Unemployment at any time-
So with the price of crude oil so low, many people who had
hoped on the oil field boom bandwagon are beginning to see an economic bust
headed their way.
This is just the latest in a long line of booms and busts
for various local, regional, national, and global economies. When the boom is
big enough people will do anything to delude themselves into believing it will
last forever. If the person is lucky it will last their lifetime. If their
family is very, very, lucky it will last generations.
This current oil boom going bust, and the impending higher
education bubble popping, but those are smaller bubbles on the hidden multi-generational
economic bubble of petroleum. The petroleum bubble reached its peak in about
2005 according to the petroleum industry's own institution. Coal, Oil, Gas, are all limited resources and we have been using the
easiest to get best selection of the fossil fuels for generations now. Yes, there is more of all of it, but it is lower quality and harder to get. We
already got the best of it. Eventually we will hit a point where it isn’t really
worth extracting – the costs of extracting it will be greater than the value
from using it.
Long before that point price volatility will cause people to
have to abandon reliance on it for most purposes. (This petroleum industrialization bubble too may be just a lesser component of the European colonization of the new world bubble...)
What this mean for the average person though, is, in our
interconnected economy, that at any time in any position is liable to become untenable to the employer – even ones with
government or other supposed ‘guaranteed security’ organizations - .
Meaning you can be laid off at almost any
time.
You may, or may not, have any notice of this impending
personal economic disaster.
You may be the only one laid off- or fired if the employer
can find a good excuse – or you may just be one of an entire company or even
industry laid off at once.
Perhaps for reasons beyond your control you can no longer
work the job – too old, too sick, too fat, too ????.
So then you count on Unemployment Benefits, savings, credit,
and welfare.
Or perhaps you think you escaped the threat because you are self-employed
– not so, as your company as being both you and your employer- can also run
into severe financial difficulties when people no longer are able to afford
your services as often as they did before.
Or perhaps you think you escaped the threat because you are
already retired – until the government seizes your pension or reduces your
social security or increases inflation.
In any of the scenarios of the future I can envision
increased volatility in the economy is an absolute certainty. Even if some
breakthrough like desktop clean cold fusion should occur, the mere change from
fossil fuels to the new energy source would guarantee volatility.
Which means you will always face a risk of your source of
money going away or your money becoming much less valuable (or both).
The best way to protect yourself is to divorce yourself as
much as possible from reliance on money to survive.
- ·
Paid for shelter – energy efficient low maintenance.
No rent, no mortgage.
- ·
Food you grow yourself with your own seeds and
sources.
- ·
Energy you provide yourself as much as possible-
Bike to the store, to the park, library, work, etc. Solar wind or hydro for
electric power.
- ·
Water that isn’t dependent on a corporate or government
entity such as rain fall collection or home well.
- ·
Health care you provide for yourself with nutrition, exercise, herbal and
holistic care as much as possible.
- ·
A healthy padding of some sort of savings in the
form of a deep pantry, useful skills, community good will, good friends, and
neighbors, and any other supplies you can think of.
You will always need some small amounts of trade. No one can
go it alone forever.
- ·
Cash money emergency savings is great when you
break your leg, or have to pay an unexpected tax bill, etc.
- ·
Precious metals tend to store value for the long
term.
- ·
Barter for skills knowledge and surpluses is
also useful. Dr.’s used to get paid in chickens just a hundred years ago.
Even if you currently have no employment and are living on
welfare or retirement, you can make inroads to getting all these things to get ready for a change in the value of your money. There
is land defined as “junk” land that you can buy, improve, and live on. You
might not be able to grow all your own food but every dollar you save in your
grocery bill can go to increasing you pantry or otherwise preparing to divorce
from the ‘grid’.
The down side is the system of corporations, government, and
popular society frown on people getting free of the system.
Your friends family and neighbors probably won’t really
understand at best, and at worst will actively try and undermine you.
Your existing creditors will judge you a high risk and increase
your interest rates (get out of debt ASAP - pay it off or bankruptcy).
Your local government and HOA will throw up roadblocks for
every little thing that they see that is out of place (find a place with the
least possible government and little to no HOA)
Do your best to stay off everyone’s radar. Stay legitimate
as much as you can. Investigate local zoning and laws and how to circumvent
troublesome ones.
Look forward to a time where your personal sustainable systems
make you a target of the tax man, other thieves, muggers, and beggars. Find ways to stay off their radars and deal
with them as well.
By considering these things now, and taking these steps,
well ahead of the desperate scramble that can come, you not only help yourself
you help everyone else by not needing their resources when things get tighter.
And future generations will have the systems you have built to fall back on
should the need arise for them as well.