when the caca hits the fan

What is your plan, where do you want to be if... or dare I say... when the world, or more specifically the U.S., goes to shits? If the financial crisis hits as hard as the Great Depression -- and it already has in many parts of the country -- what is your plan?

I think about these things. My grandparents had lived through the war, bombings, near starvation, concentration camps. My parents lived through a totalitarian regime, which I also remember all too well. I have lived through waves of poverty myself when food stamps were assurance that there would be food on the table.

Already three years ago, I was telling people that I think a financial crisis of gigantic proportions was going to erupt, but back then to most I sounded like a bit of a nut.

My husband and I don't own a house or property, which could be both a plus (no mortgage problems or need to be tied down to a location post the housing bubble burst) and a minus (no property we can call our own, no place to grow our own food).

With interest, I read an opinion piece entitled Not My Financial Crisis -- I've Got Literally Nothing to Lose. I have a few things in common with the author of the piece. I own nothing (except for a car and some furniture) and I am used to living paycheck to paycheck. If, however, as a result of a sour economy, there is no work to feed me, that would be a whole different story.

I was struck by the author's ability to be so unaffected by the grim reality of the Wall Street meltdown. In fact, his lighthearted attitude made him a bit suspect to me, but perhaps there is a message in his piece: if you are someone who has experienced poverty before, and are someone who is resourceful, you may just be okay. Still, a deep-seated fear hovers just beneath the surface when I ponder the effects the crisis could have on me and my loved ones. I remember being poor, but my most recent stretch of years has been lived in relative comfort. To lose that scares me.

The most uplifting part of the article was the author's idea, when there is no work to be found in the city, of going to an organic farm and working for room and board. With almost no real-world skills such as sewing, cooking, or repairing things, helping on a farm, my friends, is something I can see myself doing if push comes to shove. I have weeded and planted before and I can do it again. I love being in nature, cultivating things that grow from the ground, taking care of animals.

If I trusted humans more, I would say that perhaps the financial collapse could lead to more alternative and healthier ways of living; less of a dependence on the stock market, multinational companies, and international trade built on abuse of workers and the environment. I would like to see people find different ways of taking care of themselves: barter, cooperate and pool resources, consume less, transform their communities into environmentally friendly and sustainable local economies...

Enclaves around the world are already doing this. Many more would like to live in this way.

I, and many of my friends, are drawn to the ideas of creating a more sustainable and community-oriented model within the larger society, but many of us resist the idea as well, because we have been raised in such an individualistic culture, where the very idea of success is tied into each person making it on his own; where competition and the attitude of looking out for number one is the emphasis. We are afraid of having to compromise too much, of losing ourselves too much in a cloud of people, because we've been taught that to find ourselves and to be ourselves, we must travel alone (and later in life inside our nuclear family bubble made up of a spouse, two kids, and a dog).

So back to my original question: how do you think the financial crisis will affect you (or is already affecting you)? What do you foresee the/your future to be like in the light of this economic meltdown? What is your vision for change?