Economic Armageddon
Fiscal Phil lives up north of me in one of our many gated communities. He owns a few rental houses down in Seattle and Gomorrah, bought when prices were pre-Amazon and the town was driveable, now worth fortunes. We’ve been friends since before the War, the Iraq ones, and so occasionally I drive through the gate after telling the guard who I am and who I’m visiting and he pops up the wooden swing arm that has STOP stenciled on its side in case us barbarians can read.
For as long as I’ve known him, Fiscal Phil has been convinced the world economy is on the verge of Total Collapse. Trump’s election only confirmed his paranoia. “The Dow just broke 20,000,” I offered as cheerful counterpoint to his apocalyptic vision, but he only shook his balding head sadly and placed his coffee cup in the built-in expresso machine he’d custom installed. Beans got ground, the grounds got pressed, water was steam injected and a few moments later he had a fresh cup, Starbucks on demand.
“Two years, Skeeter, that’s what I give the market before the Crash. I’ll be out before it does,” he said, an old prediction. Predictable as that perfect cup of joe, he rattled off his strategies for survival I’d only heard 100 times, everything from Krugerrands in his safety deposit boxes to raw silver buried in some hidey-hole in the back yard. A few thousand bucks in cash. Food stored in the basement, enough to last longer than a Mormons storehouse. Phil still has his Y-2K stockpile: generator, barrels of water, gasoline. “Doomsday,” he always intoned at the end. “It’s going to get ugly, Skeet, you better prepare yourself.”
I mumbled, as I always did, that things didn’t seem too bad. Pretty good, in fact, and Phil, true to form, shook his head sadly. “Survival of the Prepared. Don’t be a victim. What’ll you do when the money’s worthless and the food runs out?” he asked, less concerned for my welfare than for proving he was ready.
“Probably come over here, Phil. With a gun. Survival of the Most Well Armed.” Phil, never big on humor, especially the dark variety, looked shocked. Next visit, I knew, he’d tell me about his new arsenal. Dog eat dog. I guess I got two good years at least.
Hits: 48
The narrative of the Doomsayers always strikes me as a little too formulaic, too neatly packaged, leaving little room for doubt that they’ll survive successfully. Their gun will always shoot the other guy. Their shelter beneath a well disguised hillock will always have perfectly hidden air intakes that never clog, and filter out all manner of noxious gases that the rest of us might try and use to smoke ’em out.
And then if they do survive, will they hunt with a rifle that cracks like thunder across a vast silent landscape, alerting distant and hungry survivors dinner is about to be served? Or grow a garden which requires months to produce a radish, only to vanish in a moment when beast or starving neighbor pass by?
I’ll give them this. If members of the Armageddon Underground make it beyond Phase 1 of the apocalypse, they might have an extra week or two in which to gloat that their carefully constructed tomb is better than what I’ve got.
It is comforting to know that the richest folks in this country, rather than lobby for a more equitable distribution of wealth, prefer to bunker up. I’ll start to sweat when Trump Tower goes camouflage exterior and the bullet-proof glass and blast barriers go in. Back in our more radical days, you know, before we became reasonable citizens, we used to hang banners that said things like EAT THE RICH! I suspect their high fat content would make us reconsider …. but, I’m starting to think we should’ve stuck to our guns back then. Course, it’s never too late to change yer mind. I won’t be coming for their radishes, that’s for sure.