Who Is and Who Isn't Prepared for an Unknowable Future

Preppers.

They're out there. They're ready. And they're probably not going to share.

The world has changed in recent months. In case you've been living in a cave (probably a good case to hide out, away from the coronavirus and street protests) for the past four to six months you're likely noticed that everyday life isn't so everyday anymore. People wear masks, some even while driving in their cars with the windows rolled up. You may notice people keeping their distance from you, and from everybody else.

Then there are those pesky protesters. First, they were all about social injustice. Then, they looted stores and burned buildings. After that, they began knocking over statues of people they think were bad eggs. People who had slaves. People who didn't. People who were just evil enough, supposedly, to be immortalized a la statuary, are being histrionically defamed.

The protesters defaced the Lincoln Memorial. Don't ask why, because Abraham Lincoln, America's 16th president, is largely credited with having freed the slaves on the new continent. He purportedly saved the nation. Well, no good deed goes unpunished in this current craziness over race, injustice, inequality.

Statues of confederate heroes, Robert E. Lee, and others, have been toppled or removed, but the madness hasn't stopped there. Calls for removal or actual toppling of statues of George Washington (founder of our nation, first president and a slave owner), Thomas Jefferson (one of the principal authors of the US constitution, third president, slave owner), and even Teddy Roosevelt (Rough Rider, 26th president, not a slave owner) have been in the news.

It just so happens that Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt are the four faces carved into Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, prompting the governor, Kristi Noem, to stand up and vow to protect the world famous monument, saying, "not on my watch," as a message to would-be defacers and defilers. Those fighting words probably have some ANTIFA people triggered.

Anyhow, life in 2020 is different than it was just six months ago and we're not even half way through the year yet. How well one has prepared for these changes is largely a function of how well aware one is of one's current environs, how much trust one has in fellow humans, the police, and the government, and how seriously one is about preserving one's well-being.

Some people - like the fabled preppers - were well ahead of the curve, having staked out some rural location years ago and built upon it, cleared it, farmed it, and now live on it in peace with nature and neighbors at least half a mile away. They've got their guns and ammo, chickens and cattle, greens and beans, solar power, and just about everything they need to hunker down for months, if not years, without interaction with the electrical grid or commercial America if need be.

Those are - all of a sudden - the enlightened, who will remain far from the fray in the cities and be relied upon for rebuilding what's left after the dust settles, should conditions worsen. They won't catch the COVID, nor will they engage with radical protesters. They're likely to stay on their farms and enclaves for a long, long time.

There are those of us who too a look at the coronavirus as it spread from China, through Asia, into Europe and eventually to North America and thought that it might be time to stock up on food, make sure our gas generators were working and made plans to isolate. They turned out to be prescient, if not a little overzealous. But, they were right. Just about everywhere in the United States was under some form of lockdown or stay-at-home guideline in April, May, June.

The bulk of the population was completely caught off guard by the virus and the lockdowns and then the protests. Among the most unfortunate were those who made few plans and found themselves in food lines or at a WalMart wondering where all the toilet paper had gone. Those people were unprepared. Some may now have learned a little bit of a lesson and gotten their pantries stocked, maybe bought a gun and some ammo, and think they're ready for whatever might come next.

Most of the unprepared did not take any action. They went to the food banks, cashed their $1200 checks and spent a month to six weeks bingeing on Netflix. Those living in cities were thoroughly surprised by the large scale protests. Some of them probably were participants. If a second wave of the virus turns out to be more real than merely fudged statistics, they're toast. Burnt toast. They'll find themselves back at the food banks, broke, in fear for their lives, and eventually likely culled from the herd by either the virus or roving, menacing street gangs.

In the early days of the pandemic, it was probably good enough to buy a few month's worth of canned goods and shelter in place. As life becomes more about survival than prosperity, as people become more desperate, more violent, more destitute, it's not going to be good enough. Millions have lost jobs. The enhanced unemployment benefits are going to run out at the end of July. More than four million people have skipped making mortgage payments. Delinquencies on student loans, car loans, and credit cards are on the rise. The economy, if it recovers at all - and despite the recent happy face Wall Street rally - will do so very slowly. the new normal is going to persist and many, many, millions of people are still unprepared.

You might have a 401k, a paid off mortgage on a home in a nice neighborhood, a work-from-home job, and a fully-stocked pantry, but will it be enough? Did you start a garden? Are you dependent on the grid for power? Do you know what you will do if intruders storm your palace?

These are hard questions, questions people don't like to ask themselves, and thus, many don't. About 60% of the adult population thinks everything is going to be back to normal in six months to a year. If they're right, they may make it to the proverbial other side. If they're wrong, they'll wonder why they didn't take the Boy Scout motto - Be Prepared - more seriously.

At the Close, Tuesday, June 23, 2020:
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