SHTF and Boats

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by minaret

Sales tax in Greece is 30%? No wonder they have a problem...

Greek vat is 23% , and reduced rates at 13.5% and 6.5%. Vat is not a sales tax , ( it's only paid at the end of the sales cycle, not business to business) it does not compare to US sales taxes

By comparison UK VAT is 20% . Fin land is 23% and Sweden is 25%.

The Greek problem isn't VAT.

Dave

[Tom Stormcrowe]

Originally Posted by minaret

Extremely rare. That would require actually reading. And more than just "The Communist Manifesto".

I'll accept as sopn.as I can get on a computer rather than my phone.

[CCBullseye]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Leaving aside Eurozone nonsense and misinformed Greece theories. Both will survive and prosper in time.

A small boat in my mind is the last place to be in a theoretical SHTF. ( mind you I find the whole pepper ideology absurd and comical )

Firstly on a boat you are only " independent" for a very short time, you need food, technical resources, equipment replacement, all that needs a functioning society. Equally you need a place where you are " welcome" appearing from the sea as a stranger is not a good gig.

Secondly hoarding things that other people need , only works when the law is upheld. Ultimately the greater force of numbers will take 'it' from you . ( whatever 'it' is). This is the experience of history. The "it" can be your food, that grain your hoarding or the boat itself.

If you study history, you will find that every country has had its fiat money system collapse. It is not a matter of if, but a matter of when. The US will come to a point where the dollar collapses. When that happens, there will be starving people rioting in the streets, then will come at will stealing and theft from neighbors and strangers alike. It will not be pretty because our moral fabric has collapsed also. Too many people do not consider what has happened in the past will happen again. I grew up with stories from my parents about how money disappeared in their childhood, and they had to live without. Luckily, their parents were professionals with needed skills (Doctor, teachers, Lawyer) living in small towns a couple of miles from their grandparents' large farms. My Grandparents told me stories told to them by their Parents' who grew up right after half the land had been burned and raped by an invading army, and the value of their money had gone to zero. Maybe we might see the collapse in a week, maybe in a year, maybe in a decade or two or more, but I promise you, it will happen, one day our banking and money system will be non functional. To claim otherwise is very foolish at best.

Greece is under going a very tough time right now, but the other shoe has not dropped yet, it is going to get much worse there before it gets better. Greece is bankrupt, has defaulted on some debts, and have no viable plan to reverse that. Borrowing money from the Germans is not a solution, it is a putting off the day of worse collapse and the longer they delay, the worse it is going to be.

As far as living on a sail boat and staying in a remote area, it can be very safe for long periods if one has the right skills. These skills include knowing how to live primitive and know how to procure and process food.

I have been in disasters and have visited disaster areas. After a few months, life gets a normalcy back, it is not always the way things were before, but the routine starts to feel normal.

Back when I was in college, I took a class called "Money and Banking". One day during class I had an ahha moment, and said, "Our money system is going to collapse under its own debt and inflation if things are not changed." The professor, who later went to work for the Federal Reserve, said, "Ah, don't worry, it will not happen for 30 to 35 years." This was back in 1977. Lehmenn Brothers fell 30 years later in 2007, and 35 later is now.

Once I get on my boat, I have it equipped so I can live six months without seeing another person. I will need to find a beach with wood, but I won't need any thing from anyone. The wood will be for fuel for cooking and water making after diesel runs out. If I stay in this area, I know what plants to pick and eat 12 months out of the year for a healthy diet, and I will have six months of grain aboard, and enough meat for that time too. I also will have means to fish and hunt. If you meet me, you would not have a clue that I have this plan unless you got me to talking, and even then, I would not reveal very much of it.

[goboatingnow]

Leaving aside amusing armchair theories on Greece. ( I seem to recall pundits predicting euro collapses, Greek exits etc by now !!!)

The fact is societies can function without paper money. , its survival stuff but doable, for a while. Law and order are generally restored by the populace , except in some extreme cases. Rome may have fallen, but italian people get on with living all the same

Hence , and this is all hypothetical, massive societal change gets accommodated as you said yourself. A boat is the last place in my opinion to " run away" for any length of time. As you said yourself , you'd find land. Hence why bother with a boat.

A modern boat is a product of its technical age and it needs that age to be maintained.

The other thing of course is there is actually very very few places that are liveable in that are not " owned" by somebody. You may find that " deserted" beach has probably an owner and he has more guns then you. !!! In any huge societal change the first thing that happens is everyone seeks to hold possessions or grab them. I hope you are bringing a small private army to your deserted beach!!


You see the problem with " preppers " and catastrophists is they inevitably build scenarios that suit the prep methodology. Unfortunately if and when things go down the toilet, they usually do so in ways that make such prep redundant or unusable. The view that one group of preppers could somehow hold out with their resources in the face of a determined mob does not have any historical validity. The mob takes what it wants. Revolutions show that people who felt they could protect their proviledged position ( or possessions) were very quickly disabused of that idea ! , even with the backing of whole armies in some cases.

In my view I rather stay close to friends, and participate in the resulting efforts to rebuild society. That's what's humans do. They rebuild , not the same but they don't descend into savagery. Fiat currencies are irrelevant, they are just paper, they can be replaced overnight ( as has been determined many times) wealth is merely an agreement that you have something of value, that can change very quickly.

I also suspect if and when you sail back into the resulting rebuilt society , you might not find a nice welcome.

Anyway all good armchair theories. I certainly wouldn't spend a penny of any fiat currency on it though.

Dave

[Andrew Troup]

atoll's Greek wonderful debt scenario unfortunately relies on a fanciful premise:
everyone in the story is in credit by the same amount they're in debt.
Each person who is in receipt of the 100 euros also turns out to be in debt for that same amount - so there is actually no nett debt, even at the individual level.


In practice, regrettably, some people carry massive debt and others carry massive credit (eg investments). In the world we live in, even at the national collective level, there is almost always nett debt (or, in the case mainly of China, nett credit).

You cannot cancel debts in any fair way in this case, so the only fair resolution is to allow everyone to default and suffer the consequences.

Unless your definition of "Fair" relies on a different moral compass, whereby usury is considered to be sinful (as in both the orthodox Jewish and Muslim religions, interestingly) in which case one could, I suppose, simply confiscate all debt from the creditors (or if you are on the other side of the political divide, 'forgive' the debt, which amounts to the same thing).

Between nations, either you default, like Argentina (and hopefully, at some not too distant future date, the US) or (in the absence of a moral compass, or a 'magnetic anomaly' affecting it, such as some alternate version of reality) you go to war before any semblance of military-industrial advantage becomes drawn down and withers (which some would say the USSR left too late).

I don't consider usury to be sinful, but I do think it was an unfortunate invention, perhaps the least fortunate of all time.

I can hear people say surely things like nukes are far more unfortunate. However it seems to me that without usury, nuclear weapons would have been impossible, as I don't think a government relying on small scale extractive activities on the domestic front (much of which would be from peasant farmers), and unable to raise foreign credit, could ever scrape together enough money for a Manhattan project.

It was the innovation of the universal rule of law, unprecedentedly binding the governors as well as the governed in the English kingdom (even, at least in theory, the monarch), which meant that private individuals became prepared voluntarily to lend to the government.

That effectively kick-started the British Empire and the era of gunboat diplomacy, because no-one else could put a comparable navy in the water. Other nations' rich citizens simply didn't trust their governments to honour the debt they would have to incur to do so, and there's a limit to what you can confiscate from them without crippling your domestic economy. And of course there are even lower limits to what you can sustainably bleed from the masses.

End of somewhat peripheral discursion

[rebel heart]

I'll take even money bets up to $1000 that the world is basically the same after Obama's second term.

[minaret]

Ever read the Baroque Cycle Andrew? You seem like the sort who might understand and enjoy it. Several thousand pages of pure awesome...

[Sailor g]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

The bloke (architect) had lost his job last year. In May they moved to this fairly barren island and established a huge vegetable garden that they live off, supplementing this with fresh octopus. I was treated to a sight every day as the lean muscular bloke bent over naked and bashed the octopus to tenderise it .

Are ya sure it was the octopus? (Sorry but you all were thinking it!). Sounds like the best way to keep the island their own private paradise!!

[minaret]

Originally Posted by Sailor g

Are ya sure it was the octopus? (Sorry but you all were thinking it!). Sounds like the best way to keep the island their own private paradise!!

I've heard some funny euphemisms before, but that takes the cake! I have a friend who's always cracking jokes about "roughing up the suspect", now I can come back with "tenderizing the octopus"!


I'm sorry too, too much time in the boatyard...

[Bluewaters2812]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Greek vat is 23% , and reduced rates at 13.5% and 6.5%. Vat is not a sales tax , ( it's only paid at the end of the sales cycle, not business to business) it does not compare to US sales taxes

By comparison UK VAT is 20% . Fin land is 23% and Sweden is 25%.

The Greek problem isn't VAT.

Dave

IMO VAT is sales tax in another name. Non-vat registered businesses do pay VAT at point of sale with another business whether the selling business is VAT registered or not. Private individuals pay VAT at point of sales just like with sales tax. Even in VAT registered businesses input and output VAT, like input and output sales tax, are offset against each other to determine the VAT or GST liability.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Sailor g

Are ya sure it was the octopus? (Sorry but you all were thinking it!). Sounds like the best way to keep the island their own private paradise!!

ROFL Sailor g! No, it was definitely octopus, but I will now chuckle every time I see octopus being bashed in the future .

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Bluewaters2812

IMO VAT is sales tax in another name. Non-vat registered businesses do pay VAT at point of sale with another business whether the selling business is VAT registered or not. Private individuals pay VAT at point of sales just like with sales tax. Even in VAT registered businesses input and output VAT, like input and output sales tax, are offset against each other to determine the VAT or GST liability.

Vat is not charged if both the seller and buyer are not vat registered, irrespective of whether either is a business of a private person.

Vat is a value added tax it is only paid on the difference between input costs and output price. Sales tax is paid on the total value at each point in the sales cycle

Dave

[Bluewaters2812]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Vat is not charged if both the seller and buyer are not vat registered, irrespective of whether either is a business of a private person.

Vat is a value added tax it is only paid on the difference between input costs and output price. Sales tax is paid on the total value at each point in the sales cycle

Dave

Sorry but I disagree, VAT is charged if the seller and buyer are not VAT registered. It is only when two parties are VAT registered that VAT is not charged. Most items in the UK are subject to VAT (of course there are exceptions).

[NYCSavage]

As being VAT registered I can confirm that VAT is charged to everyone. VAT is then reimbursed to people/companies who are registered. That way, only the last person in the line will end up paying it.

So company 1 makes plastic and charges VAT to manufacturers who buy the plastic
Manufacturer charges VAT to retail suppliers who buy the product
Retail suppliers charge VAT to retail outlet
Retail outlets charge VAT to the end user (if applicable)

Company 1 can claim back VAT
Manufacturer can claim back VAT
Retail supplier can claim back VAT
Retail outlet can claim back VAT
End user cannot claim back VAT

Or that's how my accountant explained it to me.

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Leaving aside amusing armchair theories on Greece. ( I seem to recall pundits predicting euro collapses, Greek exits etc by now !!!)

Yeah. Due to the Euro by now we (in Europe) are meant to be eating rocks .

Biggest resource at the EOTW will be people. Annoying but true . Yer better bring something useful to the tribe, in addition to stuff others can simply take and an extra mouth to feed.

The trick (apart from being a survivor!) will be to get past the initial chaos (and on that a boat could be very useful) and then get back to shore (and to people) without then getting eaten . Depending on where you are, bringing a boat to the party (and being able to use it for the benefit of folks ashore) could be seen as a useful resource. or not .

Personally I have my eye on a couple of local Castles as the best refuge (unless it was a contamination problem!) to await developments (folks to die off / eat each other) and use as a secure base to gather resources.....but yer can't hold a Castle alone.