The Q&A portion of the Wild Bunch Dispatch will be held on this page from 6:30pm to 8pm (Mountain Time) today. Any questions you might have on the 65th issue please post here and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability. Some ground rules:
1) Please stick to the subject matter of the newsletter.
2) This is not a debate forum. If you have some concerns I’m happy to address them, but I can’t get into a long circular debate while other people have questions.
3) If I do not respond to your question immediately, don’t freak out. I’ll get to it, don’t worry.
4) Try to keep to one or two questions each time you write a post. Please refrain from essay-long multi-question posts. It is much appreciated.
I will begin discussion at exactly 6:30pm Mountain time. Looking forward to your questions and thoughts on the Wild Bunch Issue #65. The next issue of the newsletter will be released on November 7th. If you missed out on this discussion you can still subscribe for the next issue and participate. For more information on how to subscribe, visit the link HERE.
Regards,
Brandon Smith, Founder of Alt-Market.us
Discussion on Issue #65 is now open.
Page 4 of this newsletter included something I hadn’t thought about before: acting as a middleman for people with more advanced skills as the collapse increases. Do you think this could be a lucrative opportunity for those of us who are still (unfortunately) primarily in service-based roles as the economy worsens? Will trustworthy middlemen be sought after?
I think people who know how to identify goods that can be refurbished and that are valuable in the local market will be sought after, or, you can make yourself sought after by being a really great middleman and always having what skilled producers are looking for. This could also include raw materials for production. It’s important to realize that in a collapse environment we may not have access to normal modes of communication, and in the old days a lot of people turned to people who had a knack for procuring goods and materials because you can’t always find stuff on your own. The key is to ALWAYS fulfill your agreements. If you can do that, you will have a place in the new economy.
Excited to be part of my first discussion. This was a great newsletter! It sparked some good conversation in our house as to what we could provide in a new market. What is your view on the role of the arts (i.e. painting, creative writing,) in this coming apocalyptic economy? Do you think people will still be buying paintings and novels, etc? This is one of the ways we, personally, have provided for ourselves along with “regular” work. Another business that will be crucial, I think, is to be found in the there will education arena: co-ops or private tutoring for people who have left the public school sector. There are currently state laws where we live that prohibits homeschool teachers from receiving any type of payment for a co-op, but if things go completely south I don’t know that we would be worried about those restrictions.
I think that art skills will have to be applied in a practical setting for them to be valuable to others in a crash environment. Meaning, you might have to be drawing maps and designing fortification or making Wanted posters (yeah, I think the old-school wanted posters are going to make a comeback in the near future). I also think HARD COPIES of entertainment and informational resources will be considered valuable for trade. Even if the grid stays up, there’s going to be a LOT of censorship of older movies and books and anyone with extra hard copies will be able to trade the “contraband” for other items. Tutoring will be needed in various communities because kids still need to learn reading, writing and arithmetic and some parent will be busier in a crash environment than they were in the 9 to 5 world.
Wanted Posters?! There are definitely some faces I’d love to see posted on some community board! I think you are right concerning the “hard copy” entertainment and literature. Which makes me wonder what this might look like in the crash economy. You mentioned in your latest post that in red states/counties small business will continue to thrive. Do you think in a crash economy red state that a hard copy business pedaling books and movies will still be a brick and mortar situation or a “If you want to read Fahrenheit 451 you have to go to Joe’s house down the street” type of situation?
I think new hard copies of anything will become difficult to find because overseas production will slow down, and the dollar will not buy nearly as much. Red states will continue to have thriving economies as long as there’s not outright civil war. When that happens everything changes. I also think that any useful data that people tend to get for free on the internet might become a trade item in the future if the web becomes highly censored or is shut down by a cyberattack. For example, downloaded Youtube videos on survival skills, farming, gunsmithing, etc. might actually be worth something to other people if online information is throttled. You might want to get an external hard drive and just start downloading any useful data you can find until you have a library.
Thanks for the great newsletter and thoughtful comments! Have a great rest of your week.
Might be good to buy a large stack of encrypted USB drives.
The folks most in demand will be those that “can do” just about anything. We’ve been laughed at most of our lives, although we do get to hear the occasional “he can fix anything.”
HI Brandon. Your article here is very timely for me. I had been thinking recently about what I would REALLY do if there is a collapse. I don’t have a garden to barter vegs, or many skills at all for that matter. But then I read your article – I was a nursing assistance for many years when I was younger. I can dress a wound, do vitals, and other common tasks. My concern is: in CA (as many other states I am sure), a person needs to be certified by the State to offer home health care. I would have to get around this, particularly because I will never take the vaccine. How would I do this? Just word of mouth? How could I protect myself from someone (including local home health agencies) not ratting me out?
I highly recommend moving to the closest Red county with a conservative sheriff, or get out of CA completely. If you can’t, then I would only offer health services to other unvaccinated people so that there is far less chance of being informed on. Ultimately if you live in a place where they might lock you up for trying to make a living with your medical skills because they won’t allow you to make a living any other way, then you should leave NOW while you still can.
You mentioned that law enforcement will effectively collapse as more and more officers continue to quit as a result of vaccine mandates. I think that would only be true in blue areas. Red areas will still have some semblance of law and order as cops migrate to those areas looking for work. Plus there’s also the militias that’ll start popping up in those areas as things get worse.
Yes, I was referring only to places where they are actually trying to enforce the vaccine mandates. Also, local militias need to make a comeback NOW. This is going to be key to the survival of free places.
Aside from art skills I also know a bit about repairing water and sewer lines from my time working for my city, I’ve got limited knowledge of gunsmithing(mostly just putting them together with premade parts), some rudimentary sewing skills, some knowledge edible plants in my area, some limited farming skills and I do have a bit of carpentry experience(I helped dad build part of our house plus a trailer house for my sister and her family). I’m also going to try to get into blacksmithing sometime soon.
Pick one thing and master it as much as possible, but plan for the possibility that you will have to wear many hats in the new economy. Multiple irons in the fire will keep you afloat.
A body armor manufacturer I follow online(Hoplite Armor) mentioned stockpiling a bunch of their armor plates in anticipation of the supply chain disruptions, particularly in the ceramic they use for their level 3 and 4 plates which is imported from Italy. And there’s reason to assume other armor manufacturers also get their raw materials from imports as well. If we could find a way to make that stuff ourselves domestically without relying on imports that would ease the burden somewhat with armoring up our freedom fighters and community defenders.
I have seen homemade plates that stop pistol rounds pretty effectively. I don’t know about rifle rounds. The homemade stuff I saw was made with woven fiberglass fabrics and resin. I would also point out that placing armor within vehicles might become big business very soon. No one wants a stray bullet from a crime in progress going through their car door and killing them or a family member randomly.
Discussion is now closed on Issue #65. Thanks to all those subscribers who participated. If you missed out on this issue or would like to subscribe to The Wild Bunch Dispatch to receive future issues, visit the subscription page HERE.
Issue #66 will be released on November 7th.
***Posted on an older board, but I reposted it here since it seems like an active comment section***
Hi Brandon, et al. Any advice from anyone would be greatly appreciated.
I’m 32 years-old, former adjunct philosophy instructor at a university, paper published in Journal of Applied Business and Economics in December 2020, specialized in intersection of political philosophy, politics, and economics.
Background to Resignation from University
-2020: university tried to make me wear a mask. I wouldn’t. So, for two semesters they had me doing virtual teaching.
-September 2021: university announced all faculty have to be vaccinated by November.
-Instead of trying to fight through a lawsuit (no standing as a adjunct/contractor anyway), I put that money into finding an apartment in the most red county I could find, far away from that blue city, and resigned. I was a contract employee anyway, so there was no way I way going to win a court battle.
What I’ve done in the last two months:
-stocked up on 4 months worth of canned food (enough to last the winter at least), much of I already had on hand from last spring’s temporary shortages
-resigned from university
-moved from blue Tucson to a small town in red Pinal County where Board of Sups voted against mask mandates last year, locals very conservative and libertarian
-waited 2 months to get an apartment in area where there is almost no housing available
-reached out to local Pinal County GOP leadership, attended two club meetings, district meeting, school board meeting
-met the conservative supervisor of my county district, explained my situation, he said to email my resume and circulate it around, so I did
-changed voter registration from Pima County to Pinal County
-signed up to be precinct committeeman
What I Need Advice On
-I’m new to the area (been here three weeks) and no one knows me. I’ve gone to local GOP meetings and asked people for a job, any job. The problem is, I’m too specialized in reading and writing, no hands-on experience, no trade experience. I want to learn a trade, but I still need to keep food on the table in the meantime. Got my rent/bills/insurance taken care of through November, but after that things will get dicey
-How do I network with fellow conservatives and libertarians, and make myself useful to the cause of liberty? In particular, I want to be employed by conservatives and libertarians, but no one will interview me (yet) since I don’t have backgrounds in electricity, plumbing, etc. where they need assistants, and I understand their viewpoint, they would have to train me knowing nothing about these fields and would prefer to hire someone with a background. Plus, I get that due to inflation, it’s harder for small business owners to find money for hiring
-I just know there has to be some use for my specific narrow skill set of reading and writing, some application of these which could be of service to the people in the place I’ve decided to call home, while I figure what trade to practice. Still, networking outside of academia is new territory for me, and being a city boy isn’t helping me–folks around here are very friendly to me so far, but friendliness alone won’t pay the bills.
-Also, I’ve made clear to those I’ve met that I’m not looking for a handout, just an opportunity to for like-minded people and not for some corporation that doesn’t care about liberty or is trying to suppress it via the globalist agenda.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!
Hi David C.
Welcome to the real world.
You actually have some useful skills, but they’re not necessarily in high demand. Your reading and writing and other communication abilities are actually rather important skills in the real world (no academia) but mostly in the context of communicating about work and things other than what you know about.
I’ve lived at the end of the road all my life. I’m like the country boy in the Hank Williams song. I know what I’m talking about. You have the most important needed quality – a willingness to change and learn new ways.
It’s now six weeks since you posted the above essay, and I’m sure you figured some things out by now. Since you asked for it, here is my advice: decide what you really love to do, even if you’re not very good at it. Then find someone that does whatever it is you love to do really well, and who will put up with you and whom you can tolerate or preferably enjoy being around. Volunteer to help them. Work your ass off for no pay. It’s just very human nature that eventually you will get paid and also learn important skills and find a place. Just remember there’s a reason you have two ears and two eyes and only one mouth.
Good luck,
May the source be with you, always and in all ways.