Independently, TWO friends yesterday recommended “Doomsday Preppers” to me. I have the National Geographic channel available as a free 'On Demand' service, so I watched two episodes last night. I'll probably catch another two tonight. It’s not exactly Gold Rush, but it’s still a pretty good show.
In the first episode, this hot shot goes into the desert to teach his kids how to shoot and manages to blow his own thumb off! Now THERE’s a guy who I’d want to be prepping with! Well after the accident, he showed off his "new" thumb - "Just like the old one," he said casually, "except it's shorter and doesn't have a knuckle."
This guy, by the way, is trying to prepare against E.M.P. (I like to think that the two preppers I could identify with are better grounded.)
The first show I watched covered four "Preppers"; the second, only two. Of those, the various concerns were:
o E.M.P. (as if it wouldn't be accompanied by H-bombs that would kill most of us outright)
o The Yellowstone super-volcano (which is actually a valid concern - about every 200,000 years)
o The earth's poles flipping (which they did once, 700 million years ago)
o Pandemic
o Hyperinflation
o Economic collapse – possibly due to China calling in its debt
Of those, the last two were pretty much saying the same thing, though the show made their concerns sound a little different. They, and the woman worried about pandemic, may have actually made some sense - though she definitely came across as a neurotic germophobe. From what I saw, they are ALL overreacting - or at least demonstrating an irrational reaction to what may be valid concerns.
It’s never good to OBSESS, and it's only smart to behave as though a long-shot prediction is a certainty if you’re also very, very lucky.
The show, unfortunately, makes light of all their concerns when, at the end of each segment, it invariably assesses the odds of the prepper being right about the coming calamity as very, very low.
And that's not quite right. About the economic calamities, the show said, respectively,
“The Federal Reserve believes inflation will continue at just two percent annually for at least the next five years” and
“Economists do not believe an economic collapse is likely."
It’s too bad the show wasn’t a little more open about that, noting that KEYNESIANS do not believe either possibility is likely, and that KEYNESIANS have led the world into the current economic mess with their big-government, socialistic answers for everything.
AUSTRIANS, on the other hand, believe that both hyperinflation and economic collapse are growing, realistic possibilities in the coming years. And Austrians have been right about inflation levels, bubble bursts, gold prices, and pretty much everything else for the last 30 years.
But Austrians are in the minority. Their views continue to be mostly hushed up by the media and brushed off by academics.
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