Mortgages and eating Cats after the Economic Collapse

La Plata, Argentina. Desperate people tear up a cow in the middle of the Road.

Hi Ferfal,

I came across your website yesterday and thinking maybe I should order your book for self education.

I’ve called the bookstore but been told that we can not order your book from Australia coz none of the major publishers are offering this book at this stage. Please advice the best way to order your book in overseas, thanks.

I also have three questions for you if you could answer:

(1)   In the event of the economic collapse, why people can’t buy some food online? Eg: ordering camping food or military food online in overseas, or calling their overseas relatives to ship all the food to them in Argentina during that difficult time? Could you elaborate bit more on this please?

(2)   Was the seafood market very active during the time of economic collapse in Argentina? Did people learn how to fishing in order to sustain their life during that time?

(3)   What happened to most of the Argentine families when their house are still on mortgage but can’t pay the mortgage fees during the economic collapse? Did the banks took their houses back, or the government had ordered some sort of special policies to allow them paying the mortgage money back in a later stage?

Looking forward to your email and I’m impressed by your depth knowledge in this area.

Kind regards,

Shao

Hello Shao,

My book, “The Modern Survival Manual” is only available through Amazon. Although shipping can be a bit expensive in some cases ( I assume Australia would be such a case) Amazon does ship world wide.

About your questions,

  

       1) he problem wasn’t finding the food, online or otherwise, the problem was having the money to buy it. During an economic collapse people have very little money, that money doesn’t buy you much thanks to inflation and a lot of people don’t even have jobs. As food and other grocery items keep getting more and more expensive people get to a point where they have problems putting food on the table. First they stop buying beef, then they cant afford chicken, hotdogs, etc, until it gets to a point where a significant amount of people just don’t have enough money to put even a bowl of pasta or rice on the table. Millions go to bed hungry every day. We would all do well to keep that in mind more often.

2)      2) A few months after the economic collapse a few interesting things took place. In the few ponds in parks where ducks used to be found, they quickly went missing. People soon realized how good they tasted and how easy it was to just grab them and go. Some of the more desperate people, they ended up eating dogs, cats, pigeons, even rats. The word got around that cat didn’t taste that bad and in a matter of weeks you just couldn’t find any more stray cats when just a few months earlier they were all over the city. In the country, kids with slingshots and air rifles would go bird hunting so as to bring something home to throw in the pot. Hares became increasingly hard to find and last time I checked they were almost extinct in some areas.

In a large city like Buenos Aires there aren’t many good fishing spots although you always see someone fishing in the coast of River Plate. Along the sea cost and rivers people did go fishing of course and still do (even though the water is highly polluted) , but while it does put some food on the table the reality is that fish doesn’t pay the bills, at least not when caught with a fishing pole, so people would do what they can in terms of work to make some money and then maybe go fishing on weekends, more as a hobby than as a way of putting food on the table. 

3)      3) What happens to anyone else in that situation, they lose their homes. Some emergency measures were taken but it only helped a small number of people with mortgages, those with smaller ones, and even then it was just a bit more time to pay, it really didn’t help if you simply had no money coming in to take care of the bills. People would lose their homes, or not be able to keep up with rent and end up moving back with their parents or some other family member or friend. Those were the lucky ones, thousands ended up living on the streets, literally under bridges or in growing shantytowns, full of new homeless people. Don’t ever expect bankers (or their employees in public office) to do you any favors. It simply will not happen.

Take care and good luck!

FerFAL