I don't think we will get to the survivalist point. Times are different now than in the depression. Then there was no money to be had - complete lack of liquidity. Then if you happened to have hard cash - you could buy anything you wanted. Cash was king and if you had cash (and some did) you were very rich. Commodities were almost worthless because most had no cash to buy them. Dad told a story about a guy trading a sow and ten pigs for something in a barter trade but the guy would not take the ten piglets - they would take too much grain (money) to fatten. The old sow could eat a little slop and grain and be fattened up enough to butcher. My grandpa shipped a train car load of hogs to KC only to have the Rail Road company to send a bill for the freight - the sale of the hogs didn't cover the freight bill. I don't see the political climate allowing that to happen again. We will inflate our way out of it. They will print fist fulls of money for everyone. If you have no way to earn it you will get bookoo welfare or whatever they choose to call it then. Money will be growing on trees. It will not be worth much but everyone will have a bunch. Cash will be to the economy like Ex-Lax is to the digestive system and there will be plenty to grease the system and make it squirt. Unlike before, if you had some cash you were rich, now those holding cash will see their fortunes disappear. Hard assets will be the only measure of wealth where before no one had the money to buy the assets so they were worthless.

Different times, different atmosphere, different misery, but plenty of misery just the same.

A very real danger of communism to satisfy the unrest, even if it is named differently to make it seem more palatable. Heck, it's moving that direction way to fast the way it is.

John