Don’t Look Down, it’s a Long, Long Way To Fall*

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I confess yesterday I was very depressed.  I don’t think it came across how depressed I was – I was trying to be reasonable and being, by nature, depressive, I’m aware of how to compensate for depression – but I was.  Between certain speculations on who will run against Hilary in 16, which prompted me to say “In that case, I don’t have a dog in that fight,” and “let it burn” there was an article about how thoroughly screwed my kids’ generation is.

The article was written from the POV of “you bought this, you voted for this buffoon.”

Except that not all of them did, of course.  (At least I hope not.)  When I was manning the phones, many people my kids’ age were there and they were fully aware of what waited them if the buffoon won.

So to have them be told “you’ll never pay your student debts, you’ll never have a decent job, you’ll never be anything but some sort of retail aid, no matter how brilliant or what your degree is” depresses me.  It depresses me more than it would if you told me that I had no hopes of ever getting anywhere.  Because I know my limitations.  I’ve stared my potential failure in the face.  I don’t even expect full success at this point, just “not dying” as far as career goes.  I’m me, I can cope with that.  But not my kids.  I’ve known them all my life, I know their potential.  Yes, I’m their mother, but I see their failings too –but they’re not the sort of failings that should consign them to a life as debt slaves.  They’re hard workers, they’re focused, they’re battlers.

Don’t tell me “But they’ll be all right then.”  Meh.  Guys, I grew up in a country where my limitations were stark and clear.  For instance, I never considered writing as more than an hobby, because in Portugal it wouldn’t be.  The excuse is that the population is too small to support full time writers without government grants and stuff.  I call poppycock.  The population is large enough for writers – multiple – to earn a living.  I suspect the Portuguese publishing industry is even more effed up than ours.  Not that it matters to me at this point, except if I had money – like, if I won the lottery – I’d start an ebook publisher publishing exclusively in Portuguese and serving the entire Portuguese speaking world.  License to coin money – maybe – but above all a chance to destroy the entrenched publishers in Portugal.  (Okay, I was born a trouble maker.  Deal.)

And I knew just how far my lifestyle could go, and where it was limited.  In the same way, even in the States, my generation’s chances have been limited in comparison to the older boomers (which fuels some of the generational hatred on blogs.)  Inevitable given their population-bulge and the fact they were post war babies.  (It’s really not their fault, not even the lefties.  We just like slapping them.  But it’s irrational.)  We have friends who are ten years older than us who never had to make as many sacrifices, and who are looking at retirement.  We aren’t.  By the time we came along the housing market had been inflated, and a lot of our work has been running to stay in place.

What I mean – I don’t want to start boomer bashing, so please none of that in the comments.  It really is a matter of chance.  No one chose this – is that when you are born and when you come of age, and when you enter the work force shapes your life and limits your choices.

And d*mn it, I don’t want my kids’ limited.

So, I was a wee bit depressed.  Sort of.

You see guys, I have some insight you don’t have.  Some insight I’m sure those who want to bring us to the level of “other countries” don’t have, because they’re pampered little snowflakes, whose pampered paws never touched hard ground – and it’s encapsulated in that title above, which I woke up with it running through my head, “Don’t look down.  It’s a long, long way to fall.”

Look, I grew up upper middle class.  I also grew up dirt poor.  Yes, both are true.  For the village we were “of good families.”  My family had never been barefoot laborers, we owned land.  We didn’t own enough land to amount to anything but a small farm, but…  And my grandfather was a skilled worker – a cabinet maker – and my grandmother ran her own business (would you believe hand painting/building cosmetic boxes?)  Yeah.  And my dad had a college education and a white collar job.  And all the grandkids attended college.  (Though a couple didn’t finish.)

We were not “peasants.”  I doubt we ever had been.  All my ancestresses as far back as memory stretches knew how to read, which is not normal in Portuguese peasants.  And we had some nice China and stuff.

So, why do I say we were dirt poor?  Oh.  Well, there was the three suits of clothing, one for best, one for everyday and one for rough.  (We might have had double that, because mom made them, but honestly, she stored ALL our clothes – for the four of us — in ONE dresser and one wardrobe, when my brother was a teen, and I was little.)  I had a never ending succession of pinafores, which is what I wore to keep the “good clothes” clean.  There was the ONE alarm clock in the house, which had to be moved around depending on who needed to get up (and for these purposes the “house” included my grandmother’s next door.

But perhaps nothing will encapsulate it as well as the fact that it was normal, both from my family and other middle class families to take a sweater apart, redeye the yarn, and make a “new” sweater.  You could go three or four rounds before the yarn itself became too bad to use.

Relatives from abroad brought us chocolates as gifts when they visited.  You know, your normal multi-square candy bar.  We hoarded it like gold, and ate a square or two a month. (Yes, there’s Portuguese chocolates.  I believe they are categorized as soap.  Or were, at the time.)

I don’t say that to induce pity.  We were neither conscious of being poor nor were we in bad shape in relation to other people.  On the contrary.  And in a comparison either with the world or with historic norm, we were rich.  Rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

This is something that shocks Americans born-and-bred.  But it is true.

We are so rich that even the rich of other countries don’t fully get us.  They don’t see how well off we are.  They don’t see how our MIDDLE CLASS lives better than their upper classes.  Sometimes, and in some things, better than their middle class could dream.

Portugal is considerably better off (technically, though it’s all apparently borrowed money) now, but still, guys, I’ll be blunt with you.  I’ve been to their grocery stores, and I don’t know how people live.  I know what they make, and their salaries seem to range about half of ours, but everything – EVERYTHING – is in a smaller package and costs more.

I submit to you a lot of our stupidity is the stupidity of the well off.  You can decide to be vegan – if you have enough money.  You can be very tolerant of stupid people yelling at you for being imperialistic, if they don’t destroy your way of life.  You can pick odd styles of dress and “go back to nature” because you have enough money and because other people are well off enough they don’t care.

That I’m very much afraid is coming to an end.  I’m not a clairvoyant, if I were I would not have spent two years trying to break into short stories and twelve years trying to keep a foot in other-publishers-than-Baen.  I’d simply have gone Baen only twelve years ago and right now would have piles and piles of mysteries to go up.

But I do have the ability to get pictures in my head that describe a situation. Sometimes a situation I can’t explain rationally, and one no one believes me on.  When I first came into publishing, I could see it as a rotten ladder, breaking low and middle.  If I got to the top, I’d be safe, but there was no path there.

Everyone kept telling me I was seeing what wasn’t there.  “Publishing has always been in trouble.  It’s okay.”  It wasn’t okay.  The combination of consolidated publishing houses and big bookstores was killing the field, low and middle, and only the darlings survived (but lost readership every book.)

The image in my mind right now, with this Obamacare insanity, is of someone taking a car that is barely running, opening the hood and pouring a few buckets of fresh cement over the engine.

Don’t look down.  It’s a long, long way to fall.

And as I said, the prospects for my kids, and for all the bright kids of their generation HURT me.

But we’re all born where we are and even I can only do so much to prepare the kids, and to ensure they’re not hurt by this.  And cr*p like what is already in the pipe and flowing at us?  It’s going to hurt EVERYONE.

However, I’m no longer depressed.  I’m no longer depressed because… well… turn that around.  “It’s a long, long way to fall.”

We could lose half of our easy wealth and we’d still be better off than 90% of the world (let alone history) and that’s if THEY don’t fall too.

And that’s the other reason.  The crap that’s flowing down the pipe?  It’s going to hit the whole world.  America is a late-buyer into teh shiny (I typed that initially whiny) of socialism.  Which is why we’re the world’s largest consumer and the best well off.  And the shiny is running out of other people’s money all over the world, because the system promotes redistribution, not creation of wealth, which means people slowly get poorer.

America is going to hurt.  I’m not going to lie to you.  Are we going to hurt as much as the rest of the world?  Impossible.  Wealth doesn’t vanish over night. Look, I think I admitted to you before I buy most of my clothes from thrift stores.  This is something that’s not even really available in other countries (oh, yes, it exists, but there isn’t that much surplus.)  Nine times out of ten the clothes I buy are new, sometimes still with labels.  Someone bought them/got them as a gift, and either gained/lost weight and never wore them.  I think it’s expensive to pay $10 for a pair of designer jeans.  I wait for the half price sale.  This is only possible in a VERY wealthy country.  And that wealth won’t vanish.  Not for a decade or two.  The surplus is still around.

There is another reason – when societies are shocked, they revert to their founding myth.  It’s not by chance that things like Golden Dawn are resurgent in Europe.  A lot of the countries are going to revert to their founding myth which is both racist and triumphalist.

BUT that’s not our founding myth.  We were founded in liberty.  Yes, there are many who think this mean “liberty to have everything I want given to me.”  But those are not the active, able people.  Those who can stay on their feet during the tumble are people like us, who believe in individual liberty.

Is this guaranteed?  Oh, h*ll no.  We could end up with a strong man.  (Only we won’t.  We’re ungovernable, as the idiots at the top are finding out.  A state or two could go for a strong man.  The rest of us?  — pah.)

The statists think out of disorder will come communism.  Guys.  Remember they’re a religion.  A particularly dopey one.  There’s almost no chance of that, because communism requires a strong man.  The current buffoon ain’t it.  Nor are any of the people around him.  And given present-day America, there might be no one strong enough.

My biggest fear is that we’re wealthy enough to limp along another three generations, by which time we would be tenderized as it were, for the “Strong man.”

Bah.  Won’t happen.  They want the full socialist shiny and they want it now.  They’re pouring the cement over the car, because the engine is still running.  And if it stops – communism!  (The poor dears never get over the idea that the starving masses are JUST waiting for the intellectuals to lead the revolution.  Poor num’kins.)

A rebirth of liberty is far more likely than communism.  And it something we can fight and work for.

As for my kids and their future?  Well!  Who in the depths of Carter foresaw the Reagan boom.  And guys, if we can arrange for a boom now, it will be bigger and better than Carter.  Has to be.  Like after WWII, the rest of the world will be in a shambles.  Which is why my kids are so lucky to be American.

Is this pie in the sky?  Not hardly.  You’re going to have to work for this one.

First, the preparation for the crash, which you should already be making: pay off/streamline/prepare.

Then the preparation for the resurgence: this has to do with what makes us uniquely American and I can’t give you instructions because I’m not there.  Which is good.  You’re Americans.  Make your own instructions.  “An Army of Davids” – what the man said.

Roll up your sleeves and see what you can do – ideally what will make you money (multiple streams of income) and also keep things going.  If you don’t have my brown thumb and have land, growing some food might not be amiss (I think food will get expensive and there will be disruptions in delivery.)  If you have the time and the inclination, learn how to keep cars running.  People are going to be holding onto them for longer, and it will be needed.  Other stuff like that – not preparation for the stone age, but for the conveniences getting more expensive and harder to find. Figuring out how to keep computers running, or small appliances, might not be a bad idea either, though there is a lot of wealth between us and new ones being utterly unaffordable. Learn to cook from scratch if you don’t know how.  Learn to make bread by hand.  Flour is cheap.  So is rice. (I wish I could have either.)

I’m a fairly useless person, other than telling stories and doing some art, but yes, I’m working on both of those.  People don’t live from bread alone.  They’re still going to need entertainment.

My kids are in STEM degrees and hopefully they’ll find jobs, but if not… well… I told them my best advice, the one that kept me working throughout 10 years in which everyone in the publishing field except Baen seemed to be actively trying to sideline me: I won’t die.  Even if they kill me.

I’m now giving that advice to all of you – and to America in general.  Refuse to die.  Even if they kill you. (Metaphorically speaking, of course, though if you find how to do the other, do let me know.)

It might be, and I always certainly guarantee will be, that you’ll hit the wall on what you’ve done all your life; what you know how to do.  Don’t sit there and go “it’s all over.”  Despair is a sin. It’s also a sure route to utter destruction.

Instead, go “I won’t die, even if they kill me.”  Find new ways to do what you love, or find something new to do.

Go under, go around, go over.  Use their regulations against them.  And never give up.

Don’t look down.  It’s a long way to fall.  Fortunately, we’re on the high wire, and as long as we keep moving and doing, we’ll be fine.

 

*Give me a break okay?  The furniture refinishing mysteries will ONLY be written to Evita.  Other music, nothing happens.  And then you guys wonder why I cry, bitch and moan about writing another of those.

233 thoughts on “Don’t Look Down, it’s a Long, Long Way To Fall*”

  1. Your kids will be not only fine, they will thrive. Young people today are in trouble because they’ve been told that success comes from immediate gratification – buying expensive cars, etc. – and borrowing large sums of money to obtain a college education that is about the Marxian analyses of Central American Lesbian writers.

    STEM degree, low or no student loans (which are a f**king cancer) and a reasonably frugal lifestyle: put them above 99.9% of young people today.

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    1. Agreed. I’ll put it simpler. Anyone who has the ability to
      a) self learn / research a new skill
      b) troubleshoot problems
      is going to thrive. And they’ll thrive even more when there’s a crash because their meta-skills are going to make them invaluable.

      From what you have written both your sons have both those capabilities in large amount

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    2. “student loans (which are a f**king cancer) “

      Hah. Nearly fifteen years later, ten of which were very damn nearly hand-to-mouth, and one year left. Sixteen years to pay off that S#$^%. Screw that for a load of horseapples. I’m much encouraged by the growth of online education. If it had been anywhere near as good then as it is today, I’d have skipped college altogether.

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      1. Since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, the amount of outstanding federal student loan debt owed to the government has skyrocketed, increasing by 463 percent. The balance owed currently stands at $674,580,000,000.00 compared to $119,803,000,000.00, where it stood in January 2009.

        http://spectator.org/blog/2013/11/06/ive-got-674580000000-problems

        Don’t worry, however — most of those students will enjoy lucrative careers as web site designers (probably helping fix Healthcare.gov, the online version of Boston’s Big Dig) and barristas* and pay off those loans in time to start collecting Social Security.

        *”Starbucks announced on Wednesday its plans to hire at least 10,000 veterans and spouses of active military members in the next five years.” Only the highly cynical will point out that they represent a significant pool of people willing to take on sh!tty under appreciated jobs for low pay.

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        1. Most of the military spouses I know that get Starbucks jobs are the ones with thick skin– they already had the advantage.

          This is just an attempt to shiny up their image after they’ve pissed off conservative folks.

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      2. Watch the trend in demonizing “For Profit” colleges. I have no data, but my instinct is that this is a desperate attempt to focus attention away from the multitude of problems connected with traditional colleges. Every criticism I run into of the for profits is at least as true of the traditionals, and twice on Thursday.

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  2. Workin’ on it. Been working on it, still working on it, will continue to work on it. ‘Cause if I stopped, well, I’d get bored. I was born and raised to get things done. And so I work, and Calmer Half – well, book 4 just went to the beta readers this morning.

    By the way, is it myth or is it fairly common to get some variant of end-of-book flu? Seems after every book goes out the door (“publish” is clicked), he slumps down from exhaustion, and promptly has a little cold/sinus/something. Correlation isn’t causation, but I’m starting to wonder…

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        1. LOL. Yes. And if it lasts longer, I watch all the other Austens. So there’s A Flaw In Her Magic (Mansfield park, coming soon.) and The Wings of Love (Sense and Sensibility also upcoming) and another one for Emma whose name I can’t remember now… :-P

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          1. I have never read Pride and Prejudice, in fact I avoided it (Except for the Movie Bride and Prejudice which was exotic enough to catch my interest). It took me a few pages (and a hurried trip to Wikipedia0 to realize what you had done. I found the book very entertaining because of the way you worked the shapeshifter concept into the plot. Now I am waiting to read A Flaw In Her Magic, The Wings of Love, and your version of Emma.

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    2. There have actually been studies on that and similar phenomena, and it appears that when you’re busy and KNOW you’re busy, you’re able to keep your immune system chugging at a higher level. But when you relax, your immune system takes a bit of a break to compensate for the “overclocking”, and bam! you fall prey to the first bug that comes along.

      It’s why people get sick at the holidays so much.

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    3. Finishing a long-term goal is also a depression trigger, so it may be combination of that making you more aware of how ill you feel with actual illness.

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      1. I think there’s something to this. Whenever I finish a big project and get sick, if I get interrupted out of “being sick” I tend to get better faster/forget to actually “be sick.”

        That happens rather a lot, now that I think about it.

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  3. “And the shiny is running out of other people’s money all over the world, because the system promotes redistribution, not creation of wealth, which means people slowly get poorer.”
    Except of course for the ones doing the redistributing. They always, ALWAYS, justify skimming the cream of whatever the harvest is with tales of how hard they work, how much they care. All while carefully seeing that the best of what’s left falls to them, not the ungrateful masses.

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  4. For ourselves, we’ve been living the extremely frugal lifestyle for ages – and yes, just about all of my current wardrobe also comes from thrift stores – even the jazzy designer cowboy boots that I wear when I do a book event (I dress up kind of western, with a long skirt, and my hair up in a bun with a Spanish comb stuck in it). Last year I went on a food-preserving kick – and now we have shelves full of pickles, preserves and sauerkraut … and buy staples in bulk at Sam’s Club. We actually had our bad economic patch several years ago – and things are just now looking up. My daughter has started her own little business – and for the next two months we are doing craft fairs and Christmas markets, where people are looking to Christmas shop. Hey, we’re in Texas, where people still have jobs and money!

    But what is coming down the pike straight towards is bad – and it’s not going to get better for quite a while. I also had a sense that we would soon need to turn back to our founding legends, our shared history ,,, which is why I began writing historical fiction, to get people in touch with it again.

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    1. It’s truly annoying to tell people that your finances are tight and have them do one of two things: 1) Tell you that whatever it is “isn’t that much” when $10 or $20 *is* that much to you, or 2) Tell you to cut back on luxuries that were cut out of your life some time ago. My wardrobe has yet to recover from having kids, because minor changes in my proportions made a whole lot of my clothes go from acceptable to “never again.” Mostly on the shoe front. And that one *really* sucks because my size is now rare enough to be laughable in the new section—I have literally never seen it secondhand.

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      1. Same here. I still buy books, and occasionally either go to movies or rent DVDs, but there can be months between the movies, especially theater movies, and the books I pay money for (lots of freebies from kindle free promos and such, though) I get about every second month. And I buy ice-cream, even twice a month sometimes. But those are the only luxuries I could cut. Everything else is stuff I need, like the car without which I can’t get to work.

        I do also buy most of my clothes new, but mostly from the end sales of the end sales of some local net stores, which has led to a predominantly black wardrobe, due to the fact that the choices left in the really cheap stuff usually tend towards the colors nobody wants much – lime, a shade of brown which looks like puke, and so on, but black stuff is often also left in my sizes. But that stuff is often almost as cheap as what is in the thrift store here, and it’s easier to find fitting sizes in them.

        But yep, I can’t cut much, and I can’t save, well, I do, a little, for emergencies, but when everything you own is old emergencies tend to happen often enough. I guess I should try to learn car maintenance myself, I do have my father’s old books for it, although they are from the early 60’s and the car is not quite that old. And I didn’t get his old tools even though I kept asking for them, most of them were sold last winter, so now I’d need to buy most of those. I suppose those might be one thing to start looking for in the thrift stores.

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        1. The internet has been a tremendous boon to me on working on cars. I prefer a book, particularly one I can pack out and set in the front seat so I can look at it while disassembling stuff, but I have found most repair manuals just aren’t all that good. On the other hand there are thousands of people who own cars of the same model and years as practically anything you would own. A lot of those are on the internet, and for some reason a fair number of them think it is a great idea to take pictures or even video of every repair they do, just in case someone ever asks them about it. Usually when you [search engine] whatever repair you need, or problem you need to troubleshoot, you will come up with a forum dedicated to models just like yours, and very likely three other people have already asked the same question and gotten answers, if not make post (making sure to give detailed information about what particular model you are working on) someone will usually answer within a couple hours, likely with pictures.

          I just spent the day swapping rearends, springs and all between two pickups, and installing a spare gas tank in my new (to me) truck. It got dark on me and my shop doesn’t have walls, much less lights yet, so I get to bleed the brakes and do the front differentials tomorrow. At least I have a roof to work under now, since it warmed up and rained all day.

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        2. Reading this, I realize that
          a) I am truly blessed. While the wife and I do have student loans, we also have help from family, and I just started a new job Nov. 1st that will finally get us benefits in just a few weeks. Things have been tight for us, but we’ve always had what we needed and a little extra. We’ve also been fortunate on the health front. No major accidents or sickness, thank G-d.
          b) I should be a LOT more grateful for what I and my family have.

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        3. You can often find hand tools in pawnshops. Usually pretty beat up, but they can pay for themselves in 2 or 3 fixes.

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          1. Sorry, trying to think, work and type on 3 different things at once.

            The cheap tools from the pawnshop can save enough over 2-3 fixes (or just doing your own preventive maintenance) that you can get new/better ones.

            I just wish I had a flat spot to work on my truck. It won’t fit in the garage (too tall).

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          2. We don’t have that type of pawnshops here. The ones which exist concentrate on things like gold jewelry, and such more highly valuable things. Here the best place are second hand and thrift shops, and auctions, there are a couple of ebay type permanent ones online.

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  5. For what it’s worth, I learned to bake bread from the Tassajara Bread Book. Yeah, it’s a hippy-dippy communard cook book, but it’s filled with tasty and nutritious CHEAP stuff. And the exact edition I learned from back in the ’70s is still available on Amazon. Worth the investment, I’d say.

    M

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      1. Ah, yeah, most of the hippy-dippy cookbooks are good. This was the era when many hippy types were survivalists, “The Whole Earth” books would have instructions on how to skin a deer.

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        1. I have a couple of versions of the same old book, which have, among other things, instruction how to make soap, and how to kill and pluck a hen, what parts of a pig to use for what and so on. I use it pretty often too, the only thing missing which causes me occasional problems are temperatures. The only ones in that are ‘good heat’ or ‘moderate heat’ or ‘well warmed oven’ and so on. The older was printed 1923, the newer version sometime in the early 1930’s. Very good section on food preservation, canning and salting and all other possible methods, although I haven’t dared to try many of them yet.

          Oh, and some of the recipes which use sugar also refer to sugarloaves. And tell you to wash the butter before using it. :)

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          1. And sift the flour. *chuckle* I learned to churn butter (and wash it before using) when I was still learning to walk. A lot of those skills have gone out of practice these days, but they can be picked back up again.

            My grandparents must be having a good laugh- grandad in particular- at me, and us. He’s the kind of man with a few pieces of steel and wood could build the tools- and the house- in the time it would take me to draw up the plans. With nothing more than a saw, hammer, and a piece of knotted string.

            I don’t think we’ll be falling quite that far. *grin* But it amuses me to wonder, what would he think of me today? In this world?

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              1. *chuckle*

                Same here. I can do Southern, Mexican, some Korean/Asian, and a few oddball bits of tsty goodness, but baking… well.

                I can make biscuits- that’s American quickbreads, not the sweets that the English call biscuits- and I can do cornbread. And cakes, those are hard to screw up.

                But the only bread I can make is beer bread. Tasty, but sometimes you just want freshly baked *bread.* That smell gets me, every time.

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                1. Oh, I can ruin even cakes. Those old books have about the only sure cake recipe which works for me every time, in which you mix the dry ingredients with buttermilk. No whisking. I hate whisking.

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                  1. If I have a good recipe I can cook fairly well, it is the look in the cupboard, see what you have, and whip up something tasty that gets me. I can bake fairly well to if I have a recipe, although I do it very rarely. I have an awesome recipe for cheesecake I make a couple times a year, cookies a couple times a year, maybe a few pies, and I have a great recipe for a butterscotch pie, but the one thing I can’t master, even with a detailed recipe, is making meringue.

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                    1. While I haven’t watched you make it, my guess off the top of my head would be that your trouble has one of two sources: Either you’re getting the egg white contaminated by a small dot of yolk (you’d be amazed how little it takes to prevent the meringue from forming), or else you’re not mixing it long enough. It’s rather surprising how long it takes to make proper meringue. You think over and over that it’s never going to stiffen, but eventually (and slowly) it goes from looking like lather to looking like shaving cream, and then you just check it from time to time until it holds a peak when you pull the beaters out.

                      Incidentally – what qualifies as a detailed recipe for meringue? I only use two, or at most three, ingredients: egg whites, sugar, and sometimes Cream of Tartar.

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                    2. I saw on the cooking network that plastic bowls are notorious for having enough residual oil– no matter what– to ruin a meringue; they suggested only glass, washed shortly before use.

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                    3. Hmm… wouldn’t know about that, but I never use a plastic bowl after making a whipped fruit dip and having flakes of blue plastic that came from the bowl in it. Now, I have a stainless steel bowl that I use for things like that.

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                    4. Sorry, that should have been paying attention to details in a recipe, such as making sure measurements are exact, setting the mixer on the right speed, etc. Yeah, not a lot of details to the recipes I have, one calls for cream of Tartar (my grandma always claimed that made better meringue) the others are just egg whites and sugar. I’ve given up, at least until I watch somebody make it, I’ll just set a bowl of whipped cream on the table and scoop that onto the top of the pie.

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                2. Have a cast iron pan or pot? Like naan bread?

                  Recipe:
                  2c flour (all purpose)
                  3/4 t baking powder
                  1/2 t baking soda
                  1/2 t sugar
                  1/4 t salt
                  Mix well.

                  In a measuring cup, mix 1/2 c warm milk (~30 seconds in the microwave works) with 1/2 yogurt (I usually use vanilla, since I’m making it for my kids’ breakfast, but the flavor is hard to detect…although if you use strawberry, that might be AWESOME!)

                  Slowly add the milk/yogurt mix to the dry stuff, mix until you get a dough. (or cheat and dump the whole thing in, mix and add more flour when you kneed it)

                  Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and set in a warm corner for two+ hours, or put in the fridge overnight.

                  Dump dough on floured surface. Kneed until it feels smooth/silky/ looks like dough on TV cooking shows. (What?!? It DOES!)

                  Cut into 8 pieces.

                  Roll or smash to 1/8-1/4 in thick on the floured surface.

                  Put in the hot skillet at medium to high heat. Cook 30 seconds to a minute until it bubbles– kind of like pancakes– then flip. Wipe pan with cloth “damp” with melted butter.

                  I suggest melted butter on each piece as it comes out, since it passes the time while the next is cooking and… well, butter.

                  Leftover milk/yogurt mixture can be put back in the yogurt container, yogurt is a good thing to serve with this, or any pancakes or toast type thing.

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                    1. I think the fruit would work OK, if chopped finely and maybe at most a half-cup– probably added to the yogurt/milk.

                      Easier to just have the meat, fruit or whatever as a side for after it’s cooked.

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                    1. I’d suggest taking a normal bread recipe and subsituting two yokes for one egg rather than trying to add yokes.

                      Or just cook the bread and have eggs on top… oh, my, know what breakfast is tomorrow….

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              1. The primary reason for sifting flour is to separate it so that it is a standard density. If you do this before measuring it, then your recipes will be more evenly proportioned. Otherwise, the actual amount measured will vary more than you might think.

                Now, having said that, I don’t sift my flour, because it’s a big pain. As for bugs, the only bugs I’ve seen in flour got through the screen.

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                  1. Ah. In this area, there’s a teeny, tiny, little weevil that gets in flour. I haven’t seen any in a long time – probably means that I’ll see some soon, now that I’ve talked about it.

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                    1. *looks it up* Probably a malaprop or joke that just didn’t filter in. (I have an uncle who STILL says “Horse doovers” because the joke wasn’t ever explained until he was too old to retrain.)

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      2. The one cookbook you NEED to have if things go screwy is the fannie farmer cookbook, preferably the 1896 version:

        It has instruction on how to cook just about anything from scratch and the recipes are good. I grew up on it when my dad was out of work and my mom used to do things like bake our own bread.

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    2. First world problems: I always go looking for recipes online, whenever I don’t want to do something I already have. When there’s a storm, my satellite Internet connection goes down, and I can’t find anything to cook. :-P

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      1. You need cookbooks? I have dozens. Some people collect kitschy figurines and pottery. My family seems to collect books- and cookbooks are books. I can send a few if ya have the need.

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        1. Best cookbooks I have are a couple I picked up out of the free book bin at the recycling center. I have several others, but those two are what I use most times if I need a cookbook. Really I mainly subsist on steak and potatoes, it is a special occasion when I cook something complicated enough to need a recipe.

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        2. I don’t, really. I have more recipes for things than I can keep track of, but I always wind up looking for something different.

          If you have any kinds of recipes for ground beef that aren’t hamburgers, chili, sloppy joes, or meatloaf, however, I’m all ears (ok, eyes, but that’s not the cliche’).

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          2. there’s chevapi, and scotch eggs (baked, not fried, they’re a bunch healthier, but I have a habit of mixing the hamburger 50/50 with hot sausage for scotch eggs. At least baking on a rack gets out most of the grease, eh?)

            This http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Serbian-Cevapcici/ is very close to what a local bosnian cafe serves, but she skips the lamb and substitutes more hamburger (sometimes it tastes of just hamburger, no sausage, so it’s probably whatever she does for a mix that day), and serves it with wedges of oiled, grilled pita bread and slices of tomato covered with feta and a sprinkling of black olives, dusted with black pepper. And oh, is it good.

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            1. and for the high-carb, there’s spaghetti sauce, shepherd’s pie, lasagna, meatballs(swedish to italian), and the lower-carb of stuffed green peppers, stuffed onions, the Bosnian awesomeness of stuffed sauerkraut (they pickle entire cabbage leaves and roll ’em like dolmas), dolmas itself (the meat version in grape leaves, not the sticky sweet dessert version), the german and lithuanian versions done with unpickled cabbage leaves as “stuffed cabbage rolls” (they use different sauces), salisbury steak, beef stroganoff (yes, you can use ground beef and cut the cooking time), borscht, goulash, moussaka, and while gyro meat is technically a shaved meatloaf, I think it’s different enough it falls outside your specs…

              I like learning new recipes, and if you have a wide enough selection in the spice cabinet, you can get from Turkey to Britain to Siberia, culinarily, on pretty cheap ingredients for the rest of the dish.

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                1. Stroganoff and goulash are perfect for rendering very tough old milk cow into delicious food, just as coq a vin was designed to turn a scrawny tough old rooster into delicious, but if you find ground beef cheaper than stew meat, it’s a wonderful dish all the same. :-)

                  Coq a vin, on the other hand, just isn’t right without rooster; the sauce is meant to offset the gaminess, and meat chickens just don’t have any. Calmer Half swears the best stroganoff in the world is made from hippopotamus, but I can’t find a reputable source for that in the USA. Heh. I can’t find the exact exotic meat I want for a common dish… how’s that for a first world problem!

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                    1. That is what it was usually made out of when I was growing up. It is another thing I have only rarely made myself. But since no beef has come through the doors of this house since I built it, I would have to say it was probably always made with venison, or possibly bear.

                      Ground venison and ground beef are completely interchangeable in recipes, it is generally only other cuts of meat like roast that must be treated differently when using game meat.

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                    2. Given the price of ground beef, I’d suggest something like turkey or other “healthy” cheap options– for two to four bucks a pound, I’m buying a roast!

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                    3. What I meant to ask is people use something other than ground meat for stroganoff, which apparently they do. I have just never seen it made with anything but burger meat.

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                    5. We used to use ground turkey in stroganoff, because a family member is allergic to beef. (Ticks in parts of the Southeast United States are causing real problems with allergies to various meats and meats products.)

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              2. I usually use left over pot roast or steak from the day old bin for shepherd’s pie but it is really good with ground beef. Stuffed green peppers are delicious, too, and I tend to add a layer of cheese to the top. I’ll have to look up some of those other recipes because they sound delicious.

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              3. About half of the ground beef we do is “goulash”– but I don’t think it’s “proper” goulash.

                That’s just what my folks call “brown some beef, add veggies, then add either cream of whatever, leftover sauce or stewed tomatoes. Noodles optional.”

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                1. Never made it myself, but what you describe sounds about like my mom used to make all the time when I was growing up. I always found goulash edible but not tasty enough to bother with figuring out how to make it, I’d rather just have burgers or tacos, both of which are much simpler to make.

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                  1. Can’t clean out the fridge, though, and clean up of one pan and three to five cans is a lot easier.

                    I’m mildly addicted to tomato dishes cooked in cast iron. :)

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                    2. My folks would dispute that… I have a bad habit of thinking everyone will eat twice as much as they usually do, have since I was cooking at least once a week in high school.

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                    3. LOL. I’d say. Actually you also learn not to cook ahead. “Where’s the meatloaf I froze when I made meatloaf last?” (I.e., make two, freeze one.)”Uh? I thought that was for sandwiches.”

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                  2. Ah, yes, I left out the wide and wild and can-of-cream-of filled world of midwestern American casseroles. Mainly because I don’t know how / haven’t tried to make most of them, so I’m still at the follow-recipe-without-understanding level for dishes that many a mom has mastered for making leftovers into a meal.

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                    1. Don’t laugh, but I only recently figured out that scalloped potatoes and potatoes agrautin are potato casseroles— you can make them kind of like lasagna!

                      I now have experiments to do with making “baked potato” casseroles.

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                    3. As best I can tell, agrautin uses half’n’half (alright, milk and cream) while scalloped uses whole milk.

                      Since I use cream cheese, and that can substitute for cream in some dishes, I’m not sure what I’m making.

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                    4. I personally eschew recipes which call for a can-of-cream-of anything, having eaten too darned many of those casseroles at Lutheran Church pot luck suppers growing up.
                      Which remind me – one year the Officer’s Wives Club at the base I was assigned to produced a cookbook, and yep, it was filled with recipes which called for a can-of-cream-of-mushroom soup. At the AFRTS station, we were considering having a contest where listeners guessed the exact number of those recipes in the cookbook. And the prize for the winner would be a case of cream-of-mushroom soup…
                      We were talked out of it by the responsible adults in the room, but it would have been a fun contest.

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          3. Taco soup is a good alternative to chili if you are looking for something different.

            Or I have a recipe for Venison Taco Pie, but you could easily substitute ground beef;

            1 lb ground venison

            1/2 onion, chopped

            1 can whole kernel corn (11 oz)

            1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce

            1 envelope (or a couple tablespoons if bought bulk, adjust for potency of seasoning and to taste) Taco seasoning

            1 cup shredded cheddar

            Biscuit dough crust

            2 cup flour

            3 tsp baking powder

            1/2 tsp salt

            4 heap tsp powdered milk

            1/4 cup margarine

            3/4 cup water

            spread in pizza pan

            Brown venison and onion. Add corn and tomato sauce & taco seasoning, Simmer while making crust. Put on crust, top with cheese, bake at 450 12-15 minutes.

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      2. I love e-books–hubby just bought me my 3d kindle–but always have some hard copy books on hand. I recommend the Bible, Shakespeare, a few fun fiction–kids and adults–, cookbook and any other references you need. There’s always going to be a power out–whether for an hour or a week. The Joy of Cooking is a neat book, it also comes in e-format, I don’t use it to cook from but it has amazing amount of info in it.

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    3. The Tassajara breadbook is what took my tolerable bread to really good bread. It does a good job of explaining what you are doing, and why you are doing it.
      I also have a deep and abiding love of the really old cookbooks. I crosscheck the warm/moderate/hot oven instructions with modern recipes to be sure.

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      1. All this talk of bread made me decide to make some for breakfast. But my bread machine decided to freeze up. After I did open bread machine surgery it seemed to be good to go, mayhap with a slightly dented breadpan (those things are flimsy! I was just using a hammer and punch to drive out the little shaft that the mixer wing thingy sets on and the pan decided to fold up on me, a little judicious use of a hammer and pipe got almost as good as new though). Just before I finished adding ingredients the water started to run out the bottom of the bread machine though. Since everything was already in there I dribbled water in as the dough mixed until it looked about the right consistency (had to dribble slowly, as any water that wasn’t immediately absorbed ran out the bottom) not sure how it’ll turn out though. :(

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      2. Another really good cookbook for breads (and baking) is Alton Brown’s “I’m Just Here For The Food Too”. Alright, the first half reads like a chemistry textbook written by Bill Nye The Science Guy, but you really understand before you get into the mixing and folding and baking.

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              1. Ah, but that’s the day my husband finally gets home, and I’ve got about 30 pounds of beef to pick from– certified natural black angus, grass raised and grained, from my folks’ ranch.

                Probably go with a roast, just because I love roasts… then again, a foreman grilled steak…

                Arrgh, now I”ll spend all tomorrow planning it!

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                1. Homecomings are sweet. Homecomings with beefy goodness are even better. Certified Angus, how can ya go wrong?

                  Except, you know, spending all day Friday thinking about beef…

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            2. I recall you mentioning this before. Is that a personal choice or a religious one? None of the catholics I know personally follow that, but most aren’t particularly devout.

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              1. It’s because I’m too lazy to do an alternate penance.

                I didn’t even know we were supposed to replace it with anything until I was in my mid twenties– another example of really bad catechism teaching.

                FWIW, the whining is (mostly) joking. I figure Himself has a heck of a sense of humor.

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              2. Sigh. There she goes with gefiltefish. One of the recipes I brought with me to this marriage is fishballs — think meatbals, in tomato sauce served over rice. Dan likes it, but since both boys DESPISE fish I no longer make it. I’ve never heard of anyone else having this recipe, so I assume mom invented it…

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                    1. I’m probably okay with that. Doesn’t look appetizing. But, if somebody knowledgeable offered me some fresh I’d probably risk it at least once.

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                    2. Edible, but you’re not missing much. Take that clear jelly off a can of spam, mix sand into it liberally, and add large amounts of salt and you have a fair substitute for caviar.

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                    3. Well, doesn’t that sound like the last MRE in the box? Really don’t feel like I’m missing the good life on that one.

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                2. No – fish-cakes (fish balls, but flattened so they cook more evenly) were a common enough diet item in my family. My mother sometimes wanted a tomato sauce with them, but it’s a waste. We still have them occasionaly – they’re good for poorer quality fish and more hassle than most other ways, so it is rare as we have a lot of good fish

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                  1. We would fix something like that, only we called them fish patties, pretty good served with tartar sauce, I would skip the tomato sauce myself.

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            4. Um. Can I tactfully enquire of any Catholics about the fish on Friday thing? (not that we have a shortage of fish, rather, given the fact that we Anglicans are busy losing our priest, and the Catholics on the island still have one, and I’m one of these odd folk that takes the sacraments pretty seriously, I may have to shift churches.) I have no problem with the fish, just curious as to what and why?

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              1. I asked Calmer Half, who was wise enough not to start giving me dates and places, because I haven’t finished my first cuppa yet. The gist of it is: when most people were peasants, meat was very expensive, and usually something that only the rich could afford to regularly eat. Game belonged to the king, and carried the penalty of poaching, but fish was relatively accessible and cheap. So the call to eat fish on Fridays was a call to eat a poor man’s meal, a poverty meal, and to reflect on our spiritual poverty and need of repentance for our sins.

                Since refrigeration is now widely available, the church has now said that the principle is to eat a poor man’s food. So if fish an expensive luxury and chicken is the poverty food in an area, then we sinners who seek God’s grace should refrain from fish and eat chicken on Fridays.

                Calmer Half, being who he is, then said mildly, “It’s poultry sacrifice to make.” I haven’t had enough tea yet to even summon the energy for a groan.

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                2. Poor Dot. I’d feel sorrier for you if I didn’t have three punsters around. Yep, same reason Portuguese eat bacalhau on Christmas eve. poor man’s food. Unfortunately I’m barred from current version of poor man’s food: rice. :/

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                3. It was an eggsquizite bun. Thank you. Of course, for us, as chickens are for eggs, and actually get fed on food that costs money, they’re our luxury food :-) Spiny Lobster on the other hand is free (well, barring the labor of catching it). I haven’t actually paid for meat/fish/poultry – on island, and not in a restaurant for nearly 4 years now. But I get the principle and find it good.

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                  1. Time was that chickens were indeed luxury foods. Especially tender young chickens, suitable for roasting or frying. You usually had chicken soup or the like because you never killed a chicken until it was past laying.

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              2. ABSOLUTELY you can ask! I love answering those kind of questions!

                “Carne” is what you ate for celebrations, and Friday is when you’re supposed to kind of focus on the “He died for us” thing, like how on Sunday you focus on “He rose from the dead.” Last Friday was a really big celebration (solemnity- all saint’s day) so it was a “Meat Friday.”

                We say meat, because English is weird. :D

                There are some fun religious rulings where Bishops tried to translate the original word’s meaning, since they didn’t think in terms of “mammal,” more like “land animal,” so some things that live in the water all the time (some sort of large rat, alligators) have been ruled ‘not carne.’ Which makes for a lot of articles like “CATHOLICS THINK GATORS ARE FISH.”

                I think bugs are all over the place as far as what they’re classified as (vaguely remember locusts being classed with birds, or more accurately “flying things”) but I don’t spend any time cooking with those.

                Every Lent there’s a big to-do about trying to keep the spirit of it, so don’t eat thirty buck a pound lobsters or something, but that the food doesn’t have to taste bad….

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                1. Thank you. As you come of extensive farming stock you probably understand why the idea of meat as anything but a very ordinary basic staple floated above my head. Bought food is luxury. Let it be a lesson to me: You tend to think the world is just like you, even when you know they aren’t and know enough history to they mostly haven’t been,

                  (shudder) I think gators, and crocodiles are something God invented to teach me respect. I have an irrational fear of crocodiles (I have a rational fear of them too) but I actually start sweating even thinking of them. I’ve had to catch three, and spent a lot of time in water that has them in it. Am so glad to leave that behind.

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                  2. Physical reaction at the thought of THAT sounds perfectly rational to me– I still have nightmares about saltwater crocs, and I just READ about them!

                    It really is strange to think of a time and place where fish would be the cheap, easy protein, eggs are kind of fancy and chicken is a weekly celebration treat!

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                    3. I know, considering most fish goes for over $6 per pound in this area. A couple of exceptions: Catfish “nuggets”, which are basically the leftover pieces from making filets, and Swai, which I had never heard of until a couple years ago.

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                    5. I once read of a Renaissance writer distinguishing between ordinary and extraordinary levels of care. You do not, for instance, have to move to the mountains if your doctor recommends it for health. You also do not have to eat expensive and hard to get things, like chickens or partridges, instead cheap and easy ones, like eggs.

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                    6. Oh we don’t have chicken once a week! Maybe twice a year! (feral turkey, wild duck, Cape Barren goose, muttonbirds, pheasant often, brown quail once in a while)

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                    7. The equivalent for those of us who don’t hunt — turkeys are 50c a pound right now. I have to block off a day, buy four and dismember them into steaks, hamburger, etc. Then we eat turkey for a month and it’s CHEAP.
                      I’m hoping SPQR bags a wild goat and keeps his promise of getting me a couple of roast pieces, because I miss Cabrito. I’ll even feed him and his wife :-P

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                    9. Heh. I lied. Barbs and I just did a count. We’ve eaten 15 chickens in 4 years and have one in the freezer. So twice as many. Eggs… eggs have a cost, but I get three a day, every day – we don’t have a winter drop-off, the Hi-line x don’t live long – 2 years, and I kill them, because they slow down. We will breed eventually, but that’s just another project I don’t need right now. The cost per egg is cents. You get sick of eggs, but they’re good for trading.

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                    11. Sarah – ah, the yearly turkey glut. I’ve been putting it off, in the interest of working on the cover and ad copy for Book 4, but we don’t have that much longer for cheap turkey meat, do we?

                      I bought a month by having Calmer Half re-organize the freezer after we defrosted it. Found a bunch of meat he thought we were out of, and veggies, so we’ve been eating the freezer down and telling our favorite local hunter that if he gets the deer, we’ll cook it. (I.e. – you can borrow this muzzleloader for muzzleloader season, and we’ll provide the steaks and roasts nice and cooked – all you have to do is take this gun, get the supplies to shoot it, and go shoot a deer.) Here’s hoping that a few of the hoofed rats will get taken out by muzzleloader intsead of by Subaru!

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                  3. I guess you would have stayed away from the incident here in Cincinnati, Ohio when the truck overturned and spilled Alligator carcasses all over the highway (they were from a gator farm in Kentucky)?

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                  4. “As you come of extensive farming stock you probably understand why the idea of meat as anything but a very ordinary basic staple floated above my head. Bought food is luxury.”

                    Yep, it is always a lesson to me to. Meat is poor mans food, so are vegetables, you have to pay for the grains, dairy (well, I worked on a dairy farm, I’ll pay for my dairy products, thank you very much) and sweets.

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    4. A lot of that “Hippy” cooking is a hell of a lot older than hippies OR communists, they just took to it because it was nutritious and cheap. If you know what you’re doing, you can live comfortably- if aromatically- off a large bag of dried beans for ages.

      The Foxfire books are being passed around in PDF format, I have most of them on a kindle, whose batteries are charged by a solar panel. I have made alcohol (My family were shiners) I have grown, snared, caught,shot, cured and preserved my own food all my life- and I’m always healthier when I eat from my own stores. When I was young, we never shopped for food past October, we ate all winter on stored food. We considered ourselves well off for it.

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      2. The Foxfire books are being passed around in PDF format, I have most of them on a kindle, whose batteries are charged by a solar panel

        Oooh, good, now I have something to look for!

        My mom kept all of hers, selfish lady. :)

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  7. I’m not sure how much I count as “older boomer” having turned 58 this year, I find myself between the boomers 5 and ten years older than me now facing retirement, and my situation where I say something like “what is this retirement of which you speak?”

    but… “conceived in liberty…” isn’t going away, but I do not doubt that once again, parts of the cities will burn. I feared for our nation in 1965. I feared for it again in 1979. I worry about the relative decline of the middle class and how wealth has become concentrated. I worry about the on-going establishment of the petite raj, but I hold fast to the thread that liberty is an element of Faith here. The recalls in Colorado, the rejection of federalism by many central states, etc. are hopef.

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  8. Don’t fear Hillary or Joe, because I think that their age has passed. The current incumbent was a blank page when he ran, but now I hope the mask has been ripped off.

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    1. Hillary’s going to have problems because, like it or not, female politicians are judged at least in part on their attractiveness. And Hillary, well… to put it bluntly, she’s been looking pretty hideous lately. I think that’s going to hurt her badly in the polls.

      Biden says the most insane, ridiculous things. But the last time I can remember him getting called to task on anything was when he committed plagiarism back in the ’80s.

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      1. I’m also concerned about Hillary’s health. Not because I support her, but because I hate seeing people suffer if they don’t deserve it. That fall and the neurological problems she had afterwards are not minor things, and she’s not exactly young. If I was a Dem planner, I’d give her at best a 50/50 shot for running in 2016.

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        1. For so long as Hillary is perceived as the 2016 favourite she can continue to pull down nearly half a million for a couple speeches for Goldman Sachs. She has about two years of playing at running to milk that cow fill the Clinton billfold. Nor do I think she will be satisfactory to the Left-Wing masses who have drunk deeply of the Obama fountain. She too much carries the taint of reason and moderation. They will vote for her because of innate hatred of Republicans but they won’t be happy about it.

          The Democrats have never shown any real affinity for Biden in his two attempts at the nomination and there is nothing to indicate any change.

          I see considerable background chatter about Sen. Elizabeth Warren as darling of the Left, and the Obama C.V. in 2005 wasn’t half so attractive (for certain values of attractive) as is hers.

          Look also for a Democrat governor or elder statesman to try — think Bill Richardson, Leon Panetta. I think Hickenloopy had aspirations until the recall of the gun-grabbers. Andrew Cuomo dreams of a presidency but I think he’s been eating too much rarebit. Sebilious has probably been mortally wounded unless a miracle occurs with the Healthcare dirigible and the laws of economics reverse themselves.

          As always, follow the money, but don’t let it blind you.

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  9. I was thrilled on Tuesday to see a young man, perhaps mid-20s serving as an election judge, and another young lady signing people in to vote. This is the first time I’ve seen non-retirees assisting. I wonder if, given the nature of young people in general and Americans in particular, being told “you have no future unless you support our policies that will make you even more dependent on us” is starting to backfire. As in “oh yeah? Read my fingers!” backfiring.

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      1. True ‘dat. I wonder how many .gov employees were encouraged to support the “proper” candidate? Not that anyone in this or any administration would try to influence federal employees’ votes in any way, of course. Or college students who depend on student loans. Purely hypothetical.

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      2. ya but that was only because the other one was going to legally forbid women form speaking English….or something…..BUT what ever it was we were assured it was really bad.

        mind (for what consolation it’s worth) the race was much more of a sqker than it was supposed to be.

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          1. For the gov, blame northern Virginia. I sure as aitch-ee-double-hockey-sticks do. Nobody I know from up there voted for him, and that includes the folks up near Manasas (usually pretty solidly Democrat).

            Only the ex-DC coven could have pulled that off.

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        2. Obama provided the template for successful Democrat campaigns: smear the Republican. McAuliffe proved it can work for other candidates. Expect the play to keep running with minor changes in the lyrics until the public catches on or the Media does its proper job.

          In other words: Don’t hold your breath; pinch your nose.

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      3. Yes, but a 6-9% lead turned into a 3% win, almost entirely due to Obamacare. If the election were a month later McAuliff would have gone down in flames. We’ve got a whole ‘nother year before a good chunk of the Senate goes up for grabs, and two more after that before the next big show. By that time the Democrat brand is going to be about as popular as, well, the GOP brand in ’08.

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      4. Periodically the public needs to be reminded that, as H.L. Mencken said, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

        It is only by getting periodically burned that many folks learn stoves can be hot.

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  10. I think we, as a country, can ultimately ride out the current mess. My fear, though, is that we’re going to get hit with something like an highly contagious epidemic right at the worst possible moment, and it’s going to turn an unpleasant but survivable situation into an absolute nightmare.

    I don’t know how the country would handle something like that.

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    1. Ooh, yeah. I have acquaintances who are on the anti-vaxx train, and I want to shake them and say, “Don’t you see what’s coming? You and people like you are going to be the first to die!” (I may dislike their anti-vaxx views intensely, but I wouldn’t wish a pandemic on anyone, even if I knew that those I loved were safe.)

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      1. My fear is that Ringo’s Last Centurion will look downright positive…

        Note that in Last Centurion, the country’s in pretty good shape when the epidemic hits. Pretty much everything that goes wrong starts after (including the global cooling). Yes, there are a lot of stupid decisions made, but those decisions only occur after the plague has struck (aside from the vaccination screw ups, of course). And even then, some of the results are catastrophic. It’s only briefly mentioned, but the Greater Los Angeles region (which is where I live, incidentally) is essentially gone. There are people living there in the book, but they all moved in afterwards.

        What happens if the economy crashes again, the idiots in DC try something *really* stupid that brings the country to one of those “everyone needs to calm down, take a deep breath, and take a step or two back from the brink” points, and then an epidemic hits before everyone can take that step back?

        We constantly see idiots on the Left these days talking about how bad things need to happen to Conservatives, preferably with assistance from those in power. Something like this would be their big chance to see those dreams come true.

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    3. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. American society, especially outside the urban centers, is highly decentralized. Any kind of attack or epidemic is going to start breaking down high order organizations first, but Americans are very good at operating in smaller units, and they’re very good at creating those smaller units spontaneously.

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  11. Sarah, I like you, even tough I’ve never actually met you, but you’re wrong about the “boomlet generation.” I’m one, and we did F up, big time. My generation bought into the braid dead C–P of “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” We wanted to BELIEVE the message that we could have: free sex, free love, free money, etc. So, we not only threw the bay out with the bath water, we burned the house down as well. Granted the pansy Academics let us install poop heads as “educators,” but *we demanded they do it.* Then, we compounded the stupidities by refusing to accept that reality controls the world.
    We installed brain dead economic policies in companies, and then refused to admit that the companies went broke, due to the idiocy. In a classic example of the “Peter Principle,” company Boards of Directors hired the same idiots that destroyed their previous employers, and encouraged them to do it to *their new company.* Look at Ca, and NYS being rated as the “worst states for business environment.” Yet, they continue to raise taxes, raise costs of employment, and wonder why businesses move out/go under.
    One of the Left Coast states just announced that the Fast Food Minimum wage is $15/hour. If I had such a franchise, I would do one of 3 things: 1) Switch to all carry out; 2) Automate a much as possible, and lay off as many workers as possible; 3) Just lay off a many as I could, and still operate. No one is going to pay $8 or a McD fast food meal, or $5 for a Wendy’s burger. Of course, there really is a Fourth alternative, if franchise owners are willing to “bite the bullet.” It’s called, sell the franchise(s) back to the parent company, and close the doors. I foresee a lot of unemployment in that state over the next 6 months. Also, a *lot* of people having a hard time finding their favorite drinks, and meals. Let the politicians explain why they can’t have their Starbucks, and burgers, at the next elections.
    I’ve run small businesses, and worked for FF places. About _90%_ of the costs are payroll related. Raise the payroll (with minimum wage and insurance costs) costs, and watch prices double.

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    1. 2) Automate a much as possible, and lay off as many workers as possible;
      ————–

      This one’s apparently quite possible. Back when the $15/hour minimum wage was being protested over back in NYC, Instapundit started linking to articles that talked about how new equipment makes it possible to automate pretty much everything in a fast food restaurant.

      Of course, the *real* problem with something like that is that such a level of automation ends up destroying one of the best sources of starter jobs for teenagers.

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      1. Minimum wage laws destroy the best sources of starter jobs for teenagers. They’re only employable as long as they’re cheaper than the automation.

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        1. For those selling seats at the government teat this is a feature, not a bug. One more reason to raise taxes on heartless (non-)employers.

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    2. City, not state, SeaTac WA made minimum wage in the city $15/hr. For all jobs not just fast food.

      By the way you haven’t been in a McDonalds or Wendys lately if you think no one will pay $8 for a McD meal or $5 for a Wendys burger. There is a reason I don’t eat at either any more.

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    3. We need to come up with a better term than “minimum wage” because all the laws in the world can’t change the minimum wage. That’s fixed at $0/hr.

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      1. If you call it “entry-level wage”, it will more accurately reflect the transitory nature of people who get it, instead of seeming to be “the least you can get by on.”
        Unfortunately, it’s also longer, and english defaults to the shortest and simplest words it can get.

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    4. No one is going to pay $8 or a McD fast food meal, or $5 for a Wendy’s burger.

      They do in Australia. Place is *packed*.

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      1. I wonder what happens when you control the price of such items for exchange rates, such as conversion to gold-historical? Of course, I spend an inordinate amount of time (i.e., any) wondering to what degree increases in the price of gasoline or the Dow Jones Index is reflecting a declining value of the dollar rather than an increasing value of the commodity.

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  12. Roll up your sleeves and see what you can do – ideally what will make you money (multiple streams of income) and also keep things going.

    I’m knee deep (and looking to get deeper) in these sorts of tasks right now. Once I cut through the regulatory obstructions, I hope to be squaring away that multiple streams bit.

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    1. Good on ya, sir. Keep at it. At the very least, setting a good example is always worth doing, apart from securing you and yours from the troubles to come.

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  13. One of my favorite quotes is from a movie. I forget the name of it. There was a crusty old Coast Guard rescue swimmer addressing a class of rescue swimmer trainees and he said,”Remember, the only difference between yourself and the victim is mindset.” When it all goes to hell the people who stay afloat are the people who keep working for a positive outcome. Don’t forget that and make sure your boys don’t either. If you can manage that you should all be OK.

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    1. That, and a lot of physical conditioning, and the right gear for the environment, and coming directly out of a helicopter instead of having your body heat being sucked out by hypothermia from exposure until the Coast Guard got there, and the swimmers are usually well-rested, warm and dry until on the scene, and haven’t been treading water or getting battered inside a liferaft… (somehow trouble rarely happens in calm, clear, warm waters.)

      It’s a clever quote, but it’s not true. That, however, doesn’t invalidate the importance of a positive mindset in a lot of situations. Pedantic? moi?

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  14. I have a slight thought for optimism.

    Until recently the majority of overbearing government regulations happened to other people. Yes we all had to pay taxes, obey the speed limit etc. but the regulations most of us followed weren’t that onerous or difficult. Manufacturers or this and that and professionals of various sorts had to obey more onerous regulations but for the most part they did so and the “benefit” passed on to everyone else who consumed their products/services.

    But we’re getting to the point now where everything needs a license and where everyone has to spend hours and hours futzing with government forms and websites to conform to this law or that law. Its not so much that we have endless new regulations (though we do) but that governments are desperate for the revenue so they start enforcing more and more of existing regs on smaller and smaller targets. Moreover in the main we figured we could generally speaking do what we wanted and not have the government check up on us (Hello NSA).

    In this respect Obamacare is a wonderful example. And if, as seems likely, we end up with more and more people not getting corporate health care then the warts of obamacare are going to affect more and more people. Which means we’ll likely get a populist push back to repeal regulations.

    I’m not sure if this will fuel more Tea Party groups or fuel a movement of a different sort but I think it could end up with a wholesale culling of both regulations and regulators i.e. bureaucrats. And if the cull is successful then economic growth will happen, and lots of it.

    The question I think is when? and which is optimum. It will be interesting if the 2014 elections result in a Republican gain of the Senate. If it does then the roll back could start then, but since the pain won’t be so great the rollback may be too limited. If not then it’ll probably start after Obama is gone in 2017 because by that time the pain will be so great not even the most biased “news” reports will be able to hide the problem. Indeed by then it seems likely that the media people themselves will be in pain.

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    1. Roll back? A big part of the problem is that the civil service, both federal and state, is pretty much a subsidiary of the Democratic party. It really doesn’t matter who the elected official driver is if the running gear is all socialist.
      Knowing who these minions are is going to be important!

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    2. This is part of the reason for the wholesale assault on TEA Partiers. The “national leadership” only permits astroturf movements (preferably union managed) and dasn’t risk anything as uncontrollable as sensible people making their voices heard.

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  15. “We were neither conscious of being poor nor were we in bad shape in relation to other people. On the contrary. And in a comparison either with the world or with historic norm, we were rich. Rich beyond the dreams of avarice.”

    Preach it.

    My parents were both professional musicians (read that as dirt poor) and my father worked as a clerk in a bank to pay the rent. However as a kid growing up in that household I did not _feel_ poor.

    I was blessed to be able to build a career that left us _much_ better off than my parents, still just middle class by American standards but as you wrote “Rich beyond the dreams of avarice” compared with the rest of the world.

    “First, the preparation for the crash, which you should already be making: pay off/streamline/prepare.”

    Everyone can find ways to prepare. Number one preparation is mental (knowing that preparation is needed, and thinking about what you can do in your unique situation). This has no financial cost. Number two preparation is knowledge and skills. This is inexpensive, and can’t be taken from you. Both of these are far more important than how much stuff you have.

    “Roll up your sleeves and see what you can do – ideally what will make you money (multiple streams of income) and also keep things going.”

    I lost my job a year ago, but have multiple little side businesses. None of them bring in that much money, but with all of them we are getting by.

    “If you have the time and the inclination, learn how to keep cars running. People are going to be holding onto them for longer, and it will be needed.”

    I just read today “The age of the average vehicle on U.S. roads recently hit an all-time record: 11.4 years.” Besides people keeping their older cars, there is a pent up demand for quality yet relatively inexpensive vehicles. This will help companies that cater to that market such as Honda.

    “People don’t live from bread alone. They’re still going to need entertainment.”

    From what I have read, entertainment has always done well in economic downturns. I wish the USA was not sliding downhill, but at least you seem to be in a market niche that should do well in a downturn.

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  16. I read that same article. I’m less than 10 years older than your kids and the only response I really had was “Fuck you and fuck them and go to fucking hell.” We’re freaking trying and when things to go hell, it looks like we may be some of the first people to get hit by the worst of it. My husband and I work 2 jobs apiece, I write things that sell and things that I hope will sell, we’ve sold plasma to put enough gas in the car to get to work. The only thing that doesn’t panic me about the coming flood of crap is that I’m pretty sure I’ve got my kids to high enough ground to survive.

    I’ll be honest, I have a monthly nervous breakdown. Then I pull myself together, make a plan and get to work. That’s all we really can do, isn’t it? Make a plan and get to work, whatever that work may be and whatever that plan might entail. I’ve also gotten really, really good at making things from scratch. I’ve been buying tools since I left for college and I know how to use everything in my closet.

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  17. As a point on publishing – How come Portugal (population 10 million + and 220 million Portuguese speakers (well, according to Wikipedia) worldwide can’t support writers, but Iceland (population 300 000) can?

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    1. Is this where I make the mandatory comment about it not being the number of people in the population who can speak the language that determines such things, but rather the number of people who can (and willingly* choose to) read?

      *I will read product ingredient labels (I strongly recommend the ones on bug spray — literary masterpieces!) before I read grey goo, so part of it comes down to what publishers are selling pushing.

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      1. I think the _can_ has to even by the harshest standards still exceed Iceland by at least a factor of 10 (and probably a lot more. Yes there are illiterate Portuguese speakers in Angola or Brazil. But damn near everyone who IS literate in those countries, is literate in Portuguese.). I knew a fairly broad sample of Portuguese emigres in South Africa, and have met a few here – all of whom could read. Why even Sarah can! :-). Seriously, Portuguese without a shadow of doubt has a larger ‘can read’ market than a number of other languages who have managed to support some writers.

        Therefore it comes down to ‘want to read’. Which comes down to the legacy of their publishing industry.

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      1. Colombia recently had a “book celebration” and one of the national papers did a front page story on independent publishers and how the small houses were gaining steam against the big traditional houses. They then listed about 15, two of which from the names were e-publishers.
        My thought was of course that you were a prophet.

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  18. OT: 3000 words, 2000 of those on N2:TS, but I also got three new story ideas sketched out yesterday, including Undead Gaius Iulius’s hispter dragon, and one about Drako’s Dark-Roast all-night radio show on WYRM, AM 660. :) Sarah, I shot you an e-mail related to the magical British Empire, about a book that may or may not be of interest.

    On Topic: Learning how to repair and sharpen tools is a great way to get cheap or free wood working and metal working lessons or help.

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    1. Today was my brain-down day. I left the house twice without the grocery shopping list, once when I had specifically gone in to retrieve it. However, I got the catboxes and the laundry done, sweeping and yoga, and dinner’s in the crockpot. Tomorrow I must read a book and come up with a literary masterpiece of ad copy that will suck in buyers, all unknowing, from three feet away from a turned-off computer. (Or the best I can do, subject to revision later.) That, however, is a job for tomorrow. Today I am going to work on making sure I pet the cat and stay warm, and stare into the middle distances until I’m relaxed enough I’m not waking up at 3am with my brain too busy working on crunching work’s logistics to actually recover.

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  19. However, I’m no longer depressed. I’m no longer depressed because… well… turn that around. “It’s a long, long way to fall.”

    Are you SURE you’re not Irish?

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    1. Dear heart — I’m from a region that had regular commerce and ties with Ireland since the 4th century bc. Also, while part of the Celtic commonwealth, we hosted a bardic festival every year (i.e. before the Romans.) My grandma’s family seems to have gone awandering in Scotland for a couple hundred years. If I DON’T have a massive amount of Irish blood, I’d be shocked.

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  20. “What I mean […]It really is a matter of chance. No one chose this – is that when you are born and when you come of age, and when you enter the work force shapes your life and limits your choices.”

    Uh-huh. Welcome to my life.

    Maybe now you understand why my feelings aren’t so much “let it burn” as “hand me the kerosene and matches” — the sooner we Burn It The Fuck Down, the sooner we can get on about the business of rebuilding.

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    1. No. If we burn it down then we become arsonists. If we let it burn down on its own we expose the faulty wiring. And then people blame the contractor who built it, not the people complaining about it.

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  21. Thank you. I hit that personal wall this past month. After 20 years Im no longer in the Army and having to find out who I really am while trying to make a future for my 4 kids has been kicking my butt. Articles like this keep me plugging away at the non-profit I am starting, getting our 12 acres as self-reliant as possible and gives me hope that there are others out there doing the same in their own ways.

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  22. Y’know, if you only had translation skills, business connections in Portugal, and a ready source of quality english language books to translate you could start up a small house catering to the entire Lusosphere. That’s Portugal, Brazil, and at least six other markets worldwide. If you went strictly e-book there wouldn’t even need to be a physical presence, just an internet accessible web site and an international capable billing system.

    On second thought forget what I just said. You need to focus on current production. Maybe turn Robert or Marshall on to the task if they find themselves with time on their hands.

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    1. I keep coming up with good money making projects for Robert and Marshall. I think that they will be heading up to my door with torches and pitchforks any day now.

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      1. That was why I hesitated to even mention it, the fear it would be an either/or situation. OTOH were you to keep writing and only supervise someone else’s translation and handle the business end, I think there is a need to be filled here.
        The key is of course that there are many niche markets to be filled and those will only expand as the gray market becomes increasingly common in the times to come. Personally I have several either in active development or on hold pending need. And of course the primary bugaboo time to accomplish the work.

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          1. No law that says minions must be blood kin. You’re just not thinking big enough. Imagine yourself running a vast Portagee sweatshop translation empire, ruling with an iron fist.
            Oops, sorry, forgot for a moment that you’re not Janet Morris.
            Never Mind.

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    2. I particularly like this comment: “Capitalism is better? Really? Colonialism is the unholy parent of Capitalism and Globalism is it’s bastard child. Ask the indigenous people who were enslaved, murdered, and robbed of their lands were “because they weren’t really using it” and “we’re doing them a favor civilizing them” if they think Capitalism is so effing wonderful. Or better yet, ask the Russians if they hate Communism. Wait, I’ve got that answer for you: A majority of Russians wish for the “good old days” of the USSR.”

      It appears there is proof that it really is possible to have a negative IQ.

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      1. Okay, you successfully raised my blood-pressure. Oh for the power to sentence the idiot poster to living, preferably as a woman, for the short brutally unpleasant life that they would have ‘enjoyed’ among one of the ‘indigenous’ people (whose ancestors never migrated from anywhere, or killed, enslaved, raped and or robbed anyone else) before they had the ‘misfortune’ to be ‘civilized’.

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        1. It is clear that such folks are simply trying to claim their share of Unearned Moral Superiority (UMS — look for it wherever you shop! Demand it in ALL of your products!) by demonstrating their utter historical ignorance.

          By all means, let us examine how the Mayan and Aztec and Incan civilizations where maintained, let us review the “peaceful” “spirituality” of the Apache and Comanche and Sioux and Nez Perce, let us look at the efforts of the Iroquois tribes’ efforts to employ the Europeans in their internecine wars.

          The basic rule of subsistence level economies is that they happily swipe anything they can boost from their neighbors. This is as fundamental a principle of human nature as males getting erections and females menstruating.

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      2. “we’re doing them a favor civilizing them” if they think Capitalism is so effing wonderful.

        There’s a lady who sells art in my aunt’s shop.

        She was born in the traditional camp for their area.

        Eventually her mom said…something rude… and told her father he could stay out in the mud, but she was moving to town.

        Which is why the lady lived into at least her 80s– not sure her age, or even if she’s still alive, was a good five years ago I last talked to her– and will tear to shreds anybody silly enough to try to romanticize the existence she was barely spared from.

        Someone who can use sneer about civilization like that should be given the ‘chance’ to live like that.

        Of course, they’re commenting on a computer, so they’re clearly not too hard on capitalism except as a pose, anyways.

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  24. We have two people in college right now – and we are doing it without debt. Admittedly, I’m in community college and working full time, but we’re doing it. I look forward to the day when we purchase new clothes for more than $10. When we don’t purchase the smallest car possible for the family member who has to commute across town, and bundle trips so that the trip across town also involves stops at other places.

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    1. The guys have minimal debt, and I’m hoping to pay that off as a graduation present. Right now, that seems like a pipe dream, but it’s what the whole indie thing is about. We move forward…

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    2. Nothing wrong with community college. I not only began my college in a community college, some **mumble** years ago, but I teach as an adjunct.

      People get into problems in college in two ways:
      (1) Spending/borrowing to pursue a degree that has no career prospects. If the degree can’t pay for itself, fast, then its a luxury good. If you can buy a Porsche for cash, you can afford a frivolous college degree.

      (2) Believing that college students are entitled to live a middle class lifestyle.

      It is especially important to have a detailed plan – what degree you are pursuing and how you will get to completion of that degree. A plan that does not require miracles to complete like … sure during my last year I will work full time and take 18 units … .

      College “advisors” all to often just tell students that any degree has value. Horse manure.

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      1. when I went to college, car-ownership was a mark of poverty. Those of us who did not NEED a job walked everywhere.

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      2. Community college provides the first two years of college at reasonable cost without the pretension and with teachers who’ve experienced the reality of the world rather than grad students who have a) spent their entire careers in an academic hothouse and b) are depending for their futures upon the good will of the residents of the Ivory Tower.

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  25. The truly scary thing Nate is how accurate they are.

    No, what’s truly scary are some of the comments to the article. Some still believe, heck some even still think it’s the best option out there.

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      1. No kidding. How can they post the “anti-bush” posters and not see that that two out of three are incredibly relevant to what the current administrations is doing? Utterly blinded and blinkered by their fantasies. Puts mine to shame.

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  26. Readers might find this guy has a lot of similar things to say about your idea of “living under/building under” while getting ready for a big retraction. In fact he makes a pretty good case that it is already started.

    http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/

    He’s a Druid and a peak oil evangelist, both of which are FAR outside my belief system, but I find him to be intelligent, thoughtful and thought provoking. His “Green Wizardry” idea may be offputting to some, but bear with him as he explains the ideas. I think it’s worth it.

    (I haven’t read his posts recently due to focus on other things but I used to read him every week. I always find there is always something to think about in his posts.)

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