....gold will be useless. It will be barter for some time before people start minting currency acceptable to the masses (what's left of them). During such an upheaval, I wouldn't be likely to survive anyway.

I just got back from the Saturday farmer's market where I talked to a couple local small farm (less than 50 acres) vendors.

I asked if they would be affected if there was a major sweep of the plain and valley. They said no... but that it would kill the big farms that cannot work cost effectively on a small scale because their acreage is huge, machinery is big, the irrigation systems are huge, the packing houses, the refrigeration all takes a lot of labor and energy. The big ag farms cannot fire up all that stuff for an acre of row crops.

I asked if they would try and ship their small quantities to snow country where they could charge whatever the market would bear in the absence of the big growers filling the supermarkets produce departments. Again, they said no. Transporting small quantities is too expensive so they'll continue to sell to the few small grocers around here and do the daily farmers market circuit.

One guy who has 20 acres of row crops (broccoli, carrots, tomato, strawberries, snap peas, etc) told me he's building a chicken coop and buying a few pigs for his own needs because he has no confidence in the ability of the big meat industry to shield the labor without which they, like the big ag farmers,cannot function.

There are wild turkeys that visit my front yard every day, and deer a few hundred yards from my patio. As long as I can paddle my kayak, I can put halibut and striped bass on the deck, and perhaps barter with Mr. Velasquez for some of his pork and row crops.