What Would Happen If......

Several years ago as I recall Entitlements failed due I believe a Computer malfunction. There were riots in the streets. If the current Gov. shutdown continues to the point that Food stamp and similar programs cannot be funded, what do you think would happen?????

 

IF, I don't think that even the stupid people that we have elected would allow it, the benefits at all level of government were to just fall through there would be a lot of different things happening. I say different because people in different places will have different actions and reactions.

The big cities in California would burn. Riots and looting seems to a a common reaction among the welfare people in places that cater to them. They aren't rioting because they care...It is just a good opportunity to steal and act like animals and got get in trouble.

In places that allow good people to be armed and protect themselves and their property won't have the same sort of problems. Riots like they have in LA would turn into blood baths in Houston and the blood wouldn't be the people that the rioters attacked. There would be protests and a lot of whining but there would also be a lot of help out there for the people in need. We don't let people be hungry here. Immediately all the churches would start serving meals. several of our Texas based grocery stores actually have huge truck kitchens that show up and feed people in emergency situations.

Places that are totally dependent on government to handle all problems and emergencies will have hell but places that are a lot less dependent and more self help based will do a lot better. Whee I live the fire department is made up of my neighbors. Every little community has its own volunteer fire department. We don't have police per say. There are deputy sheriffs but counties are big here and the number of people on the force is small. We handle our problems and then the Cops come and write up a report or haul the bodies off.

Small towns will do fine in general while the bigger cities will suffer. In small towns you have low income people that receive assistance. They are poor people but they are working and putting a roof over their own heads. In the big cities you have projects where people live that don't/won't work and provide NOTHING for themselves. These people will be problems. You just don't have that level of worthless total dependence outside of the bigger places.

There used to be an expression... "beggars can't be choosers" Now days our weak liberal government has forced us to accept that " Beggars can be DEMANDERS" If the welfare teat dries up it is going to be a total affront to those people and they will DEMAND their unearned and undeserved goodies.

I know that I sound harsh. I believe in helping people help themselves. It used to bother me that the people that refused to work and were totally state supported had a higher standard of living than the lower end working people. They had newer cars, more expensive clothes, they ate better and were provided with every small thing that they could wish for and yet they STILL acted like animals that were mistreated.

Honestly something like this could be like a little fire in a fireworks factory and once it starts won't be easy to stop.

 

Idaho, especially eastern Idaho, has a pretty high LDS population. They don't play "welfare"; when things get bad, they go to the Bishop's Storehouse ready to work at whatever they're asked to do, knowing they and their families will be taken care of. Most members either have a year's supply of food squirreled away or are working on it.

 

LDS, Amish, Mennonites and such will be way ahead of the game IF they are able to defend their communities, stores and farms. A lot of the off side faiths have pacifistic leanings that won't work in the kind of situations we envision. If they can handle the roving bands they will be the rich of the post apocalyptic world.

 

The most spectacular shot I ever witnessed was made by a Morman women ,Her and me crawled up on a band of antelope then stood up , she took out her antelope shooting offhand at 500 yards . This also was in Idaho .

 

Answer to most "what if" this happened or that happened is that cultures and regions rather self-sufficient in nature would have a tendency to come together and work out whatever needed to get worked out. I'll reference the proverbial paradigm of a small community with a base of disciplined people who possess among them the varying skill sets when combined cover the core needs of said community. One would seek such. Me, I've seen this good stuff happen myself and have had workmates who have also witnessed such cohesion. It's easy to say that such is rather unlikely -- I'm cynical to the max -- yets it does do happenzez. Go figure.

Over 90% of the folk who are members of this survival forum, myself included, have stated in various and sundry threads that they haven't much, if any, hope for those living in densely-packed urban areas. Hey, we all know why. Witness in recent years some slight negative event goes down and they decompensate, scream for help, and often experience looting sprees. Therefore given a REAL catastrophe -- tens of thousands, maybe millions of people killed in a geophysical event or war -- they will sh## their pants, commit suicide, get killed by those going into animal aggression mode, attempt to run away, ..., not pretty.

And governments go bankrupt. During the 20th century, over 20 countries having fiat currencies went bankrupt when their "money" hyper-inflated out of existence. USA, over 20 trillion dollars ($20,000,000,000,000) in debt and heading higher and higher ad-infinitum. Don't worry, be happy!

 

The outcome would be determined by the severity, and the duration of the shut down. The longer it went, and the more people it affected the uglier it will get. I really don't think that people would starve. Churches and charitable organizations would step up before that would happen. The hardest thing to determine is the difference between the truly needy and the truly lazy.

 

In the UK there is currently a change over from weekly benefit payments to a monthly system called universal credit. It means that people who are claiming it have a five week gap with no income as they transfer from one benefit system to the other. It has caused real hardship to many, some have resorted to crime and prostitution in order to get by. Many of them have been sanctioned meaning that large percentages of the benefit is deducted. In the end this just shifts the financial burden onto another government department like the prison system, NHS or children's services. It seems to be a false economy so far, the system is a bit fucked up over here at the moment.
The end result will probably be that the socialists will get into power at the next general election. Not good news at all!

 

This sounds even worse than what the US citizens are being feed , which is bad enough . I am sure there just like everywhere s0me people can't handle the truth and will prefer to stick their heads in the sand and pretend everything is great .

 

Well, here in the USA during "good times" we get to experience the cultural phenomenon of "flash mobs".

July 5th, 2019, Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin; video from a North Face store:

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/flash-mob...ise-north-210441053--abc-news-topstories.html



https://www.onenewspage.com/video/20190705/11874786/apos-Flash-Mob-apos-Steals-30-000-in.htm

During the Los Angeles 1992 riots, a truck driver (Reginald Denny) was dragged out of his rig and nearly beaten to death. The 1992 riots weren't that bad; less than 60 people were killed.



Korean merchants shot back and for those who did, their stores were not utterly destroyed.



When government checks become worthless, American urban areas will all descend into chaos and mega-violence. The L.A. riots were itty-bitty, teeny-tiny. There will be no accurate body counts coming out of the future infernos. The 2011 riots of London will look like a cake walk compared to the future burning of Great Britain.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=london+2011+riots&atb=v140-1&iax=images&ia=images

 

This is a little off topic but we are given oodles and oodles of commodities from the folks that were originally given it. It's rice, oatmeal, powdered milk and canned pork. I mean oodles of it. I am surprised that they don't consume it themselves. It would probably be thrown out if we didn't take it. My guess is that maybe 10 percent actually use it, the rest give it away or throw it out.

 

re: Government stockpiles being distributed to the "poor"

I do not know about England, however the U.S. has stockpiled HUGE amounts of food in our abandoned salt mines and limestone mines. There used to be massive amounts of cheese and I think there still is a problem with storing too much cheese.

I am going to put links to gov storage facilities and such at the bottom of this post. First let me share a couple of observations.

Point one, distribution. Let's say that there is no emergency and you simply wish to distribute mountains of food. This is going to be an adventure in and of itself. Distribution by trucks and trains would be a trickle. Were I a space alien watching the human ants get the food out to the periphery of their continents, I would just shake my enormous head and light another cigarette (tobacco causes us no harm -- it's one reason we visit your planet). Think about how many people, planes, trains, and trucks would have to be involved. Yikes!

When it hits the fan, all avenues of mass transit will be occluded -- often, literally so. Bulldozers, tanks fitted with blades, heavy equipment of every ilk will be out scraping cars off highways into ditches and medians. Food convoys will be blocked/attacked by desperate hoards of humans. Think about the task of scraping up the bodies of people who've been machine-gunned to get them out of the way. At the arrival points, the same phenomenon of massive crowd control will be an issue.

Short story: It's one thing to have the food. It is yet another to move that food to where it needs to go. If too slow, then there would be no purpose in having it in the first place. The recipients will already have perished or descended into an irretrievable state. Some areas will have become gangrene gas factories.

Point two: What do people do with the food distributed to them. Mostly, they and their children will eat it. Note that many will have no means of cooking food, therefore the better part of the food must be ready-to-eat. In semi-good-times, the canned meat is sold.

A leftist ex-friend of mine moved to a major city to pursue her art. She was astounded to witness the following: Folk receiving food stamps would go to groceries and purchase canned meats -- especially the large canned hams -- whereupon they would stay in the parking lot and sell the canned meat to shoppers who had cash. These shoppers got a discount. The poor got the money to buy cigarettes and alcohol.

I once went with a newly-arrived family to a grocery store to buy them their first week or two's food for them (they had kids). They'd not yet gotten jobs (the woman did get a job pretty soon, theoretically the husband was disabled). In the store, the woman asks me with great humility if I would also buy them cigarettes and I said, "Sure!"

Links appertaining to food storage and the size of the mines used for storage. As far as I know, they are still packing in the food.

https://www.history.com/news/government-cheese-dairy-farmers-reagan
Pretty good amount, 1.4 Billion pounds.
https://psmag.com/economics/what-will-the-us-government-do-with-1-4-billion-pounds-of-cheese

https://survivingglobalrecession.wo...overnment-buying-up-most-of-the-storage-food/

Here's a vid of a guy showing pictures of one storage facility. Mostly, he's showing off his big pretty 18-wheeler.

Vid to show the size of the places chosen to be storage facilities


Thanks for all of the tobacco. We've not yet figured out how to cure the cancers your bodies develop, sorry. Too, we're busy with a lot of other stuff. Wow, your planet sure does have a lot of minerals a few kilometers down! Well, have to go. Good luck with your gardens!

 

Where I live the state is the big employer. Between all the prisons and the University, you have thousands of people that get paid once a month on the first. On that first week, EVERYBODY has sales and a lot of people buy their entire months groceries. It is wild and to be avoided if possible. Living on one monthly payday takes restraint and some serious thinking.

We were lucky. I was self-employed and paid myself weekly. All my money went into one bank account and my pay was transferred into my checking account every Friday. nonetheless, we bought all our staples and paid all our bills on the first and we learned to keep a nice surplus on hand at all time. Other families that were totally dependent on monthly pay often had some pretty hungry days towards the end of the month.

this sort of thing filters down. on the last week of the month business is SLOOOOW in restaurants and stores. even repair businesses like mine were slow on the last week of the month and then crazy the first week. When we first move up here that first 6 weeks until the first payday was ROUGH!!!

 

Here's yet another looting outbreak -- this time in Philadelphia. Happened yesterday. Above I posted two earlier evens, yet all of this has happened during the last three days.


https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2...ack-man-south-street-philadelphia-police-say/

In the following video, a local resident describes seeing a beating from his balcony position. He called out to the police, however he states that the police were unable to control the situation.


This is perpetually happening during "good times" here in America's urban areas. If anything whatsoever goes sideways, our urban areas will burn.

Come our 2020 November election time, pre- and post-, there is going to be rioting. If Trump lives until the election, he could win. If he wins, there will be riots from hell. If a socialist wins and military budgets are slashed, the military may not allow it to happen. Already across America, county sheriffs are refusing to enforce anti-Constitutional gun control laws. Registration is the preliminary step towards confiscation. Leftists openly admit this during their rallies.

America is getting ready to explode.

 

nobody likes that, @Old Geezer

 

Nope. Wish it were not so. Actually, I'd like to retire, sit on the front porch with an iced tea, and scratch my stomach. That's quite enough excitement for me.

 

Good post - I always like a post that looks at a S.H.T.F. situation in a realistic manner . And you didn't even mention , without fuel farm equipment requiring fuel will not run . Then there is that problem of transporting it to the starving population .

 

This sounds like The Hunger Games in infancy. A very annoying set of movies to watch, but the very rich in the city, surrounded by the very poor. If you haven't watched these movies, it does have a message.
Good clip with Tucker Carlson at the end.
Videos of people stealing things they don't really need...what about videos of people stealing food? Good food, not snacks and beer. Baby formula.
If food stamps weren't available? I have no clue. Living in the woods is starting to sound like a good idea.

 

Radar what is your environment situation presently ?

 

I'm surrounded by houses.

 

I personally don't have that problem but will present an idea that some on here may be able to relate to . Grizzleyete had a smart idea . Google the night lights in your area . Find the darkest hole you can within a two hundred mile radius and then look for property there that has a natural water source . If you get one of those two wheel animal hauling carts that you can find on sporting goods sites , it will haul more than just dead animals . Look for one with solid rubber tires so you will not have to worry about flat tires . Loading your cart with essentials and traveling twenty miles a day would put you at your retreat in ten days or less . That is a worst case scenario , if you have a running vehicle walking likely wouldn't be necessary . Someone short on funds may want to consider vacant raw property . Hiding a cache there such as buried can goods would be a big help and could be rotated out yearly . An advantage vacant property has , you will not have to worry about some desperate refugees getting to your retreat first and moving in . Government owned property with a water resource will likely and quickly become squatter towns of starving refugees . Private landowners WILL guard their property .

 

in the US, at least prior to the recent inept administrations, the US has always been a country that was big on reserves. We had strategic reserves in just unbelievable quantities of nearly everything. Some of it was CRAZY. Obummer gave a lot of it away and between his administrations and the Clintons, they nearly gutted the military reserves. The military was down to scavenging parts off of museum pieces to keep 25% of the planes we have in the air.

Some of the stuff they had stored up was stupid and strange. Where I used to live we had one of the strategic reserves. They took the old sulfur fields and used the old wells under the salt domes to store the US strategic reserves of HELIUM. Got to keep all those blimps aired up for the military you know.

You would have to see to believe the size and volumes of grain that we have stored at any given times.

 

Maybe not blimps but it is used in a lot of different manufacturing processes, not to mention when liquified it's used a lot in that form for it's ability to cool.

 

Great post Lonewolf. I have a question on what you see in the UK with farms and sort of a return to the land. Here in the States there are a lot of places where people, and often it's even the much maligned Millennial's, are buying up old farms or who are converting their yards to edible landscaping, adding large gardens or creating food forests. Others are taking burned out or long derelict farms and starting to rebuild them thru organic and permaculture techniques and are starting to make a pretty good go of it selling to those that can pay for more costly food but are demanding the highest quality and purity foods. Things that are truly organic, free ranged, chemically free, hormone and drug free, pesticide & herbicide free etc... be it their veg, meats or milk and eggs. People appear to be coming aware and wising up to the poison in our food supply and are terrified of things like GMO's, glysophate, hormones, antibiotics, etc being pumped into their food. This demand is starting to drive a market and make it profitable for small "boutique" farms, doing things more like they were done 100+ years ago, to turn a profit and support families and their communities. These enterprises are staying away from the destructive methods of monocropping. Is anything similar to this occurring over there? Old farms that have been pasture or growing up suddenly starting t be put back to production via healthy methods.

I see different You Tubers out of the UK with their plots or I guess allotments is the term they use, which I take to mean they rent a small plot to garden on? just wondering if, especially with all the potential food crisis you mentioned if some or any are starting to wise up and become producers.

 

I've heard similar here, especially of kids and young adults from the city/ urban centers that don't get where eggs come from or they think chocolate milk comes from chocolate cows... to both of those I also have to seriously blame a good portion on our crap government school systems

 

Good morning Lone Wolf and CountryGuy,

An explaining quote I carry in my Day-Planner:

"The modern barbarian ... looks at the highly complex modern society and takes it to be a natural object. People think that fruit appears in the grocery store the same way it grows on trees. They don't perceive the highly complex social network that makes it possible. Nor do they appreciate that network's fragility."

WWI-era philosopher Ortega y Gasset

 

As previously mentioned the cities who probably have the largest number of Welfare recipients, would be chaos. Rioting and looting would be rampant in the bad areas. It will spill out on the fringes, but the well-to-do will be protected by Police. It is mentioned in the video that Keith posted. You can steal anything up to $1000.00 in El Segundo, and it isn't even a crime. One of those homeless people set foot in Bel Air they will get repelled like a bug hitting a black light.

What will happen? Poor people will suffer. They will be the ones going hungry. They will be the ones doing without. I was quite shocked at what I saw on the videos from Valenzuela, but why should I be surprised? Rich people weren't suffering. Grocery store shelves were full. Everything looked like life as usual. Not the same picture in the poor areas. Why would the U.S. be any different.

 

When you start to seriously consider burying or hiding your weapons, it is time to start shooting.