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If you are getting the idea that we are pretty laid back at Four Flags Journal (FFJ), you are right. We don’t stress about much of anything.  We just love life and embrace the challenges! Our attitude is: It probably won’t happen (things that most people worry about) and if it does happen, we will deal with it then.

But it occurs to us that there are some things that cannot be dealt with unless we have planned ahead. Perhaps we should touch a bit on those things. After all, our goal is to keep it real. It is possible that we will be repeating here, but only because we feel that the things we have already said are doubly important.

Here at FFJ we have deep interest in economics, having a few economics classes under our belt as well as subscribing to a number of newsletters and having good friends who send us their paid newsletters. We find that each one of these professional analysts, even those who don’t mention it in their writing, are taking steps in preparation for crisis. Some are pulling up stakes and moving to areas that they feel are safe–sometimes outside the country of their birth. Others are setting up retreats that double as vacation homes, Others are taking steps to secure the place where they already live.

We recently quoted Catherine Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing in the United States and financial manager who has handled incredible amounts of money in the past, who left the financial center, New York City, for a small town in Tennessee. She suggests that we do something similar. She also suggested that, if you are in a large town and see signs of civil unrest, that’s the time to take an impromptu vacation.

Different financial analysts have different ideas of what we might be up against in the next 8 to 10 years–some say the next 3 or 4 years. We don’t know but we think the time to make important decisions is now. We hope to avoid putting ourselves at a disadvantage through neglect or indolence.

When we were still in the States, our next-door neighbor, who always seemed like a nice guy, told us, “I’m not worried, I’ve got a rifle and that’s all I need. I’ll get what my family needs, one way or another.” I looked a bit askance at that neighbor ever after!

It is critical to analyze where we live. How will we cope if the power goes off for several weeks. What if there is no fresh water? In the town where you live, how would you manage if the trucks were not running and the shelves in the market were empty? These are things that are almost unmanageable unless we plan ahead. Growing up in Florida, we have seen how fast food can disappear off the grocery shelves when a hurricane is imminent. It’s like magic! We also knew, living in Florida, what it was like to be without electricity or water for days. We were at least semi-prepared for those few days and at least we had a taste of that challenge. What if it went on for months?

As you know if you have have read FFJ News for very long, Argentina went through a serious crisis in 2001 and for a few years thereafter. Some people here in Buenos Aires were starving to the point where a truck that was hauling cattle turned over on a curve in the city and people were cutting chunks of meat off the cows and eating it in the street raw! It is hard to believe, looking at this beautiful city with all its culture, its opera house and theater, that people here were reduced to that. People in the States often think that it can’t happen there. But what about the 1930’s? We’ve been told that another depression can’t happen with the Federal Reserve managing the economy. Do you believe that?

By contrast, we have talked with people who went through the last Argentina crisis in some of the smaller Argentina farm communities and they claim they hardly knew there was a crisis by comparison. There was always plenty of food and in one case they even operated on barter when money was in short supply. It is an entirely different story in a small community.

In fact, one community we know of in Uruguay has plans to organize the local farmers to see that no one goes hungry in a crisis. Now THAT is what we call community! We, of course, hope that plan never has to be used, but still, if it does, they intend to be prepared.

If you really can’t move to a small farm community, can you buy a vacation home or do you have relatives who live rural who will work with you? Do you have plans to vacate your city if you need to do so? I was so surprised recently when talking via Skype with a wonderful young man who is special to me. I have never had this discussion with him that we are having here today. He lives in Denver and calls occasionally just to chat. One day when he called, I could tell he was working on something while he talked. I said, “What are you doing?” He said, “Packing my bug-out bag.” I said, “Bug-out bag?” “Yes,” he said, “I’ve got it down to 20 pounds and I could make it through the mountains, all the way to Canada.” Since he’s in Denver he thinks that, in a crisis, the streets would be just one big parking lot with other people trying to leave the city and so he keeps a bicycle. Even if an electromagnetic pulse is his challenge and the computer in his car is fried, he knows how long it would take him to reach a mountain trail by bicycle and how long it should take him to reach the Canadian border. He’s in Denver because he attends the university there but he certainly is not preparing to be a victim!  He may be young, but he is a man in charge!

By comparison, when we lived in Florida we had word that a hurricane coming ashore only a few miles from us was packing winds in excess of 200 mph. We are not up to braving winds that high and decided two days ahead of time to drive north–out of the Florida peninsula. You would think that time enough, right? Well a LOT of other people thought so too and Interstate 95 was a parking lot, barely moving. We inched our way to the next exit, skipped over to U.S. One and made it as far as Leesburg, Florida, before we realized we were destined to spend this hurricane in the WalMart parking lot. The hurricane stayed offshore as it passed Florida and came ashore much further north. From that experience, we learned how vulnerable we were and that, no matter how serious the crisis, you are NOT getting out of Central or South Florida.

Not all of us have had the scary experience of being trapped in traffic, with no apparent escape and a killer hurricane threatening. So we lovingly share this experience that changed our way of thinking. All this was expanded with the events surrounding Katrina and other crises. We no longer labor under the illusion that someone will take care of us. We plan ahead.

When it comes to planning, different people have different ideas. Gerald Celente, publisher of The Trends Journal, says he has food stored for three weeks, and if the crisis lasts longer than that, he is on an airplane out of the country. Can you do the same? And where will you go? One of my offspring is staying in Washington D.C. and I said Okay. Just keep enough cash in your apartment for a trip to the airport and a flight out—just in case. She has a place to come if she finds it necessary.

And what if you have a neighbor like the one I had, who has a rifle and will get what his family needs one way or another? Maybe you need to establish layers of security in your home as we do  here in parts of South America.

With a Katadyn water filter, missionaries in the Amazon can get drinkable water out of a mud puddle. Can YOU do that? We bought our first Katadyn years ago after watching people in the news, standing on their roof tops in a flooded area where they had been for several days, waiting for rescue–with water everywhere that they dared not drink!.

We also like freeze dried food because it is light and can be easily carried. I once lived on a farm and kept plenty of canned food in our cellar, but we could never have carried enough to make it worthwhile if we had ever had to leave our area.

Although we came to Buenos Aires for other reasons, still we think that, if we are ever faced with a worldwide crisis, South America will be less affected for several reasons. Most people here have lived through other crises and are not used to having everything they want—or even close. Most own their homes and are not in partnership with a bank. Also in South America people don’t lose their homes because they can’t pay the taxes. Most cities outside the large metropolis like Buenos Aires have vast farming areas in close proximity (and so does Buenos Aires, for that matter, but a large city has its own problems, nevertheless!)  In most cases we don’t have the same racial tensions here that are present on other continents. Although there are some problems here with what they call “indigenous people,” the problems are mostly confined to certain areas. For example, you will never find any more homogenous people anywhere than in Uruguay. Of course you will always have racial prejudice. It’s human nature. But the news media here (so far) does not play on it.

But even in South America we think that all the same issues should be considered ahead of time. The following web site might give you more specific ideas. http://www.survivalblog.com/