• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

These concepts leverage triage. When push comes to shove, what can be eliminated with no real loss to the core? How about an auto payment, a mortgage, stuff nobody has used in years? How about "prestige" items and prestige itself? How about substituting the internal value of personal integrity for "prestige"?

Those unused to triage might find the goal of cutting household expenses in half daunting. ESSA provided the conceptual tools to do so.

Humans tend to complicate matters for a variety of reasons, mostly accretion: we add layers and objects without removing previous layers. We grow attached to the status quo conventions for the reason that we habituate easily and relinquish habits with difficulty. This "conservation trait" offers some selective advantages; in the vernacular, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Unfortunately devolution doesn't "break" anything until a phase shift occurs, at which point it's too late to introduce feedback loops or modify inputs.

Many middle-aged people look fondly on their youth not just for its easy health and invincibility but for the simplicity of goals and daily life. Just as the body reinvents itself constantly (if given the right inputs: healthy food, vigorous activity and a purposeful life) then the goals and processes of our daily lives can also be reinvented constantly.

Some complexity cannot be eliminated. Calculating taxes remains complex. Running an enterprise remains complex. Learning a difficult new skill cannot be simplified; achieving mastery is messy and filled with errors and repetition. But taxes can be somewhat automated with inexpensive software and an enterprise can be constantly scanned for ways to simplify.

For households, it can be as "simple" as combining errands rather than leaving the house in a car three times a day. People are smart; once they decide to implement ESSA, solutions abound.

12. Generate value and surplus (working capital)

Stop diverting surplus to the State and rentier-financial Elites. Deprive the investment/money-center banks of your capital and fees; use debit cards, cancel credit cards, close accounts, keep money in credit unions, transfer IRAs and 401K accounts to non-money-center banks.

Pay the taxes that are legally due--render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's-- but reduce surplus paid to the State by earning less money and starting self-employed businesses which enable deduction of more expenses. Substitute barter and exchange of labor/solutions for wages/money. Ideally, reduce cash income to the point that legally no taxes are due.

Minimize purchases to limit sales taxes and superfluous expenditures which reduce surplus capital.

Move out of high property tax states or sell high-property tax properties unless they are able to generate operating profits in a decades-long Depression.

If the household or enterprise is insolvent, then accept reality and declare bankruptcy.

13. Secure/produce/innovate the FEW resources (food, energy, water)

I have touched on the importance of redundancy and decreasing vulnerability; a slightly different way of approaching the subject is to focus very simply on what I term the FEW resources: food, energy and water. (I will add the Internet later but it remains in a different taxonomy of scarcity and need.) If we "cut to the chase," i.e. triage goals to the absolute necessities, then we come to the FEW resources. Yes, it is possible to die of exposure without clothing and shelter, but death is assured without food and water. Energy is a special resource, as it stores and enables all that we call wealth.

We've covered the importance of growing/raising some food, no matter how modest the harvest, and the concept of hedging/distributing risk via storing some dried/canned food and water. Energy is a difficult and costly resource, as it is not available to the household without large capital investments. However, households can reduce their dependence on utilities and Elite sources of energy by simply using less.

I have described the importance of networks and voluntary community/Internet