This just occured to me.

Rather than sparking a bank run by withdrawing cash towards the end of the year why not just buy whatever we would have purchased with that cash now and keep the stuff, not the cash. This should reduce the amount of cash you would need to take out. If we all do this perhaps we can lessen the effects of the Y2K panic which is as much of a danger as Y2K itself.

Start thinking about what you would do with the cash, budget it out, and then buy what you can ahead of time with the intended purpose to be cash independant if the MACs go down. This is really just an extension of what we're doing anyway. May save us some grief.

Watch six and keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.net), July 21, 1999

Answers

This is what we tell folks in our local meetings. You don't need the cash if you have the stuff. People focus on the cash like it's magic, and their preoccupation distracts them from the real issues.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), July 21, 1999.

eyes_open,

This is what I'm doing and even trying to get my family to do. It makes more sense to buy what you need now based upon your own personal assessment of what may happen around you and have piece of mind. Money will mean nothing if you lose your family. After all, money is made and lost all the time. I've been urging them to prepare now and not get sucked into the cycle of panic buying and panic withdrawals that might occur later.

I have a whole other reason along this line of thinking as to why it's best to buy food and items for consumption now. It has to do with the possibility of food being tainted due to glitches in manufacture, labeling, shipping, etc. We all know that incorrect dates can be put on to food products but, like the recent scare in Europe over Coke products, it's clear that food can be tainted due to glitches in the production of those products too.

The Coke incident, not at all related to Y2k, was due to two problems in quality control and shipping. Apparently, a bad mix of Carbonated material was used in the production and a "wood perservative" was added by mistake.

I'm not sure if the following link is still active but read here:

Coke apologes to Belgians over health scare RAF CASERT, Associated Press Writer Tuesday, June 22, 1999

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/1999/06/22/ international0503EDT0489.DTL

[snip]

Health officials in both countries have vowed to continue some sort of a ban until a precise explanation for the illnesses is available. The 15-nation EU's Executive Commission has said Belgium and France would conduct inspections on Coca-Cola plants over the next few days.

Atlanta-based Coca-Cola has blamed defective carbon dioxide, used to put fizz in its drinks, for problems at its Antwerp manufacturing plant in Belgium. The company also said the outside of cans made in Dunkirk were contaminated with a wood preservative during shipping.

The company said these two unrelated problems have led to similar symptoms of nausea and vomiting. One company-commissioned study suggested the health problems were in the victims' heads.

[snip--to end]

This happened to a company with excellent quality control who does the majority of it's business overseas.

So...my feeling is get stuff now because food production "may" become less than reliable next year. You can eat money...but be sure to boil it really well first.

Mike

======================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), July 21, 1999.

So you guys really think that keeping stuff stockpiled in your house for six months or longer is a good idea? When was the last time that you went into the grocery store and bought *anything* that had been sitting there for half a year or longer. Reason? Because contrary to popular Doomer belief it's not that easy to store food for that long. I wonder how many of your misguided Doomlits are going to be visiting the hospital in January and February when your eating the crap you put away a year ago.

You need to rotate your stock every so often or you might as well just throw it all away now and save yourself some trouble. So if your going to keep a year's worth of stuff laying around your going to have to re-buy it all every several months. So what happens to the expired surplus? Wasted.

You food isn't magical, it doesn't last forever. A bag of rice that looked okay when you stockpiled it back in October might have had little unnoticable critters in there that have had six months to breed in your food and ruin it all. Which is one reason why JIT businesses adopted the idea. Food that sits around is wasted. Wasted food is wasted money, and you don't get a good ROI. Expiration dates aren't just for Pollys you know.

-- (doomers@suck.com), July 21, 1999.

I guess you would need money for things you forgot...(????) but then, OTOH, where are you going to BUY the things you forgot???

I have always wanted to light a cigarette off of a burning $20 FRB, (remember "When Worlds Collide"... cheesy movie but entertaining) That's what we need the cash for afterwards, FIRE STARTERS!!!

I knew I would figure it out sooner or later!

tail waggin'...

The Dog

-- Dog (Desert Dog@-sand.com), July 21, 1999.

eyes_open,

You might need cash to pay your mortgage. If your bank closes they may sell your mortgage to another bank that didn't close to raise capital. Then you'd be stuck having to make payments without the benefit of having access to your money (at least until the FDIC straightens things out which could be months and months). Hence, keep cash.

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), July 21, 1999.

Oh boy.

Doomers@suck.com:

I'm considered by many on this board to be a polly/troll, yet I've had MANY things stored for over a year now. If one looks for expiration dates on goods purchased at the store and honors them, there should be no problem.

-- Anita (spoonera@msn.com), July 21, 1999.

Anita- There are sooo many Anitas on this forum. Are you the same Anita Who discussed hybrid seeds vs. heirloom with me awhile back?

I just need a little clarifacation please. Thanks

-- Johnny (JLJTM@BELLSOUTH.NET), July 21, 1999.

Doomer suck,

You ever wonder how people used to make it through winter back in the "old days"? They prepared, smoked, canned, built root cellars, stored meets in fat, stored grains.

Safeway and Piggly Wiggly were not always there. That is a phenomenon unknown to many today.

What in this Wild Blue Earth is wrong with people taking things in hand and saying "I will face the future as a "FREE WHITE GUY" OR "A FREE RED GUY" OR "A FREE BLACK GUY" OR "A FREE ORIENTAL GUY"? OR "A FREE PERSON..."

If you can't see that then BUZZ OFF!

I like to think of myself as a "FREE WHITE GUY"!

-- freeman (freeman@cali.com), July 21, 1999.

There are expiration dates on the canned goods. The dried goods are good for many years. Rice can be stored safely and properly. Many of us housewives have kept canned goods in our pantry for several years. There are several universities with websites that give vast information on all of this, and I've printed out all of it. I think that this weird doomer@suck should do his homework before he writes in here and wastes time and diverts newcomers from their task at hand...which is trying to survive the very precarious unknown future.

I keep wondering about you...WHY would anyone in their right minds come to a thread like this and try to divert people from their possible survival potential??? IF you are right, then people will have extra groceries at home next year. IF you are wrong, and you deter people, you will be responsible for their plight. If I were you, I would think twice and then twice again about what sort of damage you may be doing to other, vulnerable human beings. Shame on you! as my mother's generation said to bad kids!!!

-- Elaine Seavey (Gods1sheep@aol.com), July 21, 1999.

I have reserved enough "cash" to pay my house taxes. I tried to pay them early, but the county went from mainframe to desktop in their remediation efforts and the assessor is yet unable to produce the tax roles for the next year. As a trained historian, I remember post civil war and the loss of estates, (such as General Lee's,) because the property taxes were not paid.

-- marsh (armstrng@sisqtel.net), July 21, 1999.

Yes, Johnny...I'm ONE of them. The other Anita in that discussion was the farmer who knew her stuff. She doesn't use the name Anita anymore (due to all the confusion regarding Anita's). The only other Anita of which I'm aware is Anita Evangelista (sp?), and she always spells out her complete name.

My cantelope are now virtually falling off the vines, Johnny, and wild grasses are killing my watermelon plants. Hopefully, we'll get a good deep rain tonight and I can get those wild grasses out tomorrow. If that doesn't happen, digging in the yard is equivalent to taking a pipe-cleaner to a rock.

-- Anita (spoonera@msn.com), July 21, 1999.

Ok Anita I'm confused. Before you have said that you couldn't possibly prepare or store food because of all the people this would involve. I think I remember you mentioning your daughter then her best friend and then her boyfriend and the list just got longer and longer and then there was the "please daddy" scenerio. I really felt sorry for you because the task seemed so monumental. Now you say you've been storing many things for over a year. You are really confusing me. Also I thought you worked in computers or something like that and had done some remediation work for some city in Texas and finished your work and couldn't understand why we were all so worried. Now you say you've been stocking up for sometime, my little brain can't handle all these inconsistencies (sp).

I've been on extended vacation and realize I missed alot of things while I was enjoying myself,but if your conversion was one of them I sure would like a link.

Are your cantalopes growing up off the ground? If not why are they falling off the vine? Are they overripe? Mine are so sweet they taste like sugar. Hope yours are that good!

-- Johnny (JLJTM@BELLSOUTH.NET), July 21, 1999.

People by and large today don't know how to store large amounts of food safely. It's a new hobby for them. I also warn people not to play with homemade explosives but if they think that they need to gauard "against looters" I'm sure they'll try. This Y2K scare has gotten ordinary people thinking that they are capable of extraordinary efforts because "it's still Y2K stupid!".

-- (doomers@suck.com), July 21, 1999.

Suck-a-doomer, I'm starting to think you're going soft.

-- KoFE (your@town.USA), July 21, 1999.

Good grief, doomer. Wheat was found in Egyptian pyramids....edible, and capabble of sprouting after thousands of years. It's not hard to store food.

1. Buy a pyramid

2. Put food in pyramid

3. Post guards

4. Come back in 1000 years and chow down

See.....it's simple. Think you can do it? Nah. Can't count past step 1, eh?

That really is a childish approach to trolling that you're using. You must be getting tired. Past your bedtime? Go take a nice nap. Tell your mommy to give you a good night kiss and put you to bed. Nightie, night.

-- de (delewis@inetone.net), July 21, 1999.

(1) Some of us won't worry about taking cash from the bank. We have so little that after paying down our credit cards and putting away a responsible amount of consumables, we'll not have a lot in the bank. A few $ in the cookie jar, and that's about all. In an inflationary scenario, preparation makes sense (rather than storing cash).

(2) A number of us have been storing food (as well as growing our own) for some years, with no ill effects. If you have doubts, check with some of your LDS neighbors...

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), July 21, 1999.

I have some 20 year old whiskey.......

-- A. Hambley (a.hambley@usa.net), July 21, 1999.

If you have money in the form of promises-to-pay, it is at risk due to Y2K problems. If the amount that you need to spend for preps and other necessities pretty much depletes what you have, you might as well indeed buy now and pay via check or whatever.

But if you have money above and beyond what it costs for preps and necessities, then you need to think about how to PROTECT it. Not grow it, protect it.

Cash is the "universal solvent" of your wealth. Once you convert your promises to pay to cash, you are essentially immune from a large mulitude of Y2K risks to the banking system.

Gold and silver coins are another medium that you can also buy into to protect against a tanked financial system. You can even buy them using a check!

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), July 22, 1999.

Johnny:

'Twas indeed me who discussed my daughter, her boyfriend, and all the others. The point of that discussion was to state that not all folks even have the 3 days of non-perishable items about the house. *I* never did until discussions of water/sewage began last summer with my local water director. At that time, the explanation led me to believe that some food storage was desirable...not just for me, but for those I cared about. I never said I couldn't possibly do it. I simply asked, "Where does it all end...or DOES it end?" If you have kids, Johnny, you know that anytime there's a FUN event planned, the kids ask if so-and-so can come along. I still see this sortof thing happening if my daughter's friends have no food or water, or electricity. The same holds true of my room-mate's daughter's friends. We've watched them grow up with these friends glued to their hips. They're like our own kids in a way.

Yes, I work in computers, and yes, the work is so done, done, done in my area that computer contractors are all out of work and have been for some time. We're in absolutely no danger of local infrastructure collapse, and this includes not just my town, but the towns surrounding it. Other areas may not be in such good shape. If we have electricity, we'll have water, and I have no reason to believe we won't have electricity, but better safe than sorry.

Someone here recently said that folks were stupid not to have something in their pantries ALL the time. Yep...call me stupid, 'cause *I* didn't. BTW, that oldest daughter is moving back home next month to attend college nearby. She's been eating from that pantry each time she's come to drop off things. I replace it as she eats it. There's still no food where she lives currently. They're a "search the couch for loose change" group of young people. When they find enough change, they head for Taco Bell.

I don't know enough about cantaloupe to know if they fell off because they were overripe or because something knocked the fruit off the vine. They're VERY good-tasting, however.

-- Anita (spoonera@msn.com), July 22, 1999.

How to Avoid a Bank Run?
Make sure you're number 1 or 2 in a line of 100 (i.e, in the first 2%). If you're number 3+, you'll be S.O.L.

-- A (A@AisA.com), July 22, 1999.

A thread on food and expiration dates:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000yKk

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), July 22, 1999.

Doomer, you amaze even me, and I'm pretty understanding of the 'knowledge impaired'.

Of *course* people will be able to eat what they've stored a year from now; probably even several years from now. I don't hear many stories of folks storing perishables if they haven't been properly preserved. If truth be told, most folks are erring on the side of caution, rather than recklessness.

I'll bet *you* have even eaten old, expired food -- heaven forbid! If you buy food at a grocery store, or eat out in any kind of restaurant (fast food to white tablecloth), you've almost certainly eaten food that was beyond its 'prime'. My guess is you eat food from one or the other, on a fairly regular basis.

You lived, didn't you?

Your ignorance on this issue is quite glaring. I would have thought that a smart alek such as yourself would make sure you had all of your 'facts' down pat, in order not to be such an easy target for those of us who *do* know a thing or two about the topic(s) you choose to rant on about.

-- Wilferd (WilferdW@aol.com), July 22, 1999.