Survival Chronicles of Jim - Chapter 21, Preparing for a Possible End of the Year Collapse

UrbanMan's comments: I have been speaking to Jim about the possibility of a Stock Market collapse before the end of this year,...that's right, within the next three weeks. Not that I think it is probable, just possible. Since Congress has not extended the current tax rates (the so-called Bush Tax Cuts) which will expire December 31st, there is the possibility of many people consolidating their assets and cash resources.

If Congress does extend the current tax rates, everyone's tax rates will go up including capital gains. I read somewhere that if a person has an annual income of $75,000 than they will be taking home $200 per pay period (every 2 weeks) less next year. If the tax rates are set to go up, this should cause many investors to sell off stocks in order to realize the much lesser current tax rates and capital gains rate. If too many investors do this, it will cause a panic, developing a selling run and collapse the market which would drive this country into an immediate depression.

I told Jim that it would be a good idea to start "leaning forward" and fine tune not only his Survival plans for Bugging In and Bugging Out, but for material procurement that he may have been putting off. But I'll let Jim tell what he is doing.

Jim here. UrbanMan asked me to write a short story on what I am doing in case the a Stock Market crash precipitates a collapse.

Even though it a pain in the ass, I will keep my vehicle fuel tank no less than 5/8ths full. I picked up another 5 gallon plastic fuel can at Wal-Mart, and had that one, plus the two other cans filled, so now I have 15 gallons of gasoline in my garage.

My water service won't deliver again until near the end of the month, but I added two additional 2.5 gallon water jugs to my monthly order. I also bought three cases of water at the grocery store.

I also bought: one case each of green beans, peas and corn; one gallon of corn oil (which is getting really expensive); twelve cans each of canned roast beef and Spam. Plus six boxes each of Kashi cereal. And of course my normal grocery load.

My son will soon be out on Christmas break from college, so he'll be with me if the collapse hit's before the end of the year. We'll use the time to do some shooting and I'll tell him about my plans and beliefs on Survival Preparation. As it stands now when he is at school, we do have a contingency plan if a collapse hits.

Hopefully, we'll have cell phone or regular phone contact just before or right after when the SHTF. If I have to Bug Out, we have three linkup points: His apartment, the south end of one of the buildings on campus, and, the back end of a truck stop. We are planning to use the phrase "Ford Truck", "Chevy Tahoe" and "Dodge Charger" to denote the location we will meet and one of those is a designated no communications site as well so in case we don't have any way to communicate that will be the emergency linkup location, before we Bug Out to the Cabin.

I am also heading down to the Sporting Goods store to pickup a few more boxes of 12 gauge shotshells and a box or two of ammunition for my Mosin-Nagant. I can't buy it right now, but I know if the SHTF, I'll regret not picking up an M-4 that UrbanMan has advised me to on many different occasions.

I also took $1,000 out of my bank account and will hold onto to it through the new year. I can always re-deposit it if noting happens. I already have the previous silver I have bought, plus $800 in cash on hand.

I asked UrbanMan flat out if he thinks the Stock Market will crash or otherwise a collapse to hit before New Year. He said no, not really, but it pays just to "take a step forward" (his words) in case it does.

It pretty scary to me thinking that me and my son would have to survive a SHTF collapse. Hopefully nothing happens. I need to get a couple of my relatives into the plan and be better prepared to receive the stragglers. UrbanMan constantly tells me that "Survival is a Team Sport" and now I have a better sense of what he means. Take Care.