What You Should Prep for.. A Look at Historic SHTF's

The purpose of this document is to examine historic shtf scenarios and current trends to determine the most likely scenarios to occur. Of particular interest to the author are the Bosnian Civil War and the Argentina economic collapse. These two modern day events follow patterns of a lot of historic shtf scenarios but occur in a very modern setting(1990's) to modern people. With the way the economy is headed, something like the argentina collapse is very likely to occur. To better prep, we should study these situations and see which preps would be appropriate for each.

ARGENTINA ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

The argentina economic collapse of 1992 follows trends similar to the russian economic collapse of 1998 and the german Economic collapse. of noteworthy interest is these examples are both due to the gold standard being removed from currency and money being printed non stop. This kind of collapse is very different from the glorified zombie apocalypse type as you actually have to study the business and economic aspects of the collapse. The idea behind this kind of collapse is that basic commodities keep increasing in value at a rate that can't be kept up with by the increase in salary. Soon all of your money goes to basics like rent and food and to even keep your belly full can be a struggle. Lines in super markets are ridiculous and unemployment rises due to business collapsing. Crime and homelessness increase due to the unemployment and things just generally go to hell. Of note in this type of collapse is that modern infrastructure such as hospitals and groceries are mostly working, they are just ridiculously overworked and unaffordable


so to reiterate
1. country defaults, banks freeze assets for about a month
2 inflation occurs making money worth 1/5 of its original buying power
3.unemployment doubles very quickly, raising to 20-30%
4. grocery stores are still open but suffer from shortages
5. police/national guard are still around to stop looters and are very corrupt themselves
6. gold and foreign currencies become very valuable. in this case the american dollar was highly sought after.


On the day his country exploded, Santiago Bilinkis stayed at home and watched the riots on television with his wife and infant son. It was painful. In Buenos Aires, one of the world’s great cities, looters were attacking grocery stores. Bilinkis’s bank account—along with every other account in the country—had been frozen by executive decree three weeks earlier. Argentina was out of money.
This was December 20, 2001, a Thursday. That afternoon, several people were killed by police in front of the executive office building, known as the Pink House, and President Fernando de la Rúa resigned and fled the capital in a helicopter. In the days that followed, Argentina would cycle through four more presidents and default on debts totaling $155 billion. Unemployment would soar to 25 percent, and local governments, unable to pay their workers, would simply invent and print their own currencies. It was the beginning of the worst financial crisis in Argentina’s history—and by some estimations the worst peacetime financial crisis in the history of the world.

ferfal.blogspot.com...

PREPARATION

To get ready for this type of collapse, owning property and being able to rent it out goes a surprisingly long way. Property value generally keeps up with inflation. Growing your own food and being able to defend yourself would be a very close second. NOT SPENDING ANY MONEY is key, except on groceries and bills. No going to the bar, no going to eat out at all, no starbucks, no lawn service. Make it at home for 1/5th the cost. Think "how could i survive on half my budget"?

Home invasions were apparently popular in Argentina as well as kidnapping. The police apparently were extremely overworked and also very corrupt; so of no help to most people. Owning gold and multiple forms of currency also work extremely well for this kind of collapse. Keeping about a months worth of currency on hand helps when the ATMs and banks are frozen. I must stress that this collapse is slow, unglorious and you are NOT likely to be shooting people left and right. While there might be riots, you can not shoot your self out of this kind of collapse unless you take up a life style of constant robbing. Keeping a year or two worth of food is extremely smart... your ganna eat anyway right, and inflation is always ongoing.


BOSNIAN CIVIL WAR


The second example is illustrated by the Bosnian Civil war; very straightforward, more of what we think of as a traditional SHTF. Occurred in a first/second world country in 1991-1996; following traditional trends of war. The seiges, lack of food and resources, artillery bombardment of civilian populated areas, and disease are all very straight forward and have occured throughout history as a part of war. Of note is that within cities crime exponentially increased due to lack of resources. This phenomena, while probably always historically present, is now worse due to the new size of cities and the impersonalness and lack of community that is the by product of modern cities/ Modern culture.


This scenario is probably the most likely for many people and countries, as civil war is a daily occurrence around the world. The chaos of a civil war is in ways worse than a traditional war because of the lack of clarity between sides. Many people reading this are probably american so not as use to the idea of civil war, but for many people around the world such things occur every decade. Both of my parents grew up in countries that were strife full of civil war. My father has told me stories about having to board up all the windows in the house and having the whole family all sitting in the living room for a week at a time, all of the family guns loaded and on the table as gunshots and screams rang outside.


PREPARATION


Preparation for this type of event would involve straightforward food/water, guns/ammo and medical supplies. Growing your own food would be a close second to those first preps. The idea is to live until the situation stabalizes. Anywhere from a month to 5 years being likely. Moving away from a city/not living in a city would also seem to be a very good idea. Owning a well fortified home with high walls and clear lines of sight and having a group to exchange watch duties with is also up there. (home invasions can occur at any time but between 3a.m. to 4a.m. are very likely) At first i believed gold would be worth stockpiling, but listening to Selco and other people who have gone through this, gold is nearly worthless at the time compared to ammo food and medical supplies. Antibiotics!! Worth an arm and a leg.

MARTIAL LAW

A third and very likely scenario for Americans is Martial Law. This one is a little more complicated because it can play so many ways. Somethings to note is that depending on your state your CCW rights are probably ganna be taken away. On top of that is always the issue of confiscation. I know most people will say I'll just shoot them dead and hey more power to you (although you might want to keep that quiet with the way this country is going), but lets look at modern history again. Katrina is an interesting example of martial law. Officially it was just a state of emergency but thats because louisiana doesn't have martial law in the books they have a "state of emergency" Alot of americans did actually give up their guns during that situation. I don't remember hearing any stories of people saying no to the agents/police and keeping their guns besides one story of a preacher at his church. CIVIL RIGHTS AND MIRANDA RIGHTS WERE SUSPENDED.


This one is a hot bed that can play out so many different ways i would like to hear your thoughts on this. One extremely valuable tip i can give is that you can Legally own an unregistered bolt action rifle that fires modern smokeless cartirdge if it was made before 1898. Specifically antique mausers in 7 x 57 mm cartridge , EXTREMELY accurate, great ballistics, supposedly one of the most flat trajectory and accurate rounds in existence. almost a sniper rifle by today's battle rifle standards, throw on a scope and i would call it just as good despite being 115+ years old. 7mm mauser round which is a little hard to find but use to be known as the big game Africa round, famous for its use on elephants. Do your own research on this and what you would do if asked if you had a firearm. (antique guns still count as firearms and all laws apply i do not encourage breaking the law) I think with the way politics are getting you should definately be careful breaking the law and if i were you i wouldn't talk about it too much.

Otherwise this prep would probably be multiple forms of currency on hand, including gold. 1 to 2 years of food would also be second. Being commited to staying low key and out of prision camps at all cost would be high. Stay off the radar, when your rights are suspended its not worth getting thrown in jail with no trial indefinately for waving signs. I'm not saying just take it sitting like a good little boy, i'm just saying think is it worth it? What is worth it? Do i have people to provide for?

CONCLUSION

Of course the idea behind prepping is to be ready for all possible outcomes, but i believe that looking at modern history and trends can help us all focus our preps. Most of us only have so much money time and energy so we must be sure to prep wisely. From what i've seen of most discussions on this forum, I would recommend for most people to drop as much $$$ as they would put into one gun on their garden. $300-$1000 dollars on bringing in truck fulls of premium soil and finding low maintenance local fruit trees. At a minimum. Trust me, it'll be better than buying your 7th rifle when the shtf. Not everybody has time to grow a vegetable garden so local and low maintenance is a key concept. (local plants that can survive from local rain if there's not enough water for you let alone your garden)

I would also recommend keeping a little bit of gold for situations like martial law and slow economic collapse similar too the Great Depression. Gold will not be as useful during a Bosnian type collapse, but according to those that went through it, some people were trading in it even then. Gold should be last prep/least important if preping for Bosnian type of collapse.


Horse manure is a very good nutritious mix of manure and bedding hay that is surprisingly smell free, added to almost any soil it will greatly improve the soil.

First class soil can be cheaply made in a few months by grabbing free mulch(wood chips/hay/tree trims) and super composting it by throwing a tarp over it. This traps in the heat speeding up the composting process vastly.



Worth mentioning are other likely scenarios
1.nuclear war
2.solar flare??(wildcard)
i beleive that the generally prep you would put into a civil war type collapse would work well for these scenarios. The main outcome would be being cut off from the rest of the world due to the likely collapse/overwork of the shipping/transportation network.

Bosnia and Argentina do not have a 700 plus billion dollar defense budget.

This is something that I think most SHTF people fail to realize.

I believe our government will do anything in their powers to stay in power. This is going to lead to a totally different scenario then I think most realize.

I believe that we will be forced to stay in our home.

reply to post by liejunkie01


so your saying something like the third point for america, martial law??
cuz i think that is very likely outcome based on our current political climate.

Originally posted by Nephlim
reply to post by liejunkie01

 

so your saying something like the third point for america, martial law??
cuz i think that is very likely outcome based on our current political climate.

I see a combination of the 3 as a possibility.
And with 300 million people that's the worst case scenario.
Not anytime soon, but the progession towards it is already in motion.

A good analysis imo. However, I think you overemphasize gold and under emphasize silver. Trying to buy a loaf of bread with gold is problematic at best. However, using a silver dime is much easier. Gold should be used for wealth conservation, while silver or commodities should be used for small purchases. My thoughts, anyway. Take them for what you think they may be worth.

reply to post by Nephlim


Yes,

I feel that "they" will make it seem ok and just to stay indoors. If you come out at night, then you could be shot.

I am sure that MSM will have looters, rapists, and murderers, on tv day and night just to add to the urgency.

reply to post by liejunkie01

They do that already to try to convince us to give up our guns.

reply to post by liejunkie01


america has already done something like martial law already.. in my state of hawaii they rounded up the japanese during WWII and put them into camps. No trial or nothing. a majority of this island is japanese so i think they just rounded up the newer immigrants.

over all about 100,000 Japanese were rounded up in camps.

so its been done only 60 years ago. something to keep in mind.

S&F im always up for discussing survival scenarios. Im a moderate prepper. Been meaning to get an indoor garden started because anything outside would most definately be looted quickly. Ive never been fond of guns but after entertaining thoughts of crazed people loose on the streets who ARE armed i may consider getting atleast one firearm. Theres an airforce reserve base not far from me, just a few miles away so I think we would have military on foot no doubt. I have purchased about 20 solar torches (typically used in gardens) and two larger flashlight size ones.

Unfortunately as you stated, alot of people after they pay their bills have little left over. Looting would be out of control. So it is difficult to invest in as much as we would like to for survival. Even just two of each plant is better then nothing I guess.

Antibotics, absolutely! Something as simple as tylenol or bandaids i imagine would be wiped clean off the shelves.

I think Americans need to take a very long, hard think about whether or not they consider that it will be truly viable for them to use their guns, in a martial law scenario.

You might have hunting rifles or shotguns at most. Most of you won't have assault rifles, (AK 47s and such) and the majority of you also won't know how to make explosives, even if you were able to get hold of the necessary materials. Yes you'll have basic guns, but how many of you really know how to use them?

Most of the people reading this subforum are presumably civilians, myself included. That means we're probably not used to doing truly rigorous or disciplined daily exercise. It means we're not used to doing things like drills. It means we don't know how to really co-ordinate, or have the discipline or single mindedness required to do so...and in the case of many of us, it would also mean that we don't really have the ability to either give or follow orders.

The system has trained you to think of yourselves as individuals for a reason. The cabal know damn well how powerful a coherent collective is; how do you think they operate themselves? They want you isolated and cut off from each other. They want your own ego so strong, and your discipline so weak, that if you were in a scenario where you had to simply swallow whatever opinion you might have, and simply do as you were told, you wouldn't be able to. I have an ego like that myself. I'm a narcissist.

This is going to seem like a stupid example, but back when I was playing World of Warcraft, it got to the point in the end where, five minutes into a given CTF match, out of two ten man teams, I could tell you who was going to win, based on who was co-ordinating and had a coherent strategy that drew in the whole group, and who wasn't. If you were lucky, you'd have 4-6 people out of a given 10 man team who were willing to take orders, and who could be relied on to consistently hold the line, rather than going off and doing their own thing.

That didn't just apply to the rest of my team, though; it applied to me as well. If I was going to lead a team to the point of winning a game, it meant I had to keep myself reined in and on target, as well. Sure, I might have been tempted to just go into mid field and randomly attack people with the rest of them, but that didn't win games. So I had to hold myself back, and sometimes I had to maintain the attitude that even if there was nobody else on the team who was willing to hold it together, I was.

Anyone in this subforum can talk tough while they're here...again, me included. If we'd been in New Orleans after Katrina though, then we would have found out about it. We would have simply been shot like animals, if we'd stuck our heads up. Blackwater are insane; not only do they love to fight, but they're trained for it as well. I'll never forget one guy who was interviewed there and said that, "he just wanted to get back to Kirkuk (in Iraq) where the real action was."

Do not overestimate yourselves. Any of you. It will do nothing other than get you killed.

Right now mother nature is rearing her ugly head and most people I know and most of my family are gearing up for what is amounting to a wicked tornado season at the moment. Hell, the season just started and the storms are getting nasty 100 touch downs over the last couple of days alone.

Aside from weather related problems, I think we all need to think long and hard about the months head as election day grows ever closer. I get the feeling that widespread Civil Unrest may be the beast that leads to short term economic problems and even Martial Law in certain regions of the the country prior to November.

reply to post by petrus4


i use to think along the lines of no one is ever going to take my guns from me!! but then i realized who's ganna provide for my GF if i'm gone? who's ganna take care of my elderly parents? My brother isn't as well prepped and i'm very useful at harvesting local plants and climbing coconut trees.

so the answer is a little more complicated than it seems...
something we should all think about, are you willing to go to jail indefinately along with your family for holding onto your guns?
are you willing to die for it??

that one is an interesting one because theorhetically there should be enough gun owners in america where if every single one did resist and took out 2 to 3 confiscators then i'm pretty sure there wouldn't be confiscation going on after awhile. no one did this during katrina though.. no one.

they're likely to do it when your least ready for it though... just like during katrina. people were walking to safety carrying and the confiscators would come up with their guns ready and demand their weapons. in that situation your ganna lose.

Gun-grabbing in the US.

A number of posters in this thread (and the whole forum) have mentioned this. Based on Katrina, etc., it might be worth considering how to have guns in a readily concealable place when an emergency is declared.

I was watching the footage of Katrina gun siezures while posting in the "dealing with looters" thread. One thing I noticed was that cops came and banged on peoples doors. They demanded guns and were given guns. I don't know how thoroughly I searched for them. But law enforcement experience shows that 95% of American keep guns in the master bedroom closet, under the master bed, or in a lockbox in the garage or basement.

In New Orleans, I don't know that the police:
-searched any self-storage units
-searched any garden sheds
-searched any attics, or crawlspaces that are unfinished dirt. (it would mean soiling an officer's uniform).
-moved any large/heavy pieces of furniture, or disassembled any duct-work, while searching for guns.

Notice that there is no point in hiding rifles, if you leave the ammunition out.

I also suspect that if LEO's pound on your door and demand guns, that if you hand them some "guns," they will accept them at face value, and tend to believe that those are "all my guns," especially if you act upset and demand a receipt for "all my guns." Even if they are inoperable or antique. (you won't get a receipt, but you are more likely to be convincing as an actor)

ETA:

It would be even more convincing, if they found your gun safe, and made you open for them, and then they seized all your guns. I bet they would assume they'd gotten everything that way.

PS:

It would be a hell of a dangerous job, to go through a suburb in a gun-toting state, and demand ppls guns, wouldn't it? Can you imagine what that would feel like? I mean it would be easy for the first 10 houses or so; but if someone has a cellphone, and calls their friend on the next street over.....

And there you are, the only thing stirring on an othewise empty street. Getting in and out of your vehicle repeatedly. Soldiers from urban combat will tell you that the moment of vehicle exit and entry is the most vulnerable....

I bet that would feel weird.

And that's the thing about snipers. They don't have to be particularly accurate, to slow down the enemy to an absolute crawl. And the more snipers you draw, the more improvised resistance comes out to meet you, as you are slowed to a crawl.

Practically downtown Mogadishu.