37. Assets
“Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution; for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.”
Andrew Laine was thrilled to be at the ranch with his new bride. After the hardships of the trail, putting in four-hour guard shifts five days per week seemed trivial. After dinner for several nights in succession, Andy described to Lars, Lisbeth, Grace, Kaylee, and the Phelps boys all of his experiences. He started with his time in Afghanistan and then Germany, France, England, sailing on
During the quiet winter months he made a living by braiding custom rifle slings, belts, and bridles. Once supplies of parachute cord got scarce, he switched to braiding with horsehair. The coarse hair from horses’ tails was more time-consuming to work with, but it was attractive, so he found that he could demand more for the finished product. In addition to the regular ranch chores, Andy also made a living the same way that the Phelps boys did: by hiring himself out during hay harvesting time.
Five months after his return, Andy and Kaylee bought a used Ford pickup truck. It was one of the almost countless white pickups that were seen in great numbers, driven by technicians who serviced natural-gas wellhead compressors. These trucks were typically equipped with tall “safety flags” that looked much like those used on dune buggies. The flags came into use in the 1960s, following a couple of spectacular head-on collisions, as pickups topped the rolling hills of the region on narrow, gravel roads. The field reps were notorious for driving fast, and gravel roads are unforgiving. Hundreds of these ubiquitous white pickup trucks sat idle after the Crunch set in. They were one of the key assets still held by the field service and field engineering companies. Only a small percentage of the field reps were still at work, so this left the majority of the trucks essentially surplus.
Andy thought that a field service truck would be the best choice for reliable transportation, since spare parts and tires were abundant. He realized that as the Crunch continued, gas and oil would be sporadically available, but that unless or until tire factories went back into production, tires would eventually become the key commodity. As he put it, “Just wait another four or five years. By then a like-new set of tires will be worth as much as an entire vehicle. Mark my words.” He practiced what he preached and soon bought eight spare tires-already on rims and balanced-which he stored in a dark back corner of the barn. He eventually bartered for another complete pickup with a blown engine that was the same model year as their own, just for use as a parts rig. From this they could cannibalize parts and of course five more tires on rims.
Their pickup cost twenty dollars face value in pre-1965 silver coins. Ironically, the flat-tan paint that they needed for camouflaging the truck cost almost as much at the truck itself. Trucks were common, but good camouflaging paint was scarce.
Other than the tan paint, the only significant change that Andy made to the pickup was having it retrofitted with a traditional ignition system and carburetor. These came off a 1977 pickup that used the same Ford engine block. His father had once mentioned his survivalist friends doing this to vehicles for EMP protection, but an added benefit was that once thus equipped, a gasoline engine could run on drip oil, the condensate waste by-product of natural-gas wells. (The light oil or hydrocarbon liquids condensed in a natural gas piping system when the gas is cooled. This was sometimes called natural gasoline, condensation gasoline, or simply “drip.”) A mixture of gasoline and drip oil can be burned in most engines. For an engine to run better on pure drip oil, they learned, it was best to retard the timing.
38. Threat Spirals
“Somewhere ahead I expect to see a worldwide panic-scramble for gold as it dawns on the world population that they have been hoodwinked by the central banks’ creation of so-called paper wealth. No central bank has ever produced a single element of true, sustainable wealth. In their heart of hearts, men know this. Which is why, in experiment after experiment with fiat money, gold has always turned out to be the last man standing.”
Sheila Randall was not happy with the advent of the new federal currency. It was produced in such great quantities that inflation set in very rapidly. Her solution was simple: She would continue to take pre-1965 silver coinage in payment, and she still marked all of her prices in silver coin. But on her whiteboard she posted a conversion table for calculating payments in “Fort Knox Dollars.” Initially, the multiplier was 10 to 1, but less than a year later it grew to 19 to 1. Everyone knew that that they were being robbed by the currency inflation, but there was nothing that they could do about it.
The old Federal Reserve notes were completely repudiated, but for the sake of convenience, pre-Crunch coinage was accepted at face value to serve as change for the new bills. (It was explained that minting and issuing new coinage would be a logistical nightmare for the fledgling government.) Thus, anyone who held large quantities of the old coinage had cause to celebrate. To “strengthen” the new Fort Knox dollars, the Hutchings government ordered the confiscation of all gold coins, all gold bullion, and any silver bullion bars 10 ounces or larger.
The bullion ban was largely ignored or circumvented, despite a death penalty for disobedience. Countless 100-ounce Engelhard and Johnson Matthey silver bars were band saw cut into ten pieces to get around the 10 ounce limit. Meanwhile, the total ban on private gold holdings helped contribute to the market value of silver rising in relation to gold, to the point where it took just 12 ounces of silver to buy 1 ounce of gold.
Much of the privately held gold bullion in the country was cast into rings. These were not intended to be worn, and in fact they were too soft to be worn regularly, since they were 24-karat. These rings were simply a means of avoiding prosecution under the bullion gold ban. Some of these rings were even stamped or engraved with their exact weight. Another substantial quantity of gold bullion was acquired by dentists, who took advantage of an exemption for “dental gold.” Much of this gold was traded for dentistry services.
The conversations that Sheila Randall had with her customers, and those that she overheard, began to take on an ominous tone. People began talking about the corruption, nepotism, and uneven justice dispensed by the Provisional Government. They soon spoke of putting up some sort of resistance to Maynard Hutchings and his cronies. Often they couldn’t articulate exactly how they might resist the government, but their voices became more and more strident as time went on. Gradually, it became clear that the Hutchings government would never restore the freedom and prosperity that they had been accustomed to before the Crunch. Sheila wondered: If people were being this vocal and this strident in public, then what must they be saying in the privacy of their homes? In a conversation with Deputy Dustin Hodges, Sheila asked, “What do you think will happen?”
“Well, I think there’s a civil
After a long pause, he added: “It’s pretty clear there’s no way that Hutchings and his camp followers are going to somehow magically reform themselves into an honest and law-abiding government all by themselves. They’re gonna need at least a push of some sort, and I have a feeling it’ll be a stout
