ESSAY ON STORAGE FOOD

I first heard about storage food in 1978 when I met newsletter writer Howard Ruff.  Back then I pursued Howard to recommend my company for gold and silver.  He was just starting as a financial advisor and writer.  Eventually Howard had one of the best selling financial books of all time.  His endorsement put Investment Rarities in the big leagues of coin and bullion companies.  In 1980 our sales exceeded $500 million.

Howard lived in the bay area of California.  One summer I drove to the west coast with my family to visit Howard and his family.   The first evening he took me to a “fireside” which was a prayer meeting at the local Mormon temple.  Howard gave a talk and I remember him mentioning the need to have a food supply on hand.  Mormons believe in having six months of food available.

Subsequently, I decided to buy a supply of freeze dried storage food.  A shipment of boxes containing large vacuum sealed cans came to my home.  I piled them up in a corner of the basement utility room.  Twenty-five years later I threw them all out.  We never tried to eat any and after that many years who would want to try?  I never really believed my family would have to rely on storage food.  I bought it more as a lark.

Over the last year or two I revisited the idea of having storage food on hand.  I asked myself is there a possibility that a breakdown could occur in the retail grocery system?  In previous hyperinflations certain countries experienced food shortages.  Incessant money printing of the kind experienced in the U.S. ultimately leads to an inflationary crisis.  If the money loses value quickly there comes a time when it is shunned.  That’s when transportation breaks down.  With that thought in mind, I ordered enough freeze dried storage food to last my wife and I a week.

Then I got to thinking what would happen if the government no longer had the money to send out payments.  What would happen if the dollar went down so far the welfare checks bounced?  We’ve seen our cities burn a few times in the past.  Major riots could severely interrupt the food delivery system.  The big stores could be looted.  I decided to add more storage food.

I also remembered reading about how the grocery stores were emptied out prior to a hurricane in Florida.  What would happen in a financial panic?  Would the panic spread and empty out the stores?  It wouldn’t take much concentrated buying before the shelves would be empty.

So few people contemplate the possibility of these events it makes me wonder if it’s just paranoia on my part.  A group that’s least worried are my kids and grandkids.  They’d be out of groceries in a few days.  When we tallied up our storage food there wasn’t going to be enough for them.  However, if your kids were hungry you would have to share with them until the food was gone.  That’s when I came across a huge pack of storage food at Costco.  Each case had enough food for two people for 30 days.  It was good for 30 years.  I bought a bunch of them.  I’ll probably buy more because we’re getting more grandkids.

I won’t be here in 30 years to throw it out and I hope it never gets used.  Perhaps it’s unnecessary.  However, when you read the history of the 20th century it makes you wonder.  Here in America we’ve had a great run of prosperity and safety.  Nevertheless, while our entrepreneurs flourished, millions of business people, farmers and capitalists in Russia and China got a bullet in the back of the head.  While our families had the best of all worlds, 3.5 million Polish Jews and their tight-knit little families lived in terror while waiting to be murdered.  Che Guevara once said,”…the revolutionary must become an efficient and selective killing machine.”  A lot of people in America glorify Che and hang his picture on the wall.  The worst atrocities come from the “true believers,” and we have our share.  How would you like to have government liberals determining who gets the groceries?