Jim,
What a lot of folks don’t think about is that during the last depression, almost 80% of the population was still connected to a family farm. They also knew how to can meats and vegetables and had all of the equipment to do so. It was a way of life for them. Today less than 1% is connected to a family/small farm. That is daunting. Even if some of the population knows how to can and has a small garden, How many of them have 500-600 jars, lids and rings? Got lots of Salt, a working smokehouse that doesn’t attract the attention of the local toughs?
The final blow to the “My-parents-survived-the-last-one-so-I can-too” crowd is that we were still on a Silver and Gold backed currency system in 1930. Dollars were still very valuable during that time, they just weren’t easy to come by. After we converted to [irredeemable] toilet paper for money, with zero backing, we discovered inflation. The next depression will be a lot more like [SurvivalBlog correspondent] FerFal‘s stories about buckets of cash to pay for a meal in Argentina. The problem for most is that we don’t even have one bucket of cash. Thanks and God Bless, – Melbo (Editor of SurvivalMonkey)