Then and now - USA dudes.

[Mortblanc]

If you were sit down in CH front garden you would think you were in the Black Mountains of Wales.

I am 200 miles west of him and if you were sit down in my front garden you would think you were somewhere between Carlisle and Glasgow. My region is geographically known as the Bluegrass Region.

My state of Kentucky borders his state of West Virginia and the two combined are slightly smaller than England and Scotland combined.

Ajax you underestimate the capitalistic nature of the American population. Virtually everyone has a side hustle to bring in extra funds with almost everyone trying to turn that side job into a way to quit "working for the man".

It is instinctive and goes back to our history of being a nation of indentured servants held in bondage until our time was up.

Before the U.S existed, before the forests had been cleared and the risk of being killed by Indians in your own home was still a serious worry, and before the U.S. treasury Department existed or a single U.S. coin had been minted, both my area and that of CH had thriving trade networks that extended to Spain, France and England. We grew things, we distilled things, we killed things and sent their hides and meat down the rivers to be put on boats powered by wind and sent them to trade for other items of value from far away lands.

Before that??? Well before that the Indigenous People of our land traded flint from Arkansas, for copper from Michigan and ceramics from all areas were traded up and down the rivers and trade trails. The Iroquois Indians had a vast trade network in the northeast and developed a fleet of freight canoes to ply the rivers carrying tons of corn to areas stricken by crop failures. We even have Macaw feathers from Central America in burials along the Mississippi River and effigy pottery of monkeys found in Ohio and Kentucky. There trade system worked for somewhere around 30,000 years with not a coin in sight.

I hear they did the same thing in your land with the bones of cattle raised in Scotland being dug up in the ruins around Stonehenge and flint from north Wales being traded all over the island.

If you check around you will find that there has been a thriving international oil industry and transport network since 4,000 BC.

The goal of every prepper should be to have a side hustle that will maintain his economic status no matter what the circumstance.