ferFAL Some first hand experience A brief story of Argentina

This is reposted with permission from the author (Private Forum).
Very Interesting Story

Please do not copy and repost this article without permission
Thanks,
melbo

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I've been asked to comment on some issues and I wrote this, I think some might find it usefull.

I'm nothing more than an amateur when talking about this issue, but somehow US folks seem to like what I wrote.

I'll start with a brief story on my country so you get in touch with the big picture.


What exactly happened in Argentina?

That's a tough one... We could write books and books and books on the subject.

The run down is somewhat like this... (there are many omissions, this is just a quick run down)

Since the early times when the Spanish came here and setup the cities they didn't care about any other thing than loot the precious metals and make a fortune with importation and exportation taxes. Not protecting the local economy or anyhing, but just to have a "federal" income taxing stuff.

At the same time and for a long time, we exported nothing but prime materials, like meat, wool and cereals. Since the owners of the land were just a handful of people, they didn't need to get more money, as they were already filthy rich just by selling prime materials.

There's a paradigmatic case in which we sold the Dutch wool just as it comes from the sheep for X money... Then they clean it and wash it (aka no real industry to do that) and then they sold it to the English and French clothing manufacturers for 5X...

But the local landlords didn't care about that, as they just pretty much enslave the workers, making them for almost nothing, paying them with coupons (instead of real money) that they had to use on the same landlord's warehouse, at the prices the landlords setted.

And in the cases that the people revolt, the landlords just call someone on the administration and they'd send the Army to shoot them all.

Now, this kind of mentality went on until 1900 so we're talking about a country that remained exporting prime goods in the middle of the Industrial Revolution, without caring about the future of the country (this is something I'll get to in more depth later) because they were getting even richer supplying all the new demands of this newly created Industry worldwide.

The decade of 1920 was really luxurious here (of course for the richs, not for the entire population, that was being exploited to the max by just a handful of landlord families)

So in the next decades the people got fed up with this, and some popular revolts ensued. Extreme poverty and poor living conditions were the exact recipe for what came next.... Peron.

Peron fucked over the companies and acted kinda like Chavez now in Venezuela (actually, Chavez's acting like Peron...)

So the opressed people got a better quality of living, got to own houses, etc, etc.

It was a socialist dream. We went from one extreme to the other. It wasn't exactly welfare like we understand it now, but the results were the same.

One good thing to say about Peron is that he made 5 year plans for his goverment and the progress of the country, and they were all in the pursue of a greater nation. I might not agree with all his policies, but he had a plan. Nowadays the administrations only think for 4 years (or 8 if they want to get reelected), but if you get another administration, they just erase all the good stuff the previous one did, just beause they're on oposite sides of the political spectre.

(Off course that's not gonna happen any more anytime soon, as the Peronistas are the only ones that can run the country now... They managed to get all the popular bases covered and can take out any other party president in 6 months if they want to... And came as Saviors later)

But I disgress... When Evita (and then Peron) died, his wife Isabel -she was vicepresident at the time) took power, and it all became unmanageable... She had witch doctors to advice her, the corporations and landlords wanted the power they had before Peron back, the communist guerrila started to appear and placed bombs and kidnapped people, the Isabel goons started to act like SA stormtroopers... It was all down the basket, and lead to a military coup.

So up to now we have social trends that get that extreme that are irrisistable any more by the people and lead to even "extremer" measures, that are not always good... For anyone.

Now, the period in which we were ruled by military (military coup in March '76) was fucked up to say the least.

The only thing I'm gonna say about this (other than at an economic level) is that both bands -The State and it's military and security forces and the communist/montoneros/guerrilla- behave like fucking animals

On an economic level, our international debt grew like Hell, as all the military adinistrations (they changed several times) took IMF funds like there was no tomorrow. And when the economy seemed like it was going to collapse, they changed the currency denomination at a huge inflation rate and the state absorbed all the private companies debts.

After the Malvinas war, it all went to the toilet rapidly, Galtieri went to war trying to touch our patriotic side and gain support, but it backfired on him (taking many good people's lives on the way)

So in 1982, we regain our democracy, and the economic stuff doesn't seem to matter for some time, as we're all enjoying the new freedoms of a democratic goverment...

But the inflation was rampant, people started getting paid weekly (here the majority of the urban people gets paid monthly) Prices were upmarked several times a day, you could enter a supermarket and see different prices at the moment you entered and at the moment you checked out.

It was insane, and for us middle classers it was very rough, for poor people it was imposible, so in 1989, Menem had to take over the presidency about 4 months before he was suposed to (he was rightfyllu elected some months ago) as the riots and lootings got really bad in some places, and for a week, several places of the country were a chaos.

So with Menem and his Economy Ministry Cavallo, they re estructured the currency and all of a sudden $1 = USD1

Everybody was happy, it allwed us to make some quick money and buy imported products and live in stability again... However, this administration was, quoting The Simpsons, "Corruptus in Extremis" Privatized all Public companies (water, phones, roads, gas, oil, etc, etc) and took HUGE kickbacks on those deals.

The companies were a joke to begin with, but the way they were privatized and how the contracts were written was a shame.

So with this huge quantities of money coming in from the sales, everybody was happy too.

But the problem started to arise when the factory and land owners (and I'm not talking big corporations only here, but any John Doe with a small factory or small place to grow cereals) started to realize that they couldn't compete with international prices now that our currency had the same value as the USD (at least locally)

But the ordinary people on the streets didn't give a shit about that, as with their pesos equating dollars, they could buy imported products instead.

So after 10 years of this, most factories and small land owners went bankrupt and the industry of the country dissapeared, coming back to a a prime materials exportation economy as well as importing all kinds of crap from China and other countries instead of developing our own industry. This generating 25%+ rates of unemployment.


After Menem's second term, a Radical Party (Peronistas traditional adversary - Menem called himself a Peronista, but he was not. He got elected with a Peronista look and speech but he changed that as soon as he took over) candidate won and his complete ineptitude, along with the aformentioned crisis, threw the country to the basket again.

Since the coalition party made to defeat the Peronistas were of so different ideologies, and the president was a real moron (among all the economic problems the country had) in December 2001 the shit hit the proverbial fan in many places, and people started rioting and looting... President instaured a curfew and the state of emergency and the people told him to go fuck himself by marching to the presidential palace (what it would be our "White House" but without all the lawn in front, it's entrance is right on the street) so the police started to barricade everything, there were riots, snipers, etc, etc, and 20 something people died while the president resigned and evacuated the palace on a chopper... Really peachy.

After that fracass, we had up to 5 presidents on a week as nobody wanted to take charge, or when somebody stepped up, other people on the same Peronista party made him resign, etc, etc... So finally we got a president to manage stuff while general elections were called, and then our actual president came in.

All I'm gonna say about this administration is that they seem to fixed to the 70's and they seem to be demagogic to the max and control the poor oppressed masses as they depend on the Goverment tit for "welfare" checks.

For the record, Argentina as a country is screwed up right now and in the near future it will only get worse with this current socio/political events.

The few of us that live relatively well (even though I had to cut a lot of stuff due to 200-300% price variations -I'll give you an example... Before the economic catastrophe of 2001 a can of tuna was $0.70... now it's $4.3 and I used to love that stuff - Ketchup was $0.8 and now is about $4) live like we do because we live in mayor cities and have a somewhat wealthy family to back us or had the fortune to score a nice job or have some conexions to get a decent paid job.

There are exceptions, but that is the norm.

With official (ehem...) numbers more than 70% of the population is poor, and from those 70%, almost 50% is indigent.

I live in a bubble, and every day I realize how big the social difference is just by going to the supermarket and seeing what I buy and what other people buy. And I'm no wealthy at all. By US standars I'd be fucking poor. I don't even own a car (altough I own my small department, I don't rent - priorities... many people have cars and rent... I just can't understand it)

One of the MAIN problem with this country... There is no middle ground really, both the right wingers ("kill 'em all") and the leftists (70s communism is the best!") are so extreme that if you're a thinking person, you don't belong to either side really.

The other is the welfare state for people that will NEVER work again in their lives and will just procreate more welfare recipients. (And the leaders that took over that once legitimate movement and now are hearding the people like sheeple to picket and cut streets for their own personal economic benefit)

If you wanna see the future of the US with the current trends, start studying what happened in Argentina in the 90s.




Some stuff that happened right after the 2001 crisis

Stocking up in Euros (stashed on a safe) would've been cool too (You could've bought Euros at $0.8 and sell them later at $3.7) Gold was a good investment, it's keeping its value and gaining some more too.

People that had USD on the banks, eventually got paid about $1.8 for each USD, but MANY people couldn't wait or just chose goverment bonds to vest in 10-20 years to compensate them and of course, had to sell them at 50% face value to speculators or even to the banks. If you had the funds and time to sue the State, your odds got better, but face it, if you just got all of your savings frozen, there's no much chance you can haggle and not take what they're offering you right now.

The country debt grew astronomically because of all of the measures to save the Finantial Entities (banks) (The State took private debts as federal ones once again)

People that couldn't get bank loans in the past (remember more than 50% of our economy is "in black" - kinda like hiring an illegal there, but with own citizens), made transactions with lawers/finantial companies, and many of them lost their mortgaged homes when they couldn't afford to pay them.

At that time I was working on a company, theoretically making $1000 a month (USD 1000) I said theoretically because they never paid me in full and owed all of us employees like 3-4 accumulated salaries. And we couldn't resign as we couldn't get another job at the time.

In the end, the directives pocketed the company's money and we got fucked (With the current exchange, they'd owe me $30K that I will never see again. - So you get an idea, my department, with 2 bedrooms, a living room and the other regular stuff - plus a huge balcony- is worth $120K, so that's 1/4 of an apartment!)

After the crisis, I managed to make some money to survive selling stuff on eBay as a side job.

If it wasn't for that and my savings (pretty much depleted by now) I would've have to go to my father's and ask him for money.

Adapt, overcome. You just can't stick to do just one thing. As with your investions, you have to diversify your line of work, so if one thing falls down, you're not on zero but had other stuff to do.

Learning English was the best decision I could've ever made. I know many of you don't want to do it out of pride, but learning Spanish is a must in the US right now, specially if you're preparing for a SHTF/TEOTWAWKI scenario.

All of these stuff I just wrote on guns, food, goods, etc, are from personal experience of mine (except when noted - those are educated conclusions based on observed facts f my reality, but I can't just say they're from personal experience)

I just wrote them on the go, so I might of forgotten about some stuff, but I think it's cool advice nonetheless.

I live in an apartment on heavily urbanized place, so my advice is going to be about this scenario.


GUNS

Have all the guns you want for your collection, but rely on the ones with a simple design that you can get repaired locally, or even better, learn how to do your own gunsmithing. Keep spare parts and know how to exchange them. Use guns that are readily available in your zone so you can get spares or ammo without any problems.

Extra mags are a necessity, keep 1/2 next to your nighstand gun and memorize to grab it when you go investigate a noise. You never know if there's just one intruder or 5. Also use a flashlight to ID your targets. (That's from logical thinking, never had to ID anyone luckily)

Regarding this, since I live on a big city, there's always some kind of light on the outside that allows me to check on strange "objects" with the lights off. I have my place memorized and I got a pretty decent night vision myself, so tritium sights are all I need if I want to make a shot. Living alone, theoretically I wouldn't need to ID anyone, if they're inside my house, they're up to no good, but there's always the chance of having something go wrong, so I'd rather press the clicktail of a SF for a second, with the gun already ready to fire, and if I assess that "object" is a threat, act accordingly. Again, this is what I came up myself, after reading a lot about it and knowing the local laws and my moral codes, I have no actual experience with this.

Cool sights are, well, cool, but master the art of iron sights, both with handguns and rifles. Stuff breaks and you probably won't be able to change it right on the spot, even if you do have spares.

Have back ups for everything, hell, have a back up for the back up, just in case! Right now I'm relying on a SW 686 for self defense because I broke the sights on my 1911 and my CZ75 had a sear problem... Having a 3rd back up is good.

I can't legally own a centerfire semi auto rifle, and living on an apartment I don't think I need one.

In any case, at one time I tried to move around my place "clearing" it with a 10/22 just to see how it'd be to use a shotgun for it and I ended up with a scratched barrel... What does that tell me? It's too damn big for an apartment.

Plus, in a really CQB situation like it'd be in my case (my rooms are not really big) I feel way more comfortable with a handgun that I won't stick against walls.

And to top that, (and this is from observation, not because I actually fired a shotgun on my apartment) from what I've seen on one of the range I go to (indoors) I don't think I'd be able to do anything properly after my equilibrium had been affected by the sound of the shot. If a shotgun sounds that loud on the range while I'm wearing hearing protection, I don't want to use one on a smaller place, while wearing no protection at all.

Don't advertise you own guns, even if people bring the subject to a conversation. It's none of their damn business and will do more bad than good.

I can't legally stock up much ammo, but it'd be something good to have planty of if legal in your country, as gund need that to work as intended...


GOODS

Have a handfull of flashlight or different power and batteries type. Use them according the arised need. 60-200 lumen incandescent Surefires are cool for some stuff, but LED Inovas are cooler for other stuff.

Have a decent supply of batteries for all types. On a SHTF scenario you will be OK with a decent stocked pile.

Buy CR123 batteries in bulk from places like Surefire, they have a 10 years shelf life and they're cheap bought that way.

Depleted batteries from Surefires are still good to go for some hours in low wattage LED flashlights, so re use them!

Have some battery powered radio and/or portable TV to keep in touch with reality. MP3 players and stuff like that is cool too for relaxation. Buy the ones that use AAA or AA batteries, propietary batteries are useless if you don't have an active outlet to plug the charger in.

Have some rope (or better yet, climbing equipment, with harness and all) so you can rapel out of your place to the street in case the building halls and stairs are not a safe place to be. This works for fires and other emergencies too. Over calculate the rope to your weight, as you'de at least carrying 10-20 more pounds of stuff if you're forced to leave in a hurry.

I don't forsee myself escaping from my apartment this way on any othe circumstance other than a fire, and in that case, I'd have to take 12 pounds from my cat already, so that's something to take into consideration too.


FOOD

Two words. Canned Food. Period.

Allow me to illustrate this... Some 8-10 years ago (may be more or less, I'm terrible with dates), some places of the city went without power because of some explosion on one of the power company main generators. Was is sabotage, an accident or use of lesse quality materials? We won't never know for sure, but to the ordinary citizen on it's place it doesn't matter.

I was lucky enough that my place (I was living with my mother at the time) was affected by this, but somedays we got some 2 hours of power between 3-5 in the AM, which somewhat allowed the motor time needed to pump some water to the water tanks located on the top of the building.

Besides that, Army water tank trucks were delivered to some hot spots to refill those water tanks. My building got some of that water.

Now, I tell you this so you can see that we still got some help and got water and power and yet, that time sucked ass big time. Those were 7-10 days of shame, I still can't believe a civilized country like this had that problem. Keep in mind it was before the economic fall down of 2001.

Well, at that time I didn't have the mindset I have now, but I wasn't a sheeple either. Lucky for me it was summer vacations time, so I didn't have to go to College. My mother, in the other hand, did had to go to work, so she used to wake up at 4 am to be able to take a short shower. I tried to use the less water posible, so I showered at the gym, where they do had water running.

With that said, rice is a nice option if you are on a rural area with plenty of water and can make fire with woods to cook it and stuff, but on an apartment or on a BOB it's a lousy choice.

In order to cook rice, I need water, some kind of heat supply (a camping little thingy will do) and a pot.
Well, with my water supply gone, I depend on my water savings... And since I live in an apartment, I can't have 100 gallons... 100-150 liters are the most I can store, apartments are not really big and I really don't have space for my everyday life stuff plus all the stuff a guy can have on a house.

That water you have has to serve you to drink, to clean yourself up, to dispose of urine/feces on the toilet, etc, etc. You can't use it to cook everytime you gonna eat (many people say they just keep rice and tuna cans) and then to wash the dishes... It's too damn water. And of course, you just can't leave the dirty dishes on the sink cos you'll get flies, cocroaches and stuff and in some days worms, and they you'd have a complete new problem in your hands.

And if you're on the go, it's kinda stupid that you have to stop and cook something, your main priorities are others, eating is something that you just do to keep your body on the go, so making food shouldn't be a special issue or take extra time. Open can, grab fork/spork, eat.

I've never bugged out myself, but I did go on camping or hiking trips, and sometimes you just need food, but can't stop because you need to be someplace else at certain time, so if you brought something that needs cooking, you're screwed, you're not eating. And if you don't eat, your body weakens and you're not as good as you should be.

So my choice would be tuna cans (in water, not oil) and canned vegetables. We here have some thing called "Spring Salad" that's a can with little dices of carrots, potatoes and peas that's very nice with some mayo and tuna.

Now, this brings more items to the table... I live alone, and one can of salad and one can of tuna is too much for one serving portion to me... My can can take some tuna (have stocked up food for your pets too!) but it's still much... Well, I'm gonna have to eat it all anyways, and skip the other big food of the day maybe, you just can't leave an open can with food. No power no fridge. You don't want rotten stuff around you if you can't clean properly because of the lack or power and water.

I choose food stored in water as you can drink tha water in the case of the salad and just leave it there on the food in the case of the tuna. It might not be super tasty, but it's water to the body and saves water from the water storage. Plus, if you throw that water on the sink, then you're gonna need to use some clean water to clean it up, as if you leave like that, it will attract insects and bugs. Specially if its Summer time.

Dressings are good, but once opened, if not refrigerated, they rot, so it's cool to have a supply of individual servings as in McDonalds. Tabasco is good too as it doesn't need refrigeration.

Other important thing to store are crackers and sweets. Crackers are good to eat for breakfast or if you're hungry or bored cos you don't have anything else to do. Pate cans are good too, cos you can place it on top of the crackers and have a quick dinner.

Sweets are good cos your body will ask for one sometime and it's like a nice little treat for yourself in the middle of a screwed up situation. Instant coffee (Nescafe) and powdered milk are a must too.


To finish this, in addition of eating and drinking, you have to take care of washing or disposing of the items you've used.

A fork is easy to wash, it's all metal, just a little water will do. but dished are bigger and it will demand more water to wash them, specially if you've used an oily dressing like mayo, so what I reccomend is that once you dispose of the water of the canner vegetables, wheter on the toilet, sink or drinking it, you eat a little to make room for the tuna, and then mix both cans in there.

Once you're finished eating, you have nothing to wash but the fork, so no water is wasted on that. What you have to make sure it to have many plastic bags and duct tape to seal your thrash from every meal, with as little air on the bag as posible. Once it's sealed, throw it on a big and thick plastic bag. This way you'd keep a clean place even if you just can't take the trash outside.


BARTER ITEMS AND PRECIOUS METALS

It never got to the point that we had to use barter items or precious metals here.
As always, cash is king, and you should have some in your place, as with the ATM out of order, or the goverment doesn't allow you to take your own money, you're screwed if you don't have anything in you.

The major supermarket chains will not take barter or gold/silver for payment. They will take Euros or USD, but you will get a somewhat lower exchange than on the regular market. Not much low though, about 3-5% less.

Small Korean/Chinese places will probably take gold, but I have no personal experience with this, and you'll probably get screwed with the rate.

The way I see it (personal interpretation, not real experience), silver is good for nothing, is so cheap nobody would want it, and gold is too expensive that you can't just go buy groceries with a Krugerrand... That's about USD 470... I can buy food for myself for 2/3 months with that cash. So I'd need smaller coins... But those are more expensive than the big ones, so it wouldn't be really useful, mostly because if I buy gold from a bank, I have to pay an extra (let's say I'd have to pay USD 490 for a Krugerrand) so if the market value of the gold didn't go up by the time I need to sell it, I'd loose USD 20 on the spot (in the improbable case that I get market value for my gold)

So the way I see it, cash is king. Buy gold if you want to save for the long future, but on a SHTF scenario you won't get really what you invested on it. I live in Argentina, so a handfull of USD or Euros in cash I can go a long way, even if the SHTF event is a collapse of the economy that makes the peso worthless, so if you're in the US, you should keep some cash on a foreign strong currency.

Of course this will work with an educated city dweller... Try a hunter in the boonies to take Yens/Euros... You might have more luck with this guy with a US Golden Eagle.

SOME CLARIFICATIONS

Why I continue to live here?

First, it's my own damn country!

Two, where exactly am I gonna go? The US? I'm not gonna go as an illegal, and green cards are imposible to get. Plus I'm not really keen on the whole PC thing, I'd get sued the first time I try greet a female coworker with a kiss.

Some years ago I went to a training program in CA and there was this cure oriental girl that just had a somewhat radical haircut and the co workers were making fun of her, and I really liked how she looked like that (and I had ZERO "romantic" interest on her) so I told her something to the lines of "I really like it, it really scents the shape of your eyes and matches the style of clothing you picked for today" and all of a sudden they all made silence and I realized that I was in the US, not in my country, and that stupid little "make happy" comment was WAY out of line.

So far I'm OK here, I don't make a ton of cash, but I don't do bad (on a simple life scale - I don't really care about the stupid stuff the sheeple care about). Plus some of my income is in USD, so that helps a lot too.

I don't know how to really explain it, but you just block some stuff from your mind and end up living well if you have a decent income. My own problem isn't about security or money (although I'm not inmune to that and I'm not wealthy - I could use a lot of more stuff) but just realizing everyday the kind of people that common people is.... Sheeple, rude, ignorant...

Since I resigned on that company I wrote about it, I work on my own, I can't stant corporate world... The stories my best friend tells me about his coworkers are just unbeliavable...


Why can't I get a rifle permit?
They're not issuing them anymore... I have friends that bought stuff 10-15 months ago and they still can't go pick it up at the gunstore as they didn't get it issued. It's a permit per rifle/submachine gun, not per person. (Actually .454 Cassul and .50 AE handguns also require the same permit - but I'm not sure if they're issuing this or not)

So even if they're legally allowed, they are de facto prohibited.


I don't consider myself an expert on survivalism or anything, but it looks like just living here, even if it's in a regular big cosmopolitan city, molds your mind into a superior level than the regular US citizen. And I'm not saying this to deminish US citizens, but for what I've read and seen when I went there, MANY people just take things for granted, and would not have an idea of what to do if you changed they're everyday squedule.

In here is more of a "fuck, this shit again?" and switch with the current events.

People here are sheeple like in the US too, but since our quality of living doesn't even begin to compare with yours, it's different. It's like in here, people want the right to eat and sleep well, but in the US they want the right to a plasma TV, a jacuzzi, one SUV for each family member, etc, etc, and they DEMAND that to the goverment...

So when TSHTF in here, we take it as lowering our quality of living, but in degrees of the same scale, while in the US they're gonna be driven to a complete different world, SO different that they're not going to even be able to assimilate it.

And THAT's what's important... Acknowledging that the situation changes ASAP and modify your behavior accordingly. If it takes a week to realize the goverment isn't going to airlift you to the Hilton, you're dead.

When NOLA people complained about the MREs being cold and about having to drink water, I've almost lost it... SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU INGRATEFUL ASSHOLE!

 

I think you are thinking This One at Frugal

Edit: THe Frugal link is no good anymore.
Here is the Story by Ferfal
link bad - removed

 

Different guy EL.

He's pretty well set where he posts now but I will invite him.

 

good read thanks

 

This is the Ferfal story EL mentioned...


THOUGHTS ON URBAN SURVIVAL
Life in Post-Collapse Argentina, Oct. 2005

My brother visited Argentina a few weeks ago. He’s been living in Spain for a few years now. Within the first week, he got sick, some kind of strong flu, even though the climate isn’t that cold and he took care of himself. Without a doubt he got sick because there are lots of new viruses in my country that can’t be found in 1st world countries. The misery and famine lead us to a situation where, even though you have food, shelter and health care, most others don’t, and therefore they get sick and spread the diseases all over the region.

What got me started on this post is the fact that I actually saw this coming, and posted on the subject here at Frugal’s, [frugalsquirrels.com] months before the new viruses spread over the country and the news started talking about this new health emergency, which proves that talking, thinking and sharing ideas with like-minded people (you guys), does help me to see things coming and prepare for them with enough time. So I started thinking about several issues, what I learned (either the hard way or thanks to this forum) after all these years of living in a collapsed country that is trying to get out an economical disaster and everything that comes along with it. Though my English is limited, I hope I’m able to transmit the main ideas and concepts, giving you a better image of what you may have to deal with some day, if the economy collapses in your country. Here is what I have so far:

URBAN OR COUNTRY?
Someone once asked me how did those that live in the country fare. If they were better off than city dwellers. As always there are no simple answers. Wish I could say country good, city bad, but I can’t, because if I have to be completely honest, and I intend to be so, there are some issues that have to be analyzed, especially security. Of course those that live in the country and have some land and animals were better prepared food-wise. No need to have several acres full of crops. A few fruit trees, some animals, such as chickens, cows and rabbits, and a small orchard were enough to be light years ahead of those in the cities. Chickens, eggs and rabbits would provide the proteins, a cow or two for milk and cheese, some vegetables and fruit plants covered the vegetable diet, some eggs or a rabbit could be traded for flour to make bread and pasta or sugar and salt.

Of course that there are exceptions, for example, some provinces up north have a desert climate, and it almost never rains. It is almost impossible to live off the land, and animals require food and water you have to buy. Those guys had it bad; no wonder the northern provinces suffer the most in my country. Those that live in cities, well they have to manage as they can. Since food prices went up about 200%-300%. People would cut expenses wherever they could so they could buy food. Some ate whatever they could; they hunted birds or ate street dogs and cats, others starved. When it comes to food, cities suck in a crisis. It is usually the lack of food or the impossibility to acquire it that starts the rioting and looting when TSHTF.

When it comes to security things get even more complicated. Forget about shooting those that mean you harm from 300 yards away with your MBR [main battle rifle]. Leave that notion to armchair commandos and 12 year old kids that pretend to be grown ups on the internet.

Some facts:

1) Those that want to harm you/steal from you don’t come with a pirate flag waving over their heads.

2) Neither do they start shooting at you 200 yards away.

3) They won’t come riding loud bikes or dressed with their orange, convict just escaped from prison jump suits, so that you can identify them the better. Nor do they all wear chains around their necks and leather jackets. If I had a dollar for each time a person that got robbed told me “They looked like NORMAL people, dressed better than we are”, honestly, I would have enough money for a nice gun. There are exceptions, but don’t expect them to dress like in the movies.

4) A man with a wife and two or three kids can’t set up a watch. I don’t care if you are SEAL, SWAT or John Freaking Rambo, no 6th sense is going to tell you that there is a guy pointing a gun at your back when you are trying to fix the water pump that just broke, or carrying a big heavy bag of dried beans you bought that morning.

The best alarm system anyone can have on a farm are dogs. But dogs can get killed and poisoned. A friend of mine had all four dogs poisoned on his farm one night, they all died. After all these years I learned that even though the person that lives out in the country is safer when it comes to small time robberies, that same person is more exposed to extremely violent home robberies. Criminals know that they are isolated and their feeling of invulnerability is boosted. When they assault a country home or farm, they will usually stay there for hours or days torturing the owners. I heard it all: women and children getting raped, people tied to the beds and tortured with electricity, beatings, burned with acetylene torches. Big cities aren’t much safer for the survivalist that decides to stay in the city. He will have to face express kidnappings, robberies, and pretty much risking getting shot for what’s in his pockets or even his clothes.

So, where to go? The concrete jungle is dangerous and so is living away from it all, on your own. The solution is to stay away from the cities but in groups, either by living in a small town-community or sub division, or if you have friends or family that think as you do, form your own small community. Some may think that having neighbors within “shouting” distance means losing your privacy and freedom, but it’s a price that you have to pay if you want to have someone to help you if you ever need it. To those that believe that they will never need help from anyone because they will always have their rifle at hand, checking the horizon with their scope every five minutes and a first aid kit on their back packs at all times…. Grow up.

SERVICES
What ever sort of scenario you are dealing with, services are more than likely to either suffer in quality or disappear all together. Think ahead of time; analyze possible SHTF scenarios and which service should be affected by it in your area. Think about the most likely scenario but also think outside the box. What’s more likely? A tornado? But a terrorist attack isn’t as crazy as you though it would be a few years ago, is it?
Also analyze the consequences of those services going down. If there is no power then you need to do something about all that meat you have in the fridge, you can dry it or can it. Think about the supplies you would need for these tasks before you actually need them. You have a complete guide on how to prepare the meat on you computer… how will you get it out of there if there is no power? Print everything that you consider important.

WATER
No one can last too long without water. The urban survivalist may find that the water is of poor quality, in which case he can make good use of a water filter, or that there is no water available at all. When this happens, a large city were millions live will run out of bottled water within minutes. In my case, tap water isn’t very good. I can see black little particles and some other stuff that looks like dead algae. Taste isn’t that bad. Not good but I know that there are parts of the country where it is much worse. To be honest, a high percentage of the country has no potable water at all.

If you can build a well, do so, set it as your top of the list priority as a survivalist.
Water comes before firearms, medicines and even food. Save as much water as you can. Use plastic bottles, refill soda bottles and place them in a cool place, preferably inside a black garbage bag to protect it from sun light. The water will pick some plastic taste after a few months, but water that tastes a little like plastic is far way better than no water at all. What ever the kind of SHTF scenario you are dealing with, water will suffer. In my case the economical crash created problems with the water company, that reduces the maintenance and quality in order to reduce costs and keep their income in spite of the high prices they have to pay for supplies and equipment, most of which comes from abroad, and after the 2001 crash, costs 3 times more. As always, the little guy gets to pay for it. Same would go for floods or chemical or biological attacks. Water requires delicate care and it will suffer when TSHTF in one way or another. In this case, when you still have tap water, a quality filter is in order, as well as a pump if you can have one. A manual pump would be ideal as well if possible. Estimate that you need a approximately a gallon per person per day. Try to have at least two-four weeks worth of water. More would be preferable.

POWER
I spent WAY to much time without power for my own taste. Power has always been a problem in my country, even before the 2001 crisis. The real problem starts when you spend more than just a few hours without light. Just after the SHTF in 2001 half the country went without power for 3 days. Buenos Aires was one big dark grave. People got caught on elevators, food rots; hospitals that only had a few hours worth of fuel for their generators ran out of power. Without power, days get to be a lot shorter. Once the sun sets there is not much you can do. I read under candle light and flashlight light and your head starts to hurt after a while. You can work around the house a little bit but only as long as you don’t need power tools. Crime also increases once the lights go out, so whenever you have to go somewhere in a black out, carry the flashlight on one hand and a handgun on the other.

Summarizing, being in a city without light turn to be depressing after a while. I spent my share of nights, alone, listening to the radio, eating canned food and cleaning my guns under the light of my LED head lamp. Then I got married, had a son, and found out that when you have loved ones around you black outs are not as bad. The point is that family helps morale on these situations.

A note on flashlights. Have two or three head LED lights. They are not expensive and are worth their weight in gold. A powerful flashlight is necessary, something like a big Maglite or better yet a SureFire, especially when you have to check your property for intruders. But for more mundane stuff like preparing food, going to the toilet or doing stuff around the house, the LED headlamp is priceless. Try washing the dishes on the dark while holding a 60 lumen flashlight on one hand and you’ll know what I mean. LEDs also have the advantage of lasting for almost an entire week of continuous use and the light bulb lasts forever. Rechargeable batteries are a must or else you’ll end up broke if lights go out often. Have a healthy amount of spare quality batteries and try to standardize as much as you can. I have 12 Samsung NM 2500Mh AA and 8 AAA 800mh for the headlamps. I use D cell plastic adaptors in order to use AA batteries on my 3 D cell Maglite. This turned out to work quite well, better than I expected. I also keep about 2 or 3 packs of regular, Duracell batteries just in case. These are supposed to expire around 2012, so I can forget about them until I need them. Rechargeable NM batteries have the disadvantage of loosing power after a period of time, so keep regular batteries as well and check the rechargeable ones every once in a while.

After all these years of problems with power, what two items I would love to have?

1) The obvious. A generator. I carried my fridge food to my parent’s house way to many times on the past. Too bad I can’t afford one right now.

2) A battery charger that has both solar panel and a small crank. They are not available here. I saw that they are relatively inexpensive in the USA. Do yourself a favor and get one or two of these. Even if they don’t charge as well as regular ones, I’m sure it will put out enough power to charge batteries for LED lamps at least.

GAS (Propane and natural gas)
Gas has decreased in quality as well, there is little gas. Try to have an electric oven in case you have to do without it. If both electricity and gas go down, one of those camping stoves can work as well, if you keep a good supply of gas cans. The ones that work with liquid fuel seem to be better on the long run, since they can use different types of fuel. You can only store a limited amount of compressed gas and once you ran out of it, you are on your own if stores are closed of they sold them out. Anyway, a city that goes without gas and light for more than two weeks is a death trap, get out of there before it’s too late.

A DIFFERENT MENTALITY.

I was watching the People & Art channel with my wife the other night. It was a show where they film a couple for a given period of time and some people vote on who is the one with the worst habits, the one they find more annoying. We were in our bed, and this is when I usually fall asleep but since the guy was a firearms police instructor I was interested and managed to stay awake. At one point the guy’s wife said that she found annoying that her husband spent 500 dollars a month on beauty products for himself. 500 USD on facial cream, special shampoo and conditioner, as well as having his nails polished! If you are that guy and happen to be reading this, or if you know him, I’m sorry, but what an idiot!! “500 USD, that’s a small generator or a gun and a few boxes of ammo” I told my wife. “That’s two months worth of food” she said. We were each thinking of a practical use for that money, the money this guy was practically throwing away. Once the SHTF, money is no longer measured in money, but you start seeing it as the necessary goods it can buy. Stuff like food, medicine, gas, or the private medical service bill. To me, spending 500 dollars on beauty products, and to make it worse, on a guy? That’s simply not acceptable. The way I see it, someone with that mentality can’t survive a week without a credit card, no use in even considering a SHTF scenario.
And this guy is a firearms instructor?… probably the kind of guy that will say that a handgun is only used to fight his way to his rifle… and his facial night cream…

Once you experience the lack of stuff you took for granted, like food , medicines, your set of priorities change all of a sudden. For example, I had two wisdom teeth removed last year. On both occasions I was prescribed with antibiotics and strong Ibuprofen for the pain. I took the antibiotics (though I did buy two boxes with the same prescription just to keep one box just in case) but I didn’t use the Ibuprofen, I added it to my pile of medicines. Why? Because medicines are not always available and I’m not sure if they will be available in the future. Sure, it hurt like hell, but pain alone isn’t going to kill you, so I sucked it up. Good for building up character if you ask me.

Make sacrifices so as to ensure a better future, that’s the mentality you should have if you want to be prepared. There’s stuff that is “nice to have” that has to be sacrificed to get the indispensable stuff. There’s stuff that is not “basic need stuff” but it’s also important in one way or another. My wife goes to the hairdresser once every month or two. It’s not life or death, but it does make her feel better and it boosts her morale.
I buy a game for the Xbox or a movie to watch with my wife every once in awhile, just to relax. 7 or 10 dollars a month are not going to burn a hole in my pocket. Addictions such as alcohol, drugs or even cigarettes should be avoided by the survivalist. They are bad for your health; cost a lot of money that could be much better spent, and create an addiction to something that may not be available in the future. Who will have to tolerate your grouchy mood when your brand of smokes is no longer imported after TSHTF?

PART II

GRAY/BLACK MARKET

Once the SHTF the black/gray market will take no time to appear all around you.
In my country, gray markets were even accepted in the end. At first it was all about trading skills or craft products for food. Districts and towns would form their own barter markets, and created their own tickets, similar to money, that was used to trade.
This didn’t last long. Those tickets were easy to make on your home computer, there was no control and eventually people went back to paper money.

These markets were usually placed on warehouses or empty land, and were managed by some wise guy and a few thugs or hired security. Anyone can go rent a kiosk inside these markets for about 50-100 pesos (about 20-30 dollars) a day and sell his goods and services. Peace within these markets is usually respected… lets just say that these managers don’t call the police if someone tries anything funny, like stealing, fighting or taking advantage of women. That’s not good for their business and anyone that tries to mess with their business finds out how much pain the human body can actually experience or gets a free ticket to meet the Lord. Sometimes even uniformed cops manage security on these markets, for a small fee of course. As always, you still have to be careful. They may still try to pick your pockets or even attack you once you leave the market. Once you leave the market, you are on your own, as always.

These markets evolved and now a lot of different products are available. Today I visited my local market, a warehouse that is fairly well set up and cleanly managed. They had problems for selling stolen merchandise and fake brand name clothes a few days ago.
What can be found at the local markets? Mostly food and clothing. Some have more variety than others but cheese, canned food, spices, honey, eggs, fruits, vegetables, beer, wine and cured meat are generally available, same as bakery products and pasta. These are less expensive than those found at supermarkets. Fresh fish is sometimes available but not always, people don’t trust many products that need refrigeration, and they get those at supermarkets instead.

Clothes are also popular and you can find copies of brand name clothes, imitations, or even original stolen new clothes, the same goes for shoes and sneakers. Children clothes, underwear, socks, sheets and towels are all very popular. Some sell toys, but they are always China made, mostly poor quality though there are some few exceptions. Others sell tools, also made in China can be found as well, but they are of poor quality. Some offer their services and repair stuff or offer work as handyman.
You would be amazed of the junk that these guys manage to fix: TVs, CD players, Power tools, etc. They even manage to solder the small integrated circuits boards sometimes. Give one of these guys a screw driver and a bar of chocolate and he will fix a nuclear submarine.

After food and clothes, the 3rd most popular item has to be CDs and DVDs, movies, music, play station 2 and Xbox games, programs, it all ends up there just one or two days after the official release in USA. Seems that they have a guy hidden under Bill Gate’s desk or something. Anyway, almost everything can be found there, and if you want, you can ask around, talk to the right guy and buy illegal stuff like drugs or black market guns and ammo. The quality of the drugs is questionable, of course, and a lot of addicts die from the mixtures these guys sell.
Guns are mostly FN High Powers, Surplus 1911s and Colt .45s, Sistemas, and old Colt Detective revolvers in 38 special that found their way from police and military armories into the black market. Condition isn’t very good but if you have money you’ll be amazed of what you can end up with. Everything that is used by the military and police, including SMGs a, Browning 50 BMG Machine guns, and even frag grenades, is available in the black market, if the customer has the amount of money and a little patience, of course. The big guns may take a while, but the handguns and grenades are readily available.

GOLD!!
Someone hit me in the head please because I messed up about the gold issue.
Everyone wants to buy gold! “I buy gold. Pay cash” signs are everywhere, even on TV! I can’t believe I’m that silly! I just didn’t relate it to what I read here because they deal with junk gold, like jewelry, either stolen or sold because they needed the money, not the gold coins that you guys talk about. No one pays for the true value of the stuff, so big WARNING! Sign on people that are buying gold coins. Since it is impossible to determine the true mineral percentage of gold, small shops and dealers will pay for it as regular jewelry gold. What I would do if I were you: Besides gold coins, buy a lot of small gold rings and other jewelry. They should be less expensive than gold coins, and if the SHTF bad, you won’t be losing money, selling premium quality gold coins for the price of junk gold. If I could travel back in time, I’d buy a small bag of gold rings. Small time thieves will snatch gold chains right out of your neck and sell them at these small dealers found everywhere. This is VERY common at train stations, subways and other crowded areas.

So, my advice, if you are preparing for a small economical crisis, gold coins make sense. You will keep the value of the stuff and be able to sell it for its actual cost to gold dealers or maybe other survivalists that know the true value of them. In my case, gold coins would have been an excellent investment, saving me from losing money when the local economy crashed. Even though things are bad, I can go to a bank down town and get paid for what a gold coin is truly worth, same goes for pure silver. But where I live, in my local area small time dealers will only pay you the value of junk gold, no matter what kind of gold you have. So, I’d have to say that if TSHTF bad, gold jewelry is a better trade item than gold coins.

PART III: GUNS, AMMO AND OTHER GEAR
After TSHTF in 2001, only the most narrow minded, brain washed, butterfly IQ level idiots believed that the police would protect them from the crime wave that followed the collapse of our economy. A lot of people that could have been considered antigun before, ran to the gun shops, seeking advice on how to defend themselves and their families. They would buy a 38 revolver, a box of ammo, and leave it in the closet, probably believing that it would magically protect them from intruders.

Oh, maybe you don’t think that firearms are really necessary or your beliefs do not allow you to buy a tool designed to kill people. So you probably ask yourself, is a gun really necessary when TSHTF? Will it truly make a difference? Having gone through a SHTF scenario myself, total economical collapse in the year 2001, and still dealing with the consequences, 5 years later, I feel I can answer that question. YES, you need a gun, pepper spray, a machete, a battle axe, club with a rusty nail sticking out of it, or whatever weapon you can get hold of.

A LOT has been written on survival weapons. Everyone that is into armed survival has his or her own idea of the ideal gun battery. Some more oriented to a hunting point of view, others only as self defense means and others consider a little of both, and look for general purpose weapons. Talking about guns, there is one special subject I want to rectify, and it’s the point on what’s the primary weapon for the survivalist, specially a urban survivalist that has to function in a society, yes, even after the SHTF.
The primary defensive weapon for the survivalist is his HANDGUN. It’s the weapon that stays with him when he is doing his business around town of working on the field. The survivalist IS NOT a soldier, even though you are a soldier or you once were the meanest mother on the battlefield, your home town is not a battlefield and it won’t be, even if the SHTF. A LOT of water has to go under the bridge until the situation gets to a point where you can calmly walk down the street with a rifle on your shoulder. People, if you are interested in real world SHTF situation and you want to prepare for the real deal, then understand that this isn’t black or white. You wake up one day and listen on the radio that the economy collapsed and that the stock market closed indefinitely. What do you do? You still have to go to the office/work/whatever. Kiss the wife good bye and walk to the office with your AR across your back, or across your chest, Israeli style, ready to shoot? You won’t get far. Someone will shoot you or throw you in jail, or in a mental institution.

What I’m trying to explain, is that it’s ok to prepare for China invading your country, Germans and UN or Martians. That is the extreme, least likely worst case scenario.
There is an infinity spectrum of gray between the black and white. White being your average normal day and black being total TEOTWAWKI, lizard men invading the planet.
Rifles do have a place in the survivalist’s arsenal, and a very important one. But you have to understand that 90% of the time, the handgun will be the weapon you have available when you need one. You can’t compare to a trooper in Iraq that has his weapon with him at all times. I ask you how many soldiers do you know that keep wearing camouflage and toting their M4s around town when they return home?

What works for war does not work for the survivalist, especially the urban survivalist.
Even if you live in a retreat far from town, you have to work, don’t you? Or do you have employees that take care of all your mundane tasks, leaving you all day to keep watch with your rifle ready? A soldier is part of a huge machine; HIS job is to carry that rifle, while others take care of other needs. A survivalist, one that is not part of a large survivalist group, has no one to cover for him. When a new guy looks for advice on what to get for defense, some will recommend a rifle or shotgun as a first defensive weapon.
Let’s say race riots start in this guy’s city. He still has to go to work every day. What is he supposed to do? Shove his pump shotgun in his pocket? A handgun, even though less powerful, can be used for home defense AND go with you wherever you need to go. If the place floods, he can still hop into an evacuation boat without leaving his weapon behind. I’m sure no rescue team will pick you if you are carrying a long arm. They’ll ask you to leave it behind for sure. What if your government, realizing that TSHTF and that they lost control of the events, bans all firearms indefinitely? Don’t know about you, but if things are that bad, I’d like to be armed. You can hide a handgun under a jacket. You can’t hide a long arm under your clothes.

I think it was Clint Smith who said that the handgun is only to be used to fight his way to his rifle. Man! That sounds “macho”. I’d love to see him walking into Walmart with his tactical M4, taking the subway, visiting the doctor or going to the bank. “Over here Mr. Smith, you can hang you M4 right next to my coat” I don’t think so. Guys, unless you have your own shooting school, you do not get to carry your rifle to work.

OK, now that I got that out of my chest lets look at some options.

Handguns: Revolver or Pistol? Pistol ALL THE WAY! Yes, I saw the video of the guy that accurately emptied his S&W in ½ a second. I also saw the shooting range and the crowd behind him, watching the event. Can he shoot and reload that way if he is in his car, driving with one hand and shooting with the other, while a bunch of scum bags in another car are shooting at him? Hey, maybe he can. I know I can’t. Can you?
Generally speaking, the revolver is more difficult to master than the pistol. The double action is hard and it affects speed and accuracy. It can be done, but I found that pistols are easier, as did many shooters. Also, even though they seem to be more simple, revolvers are not as rugged as service pistols, the mechanism that cycles the cylinder and cocks the hammer is both complicated and fragile compared to auto pistols.
Before anyone starts casting evil voodoo spells at me for insulting their prized S&W or Ruger: I own revolvers and like shooting them, I just don’t think they are the best option for self defense, and I see that everyone I talk to in my country who is worried about security as I am also chooses pistols. Quality pistols resist sand, mud and dirt in general better than revolvers, where a small pebble locked in the mechanism may render the revolver inoperable.

I personally had a problem with a new stainless steel Taurus Tracker .357 magnum. After shooting it a couple of times I reloaded it and shot all 7 rounds as fast as I could and when I tried to empty it, I found that the empties were stuck because they expanded because of the heat. I had to wait until the gun cooled a little so I could empty the gun. Stuff like this can get you killed, even more in a 7 round handgun. I once saw a man walk into a gun store wanting to trade his 357 magnum revolver for a 9mm high capacity pistol. He said he was driving when thugs from another car started shooting at him. He was chased for a few blocks. He said that he pulled his revolver and started shooting at them, and ran out of ammo real fast. He wanted more capacity and fast reloading. I could not agree with him more. Some will consider this “Spray and pray”, thinking that all rounds should hit the target and if some don’t then it means that you need more time at the range. Those same people will tell you that they intend to use bolt action rifles as defensive rifles, making each shot count, without ever missing their target, one shot one kill. I don’t agree with this. One shot one kill is ok for snipers, but the survivalist should have other alternatives.

I don’t see anything wrong with shooting four or five rounds at a chasing car. If those rounds make them think twice about their intentions, they are rounds well spent in my book, even if they don’t kill the attacker. Suppressive fire is possible if you have a high capacity pistol. I wouldn’t doubt on using such a tactic if it serves my purposes, or if it buys me time to get out of there. Also keep in mind that criminals are cowards and therefore attack in groups. The survivalist should be able to face more than just one attacker. Getting into a gunfight with two or three armed men while packing a 6 round revolver is rather hard to deal with. A high capacity pistol can load about 15 or 19 rounds, and that can certainly make a difference in a gunfight where you are outnumbered.

A forensic doctor that used to live in my neighborhood got killed last year. He was ambushed when he exited a restaurant by 5 or 6 men. Even though they did kill him he managed to kill 4 of them and severely injure another. He shot regularly and carried a Glock .40. I’m sure he was lucky but I also think that his choice of weapon was also important in the outcome. If anyone is wondering, people in my country that are serious about self defense carry Glocks. Those that don’t have the money for a Glock carry Bersas, FN 9mm High Powers or 1911 surplus .45s. At first I wasn’t sure about the Bersa, but once I tried them I saw that they are very decent guns.

The caliber choice calls for endless debate and it is not my intention here. Lets just say that 9mm , 40S&W and 45ACP are the obvious choices. 40S&W seem to be the most adequate, both in FMJ and HP, while 9mm lacks some stopping power and hollow points should be used if possible. Though the 9mm lacks power compared to the 40S&W, it is more popular world wide, a factor to consider seriously when choosing a handgun for SHTF. Besides, 9mm can also be used in a number of carbines and SMG, another important fact to be considered.

SMGs and carbines chambered for 40S&W and .45 ACP are also available, but they at not nearly as popular as those chambered for 9mm. Whatever you choose keep 500 or better yet 1000 rounds of quality ammo for your handgun at all times. 100 rounds won’t last much if the crisis lasts long. Also consider that once the balloon goes up, governments tend to restrict guns and ammo.

Rifles
I previously stated that the urban survivalist will be using his handgun 90% of the time he needs to defend himself and family from attackers. I didn’t pull this figure out of thin air; it is quite accurate based on what happens here on daily basis, even a little optimistic. Cold harsh reality has shown us that most attacks occur when entering or exiting your home, when you are more vulnerable. Almost no one is stupid enough to try to enter a barred house with armed occupants. Believe me people; the gene pool will clean itself rather fast once the SHTF. So, is a rifle necessary? Of course it is! There is still that 10%, and that 10% can still ruin your day. And this percentage sky rockets if you intend to use that same rifle for putting meat on the table. If you have to settle with just one rifle, go for a semi auto. Ideally you should have a bolt action one and a semi auto rifle. A bolt action and a semiautomatic 308 would make a nice combination.
Whatever you choose, try to keep it within military calibers and military weapons if possible.

It may seem that I have something against bolt rifles but I don’t. I think they are fantastic weapons, but I think that semi autos are much better fighting weapons. The idea of “picking them out” 300 meters away with your bolt rifle, as they come in a row blowing whistles and firing warning rounds is laughable at best. Bolt rifles do have advantages over semi autos, accuracy not being the most important one. Bolt rifles such as Mausers last forever and are harder than rocks, and THAT’S important. They are simple, easy to repair tools that will serve you (within their limitations of course) longer than any other weapon. For example, the coil spring on my Mauser 1891 safety broke into 3 separate parts, after almost 100 years of faithful service. I dug into my tool box and found a spring left over from a kitchen shelve door. I cut it approximately to the length of the previous spring, replaced it and the rifle was fixed. There are not many weapons that allow this. And it is a very valuable attribute once the SHTF and spare parts are no longer available.

Stick to common calibers, 223, 7.62x39mm, or 7,62x51 (308). 223 vs. 308? I’m not going there. If you prefer 223 because it has less recoil, it’s lighter, or you favor the AR rifle go ahead. If you think that 223 is more powerful than 7,62 sign up to Physics I.
Just remember what I said before, a survivalist is not a soldier serving in Iraq, and you don’t have the entire USMF to back you up. You are on your own. You are not going to pin your attackers down with a questionably effective round and wait until someone hits them with artillery.

About ARs… I wouldn’t trust my life to a rifle that has more versions than Rocky sequels… the way I see it, it means that the basic design was the problem and there is no solution. On AK … all has been said. The most popular rifle on the planet, and popular not because of politics, but because it works. It also fires an intermediate power, effective round, available world wide. SKS are also good, but I’d rather have removable magazines. Again, don’t use voodoo on me because I say I wouldn’t trust my life to a AR. If you keep your weapon clean, know its limitations and feel comfortable with it, go for it please. A couple of rounds of 223 will kill anyone just as well.

If you want a rifle that can do a little bit of everything relatively well, do yourself a favor and get either a M1A or a FAL in 7,62 (308) with a carbine length barrel. Preferably with a red dot scope and some kind of light mount. Leave full length barrels to hunters and bench rest shooters. Do your homework on both guns and you’ll see what I mean.
Choose 308 not because of the added range you can get out of it, but because of its power at all ranges, choose it because it turns cover into concealment. Think about all the possible cover material you can find in a city, like cars, trees, low walls and other structures. The 308 will go right through it, or destroy it after a few rounds. It’s a proven cartridge through out the years.

Shotguns.

Shotguns are good general purpose guns. The main advantage I see is the devastating stopping power and the ability to use special ammo, like slugs and less than lethal ammo. I’m not so sure about the role as an “inside house” gun. The muzzle blast is great and quick follow up are not easy, especially when adrenalin is pumping through your system or, even worse, when someone is shooting back at you.

Pistol caliber carbines and SMG.

If possible , I’d choose a SMG reduced to semi auto (only if necessary, of course, full auto selector is better if possible ) or other kind of short, small, pistol caliber carbine. The combination of a 9mm handgun and a 9mm carbine or SMG reduced to semi auto or full auto class III has lots of advantages in my book and is a fine combination.
Some think that full auto is a waste of ammo. I don’t think so, not if you know how to use your head, and use this feature wisely. If you can get a short barrel and collapsible stock, you’ll also have a weapon that can be hidden under a heavy coat. A red dot scope would enhance accuracy a lot. The advantage of having the same ammo for long and small arm is not to be taken lightly. From the logistical, survivalist point of you, this is one big thumbs up! Think about cowboys and Americans that lived in the west, they also knew the value of using the same ammo for rifle and handgun. They had single action handguns and lever action handguns chambered for the same ammo, the modern survivalist can have the same ammo for his auto pistol and his sub-rifle as well.

Some think that a pistol caliber long arm is just one big clumsy pistol or a rifle sized gun that delivers pistol power and accuracy. This is BS. Anyone that ever fired a pistol caliber rifle or SMG knows that they are much more accurate, hitting torso targets at 100 yards is easy, and a little more if you have a red dot scope. Also, SMGs can manage hot ammo specially made for such guns, much more powerful than the one for handguns. Even if you use regular handgun ammo, the added barrel length adds a few extra feet per second making it more powerful. Just check the information on boy armor. Body armor that is rated to stop 9mm, for example, is not rated to stop the same 9mm ammo out of a SMG or carbine, because the added speed will make that same round penetrate the vest. Anyway, +P ammo is more than enough power out of a SMG or carbine, you don’t have to go looking for special SMG ammunition.

If you can get full auto that’s one nice feature to have, not worth it if you are on a tight budget, but if you can get it, it may come in handy someday. Full auto SMG are giving police in my country a lot of headaches. A criminal with little or no training will put 3 or 4 cops armed with pistols and shotguns on their toes, just because of the sheer volume of fire these high capacity 9mm deliver. There was this case of a bad guy standing in front of a patrol car full of cops on a red light stop, pulling a 9mm SMG out of his coat and emptying it on full auto. The cops didn’t have a chance, he killed them all. The car looked like Swiss cheese with 40 9mm holes all over the vehicle.

SOUND SUPPRESSORS
All I’m going to say on this subject is: Have one if you can. That’s it. I’ll leave the rest of it to your imagination, don’t make me say it. Today it may seem like a “nice to have” feature… after the SHTF, it may be a “O God I’ve got to get a suppressor!!” feature.
I’d buy a good suppressor instead of a ultra high dollar scope like the SOG. Buy a good quality scope, but don’t spend a fortune on it, and use the rest of the money on a suppressor. If you are serious about preparing for SHTF, you’ll thank me one day, just trust me on this one. 9mm and 45 suppress quite well. Not as well as .22 , but there is much more power on the big bore ammo. Combined with a full auto SMG, the possibilities are much greater. Sometimes it’s just better to go unnoticed, especially in a SHTF crisis.

BODY ARMOR
Dear God! Buy body armor PLEASE!! It’s dirt cheap in USA. Preferably, get the police concealable kind (class II) Then continue to work on it and get class III A military armor and some rifle plates, just as you do when you start buying guns. You’ll end up with 2 or 3 sets of armor which are great to have for family members and spares. Just so you know, I got so desperate about body armor I ordered it from USA through internet (bulletproofme.com), I ended up paying a total of nearly 600 USD for body armor that costs 200 USD in USA. Buy it while you still can. When the SHTF you’ll end up wearing it, believe me. I don’t wear mine all day long but I do wear it when I have to go some place dangerous, deal with people I don’t trust, or when I have to go teach Architecture Representation late at night, and must travel through a much dangerous road at 12 PM.

PART IV
-Interlude- Studying the SHTF at the University: Dark omens.
I forgot it! Darn, same as the gold stuff but worse, much worse. I’ve never been good at remembering some things, like numbers and names of people I meet, I forget those (instantly), they just flee my mind, uneventfully, but I do remember some other things that don’t seem to be as important. I do remember living in USA as a kid. I remember my school, Pierce School, Don’t remember exactly were it was, because we lived some in Boston, Massachusetts and some in New Hampshire. I remember my best friend, Freddy, and a girl (why is there always a girl? Samantha, Sam. She was red haired and tall, I had a picture of her playing together but I lost it. Some time between the age of 3 and 26 I lost that picture that was so dear to me. I remember the smell of an orange shaped “scratch and smell” sticker my kindergarten teacher stuck in a small book we made once. But I almost forgot this forever. This, this was important, a moment where the life we once knew stopped existing, and a group of students, in a class room that looked like and abandoned building, realized it, all 60 of us at the same time.

It’s 1:06 AM over here. I just finished showering and my wife and son are asleep. I was putting shampoo on my hair, thinking about what I wrote today on this post, and remembered the exact moment when I realized along with several other people, not only that TSHTF (that we all knew) but that the world we once new no longer existed, and that this was not a hurricane, this was an ice age period, it wouldn’t just go away.

We understood it the same way a kid understands photosynthesis: Because a teacher coldly explained it to us, even used graphics. I slept 5 hours yesterday, 2 hours the day before yesterday. Saturday night I didn’t sleep at all. I’m already used to it. Deadlines at the University, staying late at night, drawing in CAD 3D, waiting until Renders are ready. It’s a competitive world out there, and no one sympathizes with what you are going through, they just want you to perform as expected, and the standard is always high.

It happened 4 years ago, almost a year after the December 2001 crisis. It was a social studies class and this teacher, don’t remember if it was a he or a she, was explaining the different kinds of social pyramids. God! Now I remember more! We even had a text book with those darn, cruel pyramids! The first pyramid explained the basic society. A pyramid with two horizontal lines, dividing those on top (high social class) those in the middle (middle class) and the bottom of the pyramid (the poor, proletarian). The teacher explained that the middle of the pyramid, the middle class, acted as a cushion between the rich and the poor, taking care of the social stress.

The second pyramid had a big middle section, this was the pyramid that represents 1st world countries. One where the bottom is very thin and arrows show that there is a possibility to go from low to middle class, and from middle to the top of the social pyramid. Our teacher explained that this was the classic, democratic capitalist society, and that on countries such as Europeans one, socialists, the pyramid was very similar but a little more flat, meaning that here is a big middle section, middle class, and small high and low class. There is little difference between the three of them.

The third pyramid showed the communist society. Where arrows from the low and middle class tried to reach the top but they bounced off the line. A small high society and one big low society, cushioned by a minimal middle class section of pyramid. Then we turned the page and saw the darned fourth pyramid. This one had arrows from the middle class dropping to the low, poor class.

“What is this?” Some of us asked.

The teacher looked at us. “This is us”

“It’s the collapsed country, a country that turns into 3rd world country like in pyramid five where there is almost no middle class to speak, one huge low, poor class , and a very small, very rich, top class.”

“What are those arrows that go from the middle to the bottom of the pyramid?” Someone asked.

You could hear a pin drop. “That is middle class turning into poor”.

I won’t lie, no one cried, though people rubbed their faces, held their heads and their breath.

No one cried, but we all knew at that very moment that all we thought, all we took for granted, simply was not going to happen.

“You see, the income from the middle class is not enough to function as middle class any more. Some from the top class fall to middle class, but the vast majority of the middle class turns into poor” Said the teacher.

I don’t know how many people in that room suddenly understood that he/she was poor.

The teacher continued “You see, we have a middle class that suddenly turns to poor, creating a society of basically poor people, there is no more middle class to cushion tensions any more. Middle class suddenly discovers that they are overqualified for the jobs they can find and have to settle for anything they can obtain, therefore unemployment sky rockets: too much to offer, too little demand. You see they prepare, study for a job they are not going to get. You kids, you are studying Architecture because you simply wish to do so. Only 3 or 4 percent of you will actually find a job related to architecture.”

We all sat there, letting it all sink in. After a few months, it all proved to be true. Even the amount of students that dropped out of college increased to at least 50%. They either so no point in studying something that would not make much of a difference in their future salaries, had no money to keep themselves in college, or simply had to drop college to work and support their families.

Someone once said, in this forum, that if this had happened in USA, the social unrest would have been much worse, because people from S. America are stronger. At first, I told him that I didn’t think so, I said that all humans adapt when they have no other choice. But now that I consider it more, maybe he was right. Not that S. Americans are stronger, but they are more used to adversities. Most of us are children from grandparents that escaped civil war, either in Spain or dictators in Italy, our parents survived the dirty war, even more dictators, and therefore their children are of strong character too.
Can USA citizens survive what we survived? Of course they can, though I think that there are too many that are not like you, many that don’t prepare, and take everything for granted. Those are the ones that will be responsible for the increase in the social unrest once the SHTF; those that were too lazy to take care of themselves before the SHTF, or that had gone soft through out the years, believing that the government will “take care of them because they pay their taxes”. But in the end, they will pull through. People will adapt, they always do. You’d be surprised. And those that don’t want to adapt to the new reality they live in, will die young, thus cleaning the gene pool and ensuring the continuity of the species. It’s been this way for thousands of years.

CRIME AND INSECURITY
Even though crime has always been an issue in South America, my country was quite the exception. It was dangerous, yes but nothing like after the 2001 economical crisis. One used to be able to let kids play on the sidewalk, or walk back home from a party, a few blocks, and be somewhat safe. This all changed now. There are no kids playing on the sidewalks anymore. I should emphasize this a little more. There are absolutely NO kids playing on the sidewalks at all, at any time of the day. Maybe a kid rides his bike a few meters on the sidewalk, but always under the supervision of an adult. A kid riding a bike on his own will get that bike stolen in no time, probably get hurt in the process, therefore no responsible parent leaves a kid alone on the street. Teenagers present a greater problem. You can’t keep a 15 or 16 year old inside a house all day long, and even though they are big enough to go out on their own, when the sun goes down things get much worse.

This is when parents organize themselves; either taking them to someone’s house or to a club and picking them up at a certain time. Taxis and remises are used sometimes, but there have been lots of cases of girls getting raped, so no parent worth a buck leaves his son or daughter in hands of a stranger. After years of living like this, almost everyone learned to be careful; sometimes they had to learn the hard way. Practically no one leaves a door or window opened or unlocked. Nor do they hang out in front of the house talking to friends. A bad guy might just see you there, like a sitting duck, pull a gun on you and take you inside your house.

There are no “bandit’s law” anymore. One used to hear people talk about “You shouldn’t resist a robbery, give them what they want and they’ll go away”. That holds true no more. These guys are under the influence of drugs, epoxy glue, or just hate your guts so much, because you have a better life than they ever dreamed of, because they were abused since the day they were born, that they will hurt and humiliate you as much as they can. Letting a criminal inside you house almost guaranties you that he will rape/beat/ torture and abuse whoever they find inside.
I personally drew a line a few years ago and decided, after one long, serious conversation with my wife; that no one would be allowed inside the house, no matter what. We figured that there are worse things than death. Having decided that, I make sure I always have a weapon on me. They’ll have to pay dearly for my life, plus interests.

By far, the most dangerous moment of the day, is when I (or my wife) leave/enter my house. A solid, secure house cannot be broken in easily, so criminals wait until you are standing in front of the door with the keys on your hand to jump you. This is why we are extra alert when approaching our house, looking all around us and if we see anything strange, we keep walking around the block or keep on driving. No door is ever opened when there is a strange person around. Whenever someone knocks on our door (and we don’t know him/her), they are answered from a second story window. Criminals sometimes disguise as electric company guys or something like that, saying that they have to fix something. NO! If there is something to be fixed they can fix it on the sidewalk. Anything inside your house is your responsibility and the company is not going to fix it for you. Either way, it’s always better to play it safe, Better to be rude than dead.

On the car/driving issue, that calls for an entire post dedicated to SHTF driving. For now I’ll just say that windows and doors have to be closed at all times, a weapon must be within arms reach, and that stop signs and traffic lights have a whole new meaning once TSHTF. If your country ever falls as mine did, you’ll remember me whenever you see a traffic light. You never stop at a red lights or stop sign unless there is traffic, especially at night.

At first, police would write you a ticket for not stopping at a red light if they saw you (another way of saying that they will ask for a bribe if they see you pass a red light), but after a few months they realized that nothing could be done, people would rather risk a ticket than risking their lives, so they decided to turn traffic lights to permanent yellow at night, after 8 or 9 PM. This is, of course, very dangerous. Night car accidents are both frequent and brutal since sometimes both cars hit each other at full speed.

MissingLink asked some good questions that might interest others as well, and since we are on the security issue, here they are:

“Do the invaders of homes in the country just drive up in cars or trucks? Do they hide and sneak up? How do these home invaders attack a home in the country? A similar question could be asked for homes in the city.”

Sometimes they just drive up to where you are working, if you are far away from the home, but most of the time they sneak up on you. Criminals are not stupid, and they will spend days checking the place and specially YOUR ROUTINE. For example, if they see that you lock the gate at night, as most do, they will wait for you behind a tree until you are close. This is done a lot. Dogs are the best alarm you can find, and criminals know that. They will poison them with pills when you go to sleep and attack the place in the middle of the night. I know of many that had their dogs killed. If they think that security is tight, they will just hide near the main gate, and wait for you to leave or return. When you stop at the gate and must get out of the truck to open/close the main gate, they attack. I’d say that the most frequent kind of attack is by surprise when you enter/leave your home.

“Most common times of attack? Day night evening morning? I understand occur when coming or going from ones home, etc.”

7 am, 9 am, 1pm 7pm, all are common times for attacks. There is no “safe” hour of the day. Night is particularly dangerous. Maybe attacks during the day are faster, they want to get some money or jewelry and leave fast, while at night they might stay inside more time, maybe till the next day. But there are no fixed patterns. If I could give one advice concerning SHTF security, it would be: Eyes and ears wide open when you enter/leave your home. If possible, keep a gun on your hand when doing either one. If something looks, even “feels strange, then go around the block and check again, carefully. If you see them still there, either call the police (if still available) or get help. If you approach the house with a large number of people they will leave. One time, I saw a couple of strange looking guys at my door. I went round the block and saw them still there. I started flashing the car lights and the horn and they left. I had a gun with me, though, so be careful when trying this. Also, remember that a car is one heavy, powerful piece of machinery. I know a guy that had one of those big chrome–tube bumpers installed on his truck, especially for hitting those that were stupid enough o try to make him stop by standing in front of the car.

If I had a truck, I would do so myself. Though I would keep my mouth shut about it, as always. Just say that you think it looks cool or something. Every now and then someone tries to force me to stop my car by standing in front of it (I suppose there are still fools out there that get robbed this way), in the middle of the street. I just aim at them and accelerate at full speed. They always jump out of the way before I hit them. By the way, at first, doing this made me feel nervous, but can you believe that now it’s just common driving, as normal as changing gears? I guess it’s a little sad.

PART V

A LIST OF THINGS THAT "If you had it to do over again" YOU WOULD GET.

Nomad came up with this one. It’s a good idea because it may help some of you from making the same mistakes I did. There are things you don’t think about until you need them, and then it’s too late.
OK, If I had to do all this from scratch? Say, for example, if I had a 2 year warning, fairy godmother appears one night , all dressed in blue waving a magic wand, saying “ Your country will go down the sewer in 2 years, consider yourself warned dear”
There are several things I would have done differently, and things I would have bought:
Food: I’ll get to the food issue soon enough, but you can never have too much canned, or other long shelf life food. This was probably one of my greatest mistakes, I overlooked the food problem.
I was talking to my wife today while driving, asked her the same question Nomad asked me “what would you do if you could go back in time, before the 2001 crisis”. My wife, though smart, isn’t much into preparedness, but she answered “I’d buy food” in a heartbeat.
“Don’t you remember that you could only buy one small bottle of oil at a time, same with sugar, flour and milk. Don’t you remember all those empty shelves at the supermarket.?”
Definitely, more food, especially food that lasts for a few years.

CAR: I would have bought a 4x4, even though I live in the city. A 4x4 allows you to drive over the sidewalk or through wasteland, away from roadblocks or riots. I’ve see those that have 4x4s simply go off road, climb over a boulevard and leave while the rest of us poor car owners have to stay.
A 4x4 truck also has more mass and power in case that someone tries to cut you off or rams you with the car. It’s less likely to stop running if you hit someone or several people (in a riot situation) since it’s prepared for cross country use and the engine is much more protected.
Fuel containers: Not only jerry cans, but those big metal containers, that hook up like small “u-hauls”? I’m not sure about their capacity; maybe they can hold one or two barrels of gas. I saw them at construction sites, and they were not that expensive if bought used, before the 2001 crisis. Now, I don’t know. Haven’t seen them for a while.
A generator: These are imported and very expensive for us. I think that they are now making them here, but I’m not sure about the quality.


A nice TV and DVD player: I know what you are thinking “this guy has gone … “nuts.”Please, let me explain.
Going out for dinner or to the movies is not only dangerous but also expensive. You WILL find much better use for that money if SHTF.
There are places in Buenos Aires where you can go out for dinner, movies, or theater shows and have a good time, safely. They either have their own security or arrange with the police for added security. These are the kinds of places you are likely to visit if you ever come to Argentina, places where tourists can move around, relatively safe (there are always exceptions, of course). But these places are either for tourists or for the extremely wealthy. I have a good socio-economical level, better than 96% of the population at least, yet I can’t afford to spend that amount of money every weekend or even two weekends a month. Going out for a walk is a possibility, and we do go out for a walk every now and then, but lets just say that the view isn’t that good, and you can only walk about 6 blocks in the same direction before you get out of the area which is guarded by private security, after that you are in “you are on your own” land. You CAN go for a walk (just like millions that live in Somalia or Afghanistan go for a walk as well) millions of citizens do, but I’d rather not risk it.


Just the day before yesterday, a young woman was waiting at the bus stop in my neighborhood, holding her 6 month old daughter. A cop that was chasing a bad guy opened fire with his High Power, with no regard to bystanders as they always do. The 9mm FMJ (JHP are not allowed for the average police) went right through the baby’s buttocks and through the mother. Miraculously, the bullet didn’t hit any of the baby’s internal organs and the mother also survived after a few days at the hospital. Was that just luck? Maybe, I prefer to think that God does work in mysterious ways.
We have a lot of cases like this, where innocent people get shot by the police, and the stupid “no JHP” rule makes it worse, since 124 gr. FMJ 9mm will penetrate walls, windows, even bad guys and end up injuring or killing innocent people.
So, back to the TV. Good places are too expensive, and just going out for a walk at night with your wife/girlfriend is out of the question. All of a sudden popcorn, pizza and a movie sounds like a good plan.
I’m not saying that you should spend all day in front of the screen like a zombie. Reading is nice, I love reading myself, but once the SHTF, going out with a date at night won’t be that easy, nor will it be that cheap. You will end up paying for that added security the shop/bar/theater owner hired, the higher price of gas and food, while a DVD copy can be found everywhere, and costs only a couple of bucks. After the SHTF there will be a lot of “why don’t we watch a movie” nights. Like it or not TV is cheap, safe entertainment. A play station or Xbox is also nice to have.
Even if the country collapses, there will always be a guy with a DVD writer making copies. Just something to think about if you like movies.
BOOKS: Oh, almost forgot. If you like reading a lot, buy books now, even if you won’t read them for some time. If your economy crashes, paper will become a source of income for many. We have thousands of scavengers collecting cardboard and paper all day long, specially at night when people take out the trash. As a result, books are not cheap, because they have a value of its own in the form of paper.
Also, consider that books are heavy, making transportation expensive and many are printed abroad.
Just as an example: I returned from visiting my parents in Spain with three suitcases. ONE suit case was entirely full of books. Books cost about 80%-200% more than what they cost in USA or Spain.
Guns & ammo: I always liked guns, so I always had weapons. But I didn’t have an adequate survival battery. If you don’t have a good survival selection of weapons, buy them now, or as soon as your budget allows. Make it one of your priorities, just after food, water and shelter.
There are several posts on the ideal choice of weapons. Get at least a service size pistol and a military semi auto rifle and a 22 handgun/rifle. (try to get both if you can, they are not that expensive). A bolt rifle (preferably in the same caliber as the semi) a pump 12 gauge shotgun and a sub rifle, like a SMG or pistol caliber semi auto carbine (same caliber as pistol) would complete the package.
I forgot to buy a 22 pistol until after 2001, and ended up paying for a Norinco 22 pistol the same price I would have paid for a Ruger pistol before the crisis.

My advice is: See what you use regularly and what you expect to need after TSHTF. Of those goods, see where they are made. If they are made outside your country, they will either increase in price of stop importation entirely after TSHTF.
In my case, one good example (of many, many others) is Gillette disposable blades. They are made in USA, and right now they cost a fortune. But as I said before, check what is being imported.
I wouldn’t think of these items as trade goods, but as “gifts” to buy favors, build up relationships with police, government officials, doctors, people you might need favors from.
Stuff, like liquor/wine, a nice pen, perfume, makeup and other “free shop” kind of items can go a long way when you need some strings pulled, or a “friend” within certain circles. And it’s not only the item, sweet talking also must be applied.
For example, you need renew your driver’s license after the XXXX crisis. The problem is that the office is low on personal (they had to let go 25% and 50% are on strike) so you’ll have to wait 4 months until you get an appointment.
You approach the information desk were you find Betty. Now, Betty hasn’t had a date since the age of 10, and she weighs as much a healthy manatee (though she’s not THAT pretty) you kindly ask her to please help you fill the paperwork, and though she’s as cold as a Popsicle, you keep calling her by her first name and when you leave she smiles and says good bye.
The next day you drop by and give Betty a Revlon lipstick for “helping” you fill the form, which had difficult questions like “name?” ”Age?”. It cost you about 4 bucks before the crisis but, since it’s made in France, it went up to 20 dollars and then, 2 months ago, they no longer imported it. Revlon saw that they no longer had a market for their 4 Euro lipstick, which now costs Americans 20 dollars and the segment that used to buy it is spending that money in other items like food, so their marketing experts told them that the 4 Euro lipstick is no longer profitable in USA.
Betty used to love that particular lipstick, she though it made her look like Cindy Crawford (poor Betty) but 20 dollars was more than she could spare on her good looks, and when she finally decided to drop the 40 pounds of M&M’s she ate a month in favor for the lipstick, the girl at the drugstore told her that the item is no longer imported into the USA.
Her face lights up when she sees your present, and tells you that you shouldn’t have bothered, and she asks how did it go with your license. You tell here that you actually have a problem, it seems that it takes 4 months to renew, and you ask her if, well, maybe she can do something about it… you get the picture.


In other occasions people will let you know that they want a plain and simple “bribe”, and there 50 bucks or 100 bucks according to the situation will get the job done. I’ve used “gifts” (a perfume) to get my passport faster, saved a few months, and I’ve used bribes every single time the police stopped me for “inspection”. I know this does not apply to 1st world countries where most officers are honest self sacrificed people, I mean no insult to the law enforcement community on this forum, but please understand that it does apply to 3rd world countries, and I’m not getting shot by an angry cop over 10 or 20 pesos, let them have their bribe. I tried it once and I will never try it again. A cop stopped me and started BS me. I told him “ok officer, guess you’ll have to write me a ticket, I understand”. He didn’t want to write a ticket, he wanted money and things got ugly. I’m never doing anything that stupid again.

FOOD
A delicate issue. Even though not in the same way, it does affect us all. Keep in mind that if TSHTF, prepared or not, food will always be in your thoughts. If you don’t have it you’ll do ANYTHING to get it, and if you are prepared you’ll worry about being able to get more for the future. Once you see food prices go up between 200% and 300%, or simply see it missing, you’ll realize what a valuable commodity food really is.
To those that think that food will never be a problem in USA:
Come visit my country, even though there are desert areas up north, most of the country is fertile “Pampa”. Just after WWII Argentina practically fed Europe. Argentina was know in Europe as “the world’s granary”. Cattle and wheat was enough to feed our own country and another continent.
So, what happened? Why are there so many that have little or no food and end up eating out of dumpsters? I mean, the land is still there, isn’t it?


Well, the country is the same country that used to be called the “world’s granary” but some things changed. Several big, multinational corporations, such as Benetton, bought hundreds of thousands of acres of natural resources. I don’t know the exact number, but I do remember that the media started talking about the integrity of the sovereignty of the country being at risk because of these massive purchases of land, so you can imagine how many acres were bought. Mysteriously, the media suddenly dropped the subject.


Another important factor is that now, with our new economy, it’s not good business to sell Argentine food to Argentina. Why sell a kg of meat to the local market for 17 pesos when they can now sell it to Spain for 17 Euros when 1 Euro = 3,5 pesos?
All this combined with high unemployment, salaries that are not enough to buy the minimal amount of calories for a typical family, and the high prices resulted in a country that slowly started to suffer hunger.


Again, I can pin point the exact moment when the entire country realized what was happening. After the 2001 crisis things had been bad, but people in Buenos Aires, the capital city and the richest province, didn’t realize how bad things actually where in the other provinces.
This was until teachers noted that kids had problems with education. You see, they noticed that they had problems to concentrate, that they fell asleep, and that they found it difficult to resolve mathematical equations. They later found out that this was due to malnutrition, kids where not receiving the minimum amount of nutrients for a healthy working body.
The breaking point was when a reporter interviewed a little girl about 8 or 9 years old. The reporter lady asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, the usual kiddy questions.
The girl, crying, said that she didn’t want to be anything, that she didn’t care.
The lady asked her why was she crying.
She said that she cried because she was hungry, that she had nothing to eat for days, and it was then that I noticed how skinny the little girl actually was.
Seeing children starve is terrible, I guess we all saw those images f the starving kids in Africa. But when you see them speak your same language, with your same accent, in your own country, it hits a nerve.
People talked about it for weeks, and they interviewed pediatricians that confirmed that the number of children dieing because of hunger had increased drastically in the last few months.


So whatever happens, let it be a hurricane, economical collapse, earthquake or meteor hitting earth, food and water always come first.
Ideally you already have a food plan and have a year worth of food in your basement… You don’t? hmm… neither did I when the SHTF and lets just say that I had my manhood up my throat all the time, fearing that supermarkets would definitely close and me and my family would be left without food.
If you don’t have your food needs sorted out already, just do what I did; start buying a little extra every time you go to the supermarket. The point is you want to look for your storage food are, in order of importance:
1) No need of fridge.
2) High nutritious value/volume
3) Long shelf life, between 1-5 years.
4) That they don’t need water
5) That they don’t need cooking
This will usually take you to canned meats, canned tuna, canned vegetables, dried pasta, dehydrated soups, chocolate, milk powder, marmalades, soups, rice and dried beans.
Canned food is excellent when it comes to long shelf life. Most of the time they are already hydrated, so they don’t need water, and you can eat them out of the can. Just watch out not to dent the can, if this happens air may get inside and ruin it. If you have a dent or bump in a can, consume it fast. Also remember that once the can is opened, you have to remove the food from the can.
My favorite canned food is tuna. It lasts forever, it’s full of protein, and no matter how often I eat it, it always tastes good. Besides you can combine it with frizzed vegetables or rice. Canned fruits and vegetables are also good, but they have much less vitamins than the fresh ones, and you lose most of it unless you drink the liquid they come in.


Dried pasta may need a lot of water to cook, but its one of the best ways to store carbs in convenient to use form. Flour or wheat can also be stored in large quantities and are nutritious, but they require more preparation to consume.
We’ve become quite independent form the fridge, and only use it to keep frozen our fresh pasta pizza and frozen vegetables.
We practically freeze everything, because it lasts longer, practically indefinitely, and because if the lights go out a large mass of frozen food will last for hours, even a day or two. The more mass of food you have frozen the longer it will hold.
The survivalist, especially the urban one, should try to rely as little as possible on the fridge. That’s why canned food and freeze dried food is your best friend.
Yet, anyone who has been for a while with no fresh fruit knows that after some time the skin starts to suffer. Sores will appear after a while, especially on delicate skin like the lips and mouth. Once you start eating fresh fruits and vegetables again they go away.
This happened to me once, spent to much time without fresh vegetables and my mouth was a mess, full of sores. After a week of eating fresh vegetables regularly the symptoms disappeared. That’s why you should try to have some fresh food to supplement you storage food. Not much, just 2 or 3 fruit trees on your garden and a small orchard would be fine. You don’t have to feed out of this, you just need a little fresh veggies or fruit every once in a while.

On the news right now while I write this: We had elections last Sunday, we voted for senators. It seems that in one of the north provinces people were surrendering their ID documents for bags of groceries, some for water, or for 10 pesos ( 3 USD) they were later taken to warehouses were they spent the night to ensure that they voted. The next day the candidate’s men took them to vote, hauled inside cattle trucks, like animals. When they arrived they were given their ID documents back with the number of list they had to vote. Thugs guide them and ensure they vote how they want.

HEALTH & FITNESS

Visit you doctor NOW. Get yourself fixed. Visit the dentist and make sure your mouth is in perfect conditions. Nothing is worse than having toothache and no one available to take care of it. Remember that doctors may not be as available as they are now, in the future.
For example I got eye surgery to take care of my sight problem. Now I see perfectly without glasses.
The advantage of laser eye surgery isn’t limited to not needing glasses. (which can break and would be nearly impossible to replace after TSHTF)
Even people react to you in a different way. Humans are after all instinctive animals. Bad guys will look at you as a weaker person if you wear glasses. Maybe they don’t know that at a conscious level, maybe they do, but they do react differently. This is not me imagining stuff, it’s the way things are. Old people and women are especially vulnerable. After old people and women and children, come small framed people, the smaller you are, the weaker you look, the more likely you are to be chosen as a victim by a bad guy. It sounds, cruel, and it sure is, but that’s the way it works.
A young man with a well formed body, broad shoulders, muscled arms and a “don’t f*** with me” face, is less likely to be a victims of small time thieves. If a professional group chooses you as a target that’s a completely different story, of course.
Talk to your doctor a lot. Just like “The little Prince”, never stop yourself from asking a question. Adopt that as a general philosophy and you’ll end up learning a little about everything. Mechanics, doctors, policemen, you can always learn something new from people with skills.
As a survivalist, and as a smart person, you should try to know a little about everything, Always be curious.
That’s how I learned that I had to diversify my stock of antibiotics. A doctor told me, that the body will adapt if you always use the same, making that particular antibiotic not that effective, specially in small children, so now I keep two different kinds of antibiotics.
Working out 3 times a week, for a couple of hours will keep you in shape. I work out at home, I have a bench and some weights. Try to compliment some aerobics and weight lifting. Working the boxing bag is good exercise, works most muscles if done right, and you’ll have a much more powerful punch. Keep in mind that a bag is no replacement for a sparring partner and that the bag does not faint nor does it punch back. Still, it good exercise and your punch will be more powerful if you connect.
Running belts and bicycles are also good.


Whatever you do, the idea is to have a fit, healthy body. No use in shooting ½ MOA at 100 yards if you have a gut that hangs half way to the floor and you can’t run that same distance without needing an oxygen mask.
I know, shooting is fun, and working out isn’t. At least for most, but after some time you’ll start to enjoy it, your stamina and morale will definitely increase, and you’ll start looking forward to working out.
The survivalist that spends 3 hours a week on his gun skills and no time at all on his own body is not doing things right.

Imagine if you have to run away from a riot/gunfight/attack while carrying your BOB [bail-out bag], or fighting bare-handed against someone that got you by surprise. This applies for life in general, before or after TSHTF a man has to now how to fight bare-handed. You don’t have to be Bruce Lee or Mike Tyson, just know how to through a decent punch, cover your face, or some kind or martial art classes.


Knowing first aid procedures is always helpful. I’ll take the Red Cross course this summer. Keep a first aid kit and any other special medicine you may need. If you take drugs regularly try to have at least a year’s worth.
Medicines are hard to get and expensive, many are made in other countries and if SHTF they might not be available. My father in law has Parkinson and needs a special medicine that is no longer imported. He asks friends that travel to get it for him. I stock pile as much medicines as I can. Apart from the regular 1st aid kit stuff you usually have at home, I concentrate on Ibuprofen and antibiotics, both for children and adults.
Antibiotics are precious here, with all the viruses that are floating around. Lung infections are particularly dangerous.
Also remember that keeping a clean, ventilated house goes a long way when it comes to preventing diseases. This is hard when the city is full of filth and there are cockroaches and rats everywhere but it can be done.
My neighborhood isn’t that bad, there are places that are much, much worse, where people literally sleep and eat with rats. Cockroaches are a problem, but I keep them somewhat controlled with that poison that comes in syringes and you place around the house.
That reminds me, stock up on rat and cockroach poison. Services are bad in general, and the garbage collectors are no exception.
Once, they went on strike for about a week (though there are worst places where they go months without collecting) and you could see rats running around the piles of garbage that people threw on the street’s boulevard.
This is not healthy, of course. And helps spread diseases all over the city, so keep that in mind as well.

FerFAL, B. A. Argentina

[ October 29, 2005, 12:59 PM: Message edited by: ferfal ]

--Now, the author answers some questions--

Thanks everyone.
Packinup, I actually started to write on the development of gray/black market but I didn’t finish it, need to work on it a little more. I’ll include it on the second part.
I consider it gray market because, even though some of the products are stolen or illegal imitations of brand names, these markets have turned out to be so popular that they are guarded private security and sometimes even police. Police taking care of a market that deals with stolen or illegal imitation products… who would have known…
On your second question: YES!! You have to be very, very careful. Keep everything to yourself.
For example, I dress with unknown brand clothes, even though I have lots of quality brand clothes, just because a little crocodile, Calvin Klein or New Man logo on your shirt can turn you into a victim. Even talking with a friend on the street about money is dangerous, the streets have ears. A relative living abroad is something you should never talk about openly, since kidnapers are always looking for good victims that can get hold of euros or US dollars.

ProGlock: electric power comes and goes, that’s what I mean when I say that services suck. Some parts of the power grid are worse than others. The apartment I used to live in was a disaster; I’d spend 2 or 3 hours every one or two days without light. Now I’m living in what used to be my parents house (moved to Spain) and it;s perfect because it’s interconnected with 3 different grid branches, even though one goes off, the others may still work. I sometimes have light while my neighbors spend hours without light.
Don’t be confused about the cable TV stuff, almost everyone has cable (within city limits, of course). Some poor people, they just connect themselves illegally (I don’t, I pay for my cable) but I’m talking about wooden shacks with no tap water connection or gas, that have a Direct TV satellite dishes or they connect themselves illegally. I should get a picture of this so you understand it better, promise I’ll try to get one next week.
By the way, the last cable employee that tried to cut them off, got out of the place with no fingers…
Same goes for light, they just connect themselves illegally, companies figured out that they better lose some profit and not employees hands and fingers…

Absolutely, cash is king. And US Dollars and Euros are King of Kings. Just don’t display them in public too much or you wont live very long. That is why I recommend you guys to keep some Euros, just in case. Our local paper money lost its value (to USD) when the economy crashed in 2001 (lost 2/3 of its original value)
Quality health services are expensive for most, and they adjusted to the new value of money accordingly, meaning they almost kept to USD prices. You can pay for these with USD.
Gold and Silver did hold their value of course, but they are not used to buy goods and services, besides, displaying a gold coin in a public market is as good as committing suicide.

Don’t prepare for an idiot shooting a rifle at you from 200 yards away, prepare for the sneaky son of a gun that waits until you are distracted, fed the dogs some nice pills, and gets to you when you least expect him. THAT is much more likely than someone attacking you from 200 yards away.
I didn’t mean it as an insult to anyone, I’m well aware that there are cases of people shooting enemies 1000 yards away. That is war. Killing someone that wants you dead before he gets close to you is perfectly logical.
Please name me one case of self defense where the person shot the bad guy 100 yards away.
I had a guy try to steal my car a while ago while visiting a friend at his farm.
I saw the guy next to my car about 300 meters away. I had my FAL PARA with me, since we where going to spend some time shooting that morning.
I could have shot that guy from a safe distance, right? But you can’t do that in real life. People that shoot others 300 meters away for no reason, claiming self defense, are called psychos. I had to fold my rifle, hide it under my coat, walk to where my car and the guy where, and ask him what he wanted. When he said that he was there to take the car I leveled my FAL at him, and as it usually happens in real life, the guy almost pissed his pants, and left, babbling some BS story I no longer remember.
If someone starts shooting at you from 300 yards away, and you shoot back in self defense, that’s ok, but that rarely, if ever, happens.
Any bad guy that has survived through puberty will be smart enough to get close, very close, maybe when you are distracted with some chore/fieldwork and point a gun at you, asking you to calm down and walk into the house.
No way can you know what a man’s intentions are 200 yards away, unless he starts shooting at you like an idiot. And if he wants you dead that bad, he will get close enough and make sure that that one shot is the last thing you hear on this planet.
As I said, dogs are the best alarm on the field, though those too can be eliminated, as it happened to my friend. A shame by the way, they were nice dogs.
But if your idea of a self defense plan is shooting anyone that happens to be within your 200 yard range, do as you wish. You will not have to worry much about survival; State penitentiary will provide all you need.
It is one thing to go to war, and it is another, completely different, to live your life in a SHTF situation.
When you deploy in a war zone, you set yourself mentally to do a job, when the job is done, you return home, you turn the mental combat switch off.
You cannot live your entire life as if you where in combat, it’s impossible.
I’m as alert as I can be, all day long, and all night. Thanks to that I kept my family and myself safe, while everyone else I know has at least been involved in one or more violent crimes. I’m so wired up that the slightest sound will make jump out of bed at night and have my pistol ready even before I’m conscious of what I’m doing.
My house is the only one in the block that has not been broken into, my wife and son are safe, safer than all the other stupid sheep that blame God for whatever happens to them, and do nothing to prevent it themselves.
But still, you have to live your life, go to work, go to the supermarket… live a life! Do everyday stuff.
The stress of living that way will be the end of you, I’m 26 years old and already have problems related to high stress like high blood pressure, migraines, insomnia, etc.

I live in Buenos Aires city, on the south part, where houses are placed consecutively, sharing the wall on the right and left, all around the block. Most houses in my neighborhood have gardens and swimming pools. Gardens are also separated by walls, unlike the American style were you can simply walk from one garden to another.
Keep in mind that this has always been a 3rd world country, meaning that though our economical reality was completely different before the 2001 crisis, security in Latin America has always been an issue.

“You mentioned that your home has been the only one in your block not burglarized, what do you attribute this to? Is someone always at home?”

My house is particularly safe because it has a 7 foot iron fence with 1 foot long spikes where the property meets the sidewalk.
There is also a small garden between the house and the fence. The house’s second story has barred windows as well.
Anyone that wants to break in has to jump the fence (risky, a kid that forgot the keys to his house and tried to jump a similar fence in my neighborhood, was found lifeless by his parents, still impaled on the fence) and break the door or the bars on the windows.
Shooting someone trying to break the door or bars would be like fishing in a barrel.
The fence would stop a group of people enough to shoot them down. A large, well armed group would be needed to break into my house if I’m in it.
The alarm also helps (needs to be upgraded by the way). Surprisingly, we did spend a lot of time out of the house, sometimes for 3 or 4 weeks, but I guess other houses are easier to break into.
My next door neighbor is a widow with children. I know that a couple of times they broke into her house and raped her and her girls.
There is another family in my block that has a private security guard (not effective against determined criminals in my opinion since they lack training and proper weapons). Still, a couple of guys broke into that house and abused of the wife one evening. I suppose that they now take security more seriously.

“Have you been able to form any kind of mutual aid agreements with your neighbors? That is to say, your neighbors will help you if you are in need and you will help them if they are.”
No, they are sheeple and have sheep mentality. At best, they organize to pay for private and police security, which I do, but that is only good against small time thieves.
I did offer my help to my next door neighbor, the one with the girls that got raped.
I told her that if anything happens again she should call me or scream. I have to worry about my own family, but I just can’t stand that kind of stuff happening next to my house.
Besides, she’s a widow, her husband died shortly after they married. I know that I have to be alive to help my OWN family, but we will all die some day. I’m a Catholic and I will not have animals raping people next to my house and do nothing about it. How could I explain that to the Lord, not doing anything? Leaving a woman with no husband and her daughters in the hands of animals and do nothing?
I wont risk myself unnecessarily, I don’t have any hero delusions, but I’ll make and exception in this case if I ever have to hold true to my word and what I believe in.

“Have you put any effort into building a fortified room in your home for your family to fall back to in case of home invasion? What are your thoughts on this?”

Wish I had a “safe room”, but I just don’t have the money right now for one. The house is still very solid, with independent reinforced concrete structure and double brick walls. Not much protection against sustained rifle fire, but enough for pistol rounds and some random rifle rounds. Combined with the steel barred windows, it’s practically impossible for someone to break in when we are inside. They would make a lot of noise, and need a lot of time to pry open the bars. Not likely to happen if I’m shooting at them from the inside.
What I fear the most is someone pulling a gun at me or my wife when we enter or exit the house.

“If you did have a generator how could you prevent it from being stolen in your circumstances?”
The generator would be safe if I put it in the back garden.

Carrying pistols: Brother Silicon, don’t worry about it. My government has no control of this country, nor can they care less about what we citizens think about it, as long as politicians can steal as much as they want, they are cool with your beliefs, that’s probably why we got here in the first place. This country is one big bad joke! Can you believe that the actual president has a logo for his that says “For a serious country” They are accepting that the country is not serious! I try to be discrete in my city, just because I fear information on my guns getting to the wrong people, magazine fed center fire rifles are almost impossible to obtain these days, even in the black market, so I keep quiet about it.

Night vision goggles would be an excellent addition, specially if you live in the country.


About trees and bushes near the house. Absolutely right. My friend, the one that has a farm, had all trees near the house cut down, at least 50-60 yards. He had some nice, big trees, but he said that people would sneak around the property, some even went there for the wood.
Do you imagine shooting someone in your property, in the middle of the night, because they snuck in to get some wood?
The electronic gate opener is an excellent idea.

Silencers are not common and are illegal. I’m not sure about those home made, maybe they are good maybe they are not, I suppose it depends on the quality of the materials used and the ability of the builder. The most common kind of suppressor is made for .22 rifles and pistols. 9mm suppressors made by out Military Factories (FM) are of excellent quality and (if you use sub sonic 9mm) you only hear the bolt slam each time you pull the trigger.
The advantage of such a device, combined with a SMG or sub rifle, are obvious once you realize the need for discretion. Consider that once SHTF gun laws are likely to change, and not for good. The government will do everything they can in their desperate attempt to regain control of the country. A sound suppressor will allow you to hunt, practice, kill pests, and maybe even take care of some two legged pests that might represent a threat to you or your family.
You are right about the one religion, one race, thing. Even though there are some Muslims and other minorities, they are too few to create a social-racial group on its own. They are completely integrated into the white Catholic culture.

“Is the government still paying veterans benefits to retired military solders?”
I’m not sure, war veterans had to fight a lot to get paid. As far as I know those that were disabled do receive a small benefit, though it is not nearly enough to survive.

“What percentage of the population in your country was on government funded support before and the crash?”
0%, remember this is a 3rd world country. If you don’t have a job, you are on your own.


After the 2001 crisis, and with unemployment going from 25% to 50% in some areas, the government started issuing help to the unemployed. This so called social plan benefit for the unemployed consists of 150 pesos (almost 50 USD)
This is not enough to feed a family for a week.
Seeing crippled Malvinas war veterans begging on the streets and buses is very common, even before the 2001 crisis.
Also, retired people can barely (and I’m being generous by saying “barely”) survive. They receive about 450 to 600 pesos in most cases (150-200 USD ) Not enough for an old person to survive, certainly not enough for medicines. If there are no relatives to help, they end up on the streets where they die fast.
The sight of old people begging on the streets is heartbreaking.


I once helped an old lady, must have been 80 or 90 years old. She was leaning against a shop window, crying desperately, hugging a small handbag. I asked her what was wrong. She said she had lost her home to the bank (the same SOBs that stole her life savings, excuse my French) and she had just been kicked out of the family motel she was staying in. Man, I forgot about her. I suppose the mind just makes you forget, because if you don’t you end up crazy.
You are right. The racial tension, plus welfare culture is a dangerous combination in USA.


“You make it sound like carrying a pistol on your person is a fairly common occurrence (at least now).”
My mistake, it is not common, at least for decent working people. There are parts where criminals carry their guns openly, sticking out of their jogging pants and no one does anything about it. No one dares mess with them, these are neighborhoods were police don’t dare to enter.
Carrying a handgun, ready for use (loaded and on your person) is illegal, unless you have a permit that is almost impossible to get. You need to own a large company, and justify carrying the gun because you transport large amounts of money (several thousands of USD on daily basis). Carrying a gun for self defense is not a reason for a carry permit, only the protection of money. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?
Still, owning handguns is not that complicated, once you get a gun user card, but a concealed carry permit card is out of the question.
Some gun users still choose to carry guns, even though they don’t have a carry permit. This is not allowed and you might lose your gun user card for this.
Carrying a gun, bought on the black market, and without even having a gun user card, will take you straight to jail.
On the issue of cops and guns, some may understand that you are carrying for self defense, because you are in a very dangerous area, and if you have you gun user card that shows that you bought that gun legally, he MAY be sensitive and let you go, or not. More than likely, he will ask for a small “tip”, for his troubles. It’s a matter of luck actually. You have to consider all this, and decide if the risk of getting caught is greater than the risk of getting killed for not being able to defend yourself.

I have one question, though. When the economy collapsed and as it seems that the banks always get out on top. What happend to people owing money on their properties ?? Or owing money at all ??

Good point.
Banks and multinational companies always end up on top. They are masters at surviving where others, small or medium size business fail.
A lot of people lost their houses to the bank. Bank Boston, City Bank, HSBC, all the well known names made one big profit out of the misery of others.
The idea of all large corporate monsters dieing once the SHTF is only wishful thinking, unfortunately.
The same banks that stole people’s deposits in dollars, returning pesos worth 1/3 of what a dollar is worth, still made you pay your debts to the bank. Many committed suicide or just died of heart attacks, some even died protesting in front of the same bank that stole their money.
The same didn’t apply to personal loans, money pushers only made a marginal profit or lost money all together. The law benefits the banks and corporations, not the small investor.

I carry a Bersa 9mm pistol with a 19 round capacity magazine or a Glock 31 with a 15 round magazine. I don’t carry spare magazines, but understand that carrying is forbidden over here, so your situation is different.
If clothing allows, I would carry one or two extra magazines.
It’s not a matter of magazine as it is of total amount of ammo. 19+1 rounds is a nice amount of ammo, but if you carry a regular 1911 you are limited to 8+1 rounds of .45, so carrying 1 or 2 extra mags makes a lot of sense.
Bad neighborhoods? I avoid those as much as I can. Again, the legal issue is different. I would carry my pistol and a 12 gauge pump, because auto rifles are not allowed, but if I could I would carry my FAL carbine. And don’t forget your BODY ARMOR!!
Yes, I have two extra mags in the glove compartment. Besides I carry pepper spray and a small iron bat in the car.
On home defense.
I have my Glock close and loaded. My Mossberg with 4 rounds in the tube and a full stock shell holder, and two magazines for the FAL, one with regular FMJ and another with a mixture of AP and incendiary ammo.
Sincerely, I’d replace the shotgun with my SMG if I could, but there is the legal issue to consider. I have the two FAL mags loaded just in case, but it would call for a very particular kind of home invasion for me to use it.
Maybe if a large group of attackers starts to shoot from the street, taking cover behind cars.

 

Thanks WT. We try...

 

cool. Good to see you ferFAL!