ECON VIDEO-Living without money after IMF and World bank AUSTERITY sanctions-10yrs later-BARTER

[ainitfunny]

This is an eye opening video of how people are coping in a nation (ARGENTINA) without jobs or access to money....The video SHOWS citizens have taken over abandoned industrial warehouses and several times a week WALK to this impromptu "people's market" bearing what food they could grow in their backyards, fish they caught, something they make, scrounge, or whatever service they can render like haircutting and seamstress, repair or whatever to TRADE for what they need from other people's goods and services. They have printed barter coupons for a money like bartering but they don't make it clear how they avoid counterfeited coupons. Perhaps "street justice" would pound the stuffing out of anyone trying to cheat them like that.
ANYWAY, THIS IS WHERE OUR ECONOMY MAY BE HEADING....It is well worth watching.....And, I have decided that a garage full of used BICYCLES will make you a king in that society as the nation will be too poor to import them from foreign manufacturers and nobody or very very few can afford to keep even an old paid off car on the road they say. Must be VERY VERY high taxation (per mile?) and high taxes on gas and very expensive to license or insure now there. But my God, it is SO bad there EVEN TEN YEARS LATER!!

Notice also, THEY STILL, ten years later, cannot get access to the money they have (had) in the banks and cannot get their automatically deposited paychecks, just a government "allowed" maximum withdrawel (I heard a few years ago that it was maximum $200) per month or week, I cant remember.

GO WATCH AND THINK ABOUT HOW YOU WOULD FIT IN THAT BARTER ECONOMY...http://www.activistpost.com/2011/10/barter-markets-thrive-in-argentina.html

 

[peetar]

America is not Argentina. America is not a third world country. This will not happen here wih the exception of cities like Detroit. There are only a very few cities in this country where this type of thing could happen. The problem is that the residents of said cities don't have enough character to stop killing each other to trade things. This will not be a problem here. They will mostly be dead.

 

[ainitfunny]

America is not Argentina. America is not a third world country. This will not happen here wih the exception of cities like Detroit. There are only a very few cities in this country where this type of thing could happen. The problem is that the residents of said cities don't have enough character to stop killing each other to trade things. This will not be a problem here. They will mostly be dead.

If you think of Argentina as a typical primitive, "native, tribal, undeveloped" third world nation, you are simply ignorant of the facts. In the late 90's their cities were as middle class as any American communities and people with their blackberries, cell phones, computers, engineering degrees, Universities, modern everything, manufacturing, vast, vast cattle ranches and a big export of beef and lots of other stuff. They were no more "third world" than Austria or Canada. And, Detroit is the LAST place in the world I would expect barter FOR MOST CITIZENS to work, you don't know Detroit either.

 

[TerryK]

Peetar, this time I have to disagree with you. Aintitfunny is correct.
Google a guy named Ferfal.
He has made a sucessfull career out of surviving the economic turmoil in Argentina.
His stories are amazing and could teach us a lot.
Here is one link of many http://www.survivalmonkey.com/forum...st-hand-experience-brief-story-argentina.html

Check out what he says about people living in town being safer than people isolated in the country.
Also check out how common day to day kidnapping became.
I first ran across Ferfal on Frugals a long time ago. He is for real.

 

[FarOut]

Peetar, check FerFal's blog at http://ferfal.blogspot.com/ and read his book "Surviving the Economic Collapse" before you make silly statements. Argentina was well on its way to becoming a first-world economic powerhouse until the kleptocrats in their government drained it, then turned it over to the "help" from the IMF. Yes, it could happen here. Good idea, Ainitfunny, but don't forget extra tires and puncture kits.

IMO Detroit won't revert to barter. They'll revert to cannibalism.

 

[FREEBIRD]

Some of the most short-sighted words in the English language are, "It can't happen here."

Pray you don't have to eat those words, because no one in their right mind wants it to get that bad here, AND IT CAN.

And another vote for studying Ferfal's material--been reading him for a long time.

 

[cooter]

very much agree with the idea, but,

when we read article after article of how those employed by the government bunch in this country, who go out of thier way to shut down lemonaid stands, garage sales,any type of commerce, ect in this country, and this is supposed to be a quote free country,
I dont see anything remotely similar to argentina happening,
the powers that be will go out of thier way to stop people from trading like this in the video because they want that control over everyone,
what I think WILL happen I think it would have to be a underground/blackmarket network thats a very low profile type thing to get around our worthless control freaks

 

[peetar]

I specifically said that people in cities like Detroit won't don't have the character to stop killing each other so I'm not sure where you missed that. I have read ferfals blog numerous times over the years. It is linked to hundreds of times here. I'm just not a doomer.
I am constantly browbeaten by those here who call me ignorant or a fool for not seeing the coming destruction of the US so I'm kind of used to it. Just like back in the 90s when those very same folks were telling me that y2k was going to plunge us into a feudal society mad max style. The name of this site is still timebomb 2000 is it not?

I don't think that Argentina is necessarily comparable to the United States. I should clarify by saying it isn't comparable...yet. a whole lot of things are going to need to happen in the US before we approach the road that Argentina has gone down.

I'm not saying it can't happen. That's foolish. I'm saying it won't happen. At least not until we start seeing some very serious shit go down in this country. I think we have a very long...long...long way to go before we become Argentina. To me, it is clear from reading here over the tears that there are some people here who actually want it to happen. Not naming names. Just sayin. Flame on!

 

[peetar]

And to clarify...I never said it can't happen here. I said it won't. Anythinc CAN happen here up to and including an invasion of reptilian aliens from another dimension. We ain't anywhere near that possibility yet either. Unless you count Michelle OBONGO.

 

[prepgirl44]

I'm just not a doomer.
I am constantly browbeaten by those here who call me ignorant or a fool for not seeing the coming destruction of the US so I'm kind of used to it. Just like back in the 90s when those very same folks were telling me that y2k was going to plunge us into a feudal society mad max style. The name of this site is still timebomb 2000 is it not?

peetar,
So if you are not a doomer and you feel you are browbeaten by doomer folks on a site that continues to use a name that reflects the disaster that was averted in our computer driven just in time inventoried fragile electrical grid society, then why do you spend time here?

I mean after all, its a doomer board with a name that spells doom and suggests how to prepare to best weather the doom situation, right?

Just curious...

 

[peetar]

Mainly because the site is a great news aggregrator. It's very easy to catch up on news and prepping here. You don't have to be a doomer to prep and learn about homesteading. Do you?

 

[prepgirl44]

Good video and good reminder that any time times get tough, folks will barter for needed goods and services. It happened a lot in this country during Great Depression I, and it is happening again now, already....and we ain't even close to how bad its gonna get.

Where I live (rural -- a small mountain community at the edge of a valley farming community) barter is already a way of life. While we certainly do use money, many of the folks around here (the old timers especially) prefer barter as it keeps uncle sam out of the picture. Folks around here trade labor for goods or labor for labor or goods for goods all the time.

For instance among other things, I trade veggies for eggs in the summer and bread for eggs in the winter, herbal preps for massage, and tailoring and hand work for various goods and services, especially for tasks of a particular heavy nature I no longer have the strength to perform myself. I also trade my medical skills for whatever goods and services people have to offer.

I got a new roof on my place in trade for an old travel trailer. Last year I got 3 cords of wood for a semester of 2 hours/week of tutoring in science and I scored a new (to me) Mantis rototiller for 6 tie dyed garments and 6 pints of jam. I also scored about 200 pounds of rice from a rice farmer for case management services for his dear elderly mother and a truck for the same services with another farmers grandmother. This year I am getting 3 cords of wood cut from my neighbors land (cut, split, and even stacked!) for taking care of their animals when they are out of town on business (they are only gone for a couple weeks at a time 4 or 5 times a year). And today I am rotilling a friends fall/winter garden in exchange for help with building a chicken coop next spring. Oh, and I get the hides (tanned) and a fourth of the meat in trade for just canning the meat when my friend bags a deer...been doing that one for years. I eat the meat of course but I can also use the hides to produce goods I can then trade for something else. It works.

What I have noticed is that the tendency to barter has increased significantly around here in the last few years, even among the city folks who have moved here, as economic conditions have taken away folks ability to just go out and easily lay down some greenbacks without thinking twice. While I have always bartered, more mainstream folks are now starting to do so too at least in my AO. It is an art, so I would suggests folks start trying their hand at it now, before it does become the necessary way of life (and of survivial).

Barter will always provide a way to go...it has always done so in every society. I'm not sure I would want to tie up my cash or my garage space with housing a couple hundred bicycles as, at least for me, that would be limiting my opportunities. Rather I think that storing up varied skills and abilities is the most versatile barter ticket I can possess.