oildrum comment on how to spend time & assets

Based on your age, we recommend on a weekly basis:
hrs/week
40  job
10  building or training around self sufficiency
4  recreation
8  local group activitives

And for your assets:
25%  productive land
5%  livestock
5%  bullion
5%  long term storage food
5%  storable energy (firewood, diesel fuel, solar panels, etc..)
10% of assets in tools
45% in cash

Take Care of Yourself – Entitlements, Savings will vanish, back to tribe and family

Comment about Crash Course Chapter 15 Demographics

Davy: Entitlements are the least of our worries at this point. Just like pensions and stock portfolios, these abstractions are nothing more than an illusion of wealth. When the descent gathers steam the value of these paper assets will evaporate. Liabilities will evaporate as individuals and business close their doors. There is no way to tell the degree or duration of this potential descent but we can say there is severe imbalances, stresses, and pressures. In today’s market with today’s inflated values, the leverage, and the counterparty risk from rehypothocation any contraction will cause serious risk. When the margin calls go out and the market gets flooded with liquidating assets I imagine we will see a herd rushing the door. The problem is a rushing herd cannot get through a door so we will see paralysis from frozen markets and low liquidity from nervous creditors. The central banks have no tools anymore that is plain now. Diminishing returns to the effectiveness of these tools were hit 4 years ago. Now these tools are a liability. They have no clue how to unwind these market distorting positions. These positions are just so large relative to the real economy it is mind-boggling. The entitlements in the post BAU world will be at the level of the family, tribe, and small community through the gift economy. Large abstract plans for the care of the old will be meaningless. Care for the old will be through the family. Not only that but old will change relative to a post BAU decrease in lifespans. I am in my 50’s and do not expect the opportunities to live to my 80’s like my older generation. I may make it but odds are mid 60’s is more realistic. By the way, I am taking care of myself for these reasons.

Benefit From Being A Baby Boomer

Nathan Lewis   January 8, 2009

Move into a big house with all your friends and share expenses, housekeepers, etc.

Brown, Jeffrey, J. 8 Aug 2011. The ELP Plan: Economize; localize & produce

I would especially recommend that you consider buying, perhaps with a joint venture group, a small farm, either currently organic, or that can be converted to an organic farm. In the short term, if nothing else you could lease it out to an organic farmer. Longer term, you might consider building or moving a prefab, small energy efficient house to the farm. If nothing else, this plan may provide a place of work for your unemployed college graduate.

I think that “Tiny Houses” will become more popular, as larger homes are no longer viable. Where there are jobs nearby, many McMansions could be subdivided, but absent local job centers, I expect large swaths of American suburbia to be essentially abandoned. As Jim Kunstler warned, American suburbs represent the “Worst misallocation of capital in the history of the world.”

Very small (250 square feet or so), highly energy efficient, perhaps prefabricated housing makes a lot of sense, and this may become a growth sector.

Jeffrey J. Brown recently agreed to join ASPO-USA’s advisory board. He is a graduate of Texas A&M University, and he is a licensed Professional Geoscientist in the State of Texas. Mr. Brown has written and coauthored several articles on Peak Oil related topics, with a special emphasis on global net oil export capacity

How to invest for a global-debt-bomb explosion. Prepare for an apocalyptic anarchy ending Wall Street’s toxic capitalism

Feb 9, 2010   Paul B. Farrell    Marketwatch.com

Here’s how these savvy Insiders are preparing: In his 2008 best-seller, “Wealth, War and Wisdom,” hedge fund manager Barton Biggs, advised rich insiders to expect the “possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure.” His advice: Make tons of money. Buy an isolated farm in the mountains. Protect family against the barbarians: “Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food … It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc.  And when the barbarians do come, firing “a few rounds over the approaching brigands’ heads would probably be a compelling persuader that there are easier farms to pillage.” Imagine a scene like Port-au-Prince after the quake.

In an early 2009 Newsweek article he said, “A Generation of Destruction: Throwing money at the problem and propping up greedy banks is like trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it,” Biggs teased us with a bleak scenario: “Great cycles of wealth creation have usually lasted about two generations, or 60 years. Inevitably, unequal riches corrupt and create envy, and they are always followed by a generation of enormous wealth destruction.”