Gyprat -

Thank you for your time. You should write a book about your experiences. I would buy it.

I may have missed it, but you mentioned the barter power of alcohol. During your experiences, was there an explosion of drug use? Cocaine? Heroin? Croc?

If yes, how did it affect the daily lives of the people and society around you? If not, then why? Cultural? Economical? Logistics?

You really should write out your experiences like FerFal has. I would purchase it when completed if it was detailed and offered realistic planning recommendations.

I worked with a guy named Azar from Moscow some months ago. He fled the USSR when he saw the writing on the wall. I found his insights about it fascinating.

I've heard a few stories from old village ladies being hidden in the woods until the russians passed through to hungary. It is sad to hear old ladies talk about rape.  They looted anything they could carry and raped most all the women they could find.  They had not love for Russians as it was and that cemented the hate for generations.  What saved the villagers was having more food than they could carry and being creative with alternate sources.  The soldiers who passed through their area were lighty motorized.

Write a book? You must be kidding! Writing expository is not something I'm good at. LOL.

Alcohol was what people drank to get drunk. I'm sure drugs were there but I have never seen anyone using any or trying to sell it. Drugs were not in any movies or TV programs.
I've heard drugs became more popular towards the late 90's and into 2000's, way after I left the country. Honestly, I have never seen anyone in school using drugs or even talking about them. The bad guys (bullies) smoked while hiding behind the school but this is about as bad as it got back then. I hear it's different now but I can't comment about it.

Besides gold, the U.S. Govt did confiscate silver so as to get the metal for coinage. Under the NDAA '12 the govt can confiscate anything it wants if there is a declared emergency of a military nature.  

Gyprat - during the hyperinflation in Russia did people dump their rubles as fast as they could?  Did you experience deflation with some tangibles (non essential items) going cheap so as to obtain food?

Merry Christmas y'all!
Just a few words about Christmas in the USSR/Russia.
When I grew up, I did not really know what Christmas was all about. Religion was not a part of life for 99% of the population in the USSR. There was no freedom of religion. Religion was banned from the society. There were several old Orthodox churches in the City I grew up in, but very few people attended the services. Most attendants were old ladies. There were rumors that some Orthodox preachers were KGB informants. Maybe it was a scare tactic but it worked. We were warned in school that we would be in a lot of trouble if someone sees any of us attending a church.

The only churches that were allowed to keep doors open were old Orthodox churches. Any other religion was against the law. If any of you guys have never visited an Orthodox church, you would find it very different to what many in this country are used to. It's a lot like a Greek Orthodox church but there are some distinct differences. I don't want to get into the details as this information can be easily found on the internet.

Christmas was never celebrated when I grew up and it was not considered a holiday. It is celebrated in Russia nowadays. Orthodox is a dominant religion in Russia. Orthodox Christmas is celebrated on January 7th and it is now considered as an official holiday. These days, New Year and Christmas holidays, usually start on January 1st and last through January 11th. Most businesses, plants and schools are closed for the duration. Most people are given paid time off for the duration of the holidays, just like in many European countries.
Christmas is considered a religious holiday, like Easter. Many people go to church and celebrate Christmas at home. It's not considered as the biggest family holiday and it's not as commercialized as it is here in the US.
New Year is and has always been the #1 celebrated holiday in Russia. Families and friends get together, exchange gifts and have lots of food, drinks and sing songs or watch a special New Year's TV show.
Kids are visited by Santa Claus on New Year's eve. Actually Santa is called - Ded Moroz (Grandpa Frost). He is always accompanied by a Snegurochka (Snow Girl) who is considered a Santa's granddaughter. This tradition has the same Pagan roots as the Santa Claus in western culture.
There are no Christmas Trees either. People put up and dress up a New Year's tree. Same thing as Christmas (pine) Tree basically. New Year's trees are usually put up and decorated towards the end of December.

Back when I grew up, New Year was the holiday to remember. It was the most important holiday. Many people preferred to celebrate it at home with family and/or friends. I loved New Years when I was a kid. We usually assembled an artificial New Year's tree on December 30th. My parents tried to save money all year long so we could afford some delicacies like meat, fish, fresh tangerines, fresh imported cucumbers and maybe even a few ounces of black or red caviar. It was nice to get New Year's gifts but for me it was the food that made New Year's celebration so special. We never really starved but we could not afford to eat what we wanted either. I remember dreaming about eating fresh, fried meat or fresh fruits at New Year's celebrations. This made New Year so special.
How did we get the fresh food since there was very little in stores? We bought some at a black market and some in Moscow. The city we lived in (Tula) was about 100 miles south of Moscow. Moscow, being the capital, always got much, much better food availability and selection than any other city in the country. Most government officials lived in Moscow and obviously they made sure that their city was supplied better than anywhere else. They also wanted to show off to some foreigners who visited the capital, just like they do it in North Korea nowadays. LOL.
Anyway, we saved money and once in a while we drove our car to Moscow and returned with a trunk full of groceries. Many people who had no cars, took buses and trains to Moscow and brought back huge bags full of food. There was a joke: What is long, green and smells like sausage? It's a train heading from Moscow! LOL.  Many Moscow natives hated us and often referred to us as second class citizens, since we did not live in Moscow but came over to take their privileged share of food. They considered themselves as the privileged ones. Moscovites were not liked elsewhere in the country for the same reason.
My parents always wrote an excuse note to my and my sister's school and they took us to Moscow with them. There was a reason for that. Many food items sold in grocery stores, were limited to a certain amount per person. Often, we had to stay in line for an hour or two to get meat items and they were only selling 1 kilogram (2 lbs) per person. So, four of us could get 4 kilograms and be on our way to another store to do it all over again, until we were out of money and the trunk was full. Usually on the way home, we stopped to take a break and my parents pulled out some meat sausage and bread and made us some sandwiches. This was a special treat, especially with a bottle of REAL Pepsi cola (yammy!). I can still smell and taste it. It was that special to us and the time spent driving to Moscow and standing in lines all days long, seemed like it was well worth it.

The rest of the food was obtained at a black market. This is where many food items were available but for a very high price. Like I said, we could only afford it on special occasions. There were fresh fruits, veggies, meat but at astronomical (for us) prices. People bought it in small amounts, often for sick kids or someone who is in a hospital. Usually we hardly ever ate fresh produce in winter time. We did have canned fruits and vegetables but the nutritional value was not nearly as good as if it was fresh. The winter food was definitely lacking vitamins. There was even a common health condition that was common in late winter through spring, caused by lack of vitamins. Many people, especially kids often felt sick and tired right around late February through late April. Obviously, many parents would skip a meal or two, save some money and go the black market and get some fresh fruits for their kids.

This is how life was before the collapse. It got a lot worse in the late 80's through early 90's. Some people who could not adapt, literally starved. Store shelves were empty. I remember one time in 1989, my friend (who worked for me) and I were working all day on welding a car body. It was getting about dinner time and we had nothing to eat. So we decided to take my car and go find something to eat. We drove to most major grocery stores and there was no food available. One store had bottled vinegar on the shelves and nothing else. They had some cookies, sugar and butter but it was sold by food coupons only. We did not have any with us. Coupons were given to each family on per month basis only, so the could ration food. Anyway, we drove all over the place and managed to get some bread only. We could not find any gasoline either. What a day. So we get back to the garage and there was a guy waiting for us. He needed a seat bracket fixed in his car. It was getting late and I told him to come back the next day but he really needed it done "today". We asked him if he had any food. He went home and came back with canned meat, fried potatoes and a small bottle of vodka. LOL. We fixed his seat and I even adjusted his carburator, for free. We ate the food and split the vodka. The day was not that bad after all.

Wow. Such a polarized difference from my own privileged life here in the states. I've heard you say that people needed to 'adapt' to survive but I'm having some trouble exactly understanding your meaning. Do you refer to the change in mechanisms that people acquired food and other vital goods? For example how you bartered car services for food in your last post? Perhaps a person who was reluctant to adapt would just wait for the shelves to become restocked until he starved?

Another thing I have been wondering about... Were the social classes very obvious? Was the difference between the upper class and lower classes distinct? You've suggested several times that you felt your family was closer to the middle class (not rich but not dirt poor either) how uncommon was that -to be in the middle class- in a situation were more people existed on more extreme ends of the economic spectrum.

Keep writing! I would seriously buy your book, and as long as we are talking about books do you have any suggested reading for firsthand accounts of the soviet collapse such as yours? I don't care what an American "scholar" thinks. I love the firsthand accounts of reality.

People needed to adapt to new conditions in order to survive and thrive. Say, you are a rocket scientist who is very smart and good at designing propulsion systems. All of the sudden the economy crashes and no one needs your expertise anymore. You can sit on your butt and wait for someone to come over, change everything and give you your job back. You can sit, complain and wait for a miracle or you find out what jobs are currently in demand, swallow your pride and begin doing a job that people are willing to pay for. This is what happened to many people after the collapse. College professors were selling vegetables at the market. Rocket scientists learned to raise chickens and sold chicken meat at the market. Engineers were selling bubble gum, cigarettes and underwear garments in small privately owned kiosks that were on every corner. Many ex-military and police officers turned into bandits and racketeers who provided protection (from themselves) to business owners.
It's hard for someone who lives here in the US to understand the full extent of the collapse of the USSR. It was not just the economy that collapsed. It was a collapse of all moral norms in the society and the fabric of what the country was built on. The old system seized to exist but the new system has not evolved yet.
I found that my automotive skills were in demand and made good money doing that. Was it the best I could do? Probably not but it was relatively safe and not as risky as some business endeavors some of my friends got involved with. One of my friends started a small business, building locks and business security systems. It has grown into a huge business. Crime was getting worse by the day. Armed robberies became a new norm. People no longer trusted wooden entry doors with regular locks. My friend's company built new, hardened metal doors, locks and hinges that guaranteed to turn your apartment into a fortress. The doors were bullet resistant and guaranteed to stop a 7.62mm AKM round fired at a close range. The locks were also hardened and could not be picked or cut with a saw or a torch. This was necessary in the new reality and people were willing to pay good money for it.
Another friend had a retail business. He had several stores in the city and made lots of money. One time he was robbed while making a large merchandise purchase for his store. He lost over $100,000. It was a lot of money back then. His private creditors demanded money that he did not have. The creditors hired bandits to recover the money. My friend was abducted and his family was given a week to come up with the money or he was to be killed. I don't know the whole story but he somehow managed to get the money and he was not hurt badly. He got into a different business endeavor and lost his money again when the 1998 Ruble Default happened.

As far as being a middle class in the society. Technically, before the collapse, everyone was equal. It just happened that some were more equal than the others. There were no distinctive classes in the society. Everyone was employed. Most people pretended to work and the government pretended to pay them. It was illegal to be without a job unless you were disabled. Women got 6 month paid leave when they got pregnant and 2 years of paid leave after they had a baby. daycare was free. Medicine was free for everyone. many people were given free apartments to live in by the government (there was a huge waiting list). There was no huge difference in wages either. It was not a lot. Some people simply managed their money better than others and had connections to obtain things that were not available to an average Joe. People who were in the government received a lot more official and unofficial "benefits". Obviously they were a lot better off than a simple engineer. Those who were considered "dirt poor", usually had a drinking problem and wasted most of their money for alcohol.
You may think life was good before the collapse since a lot of things were free. It was not. People had to wait for many years to get a place to live in. Many who were in their 40's and married with children, still lived with their parents. We had to give bribes to doctors and nurses to get help in a hospital. There was a shortage on everything. Even those who saved money for a car, could not simply go to a store and buy a new car. They had to wait for many years for a "privilege" to buy a new car. Used cars were often "unofficially" sold by private individuals for a lot more than the government set price of a new car. Same thing was with everything else. Those who had connections, could get things without having to wait forever. It's hard for you to understand but this was the reality of living in a socialist country with a communist government.

I remember back in the late '90s there was a US Gov't program in the US to find productive "collaborations" with Russian engineers who formerly may have worked on nukes or other weapons. At the time, we could get a Russian PhD with 10 yrs experience working on a problem for us for about $30k/yr, roughly 1/4 of what the same level of experience would have cost us here in the US. Not real sure how successful that program was. I often wonder what a lot of US engineers would do if they were suddenly unemployed on a massive scale.

US was not the only country who offered jobs that paid a lot more than $30,000 per year to experienced professionals. Technically people who worked for defense industry or any other classified industry, were no allowed to leave the country for at least 5 years after they terminate their employment. After the collapse money could buy anything. I would not be surprised if they gave a bribe and were permitted to leave the country.
I have met a lot of Russian expats who got high paying jobs in aviation industry, here in the US. Many work for NASA too. I'm sure many got jobs working for the US defense companies as well.

Would you mind sharing your story of immigration to the US?

I worked in Northern Russia and the Komi Republic in '93-'95 and can vouch for the climate we entered going into Russia at that time.  We heard stories from the Russians we employed that they could go 6 months or more without being paid.  Pensions were wiped out when the Ruble went from near parity with the US $ to 5,000 to $1.  

With typical Russian black humor my interpreters informed me that there is a Russian curse that goes, to wit, "... may you only have your salary to live on..." They explained that everyone had other "jobs" mostly underground and black market.  In regards to the black market, these were run by the local mayors.  Anyone with authority sold access and influence.  If you wanted to buy a gun, you sought out a policeman...  Black market territorial disputes were settled with grenades rolled under cars (happened when we were in Usinsk).

Dimitry Orlov wrote a book about the Russian collapse and posited that we in the US are far more vulnerable than Russia was because the inefficiency of the Soviet system forced common people to find other ways to get by therefore there was a shadow economy to fall back on that we haven't bad (except maybe for drugs.)

+1

Gyprat is a cool guy

I've talked with him on HF radio a few times

interesting stuff

Yea, that "curse" phrase was from a well known comedy. This was a reality for many. Technically any private enterprise was illegal. everything was state owned or how we were taught in school - "Everything belongs to the people". We used to jokingly say - "Is this yours? - No. It ain't mine either, so I don't give a sh*t!". This was pretty much the commonly accepted attitude of many workers in factories, collective farms and many other government owned businesses. Nobody cared about doing their jobs well because it all paid the same. "Only fools work hard" - was another common phrase.

Some did care about their jobs, simply because they did have a personal interest. Say, for example, you work at a grocery store as a store manager. You do get paid but it's not enough to cover your lifestyle. Fortunately you have access to food that comes from distribution centers. There was a shortage of everything, especially food. Food is what you have control of as a store manager. You get 500 lbs of meat to be sold. You choose the worst cuts that amount to 200 lbs and put them out on the shelves but you keep the best pieces for your buddies (a.k.a - "your business connections"). You do your buddies a favor by selling them the meat. Technically you did not steal the meat. It was sold and the money was received. You also kept some of the best meat for yourself and your cousin sold it at the black market for triple the price. You split the money and everyone is happy.
What if you want to buy a new color TV that everyone wants but they are hard to find. One of your buddies works as a store manager that sells electronics. He just received a dozen of color TVs, sold 5 to the lucky buyers and kept the rest in the back room for his buddies (connections). You helped hih with food and he helps you to buy a new TV. Done deal. He sells a few TVs at a black market and makes some "illegally earned" money too. Same thing goes with everything else too. This is how the system worked.
Want to know how I bought my motorcycle? I always wanted that particular dual-sport model but they were nearly impossible to buy at a store. I knew I needed to pay more and to give a bribe to get one. So I went to the distribution center, where they had several bikes of that model. The bad part was that I did not know anyone who worked there. I talked to a forklift driver and offered a bottle of vodka if he connected me to a person who could help me buy a bike. He asked for two bottles, took me to the manager and introduced me as one of his relatives, His manager took 50 rubles bribe and connected me to a store manager who also took a bribe and did all the paperwork for me. I paid 580 rubles for the bike and the forklift driver brought the bike (in the crate) through the back gate, sat it down and left. 2 hours later I assembled the bike, got it started and rode it home.  I got the bike I wanted, both managers made some extra money and the forklift driver got drunk without taking money from his family's budget. Russian business at it's best. LOL.
Stealing from government owned businesses was very common too. People did not even call it - stealing but rather considered it as "french benefits". This is how many items made it's way to the black market. You can call it a shadow economy but I would rather call it a "shadow wealth distribution".
Many shortages were caused by the stagnated and inflexible economy but a lot of shortages were created artificially, so people who were involved in manufacturing and distribution (on all levels) could covertly make an additional income that often far exceeded their official wages.
This is how things worked before the collapse. It was rotten, stagnated, inefficient and very corrupt. This is what initiated the Gorbachev's attempt to rebuild the system (Perestroika = rebuilding) and later the collapse of the USSR.
I hope the real life examples paint a better picture of what life was like back then. I could use more generalized terms and conclusions but you can probably read about it in books or saw it on TV.

Your description of how the process worked takes me back to evenings after work sitting in an apartment drinking vodka with and talking to the interpreters.  Several were elderly, very well educated, even former party members and had no business working north of the Arctic circle in the conditions we were experiencing.  But, they had lost everything in the devaluation.

I remember the interpreters laughing and saying that, "it is not stealing, no one can own anything, just reappropriating..."

Another popular story they told me concerned the monetary reforms.  I'll be brief, Yeltsin visited a ball bearing factory and asked a worker there how his life improved after the reforms... The worker answered he noticed  no difference.  When Yeltsin tried to explain everything he had done for the economy, the worker stopped him and replied, "3 years ago a bottle of vodka cost 3 ball bearings.  Today, a bottle of vodka still costs 3 ball bearings!"

Thank you for sharing your insight, it is difficult for those who have only lived in societies where most institutions basically work, to comprehend the difficulty of day to day life in dysfunctional or collapsing economies.  I went from Russia to Venezuela and was there during the rise of Chavez.  I greatly appreciate your insight, that of FerFAL, and others who can warn others and help them to understand what can happen once the thin veneer of civilization ruptures.

Dmitri Orlov's books was mentioned and I've read a couple of them.  I believe he has a blogsite too.



I read in von Luck's book that such losses were written off as "counter-revolutionary sabotage."  Thanks for sharing your motorcycle buying experience with us.

Can you comment on the rise of the oligarchs?  I understand many received western funding to buy up shares of factories or other properties.

Gyprat,

  what did you think about the US during the cold war ?

what did you think when you arrived here ?

what do you think about the direction this country is going ?

thanks

Cold war? We were told that Americans hate us and want to attack us. The capitalists sleep and dream about dropping a nuclear bom b on us, Thankfully the all mighty communist party leaders take care of us and will never allow it to happen. We were also told that food shortages were caused by lack of resources because most of the resources were spent on military and defense industry.
I never believed any of that BS. My dad explained it to me at an early age. We were being lied to by the communist propaganda machine. They tried to brainwash us in school but very few really paid attention to all the BS.
Our history teacher was a dieheart communist. I once argued with her about the lies that the communist party was feeding us. After severla minutes and several arguments she had no answer to, her face got red and she started screaming at me, calling me a politically incorrect shithead. I had to go to the principal's office and hear the same thing again. They called my parents too. That day my day said - " You and I know that they were full of shit but try not to argue with them. Arguing will only get you in trouble. Just keep it to yourself and try to blend in"  
People were afraid to say something wrong or politically incorrect. This was in the early 80's and the political correctness was not enforced like it was in the 1930's where an anonymous letter to KGB could get you a one way ticket to Siberia.
I also often listened to the Voice Of America radio station that broadcast programs from New York, in Russian language on shortwave bands. Usually the KGB blocked their signal by transmitting a high power interference noise on the frequency (we called it - KGB Jazz). My dad and I had a good directional antenna that allowed us to listen to the programs and even record it. I later tried to rebroadcast it on both "AM" and "FM" bands but almost got caught. LOL. I laugh about it now but I could have been in serious trouble back then.
Back to the Cold war. Besides the Caribbean crisis, the Cold War paranoia reached another peak in the early 80's, when Andropov was the leader, after Brezhnev's death. He was the KGB leader prior to that. You know what they say - "If you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail to you". He was seeing spies everywhere and had sent spies everywhere he could. All we saw and heard on TV was that a nuclear war with the US was imminent. Actually many people don't realize how close we got to a war in 1983 ( I think), when soviet satellites detected a nuclear launch from the US. It was one lower ranked military officer who doubted the data accuracy and decided to wait. He could have followed the rules and initiated the launch of the whole nuclear arsenal. It was later determined it was a false alarm. He literally saved the whole Northern hemisphere from total destruction. Back then, both USSR and USA had a huge arsenal of very high power nukes. Scary, isn't it?
The bottom line is that no one wanted war. Wars are started by politicians with the help of misinformation propaganda. Russian politicians lied, American politicians lied. This is what they are good at.
What's happening is Russia today, scares me a lot. You'd think people should have learned their lessons but unfortunately many people act and think like sheep. They are being brainwashed again and many believe what they are hearing. Their media blames the west and particullary the US for all their problems. They call US and the Western Europeans  -  fascists, while they fail to notice the fascists sitting in Kremlin. Putin is portrayed as the hero, the savior of the world. The propaganda machine is going at full speed. They even created a propaganda center that broadcasts it's news in perfect English. They are all over the internet, known as RT channel. You see, a good lie consists of 99% of truth. There is also a technique called a selective news biased towards their agenda. All they need to do is concentrate on digging up and reporting only the negative news.

The media here in the US is not far behind the Russians. They also lie and twist the news to fit their political agenda. One good thing is that we have many news outlets with different political agendas. I can choose what I watch and can form my own opinion.

I will try to finish answering your other questions later. Gotta go now.

Edited on 4/11/17 to finish answering questions by Derek45. Sorry that it took so long. I honestly forgot about it.

What I thought when I first got to the US?

I was a bit shocked about how clean everything was. I sat on a sparkling clean toilet seat in the FinnAir airplane's bathroom and there was a full roll of toilet paper next to it. This seems silly now but back then it was like I stepped into another dimension. The dimension where everything was clean and organized. A dimension where people seemed happy and smiling.
The airport we arrived to had clean carpets on the floor and people were sitting on the floor without a thought of getting filthy dirty. Our American friends picked us at the airport and we drove one hour to their home. I remember asking them if it ever rained in the area. All cars on the interstate were very clean. You are probably raising an eyebrow right now but Russian roads were in poor shape. Besides lots of pot holes, all roads had poorly designed and built water drainage system. Driving in the rain, even for a short distance, turned all cars the same dark grey color.
The American family we stayed with, had a huge house (at least it looked huge to me back then) with a 3! car garage. This was an average American house but to me it looked like a huge palace, after living all of my life in a tiny apartment. I have even a bigger house now with 2 large garages.
Everyone was nice, polite, smiling and willing to help.
Food was plentiful, cheap and available everywhere. There were restaurants everywhere and food commercials on TV. Most people had one or more cars and gas was dirt cheap. There were no police checkpoints everywhere. All this was hard to digest and I often thought that I was having a dream and would just wake up any minute.
All that made me even more upset about the lies that the Communist party fed us of of our lives. Americans simply lived their lives happily, built good roads and nice houses, raised their families and enjoyed life while the Russians were building the stinky filthy Socialism, the communist utopia with empty promises of "bright future and happy life".

I don't want to make any guesses about where this country is going right now.  People take a lot of things for granted. Younger generation is being brain washed by the educational institutions about "greatness" of socialism. The latest presidential election really showed the true face of the liberal democrats willing to destroy their country for their utopia beliefs. The right have their own agenda and often forget about what this country was founded on.  I hope and pray that people in this country never have to experience what Russians went through in the last century.  Things can go downhill very fast. Freedom is being taken away slowly in the name of security.
I sure hope you have learned a few things from this thread and will teach your kids that freedom can be taken away quickly in the name of safety and security. Once taken, it's hard to get it back.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_VENEZUELA_UNDONE_PROFITING_FROM_HUNGER?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-01-01-11-03-43

Related, and a good description of graft in another collapsing enconomy...

I have heard similar stories from my wife who grew up in Warsaw.

Great thread.

My wife's grandmother lived through WWII in Warsaw and for some time in Austria as a worker in a German textile factory. I was told they had a saying at the time in Poland. "The Germans would give you bread, while the Russians would kick your ass."

Such a fantastic thread, packed full of information! Thanks for posting.
Maybe some would like to read about parallelisms, similarities and some differences too with what I saw in Argentina.
A few notesI took while reading it:
1)” One day I remember well was in August of 1991, when communists attempted a government takeover coup. I was in Moscow that day. Everyone was scared and confused. Nothing was on the news. Oil pump quit in my little Lada's engine and I was not far from one of the busiest intersections, where tanks were taking positions to fire at something. I was lucky to have tools and skills to pull the oil pan off and to make a temporary repair to the oil pump shaft to get us back home.”
The Lada comment and car problems right in the middle of chaos, protests and social unrest. This means no one to call to tow your car, no help, no insurance or breakdown cover, you have to fix it yourself. In my case it wasn’t a Lada but a Renault 9. A reliable, but mostly simple carburetor engine vehicle that was easy to work on and parts easily available. Dear God I’m no mechanic by any stretch of the imagination but I knew that car well and could fix little problems with my Leatherman, some wire and duct tape. At times that made the difference between having a vehicle when SHTF all around you or not. Today, the lesson for me is keeping my Honda well equipped and well serviced in an official Honda shop.
2) The rumours, lies and misinformation. Understanding that the government lies, that companies lie (yes, for profit! Unbelievable!) , that the media owned by such companies lies as well. Lies and social engineering, how people’s opinion is “shaped” and they don’t even realize it. Maybe this is one of the most important, key aspects taking place today. Alas, 99.9% of people, even those that consider themselves “conservatives” don’t even realize they’ve been manipulated in such a way.
3)” Monetary system? Everything was cash based.”
Yup, indeed it was. Cash is king. Even when devaluating it’s still king. You have to be careful and watch before things go Venezuela or Weimar republic on you (meaning cash becoming practically worthless)  but cash gets things done.
4)” Some people had savings accounts in the only available, government owned bank. Once the inflation hit, savings accounts were frozen by the government. People had to stand in long lines to get a limited amount of money out. I can't remember all the details but the inflation hit very hard.”
Oh I sure can relate to that.
One of the most powerful tools that I’ve mentioned here before (even if some of the “experts” here have mocked me for it) having an off shore bank account and second nationality. When everyone in my country was struggling to get 300 pesos out of an ATM, I could go to a local branch of my off shore bank, use their ATM and get 1000 USD out of it, cash. Then go to an “arbolito”, street currency dealer, and turn that into 4000 pesos. Only Gyprat here understands what that means. To have your money safely abroad, and access it, while everyone else a)Lost 66% of their savings b) will keep losing more to inflation c) cant even access what’s left of it.
5)” I could barter almost anything for alcohol.”
Alcohol is always a valuable barter item, especially in times of war, but I believe its also very much cultural as well. A bottle of vodka sure has more of an appeal in a place like Russia than in South America. I my experience it was always cash the nice thing to have and most often used in bribes. Gyprat mentions cash bribes as well, I think it’s the “safest” route for something that has universal appeal. Maybe in USA a box of ammo has somewhat of a similar appeal, especially in more pro gun areas. In general though, if I had to advice anyone I’d say go with cash if you have to buy your way through trouble.
Regarding bribes, it sure is illegal and you shouldn’t do it, but then again sometimes you do NOT have an option. I know because I’ve been in such situations before. Sometimes it culturally accepted, (even if it wasn’t not long ago) and sometimes it’s so accepted that it’s expected of you, and not doing what’s expected of you when dealing with corrupt people with power gets you in very serious, life threatening trouble. Consider yourself lucky if you’ve never been in that position, but know that some of us have.
6)” Medical services were free.”
Free in Argentina too, although not nearly as good as having private cover like I had. One of my grandparents died before his time because of poor public cover. I will admit though that poor public cover is better than no cover, and that with the new government in Argentina the free public healthcare is doing much better once again. Turns out that when politicians aren’t stealing 90% of the people’s money, it’s much easier and cheaper to get shit done! If I was poor and suffered health problems, I’d rather be in Argentina today than in USA. Healthcare will be a main topic to work on for American survivalists in the future. You just have to check GD forum here to read up on some horror stories. Make it a priority to have as good health cover as you can afford, and as always options, options, options. The more the better.
7)” Water was another story. We live near the highest spot in the whole city. Water pressure was always low and we only had water from 6-9 AM and back at 5 through 8PM. That's it. Water quality was terrible too.”
Yup, little water and of poor quality. By code, homes in Argentina have at least a 1000l tank. That means the tank gets filled up during the times of the day that you actually have water, and you use the 1000l during the day. With a bit of careful use you can get through a couple days or more, but the problem is that people forget about the automated system and only realize theres something going on when they run out of the reserve tank which is no longer being refilled.
Poor water quality means a good water filter is essential.
“Natural gas, on the other hand, was always there and was almost free.”
Yes, natural gas is generally pretty reliable if you have a city connection. Its also much cheaper than buying bottles, another advantage of being closer to a town that actually has NG. Ironically enough, people that live further away, in many cases poor people that live in less consolidated areas, they have to pay a lot more for gas used for heating.
8) I was just telling my oldest son about the time my grandparents lost everything. They had been successful business owners, both of them. My grandfather had a large carpentry shop, half a block workshop, my grandmother had a successful bakery, also pretty big. They made very good money. Because of the increase in crime and a couple armed robberies my grandmother sold the bakery. They still had my grandfather’s business. My aunt convinced my grandfather that he was already a successful businessman, to just sell his company and live off interest and investments. So he did that. Sold it, put the money in the bank and bought a couple small rental flats. Then came the hyperinflation in the later 80’s. My father, an accountant and executive in a large bank, told them to take the money out of the bank ASAP. They didn’t listen, my aunt told them it would be all right. It wasn’t and they lost everything. The retirement collected each month was pitiful and really the rentals were the only thing keeping them afloat.
I remember it was the first time I heard my father shout so much. My grandparents were crying in the kitchen, asking him “what do we do now!?” My dad was so pissed, he shouted back “Nothing! now you’re fucked! Why didn’t you listen to me!?”.  Sometimes people self-destruct like that. You know what’s better for them, you try to make them understand but they just don’t listen. Of course it’s much worse when its people you care for.
9)” This meant that everything was tied to a real market price, tied to the real currency exchange rate. Prices skyrocketed. People were walking around in shock and disbelief after they saw new prices on food and everything else. It was like 10, 100 or 1000 times more than a month earlier. Yes, food was readily available but people could not afford much because they were still getting paid very little..”
Amen to that. This is what folks sometimes don’t understand. Cash is king, yet you have to be careful with hyperinflation. If a banana costs 1000 USD, does that mean the USD is worthless? Well, not if you need that banana and you have those 1000 bucks. “So I should stock up on bananas/tools/stuff! Sell it after the collapse!” Well… no. There’s lots of “stuff” floating around, the price will rarely be as good as you hope. Only certain items at a certain time keep up the price. In my case it was foreign currency, what Gyprat calls “real market price”. In the case of Argentina I know gold and silver stayed in that “real market price” too and that’s where I see Americans finding a safety net in such an economic disaster takes place there. Even if bananas cost 1000USD each, I don’t see 1oz gold coins selling for 2000 USD, the price will most likely than not go up just like the price of bananas did.
10)” Food was number one priority back then. Like I said previously, people were not really starving but they were not eating as good as what's considered normal here in the US. I often laugh when I hear on the news about people who "starve" here in the US. How is this possible when food is so cheap and available everywhere? Perhaps they call it starving when they can't afford to eat out everyday? Obviously they have no clue about basic things like cooking. Yes, it's nice to have pork chops or a steak every day but it costs a lot too. Why not make soup? It's relatively cheap and will feed a family for several days. A 50 lbs. bag of rice can be purchased at Costco for around $15 and will last for a long time. You can make a lot of mouth watering dishes from potatoes only. How can you go hungry in this country???”
Regarding food and eating habits it was as bad or even worse in Argentina in terms of eating habits. Argentines eat meat, and meat in Argentina means beef. An “asado” often mistaken with a BBQ, is not about grilling a few burgers or hotdogs. Its about getting all sorts of cuts from a cow, preparing the organs and eating it all. Any Argentine male worth his salt knows how to prepare a fire and cook everything inside an animal on it, most know how to ID each cut of meat and organ. We had to adapt and understand that in spite of our cultural tradition food didn’t mean a pound of beef in each plate. You had to stretch it, lots of rice, pasta, make soups, cook lentils. That same pound of meat that used to sit in a single plate now went into a big pot along with rice, vegetables etc and fed the entire family.  Sure this means learning to cook for those that don’t know how to do it already.
11) “My grandparents shared a lot stories about the WW2 with me. I sure learned a lot of valuable lessons from them. My grandmother told me stories about people trading everything they had, including gold and silver for a piece of dry bread so their children would not die of starvation, or at least live another week. This was true survival. Food was very important. Alcohol and tobacco were very valuable items as well.”
My wife’s grandparents went through WWII in Italy. Her grandmother had a big chain of gold and would go to town to sell a few link to buy whatever they needed. By the time they left Italy and moved to Argentina that neck chain had lost so many links it was now short enough to be a bracelet. My wife still has that bracelet. While I see how in some desperate situation you may end up trading precious metals at a great loss, in general I would say that with enough time and know how you can put precious metals to very good use, especially in countries where there’s already a culture and understanding of what precious metals are, how to ID them and their overall value.
12) “The supply line was always overloaded in summer months. Forget about running a hair dryer or any high wattage appliances. It was enough for lights and maybe for a TV. We were the only ones who could watch TV because my dad installed a CVT to keep the voltage close to 220V. Our neighbors were lucky if they got 160 Volts in the evening and it often sagged down to below 140 Volts and could spike to above 260V, early in the morning. It was enough for lights but not enough for a TV or any other appliance. The electrical company was owned by the government and could care less, like every other organization back then.”
This I can completely relate to and experiences the exact same thing. In my case, in Buenos Aires, we rarely had spikes, and it seemed that year round, other than in winter when AC weren’t used as much, you had 150V-160V instead of 220V. This isnt enough to run a microwave and the AC barely works or doesn’t work at all. I fixed it by installing a voltage elevator. That thing cost me a good bit of money but was worth every cent. Loved that thing. When I left I gave it away to my brother in law. He didn’t seem to care though, and in spite of being a pretty good electrician he just left it there in the house. By the time he could be bothered with picking it up someone else took it. Some people just cant be helped.
13)” One thing that was always available was bread.”
Probably strongly linked to the Soviet communist system. Its good that they managed to keep bread supplied but I certainly wouldn’t expect it in other countries. Even in current Venezuela its clear that they can’t keep people fed. Having flour and bakeries all over the country ready to supply the population on demand even when little else is working in terms of infrastructure is a serious achievement. Indeed, a person can live on bread and water, but I wouldn’t count on it in most countries if there’s a socioeconomic collapse.
14) “Having a vehicle for transportation is essential for living in this country. I did not need a car when I lived in Russia because everything was close and there was good and affordable public transportation in most Russian cities and even outside of city limits. American cities are spread out and it's nearly impossible to get places without a vehicle.”
This is another American-specific issue to prepare for. In Europe you can move around most countries without a car. Even with a car public transportation is very good and at times even more convenient. Why drive somewhere, park and such, if an air conditioned train gets you there faster without you having to drive? It is true that in certain small towns public transportation isnt as good but in America you are always expected to drive places rather than catch a train or bus. You need a car and you need one that works well, and is affordable to fuel and maintain. Heck, its so important you probably need two so as to have at least one backup.
“I would probably trade my new 4runner for a 4x4 Dodge 2500 truck with a Cummins diesel or another vehicle that runs on diesel fuel”
I just refilled my diesel Honda CRV. What was it? 30 bucks? I came back from Sierra Nevada just a few days ago. Round trip about five hours driving time and I still had fuel to drive around town and then some, about 44 mpg is I remember right. Diesel is just fantastic. Its not only cheaper, it just gives you a lot more range on these little engines, all while giving twice as much torque compared to gasoline.
15)” The city we lived in (Tula) was about 100 miles south of Moscow. Moscow, being the capital, always got much, much better food availability and selection than any other city in the country. Most government officials lived in Moscow and obviously they made sure that their city was supplied better than anywhere else. They also wanted to show off to some foreigners who visited the capital”
So much for large cities being the first place to burn down, refugees pouring out of them into the countryside!
It is indeed typical for collapsed countries to keep their capitals and other major cities strong. Its a practical decision (x money servicing a larger number of people) a strategic one (capitals are usual government headquarters) and psychological (the capital, the “head” of the country and what it stands for).
15)” Crime was getting worse by the day. Armed robberies became a new norm. People no longer trusted wooden entry doors with regular locks. My friend's company built new, hardened metal doors, locks and hinges that guaranteed to turn your apartment into a fortress. The doors were bullet resistant and guaranteed to stop a 7.62mm AKM round fired at a close range.”
Exact same thing in Argentina. Most houses have armoured doors. Not having one is practically asking criminals to rob you. Not kidding here, if you don’t have one and you get robbed people will go “what do you expect? Did you see that stupid flimsy door he had?”
17) “Moving to another country would be an ultimate test of your flexibility and ability to adjust to new conditions and culture.”
And I would add, it’s the ultimate solution to a large scale SHTF that affect a country or region.
It’s the one thing Gyprat and I have in common. We left the mess behind and found greener pastures. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side but it is if your side is collapsed Russia or Argentina. After years of researching disasters and survivalism I can say with confidence that when it gets THAT bad, you better move somewhere else. That’s the ultimate solution. Study, have skills, get an education, for God’s sake learn a second language and If you can get a second citizenship, don’t let such an opportunity go to waste if you happen to have it.
FerFAL

Thanks for commenting, Ferfal. Please feel free to make more comments. I appreciate it and I'm sure many readers enjoy reading it too.
SHTF in this country will most likely happen the Argentina way, if it ever happens. Soviet Union was very unique in many ways. Life was tough before the collapse happened.
US of A has it's own cultural differences and a unique way of life. This is why I tried to stress on transportation as one of the major things we need to rely on here in the US. This will most likely be the first thing to cause a major disruption in a normal life of an average family. Just look at what happened when a small malfunctions in the fuel delivery chain caused fuel shortages in several areas of the US. People were waiting in long lines overnight. Some got into fist fights for a can of gasoline. Having a reliable vehicle and access to fuel is essential for people in this country. This is why I mentioned the benefits of a diesel vehicle and/or having a fuel efficient motorcycle. I don't want to repeat myself.
Also, I doubt, alcohol will be the best barter item in the first stages of the collapse. People will be trading things they have accumulated during the good times. Eventually, if conditions continue to deteriorate, some people will somewhat loose hope while others will be too stressed about trying to make ends meet.  Many will turn to drinking for a temporary relief. I hope it never gets this bad. It's hard to understand what I'm talking about unless you have lived through similar conditions.

You mentioned that gold and silver were a valuable trading commodity in Argentina, besides cash of course. How easy was it to trade or to sell precious metals? In my opinion, PMs are a great investment if you expect an inflation but it's only valuable if there is demand for it on the market. The market value it tied to the world economy. I'm just afraid that if the US economy collapses, than the rest of the world economy will go down as well. This will greatly affect PM demand and the value. People will be interested in more tangible barter items. After all, you can't eat gold and silver.

Saving money is another issue. I have personally seen people loose their life savings. This is why I have never tried to save a lot of money, especially before I got married. Even now we have some savings for emergencies but I don't make it a goal to save as much as possible. I can't understand people who leave very frugal and put most of their money into the bank account. One day they'll wake up and their savings will be gone. Bankers won't even say - thank you, for the money he basically gave to them and they wasted it.
I have actually been thinking about withdrawing all of my 401K savings because I simply don't trust the government. There will be a financial collapse. They can't keep borrowing trillions of dollars every year. I seriously doubt my 401k savings will be there in 25 years when I retire.

As far as immigration goes. This advice is not for everybody. Some people are not wired that way. You have to be willing to adjust to a new culture and to learn a new language. It's not easy, especially if you spent most of your life living in one place. I have met Russians who lived in the US but went back to Russia because they just could not adjust to living in the US. They went back knowing that their living conditions would be much worse in Russia.
Some people simply can't adjust to a new culture. I've met immigrants who lived here in the US for 25 years and they could barely speak English. I have also met some Americans who lived overseas and never bothered to learn the language. They were bitching about people not speaking good enough English to them. Immigration is not for everyone.

BTW, Ferfal, where did you get a CRV with a diesel engine? I did not know they had that option here in the US. I assume you live in the US, since you mentioned driving to Sierra Nevada although your location icon shows Argentina.

This is why things in real life are a lot different from what you see on TV and hear about on the radio. We were taught that the red army liberated the Eastern European countries from the German occupation. There were pictures of locals smiling and being happy to see the red army coming over to save them. Winners always write the history books.  This is why I don't believe any media and always try to do my own research and form a personal opinion, to my best ability.
Beware of someone who comes over to help, with a gun in their hands.

Thanks Gyprat, it really is interesting to see the similarities and differences.


I think it will be more of a cultural shock. The way I see it trucks will keep rolling, but lets say if people all of a sudden need to use public transportation more because they just can no longer afford to keep a car (insurance prices, maintenance, etc) then that will need to change. The average American has less than 1K in actual savings, as in cash for an emergency., heck its probably closer to 500 bucks or less. Its easy to see how many can be left with a broken vehicle, unable to pay repairs let alone buy a new one. In America public transportation is considered as something for poor/ underprivileged people. In Europe its simply considered convenient and practical. I mean, I could easily get by without a car, I wouldn’t like NOT having one, but its perfectly doable and in fact I still use the train very often while the car stays home. The train station is close enough, the view is great as it goes along the coast, it drops me right in the middle of whatever city I’m going to without worrying about parking and its just as convenient and fast to go back. Other than certain metropolitan areas, most Americans have a poor opinion of public transportation.
If a train or bus works just as well for you, you just don’t NEED to get in fight over a can of gas.

I’d say drugs are the vodka of America, with prescription drugs being the vodka of middle and upper middle class Americans. They are already taking more than any other country and as you say its likely to get worse. I fully understand what you mena regarding stress, depression and hopelessness. Drug abuse spiked in Argentina during that time and never went down. For the poor it was Paco (cocaine paste) for people with better means it was also prescription drugs, pot, extasy and cocaine.

I don’t see the world collapsing just because one country does, even if that country is USA. History has taught us otherwise and there’s already other main economies. China would be more of a world crisis. I can survive losing every single American made item in my home. Cant say the same about the made in China stuff. In fact, I’d have to check because many of the stuff here is indeed “Made in EU”. Especially in the scenario I see more likely, which is a continuing degradation of the standard of living towards a larger poor/lower middle class society in America. USA can easily continue this way, most Americans living in what they once considered poor conditions and the rest of the world not even sneezing, just noticing when visiting that “Merica ain’t what it used to be”. Hell, many Americans won’t even notice until one day they stop getting high on drugs/sugar/stupid tv/stupid internet and go “Hey, WTF happened here?”
Gold was in high demand because it kept its USD price “real market price” as you called it. It wasn’t something that people generally had though, so it was mostly jewellery and family heirlooms that got sold when things got tough. You mostly had jewellery stores and currency brokers that bought and sold PM, the cheaper and smaller the store, the more of a hit you’d take when selling. These mostly dealt with desperate locals that didn’t know any better and criminals, many of which just snatched gold chains from peoples neck and ran. These would be the one that would buy your ounce of gold for 500 USD when it costs 1500. If you want more serious people to deal with you had to go downtown to a bigger currency or precious metal broker. You’d still lose money, but maybe get 1200bucks for it. On the other hand there’s also people looking to BUY precious metals, and these would pay spot plus a hefty premium. These were people looking to save their money. The most common thing to do was to buy USD, as it was far more stable and you took less of a hit when buying selling. In fact you made money when selling your USD a few months down the road. But yes, people were looking for gold and silver. I know because I was one of them, but bullion in Argentina is not nearly as common and only one bank mints it, and yes, they sure sold the gold they had to eager customers.
I know of a few people that hid gold coins around the house. In fact I know a guy, Austrian immigrant partner of my father in law. He was a bit of a survivalist himself. Guns, cash, food, and gold hid around the house, even inside walls. The problem a)he was alone. No one to watch over the place when he suffered a heart attack in the middle of the crisis and was hospitalized for several days b)Opsec fail. He didn’t talk a lot but talked enough. If I know he had gold, then I’m sure others heard the stories too. They broke into the house when he was at the hospital. Destroyed the place. Stole everything, the guns, even the toilets. The broke every wall, lifted the floor looking for that gold. He had nothing left when he came back.

Youre right about immigration. It sure isnt easy if youre not used to. I’m used to it because I moved around as a kid and most of my life. My 14 year old already lived in three different countries, went to school and excelled in all of them. His teacher in Ireland said to me once she couldn’t believe how mature he was, scared of nothing really. She was dealing with an entire class of kids  stressed over going from middle school to what she called “big boy school”. She said “I suppose that if he came from the other end of the planet to a new country and a different language then going to the big boys school doesn’t scare him does it?” … “nope”.
Moving around isnt easy, especially if youre not used to it. My youngest one even likes it now, he wants to keep on moving to other countries. He seems to get a bit bored after a year or so.

Oh, not in USA, I’m in Spain at the moment. That would be the original “Sierra Nevada” in Andalucia. Diesels here are very common, every station has them, the station in fact list Diesel before the gasoline price in most stations. The milage is just so much better, and its safer too. I keep a neat little jerry can in my car. Its like 10 liter, like a metal jerry can cut in half. Doesn’t seem like much but with 44mpg those 10 liters can get you out of a lot of trouble.
Here’s a pic

FerFAL

Great insights Gyprat and FerFal308.

Re: worldwide collapse of the economic system, we could have had that in 2008 but that was forestalled by TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program).  Karl Denninger's book, Leverage, is a good read.  So are Jim Rickards' books: Currency Wars, The Death of Money, The Big Drop and The Road to Ruin.  The banks of the world are so intertwined with collateral debt obligations, derivatives and other financial weapons of mass destruction that no one is immune.  The issue is who can recover quicker and US is not in a strong position.

Here is a Kerry Lutz interview of Andrew Hoffman:  Link

There is a lesson here....socialism is ALWAYS a disaster. Always surprises me how many people STILL support socialism even when they have seen and lived the effects of it

<<<------ banker

It's true.  Even if the $$ is still there, it won't be worth much.

The way to maintain or profit is not to delete the 401k, but consciously invest in countries that don't do the $20TN debt thing.  From a grossly oversimplified view, it looks something like this:

5% in cash.  Cash includes US dollars, gold and silver on paper, and other world currencies.  Cash and gold & silver at home is for a different purpose.  This "cash bucket" is for liquidity to take advantage of buying opportunities.

10-30% in precious metals mining companies.  Buying the gold and silver they produce is just buying their product, not investing and risking $$ for a return.

The remaining allocated in a somewhat "plain-vanilla" investment strategy that stays away from debt-binging economies like the US, EU, and Japan.  Instead it invests in countries like Australia, Singapore, Norway, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Canadia, and China.
 
The investments need to be in the right sectors, too.  That's where financial advisors come in.  Peter Schiff's firm utilizes this strategy and is a stand-up guy.

I work with a woman from Venezuela that got out just as Chavez was elected. She knows
how bad it is, but still voted for Hillary.

People usually get the government they deserve. When the people demand socialism, the government is happy to supply it.  It amazes me to read news stories about Venezuela where they interview people who are demanding the government solve their problems....this is the same government that brought them the problems that they have.

Many people even here on this site support socialism. Of course, they deny that they are socialists but when they post, their beliefs are crystal clear socialistic.

Freedom is tough. Most people worldwide (and yes that includes most Americans) aren't tough enough to handle freedom.

I'm really glad I made my way back in here after not being here for a while.

This thread is awesome.

Can you please expand on this? This is exactly the kind of info I have been wondering about.

Perhaps a new thread so as not to derail this one?

You should ask her about Venezuela and post her responses in this thread then.

Great thread.  Thanks for taking the time to post.

She and her Family got out before Chavez was sworn in. She was in the upper class and says all of her
classmates and friends moved to the US, other SA countries and Europe before things went real bad.

She went to Chile a few months ago and was really impressed by how much better it had become.

For anyone who doubts that it can't happen here in Estados Unidos, the US banks have been long tied to European banks.  Derivatives, credit default swaps and other creative instruments of financial mass destruction.



http://wallstreetonparade.com/2017/01/u-s-quietly-drops-bombshell-wall-street-banks-have-2-trillion-european-exposure/

It's actually a little worse than what is talked about in the article. If you go here you will see the following:

- Insured U.S. commercial banks and savings associations (collectively, banks) reported trading revenue of $6.4 billion in the third quarter of 2016, $0.6 billion less (8.6 percent) than in the previous quarter and $1.1 billion higher (20.8 percent) than a year earlier (see page 4).

- Credit exposure from derivatives decreased in the third quarter of 2016 as compared to the second quarter. Net current credit exposure (NCCE) decreased $24.0 billion, or 4.7 percent, to $481.7 billion (see page 8).

- Trading risk, as measured by value-at-risk (VaR), decreased in the third quarter of 2016. Total average VaR across the top five dealer banking companies decreased $21.0 million, or 7.1 percent, to $274.0 million (see page 11).  

- Derivative notional amounts decreased in the third quarter by $12.4 trillion, or 6.5 percent, to $177.5 trillion (see page 14).

- Derivative contracts remained concentrated in interest rate products, which represented 74.9 percent of total derivative notional amounts (see page 14).

... four large commercial banks represented 89.7 percent of the total banking industry notional amounts.

So, we know that the top 4 banks are in a mutual suicide pact. See that total? That's a hole a couple of orders of magnitude bigger than can be filled by the .gov. Also, notice that almost 75% of derivatives are interest rate based. What happens when interest rates start climbing again (as they must)?

This is why it's important to NOT have your savings, investments, and ready reserve cash in ANY of the top 5 banks with derivatives holdings/tradings (in billions) which represent roughly 95% of the total:
1 JPMORGAN CHASE BANK NA $51,076,843
2 CITIBANK NATIONAL ASSN $48,140,013
3 GOLDMAN SACHS BANK USA $38,053,388
4 BANK OF AMERICA NA $21,973,095
5 WELLS FARGO BANK NA $7,363,786

The problem with the 401k is that they don't allow me much of a choice as to where and how to invest. I can select from a small list of companies on their list. I simply don't know enough about financial investments to make an educated choice. This is why I just let them manage it. Most of my coworkers do the same thing.
Also, I won't be surprised if the gubernment decides to nationalize all 401k accounts for "the good of the many". They are already talking about it.

Another thing is that I have a hard time trusting any financial advisors. I would never invest into anything Chinese either. Call it - intuition or whatever but I think that Chinese economy's "bubble" won't last very long.

Self-directed IRA.  I'd buy metals and mining shares.

Someone asked me a question about security in the USSR. I will post my reply here since it's related to my previous posts.
Q: "Did the few privileged businessmen/party members have private security/bodyguard details or was it just a given that they were untouchable?"

I will first share how it was before the collapse and later mention what it was like after the USSR collapsed. I don't know the details about security for the party leaders simply because that information was not available to us - the "little critters".
First of all, there were no businessmen in the USSR. Private businesses were highly illegal. Everything was owned by the state or like they told us - "Everything belonged to the people"  
There was an illegal "shade economy" mostly consisting of people who tried to make some extra money. Some of the larger operations were controlled by the "Thieves In Law" - the criminal authorities who controlled most illegal activities in the country. They were untouchable simply because they paid bribes to police and the government authorities. Thieves In Law had their own private security who were well trained and armed. They were the Soviet mafia. They were above the law and no one dared to mess with them.  
As far as security for the party members, it all depends on what their job was. Not everyone was a communist party member. It was not mandatory. No one in my family was a party member but many people chose to join the party. It was nearly impossible to get a good, prestigious job for a non-member. Many joined the party because it was their ticket to a successful carrier. They could care less about the communist ideology but played the "game" anyway.
The party members who were in the high ranks in the government did have some armed security but it was not as sophisticated as the presidential security here in the US.   The thieves in law would not dare to mess with the party leaders. Other criminals would not do this either. The borders were tight for any foreign operatives to enter the country but even if they did, they would not get far. It was not very easy to establish a residence in any Russian city, especially in Moscow. Everyone had to be registered at the address where they live. Each soviet citizen was required to have a passport at the age of 14. It was mandatory. The passport contained address registration information, marital status and information about children (if any). A separate "Out of the Country travel passport" was issued if a citizen was allowed to travel abroad and had a legitimate reason to travel out if the country. Very few people had "travel passports"
Every adult citizen also had a "Work Book". It was kind of like an official resume. The work book contained detailed information about the current job and employment history including reasons for a discharge.
The passport and the "work book" were effective tools for KGB and MVD to keep an eye on citizens and their activities. Also there were "unofficial" informers who were assigned by the KGB to keep an eye on their neighbors or coworkers and to report anything unusual. People knew this and tried to be careful not to say something wrong in front of others who they did not know very well.
BTW, speaking about informers. Same thing is beginning to happen here in the US. Hearing paid commercials from the Homeland Security, like - "Report any suspicious  activity....", sends shivers down my spine but most people think it's normal.  Also, do you think it's normal for schools to keep detailed record on each child that will accompany them for the rest of their lives? Kids are also encouraged by their school teachers to report on their friends or even on their parents. Do you think it's normal? Are they teaching kids to be subjects to persecution, even for small violations of the school rules? What do you think about this?

Back on the topic. Everything changed in the early 90's, after the collapse. Crime skyrocketed. Many factories, farms, land, real estate and many other assets were privatised by private citizens. A lot of valuable assets were simply stolen and sold to foreign entities who were willing to pay with highly desirable US dollars. Obviously there were those who wanted their share of profits in exchange for "protection". Business owners who did not want to pay, got their businesses burned down or their loved ones shot to death. The mafia and racketeers got their hands into everything, including police and the government. Some businessmen hired the bandits to get rid of their competitors, the Russian way, by throwing a grenade into the competitor's office or a car. There were stories on the news about some government's officials being killed in front of their house or in a public area. A Jeep Grand Cherokee (bandit's favorite vehicle), with dark tinted windows, would pull right next to the person's house, wait for the target to get out, and empty a 30 round AKM magazine into him. The bandits did not care about witnesses because they owned the police and no one in their right mind would witness against them.
Personal security was important. Burglaries and robberies were very common. I knew of at least two apartments  in our area that were burglarized. Several families were killed. We lived in a small apartment on the top floor. There were 2 more apartments on that level. Everybody pitched in some money and my dad and I barricaded the whole floor entrance with 1/4" thick metal plates and a heavy, double layer metal door with cut proof hinges and a special lock that could not be picked or cut with a saw or a torch. The light bulb in the external light was also covered with a thick plastic window to keep the light bulb from being stolen (very common). The building entrance door was also reinforced and equipped with a combination lock to keep hobos from using the stairway as a hotel or a toilet (Yes, a toilet).
I learned to always have a good situational awareness, especially when getting home, late in the evening. We could not legally own firearms. This is why learning how to defend yourself without a gun was very important. I was always ready to defend myself or to find a way to deescalate the threat or to find a way to avoid a confrontation. I noticed that I have been a lot more relaxed since I moved to the US. I don't care what anyone says, but I think that US of A is one of the safest countries to live in. Yes, there is crime but it's usually concentrated in certain areas, in the cities. Avoid those areas and you'd be relatively safe, as long as you don't go out looking for a trouble. It was not like this in Russia nor many other parts of the world I've been to. Also criminals in this country think twice when they decide to break into a house. Many people are armed and the law in many non-commie states allows citizens to use firearms to defend their lives.
In my humble opinion, despite all the problems we experience here in the US, it still remains the best country to live in. Also, despite all the negativity propaganda we see and hear on TV, this country has a lot of positive to offer. God bless the USA.

If you were the victim of a crime, what did you do about it? Did you report it to the police? If so, what did they do about it?

Very interesting info. Thanks for posting.

Gyprat thank you for your time. This is the kind of stuff every single person alive should be able to read and comprehend.

A first person account is a hell of a lot more relatable than what's in a history book.

Thank you for sharing all of this. It's been wonderful to read.

BTW, there is a very good movie called: "Shot Through The Heart". It's not about the Russian collapse but it really shows how things can change literally overnight. The movie is about survival in the city of Sarajevo when it was under siege during the Bosnian war. Watch it if you can. It's very realistic. Every time I watch it, brings a lot of memories from the early 90"s. Obviously, we had no snipers shooting at us. People in Sarajevo had it a lot worse but I see a lot of similarities of what I went through.
Not all rental places have that DVD, You can buy it on ebay for a reasonable cost. It pops on Youtube once in a while. I'm watching it right now. I've watched it at least 50 times but it still sends shivers down my spine. Link to Amazon.

Ok.  I will write something up and link in here.

ETA: link

That's one of my favorite movies. Very good movie. I'm sure someone will be along shortly to nitpick weapon inaccuracies. Just finished reading this whole thread. Great stuff. I wish amazon would have it available to buy for my video library digitally. I'm hoping we get a lot of our rights restored and it becomes easier to obtain things like suppressors, etc for peopld interested in stocking. I remember feefal mentioning a few years ago how a nice small handgun and can could be very beneficial.



The greatest concern I have though, is how violent a collapse here will be. BLM, homeboys, gangbangers. We've already seen what these clowns can do even with a police presence. I think the amount of violence they'd bring would be unbelievable. I dont wanna sound like I'm pushing mad max but I think the amount of crap they're allowed to get away with now will be the seed that sprouts the violent flower. Political correctness has really hurt this country and hindered LEOs ability to stop people like this. I keep NPR on my facebook just because and some of the derp there is mind blowing.

It really depends on what kind crime happened. Like I said in my previous posts, police were often worse than the "mafia". I would probably report if I was beaten my some hooligans or there was a break-in to my apartment. Most likely they would just fill out a report and be done with it but it having a report may help if the same crime happens again and I cause a serious injury to someone while defending myself. It may not help if the injured person has more money than I, or has "connections" with police. Justice was determined by how much money and connections the bad guys had. Police was that corrupted.
I heard of stories when the SSS principle was applied when someone defended their family in a deadly assault situations. The SSS means - Shoot, Shovel and Shut-up. It's still valid nowdays except that the media (100% controlled by the czar Putin's government) don't talk much about it.
It was often best not to report if I witnessed a crime unless it was absolutely necessary. Say, you witnessed a murder and called 02 (same as 911 in the US, 02 was for police, 01 for fire and 03 for medical emergency). Police comes over and there is a 95% chance that you will be taken in and put into jail until they figure out what happened. There is also a good chance that you may be convicted of committing the crime if the real murderer is not found or has enough money and connections to escape procecution.
Same thing was with auto accidents. Same thing is still happening now. I bought a pretty good car for my parents a couple of years ago. One day, my dad had to go to a nearby city. He was rearended by a local guy. There was a lot of damage and the guy who rearended him was clearly at fault. The problem was that the guy had knew the local police boss. A phone call from the police boss to the piliceman who was on scene, changed the accident report and all of the sudden it was my dad's fault that he "pressed the brake pedal too hard". My dad tried raising hell my the policeman simply told him to shut up and get out of there before they find drugs in his car and haul him to jail. My dad was lucky that they did not make him to pay for fixing the other guys car. I had to send my dad several grand to get his car fixed. This is how justice works in Russia.

Now, speaking of traffic rules over there. The rule is simple - new expensive imported cars have the right of way, no matter what the official rules say.
Back in the soviet days, there were very few expensive imported cars and the traffic was not as busy as today. It was no unusual to get stopped by the police several times a day, ofet for no reason at all except to check your documents or to get some money out of you for any bogus reason they can come up with. Nowadays it's best to stop if they pull you over. 25 years ago, I sometimes did not even bother to stop if they flagged me down. They would put a portable 40 KPH (25 MPH) speed limit sign on a high speed highway, where everyone usually drives at 80 KPH. The speed sign was often put off to the side so many drivers did not notice it. All the cops had to do was to hide somewhere down the road with a radar gun and take bribes from the speeding drivers. Being a police officer was a prestigious job. They made so much money that some of them often forgot to collect their official paycheck. LOL.
I heard that in the mid to late 90's, crime had gotten even worse. The bandits basically ignored the police. I was told that in order to reduce crime, the police were given a permission to open fire on vehicles that failed to pull over when ordered  to stop by the police. Scary huh? All cops were armed with a short barrel AKSU-74 (full auto, AK variant), with several 30 round 5.45x39 magazines. Talking about over-penetration huh?
Speaking of the traffic police and their radar guns. Back then, they used a simple, fixed frequency radar gun. I made a simple microwave radar "scrambler" that was well hidden and had forward and back facing wave-guide antennas.  I was fun watching them standing there, pushing buttons and shaking the radar gun, while I was speeding right past their hiding spot. It may be wrong but the feeling of  f**king with them was so good.

Political crime was treated differently. KGB was very good at their job. They had informers everywhere. People had to be very cautious about what they said in public or even when talking to some "friends" they could not trust. Political prisoners were often sent to high security psychiatric hospitals or special prisons, where they were often murdered by the prisoners or over-medicated by the doctors to the point of becoming a real zombie. It still happens today. Putin does not tolerate those who oppose his way. You are either with him or against him. He is a former KGB officer. This is why I can't trust him. KGB were absolute masters of spying, deception and disinformation. It was their specialty. Putin learned well. Who would you put your bets on if a community organizer and a former KGB officer were to play a political game? What do you think?

What was the telephone network like during the cold war ?

There was a telephone network but not every family had a phone line. Having a personal phone line was somewhat a luxury. Many people had to wait for 10 or sometimes 20 years to get a personal phone line. My dad worked as a chief engineer at a local electronics service company for several years. He was able to pull some strings to get a phone line installed in our apartment. I think I was about 10 years old back then. Everyone was excited to have it. We could call people from our apartment! I remember my grandma making a long distance call to her sister who was living in Moscow. My grandma was screaming into the headset. I asked her why she was screaming. She said - "Xena (her sister) lives 100 miles away. I talk loud so she can hear me from so far away" LOL
There were payphones available almost everywhere. People always had a bunch of 2 Kopeika coins (0.02 Ruble) with them to use a payphone. Payphones were very cheap to use. Of course all phones were rotary back then. I bet some younger people who read this, have never even used a rotary phone. No one had answering machines either.
When we first got our phone line, making long distance calls was a bit complicated. We first had to call an operator and place an order for a long distance call. Then you sit and wait for the operator to call you back and make a connection when a long distance line was available. It was expensive and I think there was a time limit too. At the end of the long distance call, the operator tells you how long the call was and how much you owe them. We got a bill in the mail and had to pay it in person at the post office. Everything was cash based. No one used checks. Obviously, no one had credit cards either.
Those who had no phone lines in their apartments, could go to a Telephone/Telegraph office and make a long distance call from there. Payphones were for making local calls only.
My grandpa was working as a telephone repair man. He serviced phone lines in a large area of the city where we lived. He often let me go with him to work and I learned quite a bit about the phone network and knew where all the local hubs were. My grandpa always carried a small portable phone set with aligator clips so he could tap into an available line to make a call or to troubleshoot a problem. Guess what, he made the same portable phone set for me. I always carried it with me and since I knew where most of the phone hubs were and had a key to open them, I could tap into an available line and make a free call almost from any part of town. Talking about the cool guy factor.  It was like having an iPhone 7 when everyone used rotary payphones LOL.
Also my dad and I had several portable radios with a range of several miles. This was very handy to have. The radios were the same as what police carried. We got them for a few bottles of vodka from a guy who serviced police radios. A little bit of iodine put into the crystals changed the operating frequency so we were not interfering with the police or anyone else. Having portable radios was illegal but the guy who would catch us was a good friend.  Breaking the dumb rules was a way of life in the Soviet Union. People used to say - "Laws were put there so you can break them"

Forgot to mention. We lived in a relatively large city, not that far from Moscow. The phone networks were better than in some smaller town in Siberia. Some remote, isolated areas often used radio-telephones for long distance calls. There is Internet and cellular phone networks almost everywhere now but they were still using radio-telephones 12 years ago. I heard them several times when I was camping in the mountains of Northern Arizona. I think they were on 5.3xx Mhz, USB, if I remember correctly.
Military and government had dedicated satellite and landline networks. Any equipment built for the military was very high quality, reliable and "bullet proof". Same goes for military networks. Many factories had two separate production lines. One was making consumer grade products of crappy quality. The military grade production line was totally different. They took no shortcuts. Everything was done right and thoroughly tested for quality control. Simplicity, performance, redundancy and top notch reliability were mandatory for the military grade products. It's probably the same here in the US.