Blink

So we're buying $600,000,000,000 of our debt.  I hope we're not charging ourselves interest.  From what I can gather, this is pretty much us printing up money to pay what we owe, which means the value of the dollar goes down.  This also doesn't include, from what I understand, another $75,000,000,000 a month after that, for, I don't know how many months?

Don't believe me?  The Chinese are a bit concerned about it, since they own a bunch of our dollars which we're apparently going to be paying back with cheaper dollars.  And Business Insider has an interesting and somewhat alarming article about the fact that we're apparently pushing the bubble into the final bubble ... the inflation bubble.   Even Warren Buffett (and didn't he endorse Obama when Obama was pretending to be a fiscal conservative?) thinks every American should read this short book from 1975: When Money Dies.

Now I of course am still hoping for the best, but call me Officially just a little spooked.

Hyperinflation is a possibility, and Lord knows what happens if it takes off.  When Money Dies gives us a picture of what happened in Germany back in the 1920's, and it ain't pretty.  People starve.  People have to resort to nasty things.

I don't want to be one of them, if I can help it at all.

A buddy and I used to talk about possible, far-fetched but plausible ITSHTF (If The Shit Hits The Fan) scenarios where political factions start fighting and the state can't keep law and order ... for a few days to a few weeks or more, and the business of protecting the home, the family ... or worse having to forage for and hunt for food.  

But if hyperinflation, which we hadn't even considered because we had faith that our government wouldn't be stupid enough to try to go down that road ... if it happens, the spectrum of possibilities goes from maybe I keep my job, maybe everything collapses  ... but in either situation you're presented with the possibility of food prices going up faster than your income, or food merchants flat out unwilling to sell you food for dollars that will be worth much less by the time they get to spend them than they were when you bought the food.  I've been staring these things possibilities in the face, thinking "Nah .... that won't happen."   But evidence is mounting that we're just sauntering toward this possibility, and I'm no longer able to convince myself that there's really nothing to worry about.   And so ....

I blinked.

Basically, I'm going to keep some extra dried food around.  Nothing fancy, nothing diverse.  Something that will keep us alive perhaps long enough for things to stablize or long enough for us to try to figure out how we're going to cope in a new reality.   Rice.  Beans.  Salt.  Sugar.   Maybe flour, but I worry about the bugs that will hatch in the flour bags.  (looks like freezing for a few days and sealing can prevent this.)   If we do flour, then probably some powdered milk.  Perhaps some texturized soy protein.  And some unscented bleach for water sanitization in case things really, REALLY go south. The rice and beans alone I think you could live off of for a couple of months if you had to.  Not saying you'd emerge the picture of health, but at least there'd be a you to emerge.  And all of this stuff is relatively cheap, and except for the flour due to the bugs ... these things should keep for several years.  

If any of this happens.   The inflation is sure to happen.  I really don't see how it can't.   The ITSHTF scenario, maybe not.  Hopefully not.  But I really don't want to look back if it does happen and say "hey, if I'd just spent a couple hundred dollars back then, we might live through this."

But I can't help but laugh at myself and wonder if I should add tinfoil to my shopping list.  This is crazy shit.