Jonathan Johnson Highlights 10min

Overstock Holds 3 Months Of Food, $10 Million In Gold For Employees In Preparation For The Next Collapse

Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne's crusade against naked short sellers in particular, and Wall Street and the Federal Reserve in general, has long been known and thoroughly documented (most recently with his push to use blockchain technology to revolutionize the multi-trillion repo market).
But little did we know that Overstock's Chairman Jonathan Johnson is as vocal an opponent of the fiat system, and Wall Street's tendency to create bubble after bubble, if not more than Byrne himself.  That, and that his company actually puts its money where its gold-backed money is and in preparation for the next upcoming crash, has taken unprecedented steps to prepare for what comes next.
One week ago Johnson, who is also candidate for Utah governor, spoke at the United Precious Metals Association, or UPMA, which we first profiled a month ago, and which takes advantage of Utah's special status allowing the it to use gold as legal tender, offering gold and silver-backed accounts. As a reminder, the UPMA takes Federal Reserve Notes (or paper dollars) which it then translates into golden dollars (or silver). The golden dollars are based off the $50 one ounce gold coins produced by the Treasury of The United States. They are legal tender under the law and are protected as such.
What did Johnson tell the UPMA? Here are some choice quotes:

We are not big fans of Wall Street and we don't trust them. We foresaw the financial crisis, we fought against the financial crisis that happened in 2008; we don't trust the banks still and we foresee that with QE3, and QE4 and QE n that at some point there is going to be another significant financial crisis.

So what do we do as a business so that we would be prepared when that happens. One thing that we do that is fairly unique: we have about $10 million in gold, mostly the small button-sized coins, that we keep outside of the banking system. We expect that when there is a financial crisis there will be a banking holiday. I don't know if it will be 2 days, or 2 weeks, or 2 months. We have $10 million in gold and silver in denominations small enough that we can use for payroll. We want to be able to keep our employees paid, safe and our site up and running during a financial crisis.

We also happen to have three months of food supply for every employee that we can live on.

The contents of the rest of his speech are largely familiar to advocates of sound money: fiat paper has no value, solid gold - as both a currency and an asset - has tremendous value but is difficult to transport (and since a systemic collapse would certainly involve gold confiscation, portability would be an issue); gold-backed money may be the best option, and so on.
We are confident the echo-chamber of worthless econohacks and macrotourists, the same ones who were absolutely certain the great financial crisis will never happen, will be quick to mock "prepper" Johnson and Wall Street pariah Overstock. And they have every right to do so. We only hope that after the next crash, with central banks all in and when calls for another global bailout hit a fever pitch, that all those pundits who made fun of the Johnsons of the world, will keep their damn mouth shut.

 http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-24/overstock-holds-3-months-food-10-million-gold-employees-preparation-next-collapse

WHen a currency dies off...

And if you want organic, double the numbers yet again

The current minimum wage will buy $0.27 in pre-1965 currency. This is a clue. When you allow the Federal Reserve to trash money, all boats will sink.

• The reason a soda jerk can't afford to raise a family today is because he is not getting paid $1.25/Hr. in silver quarters ( $18.00 today ). He is getting 27 cents. And no one will pay him more than $0.27/Hr. because they are soulless and greedy.

• At this point, 53 percent of all wage earners in the United States make less than $30,000 a year.

 

• The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.

 

•  During the last recession, the U.S. economy lost millions of middle class jobs.  But during this “recovery”, most of the jobs that have been “created” have been low paying jobs.

 

•  Real unemployment already IS around 30%.  92 million not in labor force, plus 10 million official unemployed, equals over 102 million.  102 million out of over 300 million equals about 30 percent.  

 

• In the west, job security means network affiliation; not satanic network = no real jobs for you.

1929 or now...big differences (a reader writes)

Back in 1929 there was 2 billion people on Earth, now there is 7+ billion all competing for the resources that have become much less by design with so-called "Fair Trade."

Back in 1929 there was still an excellent base of farms and food production that was natural, none of this GMO crap, and much more to go around.

Back in 1929 you did not have Fukushima, Deepwater Horizon, chemtrails, fluoride, and the countless other man made toxins dumped into our food and water supplies.

Basck in 1929 humans did not have the A-bomb and H-bombs in mass that can level human civilization in a moment’s notice when one of these vampires decides to push the nuclear button, football, or whatever launches the missiles.

Back in 1929 precious metals and the world dollars around the world had something to back them up. Now, there is only a paper illusion.

Back in 1929 people were a hardy stock that could take hardships in stride and recover from and make their lives better. In other words people that were tough and got tougher.

Back in 1929 there was no real take away of people’s rights to defend themselves. Now, fascism is the norm and societal slavery.

Back in 1929 people had common sense and understood how important it was to stock up and keep a good pantry of food for the winter. Most people today don't even know how to prepare a meal from scratch.

I could go on and on, but everyone gets the point. The people back in 1929 could recover from a SHTF event. Now they have had “pussification” hit them and can’t even handle a black out of power without completing falling apart. Now the masses can’t even figure out how to cook their own meals unless it comes out of a wrapper and has microwave instructions on it. Some can’t even figure this out and depend on someone else serving their meals for them. Talk about an infant bird completely dependent on being feed reguritated food to live.

Let’s face it, a 1929 crash would destroy most of the people out there. Even those in cities back in 1929 could find something in the form of food in soup lines or in the countryside. Now mass starvation is extremely probable. Just look again at those fat slobs walking around after hurricane Katrina and taking dumps everywhere in the Superdome where it was convenient. A Philippine type hurricane now in New Orleans would completely submerge the whole city and kill 100,000 or more that are totally ill prepared and totally depend on Mr. Government. Back in 1929, even without modern weather forecasting a fraction of that would perish.

In 1929 a stock market crash was recoverable. In 2013, 2014, or whenever a stock crash or whatever else will bring most people right to their knees fast and hard. People will wimp out and go looking for help during the first few hours of the breakdown of society which will be swift and KO’d in the first round.

This is the whole problem whether you are talking about a stock crash or other SHTF, forget about the mega SHTF event(s), the complete vulnerability of such events to totally F so many lives and literally kill people in the hoards. That is the whopping problem that NO ONE can deny and the frighteing equation of all of this, DEATH and lots of it.