by: the Common Constitutionalist
Being a Prepper in the land of plenty sometimes seems like utter foolishness yet my kids and I do it anyway.
Now granted – we are not over-the-top, end of civilization Preppers who are preparing for a Zombie apocalypse. I just decided a few years ago to begin storing some things for emergencies. Every week I purchase one or two extra items and put them away.
It’s rather startling what you can amass by just doing that. At times it also comes in rather handy when you forget something at the grocery store. Simply pull it from your own stock and your good – but don’t forget to replace it. My family personally prides itself on never running out of anything, so when we have to pull something out of storage, the penalty is it must be replaced with at least two items.
So why do we do it? It’s because you never know. We aren’t prone to natural disasters in New England but we’ve had to utilize our supplies on more than one occasion due to snow storms and power outages.
And despite the rosy picture painted by our current administration, we should all be concerned with the poor shape of our economy. It won’t take too much to push it over the edge. If by some miracle we are able to contain $20 trillion in debt and almost a quarter of a quadrillion in unfunded liability, then fine – we’ll use it ourselves or give it away.
I’ve thought of giving up prepping, but when I see what is happening in places like the socialist/communist paradise of Venezuela, coupled with millions of our own citizens claiming that socialism would be good for America, I come to my senses.
Venezuela should be a tropical paradise. It should have a thriving, oil rich economy, but it doesn’t and is the opposite of paradise. For its citizens, it’s pure misery and all because of socialism/communism.
For the record, there is no such thing as socialism. Socialism is merely a bridge to get from a market-based economy to communism.
Despite having around $100 billion in oil sales every year, virtually everything is rationed. When industry is owned or run by the 
government – corruption, incompetence and shortages rule the day. In an energy-first economy, one would think at least power would be abundant. But even gasoline is rationed and purposeful rolling blackouts are commonplace.
Public workers are down to a two day work week due to energy rationing and hyper-inflation. The 2016 inflation rate is estimated to reach 720 percent – more than doubling last years rate. Now that Venezuela’s food distribution system has been nationalized, toilet paper, diapers, cooking oil, powdered milk, flour, medicine, is all in short supply.
People literally spend hours standing in line just to get into a grocery store and when they do finally cross the threshold, they are greeted with a finger print scanner to assure they won’t purchase more than there “fair share,” or attempt a return trip. One shopper, a mother with an infant son says she must show her child’s birth certificate before she can buy diapers, yet most of time they aren’t there to purchase.
And items such as deodorant and detergent are in even shorter supply. Even if one can find laundry soap, there is little chance to use it, as the government shuts off the water to homes for up to 5 days per week. It is said that finding deodorant is akin to winning the lottery.
The latest news, if not so tragic, would be comical. Due to the aforementioned hyper-inflation, the government must keep the money printing presses running 24/7. The problem is that they don’t print their own money. Other nations do so and ship the bills to them. So bad has it gotten that in late 2015, 36, 747 cargo planes arrived in Venezuela packed full with nothing but bolivars, their paper currency. And the planes keep rolling in. Can anyone say Weimar Republic? You may read about the joys of Weimer here.
Now, ironically, Venezuela literally has not enough money to pay for its own money. The country will soon be on life support. But that can never happen here – right? Of course not. We’re much too smart for that.
I think I’ll keep prepping.