed resemble the past in any way that allows risk to be assessed and financial assets to be guaranteed. Financial institutions become insolvent; savings are wiped out, and access to capital is lost.

Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that “the market shall provide” is lost. Money is devalued and/or becomes scarce, commodities are hoarded, import and retail chains break down, and widespread shortages of survival necessities become the norm.

Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that “the government will take care of you” is lost. As official attempts to mitigate widespread loss of access to commercial sources of survival necessities fail to make a difference, the political establishment loses legitimacy and relevance.

Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that “your people will take care of you” is lost. As local social institutions, be they charities, community leaders, or other groups that rush in to fill the power vacuum, run out of resources or fail through internal conflict.

Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in the goodness of humanity is lost. People lose their capacity for “kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity” (Turnbull, "The Mountain People"). Families disband and compete as individuals for scarce resources. The new motto becomes “May you die today so that I die tomorrow” (Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago"). There may even be some cannibalism.

Although many people imagine collapse to be a sort of elevator that goes to the sub-basement (our Stage 5) no matter which button you push, no such automatic mechanism can be discerned. Rather, driving us all to Stage 5 will require that a concerted effort be made at each of the intervening stages. That all the players seem poised to make just such an effort may give this collapse the form a classical tragedy – a conscious but inexorable march to perdition – rather than a farce (“Oops! Ah, here we are, Stage 5.” – “So, whom do we eat first?” – “Me! I am delicious!”) Let us sketch out this process.

Financial collapse, as we are are currently observing it, consists of two parts. One is that a part of the general population is forced to move, no longer able to afford the house they bought based on inflated assessments, forged income numbers, and foolish expectations of endless asset inflation. Since, technically, they should never have been allowed to buy these houses, and were only able to do so because of financial and political malfeasance, this is actually a healthy development. The second part consists of men in expensive suits tossing bundles of suddenly worthless paper up in the air, ripping out their remaining hair, and (some of us might uncharitably hope) setting themselves on fire on the steps of the Federal Reserve. They, to express it in their own vernacular, “f**ked up,” and so this is also just as it should be.

The government response to this could be to offer some helpful homilies about “the wages of sin” and to open a few soup kitchens and flop houses in a variety of locations including Wall Street. The message would be: “You former debt addicts and gamblers, as you say, ‘f****d up,’ and so this will really hurt for a long time. We will never let you anywhere near big money again. Get yourselves over to the soup kitchen, and bring your own bowl, because we don’t do dishes.” This would result in a stable Stage 1 collapse – the Second Great Depression.

However, this is unlikely, because in the US the government happens to be debt addict and gambler number one. As individuals, we may have been as virtuous as we wished, but the government will have still run up exorbitant debts on our behalf. Every level of government, from local municipalities and authorities, which need the financial markets to finance their public works and public services, to the federal government, which relies on foreign investment to finance its endless wars, is addicted to public debt. They know they cannot stop borrowing, and so they will do anything they can to keep the game going for as long as possible.

About the only thing the government currently seems it fit to do is extend further credit to those in trouble, by setting interest rates at far below inflation, by accepting worthless bits of paper as collateral and by pumping money into insolvent financial institutions. This has the effect of diluting the dollar, further undermining its value, and will, in due course, lead to hyperinflation, which is bad enough in any economy, but is especially serious for one dominated by imports. As imports dry up and the associated parts of the economy shut down, we pass Stage 2: Commercial Collapse.

As businesses shut down, storefronts are boarded up and the population is left largely penniless and dependent on FEMA and charity for survival, the government may consider what to do next. It could, for example, repatriate all foreign troops and set them to work on public works projects designed to directly help the population. It could promote local economic self-sufficiency, by establishing community-supported agriculture programs, erecting renewable energy systems, and organizing and training local self-defense forces to maintain law and order. The Army Corps of Engineers could be ordered to bulldoze buildings erected on former farmland around city centers, return the land to cultivation, and to construct high-density solar-heated housing in urban centers to resettle those who are displaced. In the interim, it could reduce homelessness by imposing a steep tax on vacant residential properties and funneling the proceeds into rent subsidies for the indigent. With plenty of luck, such measures may be able to reverse the trend, eventually providing for a restoration of pre-Stage 2 conditions.

This may or may not be a good plan, but in any case it is rather unrealistic, because the United States, being so deeply in debt, will be forced to accede to the wishes of its foreign creditors, who own a lot of national assets (land, buildings, and businesses) and who would rather see a dependent American population slaving away working off their debt than a self-sufficient one, conveniently forgetting that they have mortgaged their children’s futures to pay for military fiascos, big houses, big cars, and flat-screen television sets. Thus, a much more likely scenario is that the federal government (knowing who butters their bread) will remain subservient to foreign financial interests. It will impose austerity conditions, maintain law and order through draconian means, and aid in the construction of foreign-owned factory towns and plantations. As people start to think that having a government may not be such a good idea, conditions become ripe for Stage 3.

If Stage 1 collapse can be observed by watching television, observing Stage 2 might require a hike or a bicycle ride to the nearest population center, while Stage 3 collapse is more than likely to be visible directly through one’s own living-room window, which may or may not still have glass in it. After a significant amount of bloodletting, much of the country becomes a no-go zone for the remaining authorities. Foreign creditors decide that their debts might not be repaid after all, cut their losses and depart in haste. The rest of the world decides to act as if there is no such place as The United States – because “nobody goes there any more.” So as not to lose out on the entertainment value, the foreign press still prints sporadic fables about Americans who eat their young, much as they did about Russia following the Soviet collapse. A few brave American expatriates who still come back to visit bring back amazing stories of a different kind, but everyone considers them eccentric and perhaps a little bit crazy.

Stage 3 collapse can sometimes be avoided by the timely introduction of international peacekeepers and through the efforts of international humanitarian NGOs. In the aftermath of a Stage 2 collapse, domestic authorities are highly unlikely to have either the resources or the legitimacy, or even the will, to arrest the collapse the dynamic and reconstitute themselves in a way that the population would accept.

As stage 3 collapse runs its course, the power vacuum left by the now defunct federal, state and local government is filled by a variety of new power structures. Remnants of former law enforcement and military, urban gangs, ethnic mafias, religious cults and wealthy property owners all attempt to build their little empires on the ruins of the big one, fighting each other over territory and access to resources. This is the age of Big Men: charismatic leaders, rabble-rousers, ruthless Macchiavelian princes and war lords. In the luckier places, they find it to their common advantage to pool their resources and amalgamate into some sort of legitimate local government, while in the rest their jostling for power leads to a spiral of conflict and open war.

Stage 4 collapse occurs when society becomes so disordered and impoverished that it can no longer support the Big Men, who become smaller and smaller, and eventually fade from view. Society fragments into extended families and small tribes of a dozen or so families, who find it advantageous to band together for mutual support and defense. This is the form of society that has existed over some 98.5% of humanity’s existence as a biological species, and can be said to be the bedrock of human existence. Humans can exist at this level of organization for thousands, perhaps millions of years. Most mammalian species go extinct after just a few million years, but, for all we know, Homo Sapiens still have a million or two left.

If pre-collapse society is too atomized, alienated and individualistic to form cohesive extended families and tribes, or if its physical environment becomes so disordered and impoverished that hunger and starvation become widespread, then Stage 5 collapse becomes likely. At this stage, a simpler biological imperative takes over, to preserve the life of the breeding couples. Families disband, the old are abandoned to their own devices, and children are only cared for up to age 3. All social unity is destroyed, and even the couples may disband for a time, preferring to forage on their own and refusing to share food. This is the state of society described by the anthropologist Colin Turnbull in his book “The Mountain People.” If society prior to Stage 5 collapse can be said to be the historical norm for humans, Stage 5 collapse brings humanity to the verge of physical extinction.

As we can easily imagine, the default is cascaded failure: each stage of collapse can easily lead to the next, perhaps even overlapping it. In Russia, the process was arrested just past Stage 3: there was considerable trouble with ethnic mafias and even some warlordism, but government authority won out in the end. In my other writings, I go into a lot of detail in describing the exact conditions that inadvertently made Russian society relatively collapse-proof. Here, I will simply say that these ingredients are not currently present in the United States.

While attempting to arrest collapse at Stage 1 and Stage 2 would probably be a dangerous waste of energy, it is probably worth everyone’s while to dig in their heels at Stage 3, definitely at Stage 4, and it is quite simply a matter of physical survival to avoid Stage 5. In certain localities – those with high population densities, as well as those that contain dangerous nuclear and industrial installations – avoiding Stage 3 collapse is rather important, to the point of inviting foreign troops and governments in to maintain order and avoid disasters. Other localities may be able to prosper indefinitely at Stage 3, and even the most impoverished environments may be able to supportThe Balance "US Economy Collapse: What Would Happen?"a sparse population subsisting indefinitely at Stage 4.

Although it is possible to prepare directly for surviving Stage 5, this seems like an altogether demoralizing thing to attempt. Preparing to survive Stages 3 and 4 may seem somewhat more reasonable, while explicitly aiming for Stage 3 may be reasonable if you plan to become one of the Big Men. Be that as it may, I must leave such preparations as an exercise for the reader. My hope is that these definitions of specific stages of collapse will enable a more specific and fruitful discussion than the one currently dominated by such vague and ultimately nonsensical terms as “the collapse of Western civilization.”
Related:
Freely download “Collapse of Complex Societies”, by Joseph Tainter:

The World Breaks Everyone..."

"Inflation Is Ripping Higher At Its Fastest Pace Ever! And You Haven't Seen Anything Yet!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 11/10/21:
"Inflation Is Ripping Higher At Its Fastest Pace Ever! 
And You Haven't Seen Anything Yet!"

"Happy Birthday US Marine Corps"

 
- CP, Veteran, USMC, MOS 0311

Full screen recommended.
"The Marine Corps Hymn"

"How It Really Is"

 

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 11/10/21"

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 11/10/21"

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will
do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."
- John Maynard Keynes
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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CNN Market Data:

CNN Fear And Greed Index:
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Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
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Oh yeah...

"When It Comes To 2022, You Should Definitely Prepare For The Worst"

"When It Comes To 2022, 
You Should Definitely Prepare For The Worst"
by Michael Snyder

"If you have a bad feeling about 2022, you are not alone. As we approach the new year, it seems like things are going wrong all around us. We are facing the most epic supply chain crisis in our history, inflation is out of control, vaccine mandates are killing careers and forcing people out of jobs all over the country, and America is the most deeply divided that I have ever seen in my entire lifetime. Meanwhile, another wave of the pandemic appears to be building, our hospitals are already packed with non-COVID patients, global hunger is on the rise, and a major war could erupt in the Middle East at literally any moment. Unfortunately, I am entirely convinced that many of the problems that we are currently dealing with will escalate to an entirely new level in 2022.

For example, if you think that inflation is bad now, just wait until you see what is coming. We just got more evidence that wholesale inflation numbers are absolutely soaring…"New wholesale inflation numbers from September are in and once again prove the rapid increase in prices for everyday items isn’t “transitory” as President Joe Biden has repeatedly claimed.

Wholesale prices rose by 8.6 percent compared to September 2020, matching the largest increase on record.The days of relatively low inflation are gone for good. As wholesale inflation numbers continue to spike at a very alarming rate, it is inevitable that these cost increases will be passed along to consumers."

Unfortunately, some corporations have already announced price hikes that will go into effect in 2022. For example, check out the increases that Kraft Heinz has planned for January 9th…"In a letter to a regional distributor to grocery stores obtained by CNN Business, Kraft Heinz said it plans to raise prices on hundreds of items beginning on January 9, including varieties of Jell-O gelatin and pudding, which will jump from anywhere between 7 percent and 16 percent, and Bagel Bites frozen snacks, which will see an increase of roughly 10 percent. Meanwhile, Cool Whip topping varieties will see an increase of 7 to 10 percent. The cost of EZ Mac will rise 3.5 percent, while a 7.25-ounce dish of Kraft Big Bowl Mac & Cheese will see a 20 percent price hike."

A 20 percent price hike for mac and cheese? If you love mac and cheese, this would be a good time to start hoarding.

Meanwhile, the price of gasoline continues to rise very aggressively…"Gas prices soared to a seven-year high, reaching a nationwide average of $3.42 as of Tuesday, according to data from the American Automobile Association. That’s 16 cents higher than a month ago, or $1.31 more than a year ago, and 80 cents more than in 2019, according to AAA."

I have been relentlessly warning that very painful inflation would come, and what we have experienced so far is just the beginning of a long national nightmare. As I discussed earlier this week, our unprecedented supply chain crisis is one of the primary factors that is causing inflation to run so hot. In particular, the global shortage of computer chips has been significantly affecting levels of production in countless other industries, and now we are being told that this shortage will last “well into next year”

"The latest dose of reality was offered up by Infineon’s CEO, who said this week that the chip shortage would last “well into next year,” according to Bloomberg. Infineon a German semiconductor manufacturer founded in 1999 that is one of the 10 largest semiconductor manufacturers in the world. Sales to the automotive industry make up about 40% of the company’s revenue. CEO Reinhard Ploss made the comments at an auto conference this week, stating that the company wouldn’t be able to work off its order backlog until 2022." Of course the CEO of Infineon was still trying to be optimistic when he made those comments. In reality, there appears to be no end in sight for the chip shortage.

The supply chain crisis is also deeply affecting the distribution of food all over the planet, and that even includes food banks here in the United States…"The ripple effect of the supply chain crisis continues - now, it’s disrupting food banks. “When there’s a shortage in supply chain, it makes it much more difficult for us to be able to provide our clients with food,” said Linda Hansen, the food bank director at Wellspring Interfaith Social Services."

I am so thankful for all of the wonderful food banks around the country that do such a great job of feeding so many needy people. Unfortunately, their job is going to become increasingly difficult as our supply chain woes intensify.

And without a doubt, our supply chain woes will get a whole lot worse once the new OSHA mandate goes into effect. A ruling by the Firth Circuit has temporarily suspended the mandate as litigation moves forward, and that is good news. But eventually it is probably inevitable that the U.S. Supreme Court will be forced to take up this matter, and the U.S. Supreme Court has made bad decision after bad decision in recent years.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is telling businesses to ignore the Fifth Circuit and to “move forward” with getting their workers vaccinated…"The White House on Monday said businesses should move forward with President Joe Biden’s vaccine and testing requirements for private businesses, despite a federal appeals court ordering a temporary halt to the rules. “People should not wait,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters during a briefing. “They should continue to move forward and make sure they’re getting their workplace vaccinated.”

If the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately rules that Biden’s OSHA mandate is legal, it will be a death blow for our economy, and it will be a death blow for liberty and freedom in the United States. So the stakes are incredibly high, and I do not have much faith in the U.S. Supreme Court at all. But even if we want to totally disregard the OSHA mandate for now, 2022 is still shaping up to be a really nightmarish year. Things are bad now, but they will soon get even worse. I encourage you to prepare accordingly."

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

"Scariest Economy We Have Seen; Hard Times Are Coming; Stockpile Food Now; Good Health Is Critical"

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, PM 11/9/21:
"Scariest Economy We Have Seen; Hard Times Are Coming; 
Stockpile Food Now; Good Health Is Critical"

"Used Car Prices Jump By Nearly 70 Percent As Inflation Spreads Chaos Across The US Economy"

Full screen recommended.
"Used Car Prices Jump By Nearly 70 Percent 
As Inflation Spreads Chaos Across The US Economy"
by Epic Economist

"It turns out that all of those dissonant voices that recently came forward to warn about a nightmarish inflationary spike while no one believed them were right after all. Right now, US consumers are facing a shocking price surge all across the board. However, industry specialists say the worst is yet to come. That's painful to even imagine because we're seeing acute price increases already. In particular, vehicle prices have shot up to extraordinary highs over the past few months. The spike has been fueled by a global shortage of semiconductors, which collapsed production, and resulted in perilously low inventory levels all over the country. Part of the demand shifted into the used vehicle market, and that also caused a staggering jump in prices for used cars. In fact, the latest data show that during the month of October, used vehicle prices have escalated at a pace that we have never seen before in our entire history.

Last month's used car price growth managed to shock even the experts. According to the industry’s key index, in October alone, used vehicle prices soared another 9.2%, which puts the index 38% higher than a year ago - compared to 27% in September. If used vehicle prices escalated by 9.2 percent over the year, that would already be quite problematic. The fact that massive increase happened in just one month is truly breathtaking. Overall, used car prices rocketed by 38% from the already sky-high levels last October. But compared to October 2019 levels, prices soared by an alarming 59%. That means if you bought a new car over the past couple of years, right now it could potentially be worth more than when it was brand new.

If that doesn't scream “hyperinflation” to you, then you need to look again. The irony of all is that October is known as the month when used vehicle prices usually go down. According to Manheim Index data, "October typically sees above-average vehicle depreciation and therefore used price declines". This October was the first October in the history of the index, which dates back to 1997, that a major price increase has occurred in October. Given that consumer demand remains as strong as ever, industry experts say that prices aren’t going to drop any time soon. At this point, we are witnessing rampant inflation in several sectors of our economy. Sharp price hikes are hitting food products too, with some items facing a four-fold increase year-over-year.

In a recent article published by The Wall Street Journal, supermarket owners disclosed that customers are "purchasing more store-brand meat products and trading down from beef to less-expensive alternatives such as chicken or pork," after prices for items such as rib-eye soared almost 40% from a year ago, according to research firm IRI. Many consumers are replacing boneless chicken breast with cheaper bone-in chicken, the retailers revealed. As food prices continue to escalate, some grocery store owners are reporting high rates of shoplifting. And some big retailers are reinforcing security to prevent food deliveries from being hijacked.

We're in the middle of the worst supply chain crisis in modern times, but new measures issued by the government are only aggravating the situation. That's one of the main reasons why prices are starting to spin out of control. Every time congestion eases, a new disruption emerges and the crisis worsens again. To make things worse, as we head to what is projected to be another very cold winter, heating bills are expected to face an unwelcome uptick in the coming months. Needless to say, with consumers already coping with the fastest price increases in decades, a rise in the cost of basic household necessities will make millions of families suffer financially. According to the Census Bureau, twenty-nine percent of the population have reported reducing or forgoing household expenses to pay an energy bill in the last year.

Last month, the Energy Information Administration warned that the cost of heating oil is forecasted to go up by approximately 43% compared to last year due to higher than expected fuel costs as well as more consumption of energy due to a colder winter. The agency also forecasts propane costs to jump by 54%, while natural gas costs climb by 30% and electricity costs to rise by 6%. We will be extremely lucky if things do not get that crazy in the coming months. This is going to be an undeniably difficult winter for millions of American families. Our problems will extend well into 2022. That is to say, we should get ready for higher inflation, more supply chain disruptions, and generalized chaos all over the economy. And the worst part of this is that nobody in Washington seems to have a plan to save us from this unprecedented mess."

Gerald Celente, Trends Journal, "Think For Yourself, It's Not Illegal Yet"

Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, Trends Journal, 11/9/21:
"Think For Yourself, It's Not Illegal Yet"

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Courting the Moon"

Full screen recommended.
2002, "Courting the Moon"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"A gorgeous spiral galaxy, M104 is famous for its nearly edge-on profile featuring a broad ring of obscuring dust lanes. Seen in silhouette against an extensive central bulge of stars, the swath of cosmic dust lends a broad brimmed hat-like appearance to the galaxy suggesting a more popular moniker, the Sombrero Galaxy. This sharp optical view of the well-known galaxy made from ground-based image data was processed to preserve details often lost in overwhelming glare of M104's bright central bulge. 
Also known as NGC 4594, the Sombrero galaxy can be seen across the spectrum, and is host to a central supermassive black hole. About 50,000 light-years across and 28 million light-years away, M104 is one of the largest galaxies at the southern edge of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. Still the colorful spiky foreground stars in this field of view lie well within our own Milky Way galaxy. "

"I Would Rather Have..."

"When a bull is being lead to the slaughter, it still hopes to break loose and trample its butchers. Other bulls have not been able to pass on the knowledge that this never happens and that from the slaughterhouse there is no way back to the herd. But in human society there is a continuous exchange of experience. I have never heard of a man who broke away and fled while being led to his execution. It is even thought to be a special form of courage if a man about to be executed refuses to be blindfolded and dies with his eyes open. But I would rather have the bull with his blind rage, the stubborn beast who doesn't weigh his chances of survival with the prudent dull-wittedness of man, and doesn't know the despicable feeling of despair."
- Nadezhda Mandelstam

Paulo Coelho, "Killing Our Dreams"

"Killing Our Dreams"
by Paulo Coelho

"The first symptom of the process of our killing our dreams is the lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the Good Fight.

The second symptom of the death of our dreams lies in our certainties. Because we don’t want to see life as a grand adventure, we begin to think of ourselves as wise and fair and correct in asking so little of life. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day existence, and we hear the sound of lances breaking, we smell the dust and the sweat, and we see the great defeats and the fire in the eyes of the warriors. But we never see the delight, the immense delight in the hearts of those who are engaged in the battle. For them, neither victory nor defeat is important; what’s important is only that they are fighting the Good Fight.

And, finally, the third symptom of the passing of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon; we ask for nothing grand, and we cease to demand anything more than we are willing to give. In that state, we think of ourselves as being mature; we put aside the fantasies of our youth, and we seek personal and professional achievement. We are surprised when people our age say that they still want this or that out of life. But really, deep in our hearts, we know that what has happened is that we have renounced the battle for our dreams – we have refused to fight the Good Fight.

When we renounce our dreams and find peace, we go through a short period of tranquility. But the dead dreams begin to rot within us and to infect our entire being. We become cruel to those around us, and then we begin to direct this cruelty against ourselves. That’s when illnesses and psychoses arise. What we sought to avoid in combat – disappointment and defeat – come upon us because of our cowardice. And one day, the dead, spoiled dreams make it difficult to breathe, and we actually seek death. It’s death that frees us from our certainties, from our work, and from that terrible peace of our Sunday afternoons."

The Poet: Carl Sandburg, "Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"

"Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"

 The past is a bucket of ashes.

1
 "The woman named Tomorrow
sits with a hairpin in her teeth
and takes her time
and does her hair the way she wants it,
and fastens at last the last braid and coil
and puts the hairpin where it belongs
and turns and drawls: Well, what of it?
My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone.
What of it? Let the dead be dead.

2
The doors were cedar
and the panels strips of gold,
and the girls were golden girls
and the panels read and the girls chanted:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.

The doors are twisted on broken hinges.
Sheets of rain swish through on the wind
where the golden girls ran and the panels read:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.

3
It has happened before.
Strong men put up a city and got
a nation together,
And paid singers to sing and women
to warble: We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.

And while the singers sang
and the strong men listened
and paid the singers well
and felt good about it all,
there were rats and lizards who listened
and the only listeners left now
are the rats and the lizards.

And there are black crows
crying, Caw, caw,
bringing mud and sticks
building a nest
over the words carved
on the doors where the panels were cedar
and the strips on the panels were gold
and the golden girls came singing:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.

The only singers now are crows crying, Caw, caw,
And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways.
And the only listeners now are the rats and the lizards.

4
The feet of the rats
scribble on the door sills;
the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints
chatter the pedigrees of the rats,
and babble of the blood
and gabble of the breed
of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers
of the rats.

And the wind shifts
and the dust on a door sill shifts,
and even the writing of the rat footprints
tells us nothing, nothing at all
about the greatest city, the greatest nation
where the strong men listened
and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was."

- Carl Sandburg, 1878 -1967
"Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"

The Daily "Near You?"

Chugiak, Alaska, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Public Policy: An Elaborate Fraud"

"Public Policy: An Elaborate Fraud"
by Bill Bonner

"To all the young people out there – I want you
to stay angry. I want you to stay frustrated."
– Barack Obama to climate activists

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "A dear reader, Steve S., writes: “I read all of Bill’s blogs. Obviously they are sarcastic and generally negative. Usually criticizing and pointing fingers. But I don’t ever see the positive aspects. What exactly does Bill want? How would he fix the problems? What does Bill actually stand for?”

We’re glad you asked, Steve. We stand for nothing. We only know what we like. Truth, rather than lies. Beauty, rather than ugliness. And freedom over slavery. Even as to that, it is not so much that we care about “freedom;” we just don’t like anyone telling us what to do. And why should they? We know what we want better than they do.

Lessons Learned: Of course, we do not claim to know everything. We admit, in fact, that we know very little. We can take a fair guess about tomorrow’s temperature… but as for 10 years from now, we know no more than the climatologists. But man must have some way of guiding his actions. He makes his guesses… he puts 2 and 2 together… and he turns to the lessons learned over centuries: Don’t spend more than you can afford… Don’t invade Russia… And if you find yourself in a spooky house, don’t go down into the basement.

Major Screw-Up: If we are “generally negative,” it is because we are commenting on public policy… which is almost always an elaborate fraud, backed by brute force. Wars… central planning… world improvement – can you give us one example of a large public policy that wasn’t a scam, a waste of money, or a major screw-up? The only ones that are even borderline worthwhile are those where we were fighting someone else’s even worse public policy…such as World War II.

In the early 1940s, America mobilized in what was the biggest public policy move in U.S. history. Automobiles stopped rolling from the assembly lines; tanks took their place. Sixteen million men and women joined the armed forces. U.S. debt soared. It was probably wasteful and foolish in many respects, but under the circumstances, almost everyone agreed that it was the right thing to do.

Misguided Policies: But the World War II global catastrophe wasn’t caused by the U.S., or by greedy corporations… or old white men… or by a lack of diversity on school boards… or by a virus or changing weather patterns. As German Holocaust survivor Hannah Arendt explained, it wasn’t caused by “hate,” either. It was caused by public policies initiated by politicians and administered by bureaucrats. Could the problem be fixed? Probably not. People do jackass things from time to time… and think they’re making improvements.

In the 1930s, Germany thought it could enhance its “Lebensraum.” Japan wanted to increase its “co-prosperity sphere.” Both looked to win by making weaker neighbors lose. Adolf Hitler even drew a comparison with American pioneers, who took land from native tribes in order to develop their own Lebensraum, from sea to shining sea. The world would be a better place, he argued, if Germans were able to more efficiently exploit the “under-used” lands to the East.

And who could say he was wrong?The invaders might have treated the Poles well. They might have brought tractors and increased productivity and wages. They might have actually made the Steppes bloom and hearts glad.

Stop at Nothing: In the evening, people walk their dogs in the park in front of our office. The dogs do what dogs do after being trapped in an apartment all day. And their owners bend over and pick up the canine excrement and put it in the trash. There is a law that insists on it. But the law is almost never enforced. Still, people clean up after their pets because they recognize that it’s the right thing to do… and they don’t want to be seen not doing it by their neighbors.

Which leads us to another old lesson: Anything you have to force people to do is probably not worth doing. In private policy, people normally respect the rules of civilized life. If they want land in Poland, for example, they have to buy it lawfully. No force required. But in public policy, the sky’s the limit… nothing is too barbaric or too preposterous. As we’ve seen, governments, in pursuit of public policy goals, will stop at nothing – neither murder, mass starvation, nor genocide.

Big Time Action: Which brings us back to Saint Greta, the climate change activist, subject of yesterday’s Diary. She wants action. Not “blah, blah.” She’s angry… frustrated. And the kind of action she wants is Big Time public policy action. That is, she is not satisfied with reducing her own carbon footprint and persuading others to do the same. She wants to force other people to do things they don’t want to do – on a scale not seen since World War II.

As America’s special presidential envoy to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), John Kerry, put it last week, the price tag will be trillions, not billions. And we’re talking about major changes – to the way we heat our homes, to the way we drive to work and the way we power our factories (if we have any left). One climate change enthusiast, Louise Crabtree-Hayes, even suggested that we might have to outlaw private homes to meet the “emergency.”

The cost – in money and inconvenience – will be huge. But it could be far worse…In 1850, the pre-industrial economy supported only 1.2 billion people. Today, we have 7.8 billion people, almost all of whom depend on oil, gas, or coal. Imagine the “supply chain disruptions” that could result from cutting off supplies of fuel.

Deadly Policy: And what is the truth of an “emergency,” like the attack on Pearl Harbor? Do we tighten our belts, stiffen our backbones, and accept the sacrifices that will be required of us? Or is the whole thing a false alarm… or a scam? If only we could read tomorrow’s headlines today!

All we know is that billions of people have been borne up out of poverty by nature’s stored-up energy. They’ve been able to live longer, more comfortable lives – with out-of-season fruits and vegetables, air-conditioning, and solar rooftop panels.

Meanwhile, the death toll from public policies in the 20th century – wars, government-caused starvation, concentration camps and the Gulag – was estimated by self-described atrocitologist Matthew White at 203 million, including 37 million soldiers, 27 million civilians killed as collateral damage, 81 million killed in purges and mass murders, and 58 million who were intentionally starved to death.

Saint Greta proposes more aggressive government action. But on this rudimentary evidence, the human race might be better off limiting public policies, rather than limiting the use of fossil fuel."

"Just Remember..."

“I know the world seems terrifying right now and the future seems bleak. Just remember human beings have always managed to find the greatest strength within themselves during the darkest hours. When faced with the worst horrors the world has to offer, a person either cracks and succumbs to ugliness, or they salvage the inner core of who they are and fight to right wrongs. Never let hatred, fear, and ignorance get the best of you. Keep bettering yourself so you can make the world around you better, for nothing can improve without the brightest, bravest, kindest, and most imaginative individuals rising above the chaos.”
- Cat Winters

"What Might Have Been..."

“Space I can recover. Time, never.” 
-  Napoleon Bonaparte

“Lands can be reconquered, indeed in the course of a battle, a hill or a certain plain might trade hands several times. But missed opportunities? These can never be regained. Moments in time, in culture? They can never be re-made. One can never go back in time to prepare for what they should have prepared for, no one can ever get back critical seconds that were wasted out of fear or ego. Napoleon was brilliant at trading space for time: Sure, you can make these moves, provided you are giving me the time I need to drill my troops, or move them to where I want them to be. Yet in life, most of us are terrible at this. We trade an hour of our life here or afternoon there like it can be bought back with the few dollars we were paid for it. And it is only much, much later, as they are on their deathbeds or when they are looking back on what might have been, that many people realize the awful truth of this quote. Don’t do that. Embrace it now.”
Ryan Holiday
And in secret moments of despair, 
Too late, too late...We think what might have been, 
should have been, and we let it slip away...
Chris De Burgh, 
"Carry Me (Like A Fire In Your Heart)"

"Epic Inflation About to Surge Higher - Interest Rate Increases Coming"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, AM 11/9/21:
"Epic Inflation About to Surge Higher - 
Interest Rate Increases Coming"

"A Final Warning To Humanity From Former Pfizer Chief Scientist Michael Yeadon"

"A Final Warning To Humanity From Former
 Pfizer Chief Scientist Michael Yeadon"
View video here:
Related:

Gregory Mannarino, "Must Watch! A Dose Of Truth Everyone Needs To Hear"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 11/9/21:
"Must Watch! A Dose Of Truth Everyone Needs To Hear"

"How It Really Is"