Preparedness and survivalism is all the rage, I know this, you know this, everyone knows this. Shows are popping up all over the place, new books are on the market regularly, and prepper blogs like this one are now a dime a dozen (I remember when this site was … unique … but now look at us … washed up … a mere sliver of our former unique glory … but anyway). The raging apocalyptic excitement taking the nation by storm coupled with this down economy gets my TEOTWAWKI business mind thinking – what ways are there to turn this craze into a profit making venture?

Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m doing that already with this blog, but that’s not quite what I’m talking about. Like I said, blogs are a dime a dozen now and really, honestly, the money isn’t that great. If I didn’t get a kick out of doing this, as a hobby, it wouldn’t make sense to do. It’s time consuming, even with a few modestly reimbursed writers on board.

Yeah, yeah, I know, write a book, publish and sell it. That can be easier said than done, though. Yeah, I can write, but I’m writing all the time. My full-time job is writing. There’s only so much I can handle.

No, my mind gets turning around other business ideas, like … well, like the other day I was emailing with my homeboy at Weaponcraft in Maine. His business had expanded so far that it was no longer just his, he’d brought others in to assist out of necessity. Firearms training is gaining in popularity, like this story about women increasingly becoming interested in shooting:

The surge has been propelled by shifting politics and demographics that have made it easier and more acceptable than at any time in 75 years for Americans to buy and carry pistols. Post-9/11 fears also seem to be a factor, as has been the relentless pro-gun politicking of the National Rifle Association and marketing, particularly to women, by handgun manufacturers. Events like the Dec. 8 fatal shootings on the Virginia Tech University campus reinforce a feeling that the world is an unsafe place, even as violent U.S. crime rates fall.

Take this Maine based company, for example – Snap Space Solutions. They turn shipping containers into housing. While not “technically” a prepper based business, it will certainly catch the eye of some preppers, as using shipping containers as SHTF housing is an often discussed topic in survival circles. Read from a recent news article on the business:

“It doesn’t look like a shipping container, does it?” Bangor resident Chad Walton, president and CEO of SnapSpace Solutions Inc. asked on Wednesday while standing beside the converted shipping containers covered with vinyl siding and insulated with foam. “It looks like a ranch-style house.” The bunk house, purchased by Northwoods Management for a location on the Golden Road in the Katahdin region, left Brewer on Friday. Its foundation was put into place Thursday.

“It’s seven and a half hours to drive up there and back and it will take about two hours to put it together and connect the electricity,” Walton said. “Later on we’ll put on a roof. That will take four additional hours.” The roof is just for looks because shipping containers, which can be stacked when shipped by boat and are hauled all over the country by tractor-trailers, are rated to handle around 470,000 pounds. “There is no worry about snow load,” Walton said. “They’re very solid and very storm proof.”

470,000 pounds! That’s some serious TEOTWAWKI living quarters. And if you ever read my North Woods blog post, you know that where that container is going is big time doomsday forestland.

At one point I toyed with the idea of opening an online survival supply store, but again, there are a bunch already and it was a big time commitment for questionable returns.

Am I looking to start a survival business? No, not really, I’m too busy as it is, but the business ideas do cross my mind once in a while.

Is there a SHTF survival “why hasn’t someone done X” business idea you’ve had? What’s missing out there for preppers? Anything?

- Ranger Man

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If you’re like me you’ve got kids, and you worry about their future. If you’re a bit older, perhaps you have grand-kids. I know I want my kids to have the advantages of education, and I want them to have marketable skills. I don’t know that I’ll be pushing them to go to college.

No College? I know, it sounds crazy to me, in my family it’s considered to be a rule carved in stone. “Do well in high school, get into a good college, have a good life.”  As solid as an equation, If A and B, then C.   Well, let’s just say that C is proving to be elusive for my generation. I think that’s a trend we’ll see continue. For those of you who have fond memories of college and the paying for it, let me take a moment to explain the current situation in higher education.

Financial aid isn’t what it used to be.  I am a third generation engineer. My grandfather went to college, mostly on the GI bill, with some scholarships thrown in for academics. He worked a job in college, and graduated with very little debt, if he took a full 10 years to pay it off, I’d be very surprised. A high paying job and great benefits for the next 40-odd years, he had nothing bad to say about taking on some debt to get through college.  My father, two degrees, one in Math and one in Software Engineering, he was still finishing up his second when I was in Kindergarten, but I can remember him paying the last student loan payment, and it was only my first year of high school, so he was done in less than 15 years, for two degrees.   I went to college a little early, only 17, so I had to get my parents signature on a lot of the paperwork. I had high expectations about how things would work. I had a few scholarships going in, it had been harder than I expected to get those, even with a 3.8 (out of 4.0) and perfect scores on a couple of standardized tests.  I expected to get more scholarships as I went on, and work a job or two, then take out loans to cover the rest.  That’s what my parents did, that’s what their parents did, they all agreed it was the best route for a good life. Are any of you nodding? This is what you think of right? Government loans with low interest rates, quick pay back times and lots of scholarships to bright students.

It doesn’t exist.  After half a semester of working and searching for more scholarships, I had exactly 1 more, for 50$.  My job paid a little over 8$ an hour, plus occasional tips, but my monthly tuition bill alone was close to 1000$ a month, plus living expenses and books, I couldn’t physically work enough hours to make a dent in it.  I went in tears to my Resident Assistant (the upperclassman house leader in that section of the dorm,) asking how I was supposed to make all the ends meet.  He sent me to the Financial Aid counselor.  The nice, kindly financial aid counselor listened to my (delusional ravings) of wanting scholarships and on-campus positions to make my monthly tuition payments. He then proceeded to pull out the paperwork for student loans.  With my parent’s backing I applied for those nice government backed low interest loans, and I got some of them, but they only covered a fraction of the tuition. I had to go with private loans for everything else.  The counselor assured me they worked the same as the government backed loans.  To this day I don’t know if he realized how much of a lie that was. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but the reality is these loans work nothing like their government backed cousins.  Private loans frequently have no guaranteed limit on interest rates and fees. They are often designed so that getting out from under them is impossible. Unlike other forms of debt, student loans are not discharged in bankruptcy. In addition, while they do offer deferrals for unemployment, disability and other hardships they do not include a deferral on interest, which continues to accrue and compound, and the time limits on deferrals are usually very strict. Assets held by spouses can be seized by private loan companies. Even in the event that the borrower dies, the balance on private loans is non-dischargeable. Instead, the remaining balance is passed on to next of kin. These things are nasty.  My monthly payments require a quarter of my take-home pay, and I’ll still be paying on them when my son graduates high school.

The private loan company he so helpfully pushed me towards was investigated a few years after I graduated, it turns out that they were involved in the act of kickbacks, bribes, “cash inducements,” or whatever term one likes to use to describe swindling, and the Department of Education was seeking $15 million from them.  They are the dominant student lender in the state, holding some $3.3 billion in outstanding loans. According to the Times, they oversaw more than 90 percent of the student loan borrowing at Iowa State and 80 percent at the University of Northern Iowa.

It’s not a problem confined to my state, other state-administered agencies are being found to have similar operating schemes, including in Missouri and Pennsylvania.

An unsustainable situation – Interest rates and tuition rates continue to rise much faster than wages. I’m not expecting as great a life as my parents and grandparents had. I don’t expect my children to have it either. I refuse to send them off to be shackled with the burden of unreasonably high loans before they are even old enough to drink their financial sorrows away.

What does that leave for education? I work with a lot of technicians and electricians who did the whole apprenticeship/journeyman thing in their local union or work crew. They have no debt to speak of, high job security and plenty of skills. Good education can still be had at some community colleges.  Be careful though, some of those are following the trend of high tuition, and not all are delivering on their promises of good local jobs with the skills you learn there.  Can you still be a self-made man? As a woman, I’m not sure if I can speak to that.. :-D but my gut says not at the present. Perhaps if we see a really bad crash, things like minimum requirements of specific (expensive) degrees or certifications could be done away with, but I’m not sure something like that is certain enough to gamble on. Excepting perhaps a farming lifestyle, but only if there’s plenty of land paid for and owned by the family.  If your high school student has recently inherited a great deal of wealth, perhaps certain degrees might be cost effective if paid for in full before graduating.  The military offers some education routes, I’m not as familiar with their in’s and out’s and the homeless/unemployed rates for vets is disturbingly high, but its an option. Do any of you read J.M. Greer, he seems to think convent/monastery type educations could make a comeback.  Parents can home school through high school already, maybe we’ll see some sort of home-school-college option spring up?

Whatever you decide, please do your children/grandchildren a favor, and don’t let them fall into the trap that college has become.  There is no such thing as “good debt” and even if there was, college quit being that years ago, and it’s time students looked elsewhere for furthering their education after high school. Post SHTF, my student loans are my biggest stumbling block. Even now they greatly contribute to my need to live an austere life. I tell my neighbors, if they don’t like seeing my compost pile and laundry, they can help me make my monthly loan payments. Surprisingly, none have taken me up on the offer.

- Calamity Jane

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If you’re like me and you think that the next SHTF event is going to be an economic/market/currency crisis/crash then you’ve likely had your eyes on Europe over the last few months.  You wouldn’t be the only one watching Europe as the markets have been on a crazy rollercoaster ride every time there’s news – good or bad – having to do with the debt crisis.

What strikes me as particularly interesting is that the Greece default is barely mentioned any more as all eyes have turned to Italy and their financial mess.  Now that it’s been established that they are (almost certainly) going to default on their debt the world is already looking at the next domino:  Italy.

Greek debt is somewhere in the neighborhood of 340 billion euros, which in the grand scheme of things is inconvenient, but Italy is in it to the tune of 2.6 trillion.  That’s a big wad of cash.

Some people argue that the “system”, that is banks and government, won’t let Italy and the rest of Europe fail.  And they might find a way to swing it for awhile, but at some point the whole house of cards is going to come tumbling down.  I don’t see how it can sustain itself for more than a couple of years, but having said that the governments have been remarkably adept at keeping things afloat.

Complex Systems

The more complex the system the harder it is to determine the outcome of events.  The world economy is incredibly complex and no one person or group of people have any idea of the outcome of the current situation.  If you put ten brilliant economists in a room together they will come up with ten conflicting ideas of what the economy will do with very good arguments as to why they think that way.

There are so many variables and inputs that it’s nearly impossible to factor everything in.  I suspect a supercomputer would melt down trying to figure it all out!

I don’t pretend to understand everything to do with the economy other than recognizing how complex it is; however, I do think it’s possible to get a general flavor  of how things are going.  And with the amount of debt run up by some of Europe and the United States that flavor is a lot like rotten eggs.

Who Knows?

Ultimately nobody knows for sure what will happen.  Will the world economy crash sending us back to the 1800s?  Will the US inflate its debt away leading ultimately to hyperinflation?  Will the banks forgive all debt and reboot the economy?

Knowing the uncertainty of world politics and economics here’s what I do:  I try to be ready for as many different scenarios as possible.    I make friends who have like minded opinions.  I stay out of debt.  And last, but certainly not least, I take care of my family to the best of my ability.

Now I want to know what you think.  Is European debt really a problem to the U.S.?  What’s your opinion on the economy?

Share your opinion in the comments.

-Jarhead Survivor

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