{"id":61304,"date":"2022-12-15T14:57:20","date_gmt":"2022-12-15T20:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.wordpress.com\/?p=61304"},"modified":"2022-12-15T14:57:20","modified_gmt":"2022-12-15T20:57:20","slug":"nine-meals-from-anarchy-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2022\/12\/15\/nine-meals-from-anarchy-explained\/","title":{"rendered":"Nine Meals From Anarchy Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Nine Meals From Anarchy\u00a0Explained<\/a><\/h1>\n

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\u00a0In 1906, Alfred Henry Lewis stated, \u201cThere are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.\u201d Since then, his observation has been echoed by people as disparate as Robert Heinlein and Leon Trotsky.<\/em><\/h2>\n

The key here is that, unlike all other commodities, food is the one essential that cannot be postponed. If there were a shortage of, say, shoes, we could make do for months or even years. A shortage of gasoline would be worse, but we could survive it, through mass transport or even walking, if necessary.<\/em><\/h2>\n

But food is different. If there were an interruption in the supply of food, fear would set in immediately. And, if the resumption of the food supply were\u00a0uncertain, the fear would become pronounced. After only nine missed meals, it\u2019s not unlikely that we\u2019d panic and be prepared to commit a crime to acquire food. If we were to see our neighbour with a loaf of bread, and we owned a gun, we might well say, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, you\u2019re a good neighbour and we\u2019ve been friends for years, but my children haven\u2019t eaten today \u2013 I have to have that bread \u2013 even if I have to shoot you.\u201d<\/em><\/h2>\n

But surely, there\u2019s no need to speculate on this concern. There\u2019s nothing on the evening news to suggest that such a problem even\u00a0might\u00a0be on the horizon. So, let\u2019s have a closer look at the actual food distribution industry, compare it to the present direction of the economy, and see whether there might be reason for concern.<\/em><\/h2>\n

The food industry typically operates on very small margins \u2013 often below 2%. Traditionally, wholesalers and retailers have relied on a two-week turnaround of supply and anywhere up to a 30-day payment plan. But an increasing tightening of the economic system for the last eight years has resulted in a turnaround time of just three days for both supply and payment for many in the industry. This a system that\u2019s still fully operative, but with no further wiggle room, should it take a significant further hit.<\/em><\/h2>\n

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Nine Meals From Anarchy\u00a0Explained   \u00a0In 1906, Alfred Henry Lewis stated, \u201cThere are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.\u201d Since then, his observation has been echoed by people as disparate as Robert Heinlein and Leon Trotsky. The key here is that, unlike all other commodities, food is the one essential that cannot be postponed….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3958,9614,473,74,14424,398,399,5164,5481,483,484,7988],"tags":[15372,1868,15405,7349,15374,6482,15406,313,5823,9500,15407,247],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61304"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}