I do sometimes get exasperated at the "either it is all ok or we are headed for a "Patriots" style collapse where everyone is starving and shooting their way thru hordes of bandits."
This is so dumb it makes my head hurt to read it. MOST economic collapses don't work like that. I do hedge against them, of course. I have ammo (way way way more shotgun shells and .22.... chances are I won't survive more than 3 pitched battle shootouts if I survive even ONE), and food and water and a bug out spot. I am already "sorta" bugged out, and am meeting like minded people in the immediate area. I get the collapse of all society stuff, but that is NOT the only kind of collapse, nor is it the most common. The most common is an economic catastrophe which gobbles down most of the wealth of a society, makes commerce difficult, and destabilizes everything. Does danger go up then? Absolutely.
The silliest "plan" for hedging against economic uncertainty is to say "Well, boys, I have 1247 AK47s 500,000 rounds of ammo for them, and 8 million rounds of 9 mm for my 250 Taurus C3s (the best low price handgun on my radar right now). I am all set."
When I played football, I either played man to man or zone (free safety). You "think thru" what is going to happen at the beginning of each play. You have two wideouts, will they cross in your zone? Does your man do a fly, a post, a flag, a post flag? Do you bump him? When and where? What are the clues that mean you have a run play rather than a pass? Where do you go (it is not always to the ball)? Every really good player (and I was definitely NOT even marginally good!) knows exactly how he is going to react when a,b,c,d happens. It makes for a much less stressful play. I still had lapses, and still had mental lapses, but PLANNING is everything. I know you guys who were in the military would plan, plan, replan, think what could blow up your plans, think of backup plans and then drill them till you were sick of them. I also know that real life does not cooperate but is instead chaos. HOWEVER, having an articulated plan where you spell out the possible dangers gives you a "grid" to formulate a plan for action on the fly.
I have not looked at the Balkans, nor what the currency situation is/was there. I have looked at NUMEROUS other cultures/countries in history, and the assumption that "you can't eat gold, so ignore it" is, plainly, stupid. When severe inflation hits a country, you can do well if you are extremely well provided with barter items. Problem is, most of those items are unavailable because commerce is halted/severely retarded. You can hunker down and "survive" but what happens on the other side? Cultures don't ever STAY in a collapse state. Eventually they come out of their hidey holes and begin buying/selling/making stuff/and engaging in economic discourse. That is why you buy gold and silver in an utter collapse. If not utter, then raging inflation is the best friend of gold and silver.
Frankly, if you are not at least 50 years old and remember the craziness in the USA of 20% inflation under Carter, you have no idea what you are talking about. Not trying to be snooty, it is just that you have a grid of experience which simply is not consonant with historical reality. I hope the wake up is not terribly unpleasant, but you WILL be waked up, and shortly. I think it will be VERY shortly, but if I timed things well, I could just sit back and buy puts on American Airlines on September 10, couldn't I?
