How many shoes?

So asks Tom Baugh, a former Marine officer and combat veteran, graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, and entrepreneur:

Imagine the following. Assume that the world has collapsed into chaos, and among the many survivors are two individuals in particular: Survivor A and Survivor B. Survivor A has ten pairs of shoes stored for the collapse, while Survivor B has a thousand pairs of shoes socked away. Survivor A takes loving care of each pair, while Survivor B runs his shoes hard, wearing them out and then grabbing another off the shelf.

Question: After fifty years, how many shoes does each survivor have to pass on to his
grandchildren?

Think hard. Hint: this is a trick question.

...

So now let's shift gears a little bit. If you've read much of my work, you know that I am keen on uncovering reality by performing experiments. Here's another. Go to a gun show, then walk around and ask people the following series of questions. If the answer to each question is in the negative, stop asking questions and move on.

a) Do you think there is going to be a collapse of law and order?

b) Do you think that weapons and ammunition are going to be an essential component to
surviving that collapse?

c) Will it be essential to restart the economy after a collapse?

d) What skills will you bring to a post-collapse world to be able to thrive in that economy?

Now, because you asked these questions at a gun show, affirmative answers to a) and b) should be obvious. The last two are where it gets interesting. We'll get back to some likely answers you will encounter, and their implications, later in this article.

I think you will agree that what we are about to enter can best be described as a period of armed conflict. The potential initiators for this conflict are numerous and, again, a topic for another article, but the end result of all of these initiators will be the same: a period of wide-spread brush-fire wars.

People go to war to achieve a desired end-state. Some may argue that wars have been started as an ends in themselves to benefit various bankers or war industries. But even those wars achieve a desired end-state: the enrichment of the war-backers. Defensive wars, whether large and multi-national, or small and contained within the borders of your property, achieve the end-state of a nation, or you and your family remaining alive and your property intact. Or not. Other wars involve the end-state of satisfied vengeance. Or not.

In the crisis which draws closer each day, we have an unprecedented opportunity to achieve an end-state unique in all of human history, challenged only by the end-state attained by the Founders in the Revolutionary War. We now have the benefit of history which they lacked. To see what this end-state requires, we must first tie together our previous shoe discussion and our gun show survey. [emphasis added] ...

Go read it all here. Think about the coming struggle, and prepare. Use the time we have left, whether that's a couple of months or a couple of years, to prepare mentally, physically, and emotionally for the coming adversity.