Family Fortunes: How to Build Wealth and Hold on to It for 100 Years; Bill Bonner

[chenda]

funny story, my wife just got off the phone with her mom. she caught up with all the gossip, which was mostly about hillbily relative shenanigans. one damn disaster after another.

You must have some interesting stories

[Alphaville]

You must have some interesting stories

yyyeah... you develop a dark sense of humor to cope with the constant tragedy and loss. endless, pointless, absurd, avoidable crime and catastrophe. death, disease, destruction... non-stop.

i'm serious--if you can't laugh at it you go crazy.

so we laughed a lot yesterday

but yeah, glad we no longer live there. ok to visit but can't get ahead due to social network.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality

[Qazwer]

Speaking of crab mentality and preparing for extreme events - what people tend to underestimate is that you are more likely to be shot and robbed by someone you know (proximity) than some faceless other - they know how many toys you got - where you store them etc
they are more likely to have a personal negative outcome
Not saying to not consider the other but the similar is usually a higher chance given repeated interactions

[Alphaville]

robbed by someone you know? sure.

social capital comes as both assets... and liabilities

[Qazwer]

So I can not go into a community built up over years and spend a lot quickly and expect everyone to love and protect me when the hordes arrive (if I am still alive by then)

Likewise I cannot go into NYC with a Crocodile Dundee sized knife and a 12 inch wallet sticking out of my back pocket

I cannot buy a passport because then I have to deal with the potentially rules of whatever country I am going to live in

I need depth of knowledge and networks in whatever community that I will get involved in.

So all I need now is perfect knowledge of the next 100 years of geopolitics to make the exactly correct prediction - it sounds easy to do what the OP book states

[Hristo Botev]

I may have lost the thread of this topic, but what I took from the book mainly was to simply "hedge" your bets in as many ways as possible, including both rural/urban and US/international. Interesting that I recently saw on the author's diary that his ranch in Argentina may very well get taken over by "originarios" in the very near future (https://www.rogueeconomics.com/bill-bon ... ui-valley/). I don't know whether or not that fact proves or disproves the author's particular manner in which he proposes hedging your bets; BUT, it's certainly an example in my mind of how a rich man's "prepper" plan of dumping a bunch of money buying land in some place you don't otherwise have any roots can backfire in a whole lot of different ways. From a resiliency standpoint, I can't help but think that for the non multi-millionaire, if resiliency and self-preservation for you and your family is your ultimate goal, you're almost certainly better off taking the JMG/CHS approach and just investing in a good bit of skill development and social capital/community-building wherever it is you already have some roots.

ETA: Actually, my MAIN takeaway from the book, and one that I see a whole lot of value in, is that the best resiliency and independence-y you're likely to muster is in the form of strong family bonds, with the "family office" and/or "family stronghold" being a means by which those bonds can be maintained and strengthened over generations--BUT ALSO with a warning that both the office and the stronghold can easily be the means by which the family bonds are torn apart.

[Qazwer]

The read I am getting of this is the same I think. Hedging your bets unless you do so at a level that they are no longer a relatively cheap hedge (even if really rich) is actually a way to increase risk - not decrease risk.
Any useful hedge required deep knowledge of the issue which by definition cannot be a simple hedge. Furthermore, that knowledge cannot be static and requires frequent updating.

There is also issues with using skills as a hedge though (not in scope of this thread but parallel). How do you know what skills will be useful in the future?

[Hristo Botev]

There is also issues with using skills as a hedge though (not in scope of this thread but parallel). How do you know what skills will be useful in the future?

JMG has a lot to say on that in The Long Descent, and I imagine CHS does as well in Survival+, which is still on my "to-read" list. I certainly don't know the answer, but for me so far it's just a very slow process of getting out of the specialist mindset to de-mystify things that I'd previously seen as "magical" or at least really complex. E.g., I don't need 10 kinds of cleaners in my house (and, honestly, I don't really need to clean my house as much or to the extent that I'd previously thought); simplifying diet and cooking; and generally just developing whatever "skills" are needed to be less of a consumer and more of a producer.

ETA: In just about every version of an answer to this question I've come across, the skill to brew alcoholic beverages is pretty high on the list of useful skills, because even if you don't drink yourself, if we're looking at a situation where there are some significant and more-than-temporary disruptions to the supply chain, having the skill to turn whatever is available into something that will get your neighbors (or your invaders!) drunk will pay dividends and keep your head from being chopped off. E.g., here are 2 people I think would be pretty useful to have around in a SHTF scenario: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCntxIE ... bWG-BCApeQ and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCatCie ... eKXzBomVMQ

[jacob]

ETA: In just about every version of an answer to this question I've come across, the skill to brew alcoholic beverages is pretty high on the list of useful skills, because even if you don't drink yourself, if we're looking at a situation where there are some significant and more-than-temporary disruptions to the supply chain, having the skill to turn whatever is available into something that will get your neighbors (or your invaders!) drunk will pay dividends and keep your head from being chopped off.

When TSHTF I foresee there are going to be so many hipster beer brewers around that they will make up their entire own category of zombies walking around going "Yeeeast .... Yeeeast!"

[chenda]

Being the leader of a doomsday cult would be another strategy. The end is nigh!(ish)

[Hristo Botev]

Oh, God help us.

@Lemur just posted a video referencing this article https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/, which gives a pretty good idea as to what sorts of "skills" (or at least "jobs") we might actually value should SHTF.

[Alphaville]

Interesting that I recently saw on the author's diary that his ranch in Argentina may very well get taken over by "originarios" in the very near future (https://www.rogueeconomics.com/bill-bon ... ui-valley/).

argentina has been a shitshow for a long time now. on and off since perón. between populists, fascists, leftists, army generals, and "liberal" corruptocrats (carlos menem died just the other day), their economy is in a death spiral, and continues to be ransacked by whoever gets a chance.

he though his land was safe there? and left a lawyer in charge? if the peasants don't take it, it will be the lawyer. lol gringos.

btw this sort of foreign capitalist absentee landlord making use of police violence to protect "his" land is precisely what feeds into nativist commie narratives.

[chenda]

Yes it's quite tragic really what happened to Argentina. It was once one of the richest countries in the world. Circa 1900, Buenos Aires was considered the New York of the southern hemisphere. It's like it became cursed into a irreversible state of decline.

[7Wannabe5]

How is owning stock any different from being an absentee landlord? All property rights are protected by police violence at some level.

[Alphaville]

It's like it became cursed into a irreversible state of decline.

maybe the karma police got them for exterminating the indians and killing so much beef

lol, anyway, argentina has always had a history of violence and elitism vs populism. part of their problem being so "european" was they didn't have a good integration with the local cultures. they brough immigrants from europe with the view to turn their country into a mirror of north america. but what they never got was democracy.

[Alphaville]

How is owning stock any different from being an absentee landlord? All property rights are protected by police violence at some level.

well, an absentee landlord in a different culture, where property rights may be defined in a different fashion, requiring different social relations.

ask emiliano zapata (although he was mexican).

[Qazwer]

Two issues with prediction over a century
- 1900 there were 3 major up and coming economies - US, Russia and Argentina - only one has had a positive economic return from an investment made in 1900 (future is hard to predict)

Problem with skill selection in the future. Every dystopian future has an equal and opposite dystopia. Instead of roaming gangs from law breakdown - there could be increased technology and integration of the society with increasing need for value add then - add in head tax of some form - I could probably buy better beer than you can make as a hobby (increased returns to specialization) and fixing a car today without a computer is a lot different than fixing a car in 1950 / increased need for specialized skills and technology or trade able skills valued in a society with increased technology

I cannot predict the dystopia or where it will be

[Alphaville]

I cannot predict the dystopia or where it will be

but what shall we do with all the argumenta ad paranoia whereby every terrible thing one can imagine must come true by virtue of being terrible?

[chenda]

maybe the karma police got them for exterminating the indians and killing so much beef :twisted

Ha, I believe the Dalai Lama has suggested Tibet's subjugation by China was karmic punishment for running a slave owning theocracy well into the twentieth century.

Though Argentina might have be a climate refuge in a warming world. Just needs a Lee Kuan Yew type to whip the country into shape then it might thrive again.

[Qazwer]

I really like argumenta ad paranoia

The problem is signal to noise. Some form of most dystopias I can think of have happened in some point in history. You got the Buffy song Once More with Feeling with that great riff on evil bunnies . You laugh until you think about the history of rabbits and Australia