The Financial Collapse Survival Guide and Cookbook, 2d Edition: Recipes for Changing Times

by Albert Bates, Richard Heinberg

With this 2014 update of his twelfth book, Albert Bates changes the frame on the global financial collapse, inviting us to enjoy what he calls "the Great Change." A longtime expert in sustainable development, Bates shows how to secure your basic needs -- water, energy, food, waste management, transportation -- and how to deal with the slow fear of the unfamiliar.Nothing was solved in 2008. It was truncated by government intervention to the tune of tens of trillions of dollars. The system is more dangerous and unstable today than it was in 2008. But there is a difference. When the next crisis comes, it will play out differently today from past examples. In 2008, the crash was global and so, for the first time, coordinated global intervention was brought to bear. When you push the risk exponentially higher, the intervention that will be required to stabilize is also required to be much larger. The last intervention was global, from Washington, London, Brussels and Beijing. Where will the next one, which will have to be exponentially larger, come from? Some other planet?Banking crises in the modern world of digital transactions happen with much greater frequency than they did in centuries past. Just looking back over the last 30 years, we see the stock market shock of October 1987, the Mexican Peso collapse of 1994, the Thailand/Asia collapse of 1997, the Russia long term capital management collapse of 1998, the dot-com bubbleburst in 2000-2001, the adjustable rate mortgage crisis of 2007, and the derivatives panic of 2008. The pattern that emerges is some major shock happening every 5-7 years, with the last one in 2008.The next liquidity crisis will likely come sooner rather than later. It's going to be bigger than the Fed, the US Treasury and the ECB. It's going to exceed the ability of any and all of them to deal with it. The Fed printed (lent) 4 trillion to deal with the 2008 event. What are they going to do next time? Print 8 trillion? 12 trillion? There is not a legal limit but rather a confidence limit, or political limit, on what the Fed or ECB is able to do. The US Federal Reserve right now it is leveraged 80 to one. It has 4 trillion of assets, 60 billion of capital. It is insolvent on a marked-to-market basis. Many other central banks — not just in Greece and Argentina, but in China and Japan, for instance, are in worse shape.There is standard advice for fear. We know it well, and Albert Bates been preaching it for many years now, in books, workshops, and advice at seminars."The advice is simple. Prepare yourself. Prepare your family. Prepare your community."It starts with having cash on hand. Not a checkbook or a credit card. Cash, bitcoin and physical gold. A 3-day jump kit. A personal supply of water, repairable shelter, camping gear, first aid, and food. Have a garden, even in the city. Don't panic. Learn to embrace uncertainty with humor, and shape up. You know all of this."But the slow fear is about something more insidious, something for which none of that preparation really matters. What has to be done with my slow fear, and with everyone's, is not to ignore it. Even if one thinks one is prepared, nobody is. So keep preparing. Go for those things that count. Get trained. Get centered. Shape up. This book could be the most valuable investment in your future you could make."The Financial Collapse Survival Guide also has something everyone should have on their the complete International Red Cross guide for first aid and emergency medical care in any situation. If you don't yet have this in your purse or briefcase, you can now.Here is information that's helpful to have on the home bookshelf, on the plane, on the street, and in the office. Avoid the rush.

555 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 24, 2009

Reviews

[Gayla Groom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really powerful experience -- the author (Albert Bates) uses a hundred or more quotes from experts to describe the challenges we face in these disastrous times, and they bring the truth home like nothing else I've ever read. Then Bates balances the quotes with his uniquely optimistic take on how to use the mess we're in to improve everything about our lives and our society. The book really is a survival guide, too, not just about financial collapse but about everything from how to get water and energy, shelter and food, etc. etc. in dire straits. Plus there's a world-class first aid guide included. And many dozens of mouthwatering, mostly vegetarian, healthy recipes that are fun to make now and would be possible (and uplifting) to make (or make facsimiles of) under more dire circumstances. The last chapter is "Utopia by Morning," which you would think would be unexpected in a book on dealing with financial collapse, but which sums up this book's uniquely helpful approach.

[Albert Bates · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adapted from the earlier "Post-Petroleum Survival Guide" this edition focuses on our decline phase from complex derivatives to natural capital, which is shaping up as about a 9-percent descent curve, and of course, what you should be doing.

[Carrie]

The description of this sounds like a great reference. But it's only on Kindle? Not on paper? How ironic that a book about basic survival can only be read on an expensive, high-tech device.