Preparing for the Next 20 Years

I’m often asked where and how I find all the material and resources I share with the Self-Reliance Institute. Truth be told, I’m an insomniac. I rarely get more than three hours of sleep a night.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. Because I’m an insomniac, I have extra hours every day to read and absorb tremendous amounts of information. And I can do so while the rest of the world is asleep and, this is the best part, it’s quiet.

I love the quiet. It’s why I moved to a rural community in the mountains.

That middle-of-the-night quiet allows me to focus far better than during the day when the hustle and bustle of modern living assaults the senses and takes away from the ability to concentrate.

OK. That’s a long way of saying that, during another sleepless night, I found a great video I want to share with you this week.

Then again, the way I found the video was a bit circuitous.

As I’ve probably mentioned before, I love the blog located atZeroHedge.com. I check it several times a day.

One of the regular contributors at ZeroHedge is Charles Hugh Smith. Smith has a blog of his own – OfTwoMinds.com.

So while reading ZeroHedge, I saw a post by Smith that pointed to his blog at OfTwoMinds, which then pointed me to an old favorite resource of mine – PeakProsperity.com.

PeakProsperity is, for the most part, a subscription service. But occasionally they run pieces for free. And it’s one of those pieces – in this case a video – which I want to share with you today.

The video is titled, “Why the Next 20 Years Will Be Completely Unlike the Last 20.” The video runs almost an hour. But, believe me, it’s worth it.

Before I share with you a bit of what Smith and others have to say about the video, let me go ahead and give you four links to where you can find the video as it is available at more than one location on the web. This way, if one of the links doesn’t work for your browser, you can try the other links.

The video can be found here, here, here, and here.

OK. Here’s a bit of what Adam Taggart has to say, by way of introduction, about “Why the Next 20 Years Will Be Completely Unlike the Last 20.”

“We’re facing a future in which the economic growth the world has enjoyed over the past century can no longer continue.

“Over-indebtedness, mal-investment, cronyism, manipulation, and misguided policymaking have all certainly contributed to our current predicament. But the principal causes are much bigger. And much harder to address.

“Simply put, we’re entering an era when it’s becoming increasingly difficult to obtain the resources we need — at the cost we need — to power the economic activity we need.

“The trends of resource depletion, escalating mining & drilling costs, species die-offs, emptying aquifers, declining energy yields and the like are increasingly pitting the world’s 7 billion people (soon to be 9 billion before 2050) against each other in competition for the remaining biomass and minerals that make industry possible.

“As a result, massive changes to our way of life are in store. No matter where each of us lives.

“This brand-new video shines a bright light on these trends and the risks we face as a result. But it also offers hope. If we take action now, while there’s still time, there’s much we can do not only to reduce our personal vulnerability to these threats, but also to step into this new future with newfound optimism.”

Sound familiar? These are some the issues we often talk about here at the Self-Reliance Institute and that my colleague Chris Peterson discusses with his clientele.

Additionally, here’s what Charles Hugh Smith has to say about the video:

“The Status Quo is not sustainable…Coming to the understanding that the Status Quo is not sustainable is often a crooked path of overcoming programming, propaganda, denial and fear. My colleagues at PeakProsperity.com (where I am a contributing writer) have summarized why the Status Quo is not sustainable in an engaging one-hour video program. …

“The program’s roots are in Chris Martenson’s original video presentation, “The Crash Course,” a series that went viral around the time of the Global Financial Meltdown. The entire series has been completely reworked, and this one-hour summary introduces the key dynamics in a way that is accessible to those to whom these concepts and realities are new.

“This program is free. If you’ve been looking for one program that would help those who are new to the topics of unsustainability, this is it.”

Look. I realize some of you won’t watch an hour-long video. I hope you will. It’ll be a far better spent hour than watching most anything else when it comes to thinking about your future and whether your prepared for the changes that are on the horizon.

But in case you don’t, here are the six steps that Martenson includes in his Call To Action at the end of the video:

1) Invest in Your Community – The strength of your local community will be key in the future.

2) Protect the Purchasing Power of Your Financial Wealth – Gold and silver.

3) Reduce Your Dependence on Fossil Sources of Energy – Solar power and other small changes.

4) Source More of Your Calories Locally – This will reduce your exposure to price spikes.

5) Boost Your Emergency Readiness – Are you self-reliant? Do you have emergency supplies?

6) Improve Your Health – Physical and emotional health and strength are key to survival.

Again. I highly recommend watching the entire video and it can be found here, here, here, and here.

Once you do, drop me an email at [email protected] and let me know what you think.

Be safe and secure,

Rob Douglas