Table of Contents
Copyright 2010 by Sean Brodrick. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Brodrick, Sean.
The ultimate suburban survivalist guide: the smartest money moves to prepare for any crisis / Sean Brodrick.
p. cm.
Includes index.
eISBN : 978-0-470-57928-2
1. Finance, Personal. 2. Saving and investment. I. Title.
HG179.B7445 2010
332.024dc22 2009029127
To my wife, Cindy,
my partner in all things.
And to my children, who,
along with other children,
are the last and best hope of this world.
Foreword
For many years, the author of this amazing book has been helping show investors how to protect themselves from financial harm and profit from opportunities around the world.
Along the way, he has traveled to far-flung locales from Guanajuato, Mexico, to Labrador, Canada. And he has kept us all informed and entertained with some of the wittiest research I ve ever had the pleasure of reading.
In this book, Sean Brodrick takes several giant steps further, giving proactive prescriptions for steps you can take to make your life richer and safer . Only this time hes sticking a lot closer to home, by helping you prepare for threats that, in not-so-unlikely worst-case scenarios, could literally strike right in our own backyard.
If you read my book, The Ultimate Depression Survival Guide , you learned how to survive and thrive financially. Here, Sean will show you how to survive physically!
We all pray and hope that the scariest of future events will never come to pass. And even in a depression, which could return with a vengeance in years ahead, I remain optimistic that most will not come true! But suppose Im wrong. Or suppose the forecasts of some of the most reasoned scientistsregarding an influenza pandemic or the impacts of global warmingcome true sooner than most of us dream possible.
Then what? Sean will prepare you, and hell do so without ever having to pack up and head for the hills. Hes written each chapter like a stand-alone mini-book on each major challenge you face. Together, they form a complete guide for protecting yourself in even the wildest of crazy times.
Youll not only see more clearly the swords of Damocles hanging over our heads, but youll also learn through the real-life stories of people who learned to cope under similar circumstances.
Worried about the real potential for a swine flu disaster and the resulting drug shortages? This book tells you how to prepare ahead of time and how to use drug alternatives in a pinch.
What would you do if gasoline became unavailable? Sean has multiple answers for you.
If a major disaster hit your neighborhood right now, would you have an emergency bag packed and ready to go? After you read this book, I guarantee you will! All without costing a small fortune or going to extremes!
Seans book opened my eyes to a whole range of threats (and solutions!) that I had never before considered. I am certain he will do the same for you as well.
As Sean shows us, the solution is not getting rid of our creature comforts or living in caves. Its to take simple, logical, incremental steps towards self-sufficiency and better preparedness. This book tells you what to do, and how to do it. Its intelligent, engaging, and entertaining. Read it now and keep it by your side as a handy reference for years to come.
Martin D. Weiss, PhD
President, Weiss Research, Inc.
Author of the New York Times bestseller,
The Ultimate Depression Survival Guide
(published by John Wiley & Sons)
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Martin Weiss, for teaching me about keeping money safe, to Larry Edelson, for teaching me about gold, and to Eric Drawdy, for teaching me about guns. Also, to everyone who agreed to be interviewed for this bookthanks for being so kind with your time. Finally, thanks to caffeine, without which this book would not have been possible, and to wine, for celebrating when the book was finished!
Introduction
The shadow of what comes next looms over the world like a dark cloud of misery brought about by the madness of men.
Jesse at Le Cafe American
Do you have a pervasive sense of anxiety, as if our modern world is on thin ice? Do you have an uneasy feeling that Wall Street seems to be collapsing under the weight of bad debts and bad decisionsand dragging your job along with it? Or, maybe you feel our society is coming apart at the seams, and that our civilization could actually break down and collapse.
You are not alone. A lot of people are worried. In fact, there is a growing movement of people who are preparing for the end of the world as we know it ( TEOTWAWKI) .
Serious survivalists use another acronym, WTSHTF , or when the s**t hits the fan , to reference the inevitable onslaught of disastrous events that is sure to befall our beloved nation in the near to semi-near future. Some people think after TSHTF, our civilized, cultivated selves will rapidly devolve to radioactive cannibals fighting each other over scraps of meat in the burned-out husks of our cities. These hard-core survivalists move to remote farms where they raise livestock, collect guns and ammo, and prepare for a global oil crisis/financial meltdown/zombie invasion/the end of the world (as we know it).
I want to be prepared, too. However, I m comfortably ensconced in a twenty-first century lifestyle, and I dont want to give it up.