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In 2008 when the financial crisis hit, I had some friends that got their news from Zero Henge got into a panic spiral. One of them was seriously thinking of quickly buying a plot of land and farming it so he wouldn't starve to death when the economy collapsed.

I had to explain to him that no, he won't starve to death. Even if money ceases to exist overnight, the government will step in and forcibly collect the food from farmers if need be and distribute it to the cities.

As a part of the argument I worked out what it takes to feed an adult for a year with storable staples. There's "preppers" that have helpfully prepared lists of things to buy with nutrition profiles, etc...

Apparently, all you need is a trip to Costco and about $2,000 will buy you a year's supply of salt, sugar, oil, lentils, dried fruits, nuts, flour, etc...

You can scrape together that much money even if you're unemployed!



>Apparently, all you need is a trip to Costco and about $2,000 will buy you a year's supply...

The real issue is doing this while everyone else in the city is trying to do this at the same time.

Our supply chains are very very fragile, as COVID era panics have proved.


So the preppers were right all along...?


In some sense.

It really depends on how much you are willing to prepare for low probability events.

Would you wear a bullet proof vest every day?




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