If you were an idiot and poo-pooed the idea of stocking up on your OWN food, than yeah, I guess you'd be left with sloppy seconds at the grocery store hoping you don't get stabbed in the process, just so you don't starve to death.
My point was to prepare so you DON'T have to do that.
I admit that not everyone can invest enough money in the market to protect the cash they make. But there's no reason to think you can't survive through rough times if you took whatever preparations you could afford.
It's better than doing NOTHING, which seems to me to be what you are advocating.
I see.
I think we're talking about two very different events.
You're talking about surviving a termporary breakdown of society, I'm talking about an ongoing disaster from which society itself dies.
Sure having a plan for a month or two or three is always a good idea, I quite agree.
But much beyond that is pretty much a wasted effort and here's why..
OTHER PEOPLE.
Unless you're presient enough to locate yourself in an entire community of like minded highly skilled survivalists, and locate that community far enough away from urban areas, when the machine stops working, you'll be hard pressed to create that preindustrial agrarian life that so many survivalists I've known think they';re capable of creating for themselves.
It takes a villiage of skilled people to surive the end of the world, and that assumes that nothing else (like ecological disaster) is nipping at your heels.