What do you get when you mix a global pandemic, protesters, and an economic slump? Well in this case, you get a lot of big mouths spewing fear.
I’m sure you’ve seen the well edited click bait titles all over the community by now. Way too many preparedness personalities have picked up on the fact that fantasy preppers love provocative titles and fear mongering content. They make their money on ads and clicks by spewing any garbage that their followers want to lap up like a thirsty dog.
What’s going on in the world today is truly disturbing, but let’s take it for what it is. The protests will stop. The riots will stop. The looting will stop. We’ve seen this over and over again in our society. It always comes to an end, and when compared to the timeline of the Covid-19 crisis, relatively quickly. Personally, I give it a week from beginning to end.
In any case, if you haven’t noticed, Covid cases are on the way down in Canada. So much so that many businesses that were shut down are beginning to reopen, slowly but surely. The economy has taken a hit for sure. Unemployment is up, poverty is up, retail stores are taking a huge hit and many are closing down for good.
Keeping focus on the real issues while all these other things happen is tough. Let’s remember, this is not the first time cities have been rioted and set afire, nor will it be the last. In the end, it never lasts long. This is nothing more than “one of those things” that can happen and we need to be prepared for. I’ve mentioned in prior posts that despite Covid-19 being at the forefront of our concerns right now, we can’t forget that there are any number of things that regularly occur. Tornadoes, earthquakes, chemical spills, wildfires, floods, the list goes on and on. Civil unrest is just one more thing on that list. The fact of the matter is, unless you live smack in the center of a large city, this isn’t going to have any effect on you whatsoever.
Despite a select few fear mongers telling you otherwise, the situation is improving. Can we go back to our normal lives now? Heck no. We’ve learned that masks help as well as proper hand washing and social distancing. We are beating this thing down and soon enough, it will be relegated to the same non existent priority as SARS or the Swine Flu.
Don’t get me wrong, we’re headed for a really good recession. Some will day depression, but that remains to be seen and is becoming less and less likely as days go by. It may take years for the economy to recover. Many of the unemployed will need to find new ways to earn a living, change professions, learn to live with lower paying jobs than what they are used to, perhaps take on multiple part time jobs rather than the Monday to Friday office gig they are used to, but that’s the way it goes.
Recessions are not permanent. Depressions are not permanent. Civil unrest such as we are seeing now even less so. We need to stop fantasizing about the mad max life and get real for a moment. Prepare financially by lowering spending and putting money away for rainy days. Offset the increase in food prices by growing and preserving as much of it as you can on your own.
World war 3 is nowhere in sight folks, so stop believing those that claim it is in an attempt to get your clicks and ad revenue.