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I suppose one way to look at this is to envision a looting party coming up to an abandoned homestead filled with food, water and gold coins.
Will they take the gold coins? ONLY if there is still an economic structure in place such that they have value. A smart looter would not take them if this structure is no longer in place - why burden yourself with the extra weight of a few shiny discs?
So, the value of those coins depends upon the current local socioeconomic structure.
Not so with food and water. The looters need that regardless of what the local economy is doing. Whether there is a government or not, they need to eat and drink.
The reason governments aggressively prosecute people who determine their own media of exchange, and encourage people to avoid "black market" or any other type of unsanctioned trading, is because those governments want to - have to - control the meaning of value. If the government says that gold, or purple rags, or green paper is the medium of exchange, they not only control the resource, they control what it is worth.
My neighbors and I exchange goods and services all of the time with nary a dollar being exchanged. Vegetables for eggs, repair work for meat or milk - all of these things are produced by us and we determine what they are worth. We are not "wealthy" in the monetary sense, because our wealth is 'hidden' and not worth anything on the open market. I can't give a cow to the bank to pay our mortgage, or 12 dozen eggs to the phone company; one has to have the accepted norm of payment for the outside world. When government enforces the rule of exchange, it controls worth and value; i.e., its subjects' poverty or wealth. When government is subverted by other media of exchange, it becomes angry and violent because no longer does it determine the media of exchange - the media is what the market (those who buy and sell and trade) will bear; government no longer determines or is able to determine who is wealthy and who is not. Government does not like people who are wealthy in trade, it likes people who use their chosen media of exchange and rewards them - by taking it from them at every opportunity and giving it to others 'more deserving' (including themselves).
Most folks do not want to be paid with a cow or a pig or produce; they want money because it can be exchanged for all of those things - or for flat-screen TVs, or crack, or a house, or propane to heat their homes. When you subvert the established currency, you subvert the government and the rules for exchange that it has established for its own enrichment. You are no longer under the control of government, they can no longer tell you what you can do or what you can have. This frightens them. What if everyone did it? Then government drones and shills would be determined to be useless based on their work output, and would not receive goods or services any more in exchange for - nothing. People would receive what they were worth and had earned, instead of "money for nothing and checks for free". And that simply cannot be allowed to happen. Government determines the media of exchange solely to control the people, and encourages them, even rewards them, to think of "wealth" as having mass quantities of shiny metal or engraved paper. Only in this way can they be manipulated.
I do love how people have a way of insisting, even demanding, that history repeat itself, by ignoring the basic facts of life.
I will not harm another for my own survival - unless that person shows an intent to harm me for mine. I prefer to attempt to survive on my own, with my own goods and guns and wits about me. But if I am the only person left in this tiny village, and all around me are 'houses of the dead' - you betcha I'll eventually go see what they left behind. And I would expect that, if I were one of the ones who is inadvertently "Raptured" - my few surviving neighbors would do the same, rather than to solely depend on the reinstatement of law that might never come, or take too danged long to get here.
I repped you for this much........
If SHTF I have big plans for that cord of hemlock bark. It's been lost to man since the day the bark tannery went out. I have no idea even where it was. But I know that pile, at 1 cord of hemlock bark was bound for the tannery 80 to 140 years ago.
There is no point moving it to another location, it's best off right where it is on the mountain. It can make a decent shelter, and the game are used to it being right where it is anyway.
The top is weathered, but will still contain tannin's and with that I can make leather that isn't brain tan. I like brain tan better than velvet, but I like hard leather too.
The only items I find in the woods to move are items that may not last the time, or I can use right now. In the past just 2 items I can recall have been 1 nice cast iron loggong camp wood stove I took apart and re-installed in another location, and a Aladadin Oil lamp.
In the case of the wood stove there it was just half buried in duff (mountain soil that forms of years worth of tree leaf dropping). In the doing I found the corner posts of the logging camp kitchen.
The lamp was in another location, where once stood a stone cabin. There were only partial walls left standing, one higher than 12 inches. What I first saw of the lamps was about 1 inch of the brass burner, and for grins I attempted to lift that off the ground.
I was stunned it didn't move, and so dug it up with a stick. It is a unbroken Lincoln Drape Model B lamp in depression milk glass.
The best part is you can still get glass chimineys, mantels and wicks, and now it is one of 4 I use to heat our room in winter. Of course these last 3 parts were long ago missing, but I have it all right now.
I suppose one way to look at this is to envision a looting party coming up to an abandoned homestead filled with food, water and gold coins.
Will they take the gold coins? ONLY if there is still an economic structure in place such that they have value. Food and water are necessities.
Gold is not.
There is always be an economic structure of some sort in place. In the absense of a currency from a trusted trusted government or bank, gold is always the default currency. Twenty-five hundred years have provided clear proof of that.
Water can be tainted or sabotaged. Food can be tainted or sabotaged. If I weren't sure of food or water I'd destroy it. That full bottle of green Gatorade might really be radiator coolant. The victim could easily take a swig before he realized something were amiss. If I didn"t need the food or water and knew for a fact it were OK, I'd still destroy it. The same would apply to other supplies. I certainly wouldn't care to help some potential enemy.
There is always be an economic structure of some sort in place. In the absense of a currency from a trusted trusted government or bank, gold is always the default currency. Twenty-five hundred years have provided clear proof of that.
Ehhhh ... I still see it my way.
Ask any society that has experienced an economic collapse what they valued most. Ask the next starving person you meet in the woods if they'd like a bar of gold. When you go hiking or camping or hunting or fishing, do you carry gold with you?
Yes, as long as there are others trading the gold, gold will have value. What I'm saying is that in a true SHTF scenario, where food and water are scarce, gold won't always buy them.
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Water can be tainted or sabotaged. Food can be tainted or sabotaged. If I weren't sure of food or water I'd destroy it. That full bottle of green Gatorade might really be radiator coolant. The victim could easily take a swig before he realized something were amiss. If I didn"t need the food or water and knew for a fact it were OK, I'd still destroy it. The same would apply to other supplies. I certainly wouldn't care to help some potential enemy.
Of course - awareness and cynicism are great tools to use for trading. But gold can be faked or irradiated also. I could put a few bricks in a briefcase and tell you it's payment in full.
What exactly is the point you're trying to make - that food and water are not as safe as gold?
LOL If I recall it was fairly recently Pakistan bought a lot of gold, that was gold plated lead bricks. it could have been India too, I wasn't paying much attention, but was ammused at the scam.
I will always be willing to take gold or silver as a trade item, but I agree that if I were starving I could not eat gold or silver. I see these 2 items are a means of saving a given value, when you have enough resources to exist poast just basics and food.
Unlike a paper dollar gold and silver have always been worth something. Right now I place the value of 1 troy oz of silver at 1 buck, and the same size ingot of gold at 100.
I bet no one will beat my door down seeking paper to trade any time soon. That's my buy price, not my sell price.
I started this after visiting Hancock Fabrics to get some winter weight material to make my husband a new robe. We were talking about Katrina while checking out.
The Wal-Mart down the street was looted - including clothing. Hancock wasn't touched!
When we went to the feed and seed store, I make a point of asking the owner if he had been looted. He said that, before leaving, he locked the weapons he had for sale in a walk-in safe. When he got back, the store had been broken into, but the seeds, feed and agricultural equipment was untouched. He said he didn't mind that they took cooking equipment, but cammy suits? They even took windsocks and rose bushes!
We had a good laugh together.
By the way, I bought sewing thread and equipment (pins, needles, thimbles, scissors, etc) and crochet supplies (thread, hooks and rolls of completed crocheted lace) worth at least $100 for $7.00 at a garage sale last weekend. The woman selling the supplies said her grandmother used them. When her grandmother died, they just dumped everything into a plastic bag that a comforter had come in. No one knew what to do with them!
If I found stores that had not been looted in a SHTF situation after a year, I would assume that the owners were 1. dead; 2. no longer interested in the merchandise. If I needed what was in the stores, I would take it.
Your post reminds me of me at yard/garage sales....
My best find at a garage sale was at the end of a last day and I realized few people if any care to knit, sew or weave anymore....I got just under 40 pair of knitting needles, 10 or so crochet hooks and some of the things used for making hairpin lace and a few really nice tatting shuttles (one ivory). At the same house: 25 cents each for wool hanks for knitting - got $10 worth (40). Same house: full bolt of muslin (20 yds/unopened) and quite a few piees of yardage of cloth -- all lovely and from lightweight to heavyweight. For all the knitting/lace/tatting and crochet? $7.50. Yarn $10. Fabrics $12.50. Walked out with tons of stuff and paid a pittance. [I have since sorted all the knitting needles and traded all doubles -- I kept the best -- to a friend for her making me 3 scarves from the spun wool given to me by the friend who wanted the tatting shuttles.] The yarn is with all my other yarn [real wool is very hard to come by and I have it stored with mothballs]. The yardage is all set for either quilting or clothing and the muslin for patterns or backing [I have a treadle machine should I need it]
Would I loot it from a place? I'd have a hard time doing it. Trade it as I did for different things and make what I need, Yep. If that $30 had been my last $30, I'd have tried to barter lowed, but as it is, it is considered a great find -- esp. since I bartered what I didn't want for things I did.
My husband and I were talking about looting while watching the occutards sitting around the country. One of the things we discussed was - if SHTF, would you loot abandoned areas? If so, what would you take?
I am sure that ammo and guns would be gone, and medicines and medical supplies. But, I would go to stores and look for seeds, and farming tools. I also would go to fabric stores and collect patterns and bolts of cloth.
Other than that, I can't think of anything that would be useful.
What would you take?
If I were to shoot or blow-up the occupants, then technically would their building be considered abandoned?
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