Gloom, Despair, and Agony on Me

“Gloom, despair, and agony on me, deep, dark depression, excessive misery. If twern’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all. Gloom, despair, and agony on me.”  Many of you will not be old enough to have watched Hee Haw on Television. This was a recurring song for a recurring skit. The song would be followed by very bad jokes about bad situations, such as “My wife left me and ran away with my best friend. I sure miss him.” 

Here is the song from YouTube. 

This brings me to my topic for today. We are in a tough economic situation, but I do not expect riots in the streets—not big enough riots to cause societal disruption anyway. I admit that there is a nonzero chance of these kind of troubles happening. The problem with preparation for this unlikely but not impossible event is that there is no way to prepare for it. Unless you are prepared to move away, right now, to a rural area and become self-sufficient, you cannot prepare for this. No matter how big your gun is, the other guy’s gun is bigger. One of my oldest blog posts was on this subject. 

I suggest that you avoid the scam of the modern survival movement. Here is a quote from a blog post by the Prophecy Podcast editor, Pam Dewey, in one of her blogs-Prophecy Panic Button. She is discussing the mania that surrounded the Cold War. In particular the "training" that was given to the young-Bert the turtle! 

Bert was part of an effort by the Federal Government to provide “emergency preparedness” information to the public as part of the Civil Defense program spawned by the post-World War 2 “nuclear arms race” between the US and Russia. Under this program, the average American, from Kindergartener to Senior Citizen, was encouraged to take an active part in dealing with the Threat of Nuclear War. Kids were taught that their main responsibility for preparation was to learn to duck and cover. If they were at school when an attack came, they were to Duck under their desks, and Cover their heads.

If you think things are bad now, think a little about the 50's, the potential for disaster was much greater. 

Have a look at the whole post, as usual, Pam’s blog posts are interesting.  

While one cannot prepare for the Apocalypse, we can prepare for the tough times I am suggesting are 3 to 7 years away. I hope we have this long. Get out of debt, become more self-sufficient, and have a cash reserve.

While I do not expect “Doom, Despair, and Agony on Me,” I do expect that we may wish that new 60-inch TV hanging above the fireplace was a little smaller and our debt was a lot smaller. As Jean-Luc Picard might have said, “Make it so.”

Flee From Babylon?

A friend on a private forum asked me if I thought he should flee. He was not serious, but I thought it worth a look. The passage he had in mind is in Rev 18:

(Warning to Escape Babylon’s Judgment) 

4 Then I heard another voice from heaven say: “‘Come out of her, my people,’  so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; 5 for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes.”

Does this mean that one should sell everything, move to a remote area, and wait for the apocalypse? Some say yes. While the answer for me is no, there is some historical information that favors a yes.

Jesus said this in Mat 24:

15 “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. 18 Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. 19 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 20 Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.”

And this in Luke 21:

20 “When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. 21 Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city.”

Historically this was fulfilled in the years leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Suddenly the Romans armies surrounded the city, trapping everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike, in the city. Just as suddenly, they left. The revolutionary Zealots rejoiced, for God had delivered them! Christians had a different opinion. They left immediately and journeyed to Pella across the Jordan River.  Jesus' command not to take possessions was good advice because of the political situation.  In addition to the need for haste, it would have been viewed as "unpatriotic" to leave Jerusalem at the height of her victory and God-ordained deliverance. So loading up a wagon would have been dangerous. Instead, Jesus was advising haste and secrecy. Most Christians obeyed and left quickly. Very soon the Roman armies returned, Jerusalem was put under siege, and the people inside the city starved—some even ate their own children. This echoes Rev 6:

5 When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. 6 Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “Two pounds of wheat for a day’s wages, and six pounds of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”

When the city fell, any survivors were enslaved. The number of slaves was so large that the price of slaves dropped to bargain levels for years.

One should not interpret this the way one church did in the early 1970s. They were absolutely convinced that they too would flee to Jordan. Not flee from the troubled Judea, but flee from America to Jordan. They never explained why Jordan would allow 144,000 people to suddenly arrive there, although the leader of the church had many meetings with various dignitaries in the Middle East. Nor did they explain the logistics. One prominent minister suggested that DC-9s would be used.  A fleet of these had all been recently grounded because of metal fatigue which had resulted in 9-inch cracks in the wings. He suggested that the church could buy the fleet at rock-bottom prices, and God would provide 10-inch angels to make the planes safe. The same kind of foolishness is advocated by some religious leaders today. Flee from the wrath to come!

In my next blog post I will explain why I did the exact opposite of what these pundits recommend, and moved from rural Missouri to a community 3 hours from Los Angeles

Food Storage?

From Mises.org:

The May 30, 1918, New York Times carried the headline, "Navy Man Indicted for Food Hoarding." It reported on a man who had invested his wife's inheritance in a year's food for storage; and so they were held on a $3,000 bail each. The food was confiscated.

There is quite a lot of buzz in certain circles about food storing. The example from the Mises article shows some of the dangers. If you decide the buzz is correct and you buy food it would be best not to tell anyone. What no one knows you have no one can take. 

I think that having some food stored is a good idea for three reasons. First, it is a good investment in this current food inflationary environment. Food is going up in cost rapidly. Secondly, in this economy one can never be certain about your employment. Imagine how pleased you would be with a few months of food in your pantry if you or your wife are laid off. Another reason is the risk of natural disasters. While no one seems to be starving in Japan, those with some food stored did well. This assumes that their house was not destroyed by the quake or the flood of the tsunami. A Christian can also share with their neighbors. Unless society deteriorates to resemble a bad post-Apocalypse movie, having food for yourself and food to share seems like a good idea. If society does get that bad, you will die; and the food will be stolen. 

But there is no reason to buy the pre-made "survival" food. I just recently threw out all the food my mom purchased for the supposed Y2K "crisis." Some of it we did use, for example we added the soup mix to the pot whenever we made soup. But all the MRE packages we threw out. These pre-made emergency meals are not something you would ever eat unless you had to. 

You should store what you eat, and eat what you store. Let's say your family eats green bean cassole once a month. Then you should gradually have 12 cans of green beans, 6 cans of cream of mushroom soup (we use cream of chicken), and 6 cans of the onion topping. You would gradually buy more when these items were on sale, and build up your pantry. Having a well-stocked pantry is smart, having boxes of expensive survival food in your garage is not. 

Positive Dennis