In the UK is prepping a guaranteed waste of time?

[adam2]

Bitcoin has the merit that governments cant print more of it as they are apt to do with paper money.
It has already proved useful in Zimbabwe were the local funny money inflated to worthlessness, and use of hard currency such as sterling or US dollars was prohibited.

No good for TEOTWAWKI due to the reliance on power and internet service. But potentially very useful for "doom light" or economic mismanagement that results in severe inflation, or bank failures.

[kenneal - lagger]

It always amuses me when some prepper, usually American, claims bitcoin is a good store of value or that central bank digital currencies will end freedom as we know it.

Umm - a reliable and fully functional electrical grid is vital for those

But then that sort of American thinks that voting for Donald Trump is a good idea! Education in the US seems to be lacking something.

[BritDownUnder]

I am not so sure that voting for the alternative to Donald Trump is such a good idea either.

We seem to be witnessing in real time the mental decline of Joe Biden. A vote for him has not really changed anything - no change to the Fentanyl epidemic, homelessness, lack of border control.

When I went to study in the US in 2006 it was a real eye opener. How they regarded the world with such suspicion and disdain.

Trump was the first President to put serious tariffs on China and its goods. He has been lucky as has Joe Biden by the shale oil/gas boom. e wont be good for Ukraine but then again the US security does not really depend on a Ukrainian buffer as much as does Romanian or Polish security.

What the US has had is three bad two-term Presidents in a row - Clinton, Bush and Obama - who were spectacularly naïve, and also inexperienced and incompetent to varying degrees, particularly in terms of how they dealt with China and to a lesser extent Russia and the rest of the world.

Back to the original post what I said in August last year is still valid. Be resilient - and have a wad of cash well hidden and maybe a bit of silver coinage as well.

[kenneal - lagger]

I am not so sure that voting for the alternative to Donald Trump is such a good idea either.

We seem to be witnessing in real time the mental decline of Joe Biden. A vote for him has not really changed anything - no change to the Fentanyl epidemic, homelessness, lack of border control.

When I went to study in the US in 2006 it was a real eye opener. How they regarded the world with such suspicion and disdain.

Trump was the first President to put serious tariffs on China and its goods. He has been lucky as has Joe Biden by the shale oil/gas boom. e wont be good for Ukraine but then again the US security does not really depend on a Ukrainian buffer as much as does Romanian or Polish security.

What the US has had is three bad two-term Presidents in a row - Clinton, Bush and Obama - who were spectacularly naïve, and also inexperienced and incompetent to varying degrees, particularly in terms of how they dealt with China and to a lesser extent Russia and the rest of the world.

Back to the original post what I said in August last year is still valid. Be resilient - and have a wad of cash well hidden and maybe a bit of silver coinage as well.

I would vote for an honest, Christian old man with a record of successful governance rather than a 32 times felon, an adjudicated rapist, an insurrectionist, a proven serial liar, a thief of secret documents and a serial fraudster any day of the week. I can't see how a large chunk of the American people can see Trump as an option. One of his crimes should result in him being thrown out but having a list that long should have seen him in jail years ago. His last term in office, or was that on the golf course, was a disaster to the extent that his vice president of the time and over 30 of his previous cabinet members have refused to endorse him.

Biden has been the most successful president for decades in relation to legislation passed. He has seen a large increase in employment and the also in the stock market which is at record levels.

There has been no action on the border because trump ordered the Republicans to refuse a bipartisan bill on border control because it would give trump another tub to thump in the election. Tthe bill was even supported by the Border Guards union.

Clinton and Obama oversaw vastly improved economies while Bush and Trump trashed the economy. Trump gave billionaires large tax reductions while increasing the taxation on people earning below $100,000.

Trump's tariffs on China caused large scale inflation in the US and had very little effect on China as they just passed the cost on to the consumer.

Trump is generally acknowedged to be an asset of the Russian FSB and acts in Russia's interest. A few other Republican Congress people are also thought to have been compromised by FSB stings.

Also Trump has told the American people that he wants to be a dictator and his appointees to the Supreme Court have given him the immunity from prosecution that he needs to achieve it. The American judicial system is a joke at the moment and is set to allow a Nazi style takeover of government and constitution if Trump gets in.

[BritDownUnder]

I agree Biden in his day was an able if uninspiring politician, even a good pair of hands at times but those days are gone. Passing the Inflation Reduction Act has saved the car industry in the US. I don't agree about the border policy though - just build a wall and be done with it.

Unfortunately Trump is the natural result of 24 years of Clinton, Bush and Obama. Clinton had a few personal shortcomings as well. You only had to drive around America in the early 2000s to see the anger and resentment of the pre-Trump politicians.

[kenneal - lagger]

The Democrats negotiated a border deal with a number of Republicans giving them all that they wanted but Trump told the Republicans not to vote for it because no deal could be used in the election. It was widely publicised at the time, only a few months ago. Bloody hypocrites and the MAGA adherents are twats for going along with it.

The last four years under Biden has seen a huge number of bills introduced and passed. Many Republicans have voted against the Infrastructure bill and then claimed responsibility for the measures when enacted locally. Bloody hypocrites!

[BritDownUnder]

Anyway he's gone! Yee Haw. I may come to eat those words in a few years.

America's version of Neil Kinnock who even stole Kinnock's speech once.

Well the Democrats did block the 'beautiful wall' plan from Trump during his tenure, so maybe he is just getting his own back. Anyway I think Trump used Executive Orders to stop people coming in during Covid so Biden could have done something similar.

I don't have a problem with the wall. You build an impermeable structure and people enter the country from Mexico through the designated holes in the wall called Customs and Immigration points and the immigration staff ask you "Do you have a visa to enter the US?". If not then you go back to Mexico. If they try to claim asylum you direct them to the US Embassy in the Mexican capital. That's what Australia does to arrivals who have travelled from Indonesia as they are told they should lodge asylum claims in Jakarta.

[kenneal - lagger]

Trump is never going to stop immigration because his big business backers rely on it to keep jobs filled and wages low. He might use the furore over illegal immigration to keep minds off massive legal migration as is happening in this country. Who noticed that we had had 750,000 legals one year and 600,000 the next when we were all concerned about 40K boat people? And those numbers were up from an average 300,000 for the last 70 years.

No. Trump wants people looking at the holes in the wall so they don't see the vast numbers that his backers require coming in through the legal channels. Besides, where else are rich Americans going to get their domestic servants from?

[RenewableCandy]

I have found, quite by accident, that the best Prepping I have done over the past 5 years is to be lucky enough to land a job!

I still make wine, grow things on the Plot, and all the other things here at Chateau Renewable are still chuntering along, which is nice.

Ten years ago I got a lunchtime job cooking for an old lad whose wife had passed away the previous year. Being let loose in the kitchen I found she had carefully organised the cupboards with lots of dried goods (rice, pasta, etc), all the herbs you'd need, and when I asked about desserts I was directed to a chest-freezer in the garage which was full of carefully-labelled freezer-bags and boxes of various fruits and berries. The garden had fruit tres and vegetables, and apparently they'd had an allotment back in the day. It brought it home to me that a lot of basic prepping-type know-how is only a generation or so away from us. I think it's useful to keep in practice.