Today, we talk about the economic environment and its potential impact. As well as ideas for positioning yourself to be resilient if things get tough.

LFTN Spring Workshop, April 25-27, $500, Information

Sponsor 1: Agorist Tax Advice, AgoristTaxAdvice.com/LFTN

Sponsor 2: Holler Roast Coffee, HollerRoast.com

Livestream Schedule: @LFTN on Youtube

• Tuesday, 12:30PM, Tuesday Live with John Willis and Bear Independent
• Wednesday, 2pm: Interview Show With Anthony Parker, Real Estate
• Friday, 9:30AM: Homestead Happenings with The Tactical Redneck

Tales from the Prepper Pantry

• Menu from the pantry challenge
  • Roasted chicken over onions and potatoes
  • Two Roemertopf Roast Beefs over carrots, cauliflower, mushrooms
  • Fresh saute: Zucchini, peppers, onions, garlic
  • 1 crockpot roast beef with morels
  • Lamb bone stew left over from LFTN 23
  • Taco Salad with the rest of the lettuce (There is 1 salad left here and no more cheddar)
  • Chicken Alfredo with milk not cream over heart of palm noodles and sauted veggies
• Holes I have noticed so far: Cheese, heavy cream, fresh veg
• What I would do to fill those holes

Weekly Shopping Report for Jan 2

Dollar Tree was first. The food coolers are still mostly full, but the drink coolers are now around half full, mostly with "standard" fare from Coca-Cola or Pepsi, which I won't touch. The sad cooler with the compressor that can't get going has been left empty. Other stock in the store is in good shape; whatever minor thing we've come in here to get, week after week, has typically been here. Ours is out of nasal decongestant though, although they have some allergy products and multi-symptom cold medicines; many of the latter contain acetaminophen, a liver toxin, so are never on our list.

Home Depot was next. There is still no tag on the rack of 2x4x8 studs, but a check online shows it is still $3.25. The cordless tool area in the front that is rather prominently featured just before Christmas has been almost entirely cleared out, and there is a lot of empty space there now; I'll keep an eye on this on future trips.

Aldi was last. Stock levels are good. Produce isn't mounded up, but there are no empty spaces. They've had plenty of canned cat food lately. We found everything we wanted. Staple prices were: eggs: $1.65; whole milk: $2.98; heavy cream: $4.69; OJ: $3.29; butter: $3.69; bacon: $4.25; potatoes: $3.99; sugar: $3.09; flour: $1.99; 80% lean ground beef: $4.49 (+).

Despite the growing escalation of the Islam vs. Civilization conflict in the Middle East, untainted regular gasoline remains at $3.699/gallon.

I went out again later to Food City for dry cat food and another case of seafood Friskies cans, and there was plenty of pet food in stock there.

Operation Independence

Holler Roast Finances 2022 versus 2023

Main topic of the Show: If Things Turn South in 2024

Why would I do a show like this? Because it looks like the 70s on crack out there!

What is impacting the economy and culture

1. High Inflation (look up inflation for the past two years and come up with a cumulative number of 11% conservatively and 21% by some estimates) - has your income also grown by 11- 21% 
2. Real Estate, In migration, Out migration, and interest rates 
3. Current rate
4. Selling now and buying the same cost home costs more
5. Where people are going and impacts on those markets
6. Housing scarcity
7. Long term population expectations
8. Boomers moving out of the workforce, into retirement facilities
9. Move toward subscription society AKA renting your house not owning it
10. War in Ukraine, War in Israel, War war war
11. Election Year
12. Technological advancement, AI, unprepared workforce, unrealistic expectations
13. Number of government employees versus private sector employees - 17% and rising - by one single measure
14. Medical industrial complex
15. Obesity, diabetes, overall physical and mental health of the population - weakening citizens
16. Aging and undermaintained infrastructure and infrastructure spending that doest address them problem

I could go on and on, but without worrying about any conspiracy, there are many things in play that can, and probably will, have a negative impact on our economy at a rather large scale. Any one of these things is painful, yet navigable, but all of them together paint a picture that has been causing either panic or denial among our community and beyond

So why haven’t we talked much about it? (Making decisions from a place of fear is a bad idea)

What could the negative look like? (Setting aside an alien or nuclear or pathogenic attack, because, really, how do you even wrap your mind around being ready for such things, we are mimicking Japan in the 80s, and can learn from that as well as the rebasing of our monetary system and high inflationary period in the 70s and 80s).

• Costs of things outpace income increases (This is already happening) (PANTRY CHALLENGE, FINANCE AUDIT) 
• Jobs could become scarce (Currently, we are in a bizarre world where it is hard to find employees that are good AND hard to find a job that is good. Let’s talk about why.) Consequences of unemployment, return to a gig environment without any decent way to navigate it from a regulatory standpoint. In other words, the current environment of overregulation and overtaxation of every little thing does not play well with non-w-2 employees, but people are finding they must engage with the gig economy as a non w-2 employee to survive in a growing number of cases (GROW YOUR INCOME STABILITY).  
• Gaining stability through home ownership or land ownership is increasingly difficult, though not impossible. Keeping hold of property in a world where it is taxed based on current market value will also be increasingly difficult. (THE WINDOW) 
• Tangible assets and their value versus holding cash (RIGHT NOW YOU CANNOT SELL MANY TANGIBLE THINGS - THIS MAY CHANGE) 
• Technological advancements leading to job loss, getting left behind (LEARN THE THINGS YOU ARE SCARED OF, INCLUDING AI) 
• Necessary monetary rebasement - we’ve seen it before, it is a favorite tool of leaders, we expect to see it again. (IT IS AN ELECTION YEAR - MAY STAVE THIS OFF A BIT, OR EXPECTED PROSPERITY FROM TRANSITION MAY SPEED IT - ARE YOU READY? CRYPTO AND FROZEN ACCOUNTS STORY)
• Election year and division, violence, hijinks (SITUATIONAL AWARENESS) 
• Health of our population, the medical industrial complex, and more (BE HEALTHY) 
• Underrmaintained infrastructure and failures - electrical grid, etc (DECENTRALIZE AS IT MAKES SENSE

All in all, it looks scary but we’ve gotten through worse and will again. Building the life you choose with an eye toward community, diversification and LONG TERM success is so important.Stockpiling will only get you so far, skills, health, resilience and underground networks are the strength in struggle.This is why we do SRF, LFTN and all the other events and meetups that seem so prevalent. This is why I am going to Lenoir City on a day when I could just use a stay at home break. It is always good to “know a guy, or be the guy that people know by knowing a thing”

So what are you building this year? What will you learn? Who will you get to know?

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Make it a great week!

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. 

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