I finished reading The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse by Fernando “Ferfal” Aguirre. He runs the Surviving in Argentina Blog (I don’t know him personally, just giving credit.)
An economic collapse is one our our fears; this is a book written by someone who has already experienced it. Argentina, a once prosperous country, went through its economic collapse in 2001 and it has never been the same since. Mr. Aguirre describes in detail the aftermath of the collapse: food and water shortages, frequent power outages, and above all, a large increase in crime. He describes the mindset that he has adopted to survive and learn to thrive in this situation. It is interesting to see that life does go on, but in a much altered state.
I found it interesting that the author disagrees with the idea of having a remote retreat location in the event of a collapse. In his country, those living in isolated areas are more vulnerable to becoming victims of crime. He lives in the suburbs and indicates that being well prepared with a good mindset, you would actually be better off than if you were in a remote location. This actually gives me hope that in spite of the ensuing troubles, if an economic collapse were to occur we will be just fine as long as we are well stocked and mentally prepared. What I do wonder about is, while Argentina underwent an economic collapse, they fortunately did not have a complete societal collapse. If a societal collapse were to occur, I would think staying in or near a city would be disastrous.
Could a similar thing happen here? If can. After all, The Great Depression already happened once. Lots of other countries are interdependent with the U.S., a collapse in the U.S. would have more far reaching consequences.
I thought the book had a lot of good tips, and made a lot of sense. Because of their high crime rate, he discussed self defense, knives, guns at great length. He also made a lot of good points on the mindset that has helped him survive all the turmoil. All in all, I would recommend the book to anyone who is worried about an economic collapse as the book provides a vivid account and good perspective.
I was just looking at this book. I want to buy it and give it a read. Unfortunately, I have about three to read before that one. I am particularly interested in the bit of the book around living in the suburbs and not having a remote BOL. I am sure I will have some commentary on that 😉
I occasionally use a guy from Argentina to do some tech work for me on a server I have. I can tell you that the Argentinian Peso is roughly worth four times less than the US dollar. He charges me 35 Pesos (dollars) per hour which comes to about $7.85 US per hour. I routinely double pay him because he is so responsive, professional, etc.
Just got my hands on an advanced copy of Les Stroud’s new book. I’ll keep you in the loop about that one too…
Look forward to your review of Les Stroud’s book. I read his Survive! book and it has a lot of good information.