Topic: Best/worst places to be in the United States once the USD plummets? - page 2. (Read 4666 times)

I haven't seen the movie, but it is simply a geeky joke on a couple of levels -- the original soylent in the book was just soy and lentils (it was a story about poverty), but then they added cannibalism and made it the main theme of the movie for dramatic purposes. Since this product was originally just a blog post about someone's homemade liquid, naming it that was probably actually a smart marketing move that helped it go viral.

Nowadays thanks to Rob's blog posts, "soylent" has become a kind of generic term for liquid diet that is supposed to meet all your nutritional needs. Rob is making his own and selling it via CrowdFunder. But there are also "open source" versions for DIYers... like this one that I just started making for myself: http://www.cookingfor20.com/2013/06/18/hacker-school-soylent-recipe/

Unlike Rob's, this one is really based on soy. I'm considering scaling up and selling it for BTC... it actually tastes really good.

I can't see it, something on that site keeps crashing my browser.

Nope, got a plan.  The hardwoods I'll require that they are cut in winter, so they'll "coppicce" and grow back.  The regrowth rate is so much faster because the root system is already in place.  As for the stumps that can't regrow, or just fail, I'll cover over with a layer of good soil and use as a huglekultur bed (http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/) for the replacement fruit tree guild.  Basicly the stump and roots rot in the ground, providing long term fertilizer and water retention for the seedling fruit tree.

That's still pretty nice. I know plenty of people that still have wood furnaces. Folks around here will practically give it away as long as you do the chopping yourself and vote for their friends in city or county elections. When done on a national scale, it's a scandal, in a small community it's just 'being neighborly'.

I think there's a lot to be said for working towards self-sufficiency, even if you don't have to work all that hard at it.

You're may have problems getting rid of the stumps, but you might have a neighbor or someone that can help.

You're right, that's not going to be enough to feed everyone especially early on, even if it could eventually take care of you and yours. If you have a steady and reliable income otherwise, you could still probably do fine.

You might like this article:
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/04/heritage-apples-john-bunker-maine?page=1

I'm in the process of buying  a few hectares of land just outside of my home city.  It's kind of strange, because I've always been a 'city boy'.  I know almost nothing about farming, but then nor do I need to know that stuff.  What I plan on doing isn't farming, per se.  It's permaculture.  See, the land I bought is almost completely wooded.  Old growth timber 70 feet high, 30 to 50 inches across, and a complete canopy.  It's downright dark in the deep woods at midday.  I plan on a 'selective cut' of timber right from the start, to balance out some of the purchase price & to open up the canopy; letting me transition the property into a 'food forest'.  There is one house on the property already, that has been heated with wood grown from the same lot for as long as the house has been there.  When I walked the lot, there were at least four deadfall trees that hadn't yet been cut up.  In other words, the growth of the trees, even matured, outpace the heat needs of the single family home in this climate.  Some pawpaws, apples, pears, etc; mixed into the forest, and in a decade or so the 'food forest' will produce a great deal of food.  Problem is, permaculure doesn't produce on a modern industrial timescale.

A number of Russians did struggle to feed themselves after the Russian financial crisis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Russia

The loss of the government farms initially led to a temporary dearth of expertise, and while corporate farms in Russia exist today, they are horribly inefficient compared to individual and family farms.

Basically, imagine the US gov't fails, what would happen? Well, all the subsidy pushers and corporate entities can no longer make profits off the land, so they start failing en masse and in order to try to recoup their costs, sell back the farms to individuals willing to farm it. And they'd do so at very reasonable rates, enough that someone could pay once (assuming they had the Bitcoin/Gold or whatever else might still have value) to pay for it and then have a plot of land that could feed them and their immediate family plus generate a steady stream of income for them to put their kids through secondary schooling.

I know a number of you might swear off living in a place like Iowa, but it's not like farming is rocket science or that you'd have to grow only corn, you could also raise pigs or cattle and trade with your neighbors for their corn and etc to feed your pigs and cattle, if you could produce the means to feed yourself, your family, and all your friends, would you do it?

I suppose I'm biased since I already live here and have friends and family in farming and herding. :/

It is important to note that the people that really struggled after the Russian financial crisis were the ones without friends and family. Many of them had to join the mafia or resort to prostitution, drug trade, or other criminal enterprises. If the dollar falls apart, be prepared to start talking to old friends and family members that you'd long since sworn off. And don't worry, they'll be seeking you out if you're worth anything, too.

BTW, if you fear things might really get this bad, order a map of the salt "licks" in your area from your state geological survey outlet.  If you live farther than 100 miles from a coastline, you might find this information particularly valueable.

Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a convience store, not the name of a government agency.

Hmm...well, if you were in a store that sold beer, whiskey, guns, or any of a number of things...as the USD plummeted, you'd make out nicely.  The key would be to stay behind the curve on the plummet.  This can be practiced with surfboards.

I heard it works pretty nice for a while.

Indeed.  Cities developed long ago due to the efficiencies of groupings, and it's quite possible for a standard 1/4 acre lot to grow 50% or more of the food that a family of four would consume.  However, the knowledge of how to grow 'victory gardens' is all but lost in America, and generations of growing nothing but fescue on poor soils, and then throwing away the cuttings, has left us with quite a challenge.  IF a major currency crisis sets off a series of bad events and leads to a "world made by hand" imagined by some, or even a major economic collapse such as occurred in Russia during the 1990's; then there will be much suffering before enough of the population has both the knowledge and the resources to grow respectable amounts of food on urban plots.  There certainly aren't enough horses in this country to even come close to replacing lost bulk transportation capacity if we lose access to petrol.  But at least there will be plenty of unskilled labor able to do the work of gardening, if there are people willing to teach them all how to do it under such circumstances.

I tend to disagree with the 'near food' argument.

I want to be near people who provide valuable services; we're still going to have a functioning economy, just not based around the USD. A higher density population means I have more trading opportunities available within x radius than in rural, crop-growing areas.

Presumably, we'd outsource the import of food just as we do now: people would be paid to make it their job to transport enough food for the urban population(s) they service.

Also, social controls are going to be more important as government falls apart. No one hears a home invasion in the middle of no where. And fuel will be too valuable to constantly travel long distances just to make normal exchanges.

(I realized my post is kinda talking post-apocalyptic US, assuming the world is on par with the States' condition. Naturally if the USD alone plummets, the answer is 'outside the US.')

Ftfy.

U wouldn't catch me there NOW... even armed.

For anyone who hasn't seen this, go watch it.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colony_(U.S._TV_series)

No one does, really.  That was my point.  To assume that the population will necessarily go mad just because of a currency crisis is at least as unsupportable.  There have been currency crisies in the past, and the degree to which the population goes mad varied significantly along with the details.

no place is safe prior to USD crash.. You have no idea how the generally population will react

Based upon what, exactly?  I would say it very much depends upon the details.  While it's unlikely that the dollar collapses without coincidental civil strife, the portion of the US "society" most immediately dependent upon the trustworthiness of the dollar are those whose paychecks are directly or indirectly dependent upon the government itself.  A very visable breakdown of the dollar, lacking realistic possibilities of returning to a viable currency, would be a harsh blow upon the government to maintain it's grip of control in any local sense.  Whether this is good or bad very much depends upon the particulars of your own local situation, and your particular viewpoint on the value of the federal government itself.

In any case, living in a mountain town isn't a bad place to weather any kind of storm.

None.....

If the dollar collapses then the rest of society is bound to falter.  I will be enjoying the mountains while the rest of the cities across the country are in turmoil.  People will be scrambling for food, shelter & safety.  Albeit this would be worst case scenario.

Bitcoin isn't going to solve all of the worlds problems.

if the dollar just declines, then right where I live today will be just fine.

And what role would bitcoin play in this scenario?

Up in the mountains.

Fishing
Hunting: Deer, Rabbits, Moose, Ducks, etc
Farming
Less population
Plenty of wood for housing & heat (firewood)
Possibly mining (minerals....not crypto)
Plenty of water in reservoirs & streams.  Also least contaminated.
Away from government rule and civil unrest