JOURNAL: Resilience Judo

There are growing signs -- from a black swan in savings/debt reduction to massive debt loads to quarterly trillion dollar losses in personal wealth to stagnant/falling consumer purchases to persistently low consumer confidence -- that the parasite ridden American "consumer" is finally dead.   If this is true, the economic model of the latter half of the last Century is likely dead too, and that will mean wrenching change.  It's my belief that the dominant solution is to prepare for a local future to ride out this storm.  Here are some of my random (more random than I would like) thoughts on what you should do to prepare:

• Ruthlessly reduce debt. Nothing on credit. Pay off every loan. Strategically walk away from underwater assets (like homes that are worth less than the mortgage).  This will allow you to stay one step ahead of the death throes of the old economy.
• Turn your hollow home into a productive asset.  Most homes are devoid of any productive capacity.  Adding energy, food, etc production to them turns them into real, productive assets.  Get your assets out of financial derivatives (stocks, bonds, etc.) as fast as you can and put them into productive assets (not commodities) you can touch.
• Make everything you can yourself.  Grow your own food.  Produce your own energy.  Make/repair your own clothes.  Turn costs into savings.  Reskill to do this.  The new "fashionable trend" isn't what you can buy, it's what you can make.  Anyone that buys "designer or branded" anything is a fool.
• Work online.  Convert your skills into something that can be sold electronically (most of my complex work is done this way).   Develop the skills necessary to work as part of a virtual team.  Telecommute whenever possible (and push to do this, even if it means less money), reduce the number of cars/dress clothes/etc you own in synch with this conversion (and move to a less expensive locale when possible!).   Always have two jobs going at the same time.
• Build a local business.  Own assets that produce and sell that production locally.  Even if it is small, it will help down the line via contact networks/experience (a new spin on modern "networking").  Develop the niche skills that sell locally. Group/tribe up when possible to tackle larger opportunities.
• Barter.  Cashless trades.  Convert what you have to what you need.  Skill set bartering is amazingly effective.  Become part of a local barter network (the backchannel).
• Bring your family home.  Grow your home to accommodate more people.  Bring back parents and grown kids (with their families).  This will allow you to pool incomes and radically reduce workload/costs.  It's also beneficial for security.  NOTE:  I've found that consideration/compromise is the best way to handle an expansive family home environment.  
• Suggestions welcome!! 

This change doesn't require cute and crunchy notions about "lifestyle" environmentalism.  It's all about mitigation of stresses in the short to medium term as living conditions deteriorate, while at the same time preparing to ride the resilient community wave to rapid and sustained long term success/wealth.

Comments

[Duncan Kinder]

Read Walden

[Duncan Kinder]

Also, read _The Good Earth_, by Pearl Buck

http://www.amazon.com/Good-Earth-Enriched-Classics/dp/1416500189/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246387652&sr=8-1

[worg]

Potatoes are incredibly easy to grow if you use "certified seed potatoes" which are available at most gardening stores. You can grow 100 pounds of potatoes per season in a footprint the size of two automobile tires-- two stacks of four.

I really don't know how bad things are going to get. I don't know if I even buy the whole "doom and gloom" thing. The economy itself is resilient and changes itself to minimize damage.

One strong possibility is that Western nations will minimize the impact on their own populations by increasing depredations on the Third World. That's what we've always done in the past.

[elektronika szczecin]

One strong possibility is that Western nations will minimize the impact on their own populations by increasing depredations on the Third World. That's what we've always done in the past.

[JP]

Gee, John, you sound like my hippie friends.
:D

[Jimini]

BE your own solution. Resilient communities start with resilient individuals and family/living units. Good stuff.

[Jimini]

I'm watching an NBC News piece on life for the troops in the remote outposts of Afghanistan. I wonder how much of the apparent contentment and lack of fear they exhibit is that they are in many respects living the dream. Small, semi-autonomous, resilient communities living with a common purpose and with a definite stake in their joint outcome. And then they come back to the clusterfuck that IS crony "free-market" capitalism, where people/families/communities are wiped out by hidden forces beyond their control and/or comprehension.

Sorry, I had to vent, but I think the observation/criticism is at least mostly valid. In my view, it's just a shame that many who actually feel that way too have bought the propoganda that the "Government" (whatever that actually means anymore) is actually looking out for them. Oh well, the show must go on.

[Jeremiah]

I'd think actually owning property would be helpful? Especially if it's arable?

Are people in the agriculture sector already ahead of the game, so to speak?

Good post, John. :)

[Jimini]

Jeremiah,

Good point. Property rights and a global guerrilla reorganization that partially/wholly rejects previous national, state, and/or regional agreements in larger terms. No reason to assume that all previous agreements are recognized in this area as well, and - INDEED - many reasons to assume that they would NOT be.

[Seerov]

Are you actually suggesting cashing-in our IRAs and mutual funds? That's pretty hardcore?

[Christopher S. Rollyson]

Hi John, serendipitously ended up reading Brave New War as well as a few of your articles and am in the process of reviewing. Thank you for a tremendous contribution that I've already recommended to several people. I'm a management consultant/strategy. I help orgs to profit from disruption. My current practice focuses on the nervous system: social network strategy. I have significant experience with building adoption models and roadmaps to help orgs understand what will happen, where they are, where they're going. I find they make disruption actionable for risk-averse execs.

What I would love to see is a roadmap for the vision you paint. I'm more interested in the causality than the timelines.. signposts. Based on my experience working with execs, this could be an awesome tool for any consulting work you do.

Here are some examples:
social network life cycle model
=>http://globalhumancapital.org/?p=696

Web 2.0 adoption curve
=>http://globalhumancapital.org/?p=675

Another format that could be blockbuster for you: the predictions and prognostications model: they're fun and not too difficult to write, and my clients love them. See:

2009 predictions and recommendations for social networks
=>http://globalhumancapital.org/?p=34

I'm really excited to have read your book; you've enabled me to take disruptive thinking into a new dimension; I've been questioning the sustainability of the nation state (in current form) for some time; see:
=>France 2.0: http://globalhumancapital.org/?p=83

Please let me know your thoughts.

All the best- Chris

[QJ]

JE-
When the apocolypes hits, what weapons you prefer, a .22 and/or and M16? That's the info I need to know,

QJ

[mittelwerk]

this seems to me the way most non-rich already live in this country -- in some declining semi-urban shithole (like, say, syracuse), jammed in with the in-laws, some veggies in the backyard, lots of rusted "assets" lying around, dickies and carhartt, etc ...

local economics (decentralization) on this scale would not return to this country until several decades of generalized collapse (which means collapse of the world economy). it's not going to happen yet. there are many stages of "equilibrium" on the way down. the one we're heading into is massively increased government intervention. right now it's yuppie socialism, but this may change quite rapidly.

also, isn't it logical to assume resilient communities will be privately designed and marketed and slots in them will be sold -- or perhaps "granted" based on ability, qualification, etc ... ?

[Peter T Bosse II]

Sounds like what I want to do: http://forum.freestateproject.org/?topic=18239

[BlueMoonChimneys]

We've been working on this for some time. negligible debt, heat with wood, grow much of our food, now with a dome greenhouse for 12 month growing season, chickens for eggs, large garden all on 2 acres. I am a chimney sweep so my services will be needed in hard economic times and my wife is an organic gardener of 16 years' experience. Big post-peak myth: it is easy to grow enough food to live on with no prior experience. Not.

For those potatoes, get solar powered mole repellers or the voles and moles will clean out your crop.

A .22 will be good to keep the predators away from the livestock, but an M16 might get you killed in a firefight. Friends and/or family near you will be very useful. If things get bad enough to need armaments you better not be solo.

I expect (hope for?) a step-wise descent rather than a violent crash, but nothing but recovery would surprise me. I am too old to see the other side, but my grandkids might if they survive.

[Wendy Kloiber @learningashland]

I'd add: move to a place with abundant clean water and add "hunt and forage" to your "grow your own food" bullet.

Good list! Good mindset. It produces good lives, whether the world goes to hell in a handbasket or not.

[Duncan Kinder]

Even the Amish need to learn about resiliency:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124640811360577075.html

"But the Amish in northern Indiana edged into the conventional economy, lured by the high wages of the recreational-vehicle and modular-homes industries. And they wound up experiencing the same economic whiplash millions of other Americans did.

There has been some fraying of the ties that bind the Amish, many in the community say.

"When you have plenty of money, you have a tendency to slowly drift away," says Steve Raber, 37, an Amish owner of a furniture-manufacturing business in Shipshewana, near Topeka. "I think people begin to forget who's really in control.""

....

"Like Amish in other parts of the U.S., the Indiana community strayed from their traditional reliance on farming in recent decades as their numbers grew and land prices rose. Many opened family businesses, often in furniture and other wood crafts.

By 2007, more than half of Amish men in these parts were working full time in manufacturing, and earning, on average, $30 an hour, says Steven Nolt, a professor at Goshen College in Goshen, Ind., who studies the community.

The great increase in discretionary income spawned a "keeping-up-with-the-Joneses mentality,""

....

"Even the tradition of helping each other out began to unravel,"

....

"Last fall, the recreational-vehicle industry began to lay off workers. Facing financial hardship, the Amish traditionally have sought aid within the community. But with nearly half of households depending on manufacturing income, Amish bishops this year reluctantly decided for the first time that laid-off workers could seek unemployment benefits."

....

"The past year's experiences have left many here shaken. With the unemployment rate in the area reaching 17.8% in April, a growing number of men have left their families for weeks at a time for out-of-state construction jobs. Some younger families have moved to other states.

In Indiana, a back-to-basics movement appears to be taking root. More patches of produce have sprouted behind Amish homes this summer. Restaurants are entertaining fewer Amish customers. Mr. Lehman says neighbors "are more considerate of each other now.""

[Darren]

Keep your money in your local community. If you need to buy something consider buying second hand from someone in your local area.

Use eBay, craiglist, garage sales etc.

It keeps your money local, plus by buying second hand the product does not need to be made, packaged, transported, warehoused and marketed. Saves oil and other resources and reduces emissions.

We already have enough "stuff" to meet most of our needs. Does anyone ever have to make another sofa?

[Nils]

I wonder about the first suggestion, John. I strongly suspect that the final endgame of the economic fiasco will be the collapse of the dollar, which will precipitate a massive inflationary episode in the U.S.

If you believe that -- and I believe you agree on this pint -- then isn't the wise thing to do to lever up as fast as you as on debt to get your hands on tangible assets (point #2, which I agree with entirely), given that the coming hyperinflation will vaporize nominal debt?

[JR]

Nils, not necessarily. A dollar collapse would cause the cost of imports to zoom and hence the cost of living. However, given the negligible bargaining power of workers, it doesn't necessarily mean that incomes will rise too.

Further, in that scenario, rates for debt would zoom, causing successive waves of bankruptcies by those needing refinancing or dependent on variable rate credit. This would accelerate shrinkage in the economy (which puts incomes at risk).

Pretty sure eliminating all debt, given the risk to incomes required to service that debt, is the optimal strategy.

[Robohobo]

Do as the Latter Day Saints recommend:

Stockpile 2 years worth of food and consumables = canned goods, dry goods (rice, beans, etc), smoked/dried meats

Us old hippies did have some good ideas, BTW. You can convert systems to sustainable ones. Water heaters as a good example.

QJ - You need a good selection of weapons. I suggest these types with uses attached.

.22LR handgun (Ruger makes a good one) = small game & personal protection
.45ACP handgun (Springfield XD) = personal protection
.270WIN hunting rifle (Mossberg ATR) = hunting
.30-06 or 7mm or 8mm or ? WWII battle rifle = personal/property protection & SHTF weapon (These can be relatively cheap and easy to find. Try the CMP for Garands or Mosin-Nagant or Mausers)
.22LR rifle pump or autoloader = general purpose
.223REM autoloader (Ruger Mini 14) = SHTF battle rifle Ammo is coming available again and fairly cheap for FMJ boat tails.

You can do all of that for less than $3000 dollars which includes a store of ammo.

[russell1200]

The problem is that you have to survive the short term problems before the long term problems become relevant.

In our current economy you have to keep cash flowing in order to be able to attempt the survival strategies above. Barter is fine, but not many governments are going to accept fresh eggs in lea of your property tax payment.

Multiple people within the household with at least self supporting incomes, and/or multiple jobs per person is one of the better methods of avoid economic ruin. The single person incomes in my neighborhood are pretty much the first ones to go bk. Just sort of random sorting as to which ones make it and which don't

The local business idea is a good one from the point of view of expanding your local network, but having a small business that actually makes money is not a mathematically likely outcome since 4/5ths of business go belly-up by their fifth year, and I think only 10% of businesses make it to their 10th. Possibly an alternative would be to volunteer with local organizations. You could but in 1/10th the effort of a small business (which is huge!) and probably come up with many of the same types of contacts.

I will have to try growing potatoes. Sounds very practical.

With regards to gun advice, would you not want some black powder rifles? Wouldn't they be more likely to have more ammunition for the long run? I wouldn't want to fight of the post-apocalyptic biker gang with them, but they seem perfectly adequate for hunting deer.

The Amish are running into the problem of sustaining a farming economy in an environment of low mortality and limited land. It tends to become a Malthusian problem and going to work in factories is pretty much the way our ancestors got around the trap.