Bartering

[411man]

How well have you thoughtout this subject?

How much do you know about how bartering would function under SHTF circumstances?

This is a subject which must inevitably be considered when one thinks about survival plans. It also is a very expansive subject.

I am accumulating sources, concepts, and priciples involved with the subject of Bartering.

With reference to one concept; that of bartering firearms, ammunition, and liquior, I am fast becoming convinced that such activities would only lead to eventual life threatening consequences in a SHTF type scenario.

First let me say that my caveat concerning alchohol, weapons, and amunition is the core of the restrictions I would place upon barter but not necessarily the only restriction.

Anything which would lead to altered states of mind and attitudes as well as hostile and / or violent behavior should be avoided for securities' sake if no other reason.

Perhaps the most important point, second only to handing someone items that could be used to attack you with, is the fact that once one becomes known to possess in excess such items as alcohol, weapons, ammunition, tobacco, food, etc. they would become targets for those who seek to obtain those items by force either out of despiration or greed.

An obvious point comes to mind on this subject of bartering: until one has stocked all of the expected and needed tools, supplies, and equipment, stockpilling items for barter seems to be out of place.

Now an equally obvious question arises: What likelihood is there that the kinds of vital basic tools and supplies needed to survive will be possessed by others in excess of their needs and available for them to exchange?

Another question: How would one determind that an item is surplus to their future needs?

IMHO one needs a year or two worth of food for every member of their group before they stock food for bartering.

That supply should also include rice, beans, and seeds for two years worth of gardening.

While bartering may become a necessity in order to aquire a vital piece of equipment or supplies, I can't help wondering how likely in most urban areas one is likely to find people with excess supplies of such vital items available to trade.

Best one plan on providing for their own needs. Yes this will mean sacrifices in some cases.

Bartering activities cannot help but bring security issues.

What thoughts can any of you provide on these concerns?


All contributions to my further understanding and education would be much appreciated.

[411man]

In the pursuit of a comprehensive knowledge of Bartering the following observations would seem paramount to take into consideration.

This courtesy of Lowdown3 on Frugal's.

What's often overlooked is the interpersonal skills necessary for barter. Namely selling skills, negotiation skills and good marketing.

A decent salesperson put it in a barter situation is more likely to walk away with what he/she needs.

I'm talking about an ethical salesperson though. "Hard sell" won't be a possibility if something happens and if your only used to this sort of deal now, it's time to learn some other angles. Buyer's remorse will not disappear after something happens, people will always be fickle and change there minds easily.

Now the guy (that changes his mind after agreement) just comes back with his wife (who probably won't "allow" the purchase) and returns the item and/or tries to cancel the contract. Usually it's all lies- "Little Timmy needs a butt transplant or he won't be able to win the juggling contest at the Olympics", you have to learn to listen enough (and read between the lines) to find out the true problem. This is usually just a change of heart, etc. Sometimes this can be overcome with the right positive reinforcement- "you made the right decision", "It's a good thing that you got that last one, I had six people looking for it yesterday offering more for it, you got a heckuva deal!" Everyone has some greed- some closer to the surface than others- and realizing that they got the deal of the century can often change there mind about trying to back out of the deal.

That was now.

After TSHTF, those same types of people (there's a lot of mind changers out there guys) might come back with a mob of people. Someone in that mob will have convinced them that you were a greedy sonofagun, took advantage of them, stole the food out of there kids mouth, etc.

How will you deal with this?

Planning on bartering at your retreat? I wouldn't, for this reason among others.

Some would reason that if you do right by people this won't come up. Ask anyone that's in business now a days if that's true.... it isn't.

A tee'ed off customer now will yell and scream at you, make all sorts of threats, etc. What will one do after law and order is gone? What happens when someone from his family, crew, etc. makes him think that trading you the last box of canning lids just doomed them? How far will they go to "make things right" in there eyes?

Am I off base here? Think this is a stupid thing to bring up? How do history books tell us WWI started? Some nobody Serbian shot a relatively unimportant prince- this caused the 2nd largest conflict in history.

Think about it.

Any barter transaction ought to end with a simple "are you absolutely sure your good with our trade? You know I probably won't be around these parts again for a while (cause you aren't going to be stupid enough to barter right outside your front gate and therefore OPSEC will be the word of the day) and I want to be sure we are good to go." If for nothing else, if the person changes his mind, you can say "I spent two minutes making for darn sure you were happy with this trade, you said you were at least three times." At that point it will simply be the honor of the person that's in question.

If and when any permanent trading type posts are made, however small, that firm rules regarding barter will be made and strictly adhered to. Since it's the whining, changing there mind every two seconds, can't stick with there own decisions type jerks that never actually get anything accomplished, these trading posts will be started by those types that are not like that. This type of childish behavior will not be tolerated at these sorts of trading posts. For simple reasons- it won't be tolerated cause it's bad for business, ruins a lot of good will and could cause a security issue.

If your a wishy washy type now, best to man up and get rid of that trait before something happens.

A lot of community colleges, trade schools, etc. offer business classes in salesmanship, negotiation, marketing, etc. This training and knowledge will help you now (even if your not self-employed) and may be invaluable to you if something happens.

Personally, I plan to avoid any trading (if possible) for at least the first six months. Anyone still alive that long after a total collapse has got a slightly better chance of being a survivor in the long term.

You have to also look at what will be needed- I would beat that 95% of your "market" at least initially will be folks that need the very rudimentary items of survival- firestarters, batteries for portable radios, food, food gathering items, etc. At this stage very very few people are going to be interested in gold and silver.

After a year I would bet that the main items "wanted" will be things that will help the survivor works towards self-sufficiency. The folks that make it a year into it will be past the "hand to mouth" level of living. They will need things like: seed stock, cages for raising animals, animal stock, generator parts, parts for well pumps, building materials for repair of structures, fence and barbed wire, medicines for animals and people, tools of all sorts, etc.


Comments?


End quote.

[Bidah]

Interesting information, and a good read 411man.

-Bidah

[Beprepared]

I have a rule against bartering, I never give away for something someone else NEEDS. Piss poor prior planning on your part does not initiate a crisis on my part. I'll only barter when *I* need something.

Batteries, gas, ammo, food, TP, salt, propane, bleach, medical supplies... ALL will be wanted after a week of waiting for FEMA.

I've worked retail sales, and boy did it suck, but it did teach me to sell, something 411 touched on, you have to make the person believe they NEED this item.

Personally I stockpile everything, and I mean everything I might need. Fishing line for fish and sutures, scrap metal for various repairs, seeds for future gardens, firewood (and I have a gas fireplace...)

I see the logic of the topic, you can never have enough of what you need, but with proper stocking and back up plans, you can cut you access to The Hordes to a bare minimum, thereby keeping your supply base unknown to others.

[Arizona Highlander]

Just a few off-handed comments:

Guns and ammunition . . . yes, those are iffy items for barter, since they can easily be turned against you. Personally, I’d consider bartering .22LR and birdshot shotshells, since I live in the sticks and these rounds have perfectly legitimate uses for small-game hunting (and they also aren’t particularly effective as offensive weaponry). I’d definitely balk, however, at the bikers offering to trade a stack of Krugerrands for 7.62 NATO ammunition.

Liquor is, perhaps a questionable barter item, but it’s a great tool for bribery. If you’re ever facing a police or military checkpoint, some good old boy backslapping, a silly-assed grin, and a few bottles of Jack Daniels might just get you through when nothing else will.

Agree that it’s best NOT to barter from one’s home. Why let everyone know where your stash is? Better, I’d say, to barter from the back of your pickup truck in local Safeway parking lot, so you could be semi-anonymous. Don’t let ‘em follow you home, though!

But, I live in a small town, where things would likely be pretty stable. Were it a big city “Mad Max” situation, with looting going on everywhere, I’d probably just hole up for six months and make do with what I’ve got.

[MrGrey]

Things you can reproduce like services like a hair cut, and garden produce are the things you want to trade out. Thinks you can not reproduce, (like .22 rimfire ammo) are things you want to take in. The successfull trader will be parting with things he can make again or trap again or shoot again or build again and the things he wants to get his hands on are things that can not be replaced but are consumable. A good single malt scotch may be a hard thing to come by. I don't drink and have no use for it today. I would take it in trade for some garden produce or a tanned hide (with my bullet hole in it) for such an item because every one knows what it is. Every one knows what its worth. Its a known quantity with a known value. I could trade it off again to some poor sot who was getting a little dry and in need of a drink or it may come in handy as a bribe.

Keep what you can not replace. Trade what you can replace. Having a vital skill may be a very tradable item. Back in the day, the town blacksmith was sacred. The ability to consistantly put dinner on the table, might be valuable. Lets face it even in here there are people who turned lose in the wild of their own area, would starve down soon enough. Hunting and gathering and identifying edible plants and animals IS A SKILL that 90% of the population can not do. Hide taning would be a great skill to have. The ability to get a lot of calories to feed people without expending more calories or difficult to replace items (.22 rimfire bullets) will be priceless. If you expend 2 calories for every 1 calorie you gather, your going to get skinny then dead. So the ability to show up in urban areas with some food could make you very popular.

The ability to make ice will be in high demand. If you do have food it will spoil if you can not keep it cold. Kill a cow and it will rot before you eat it all if you can not process it in some way and even then that could take more time than you have. Having ice will be important. There are places on earth where the town is in a state of decay and has been for a long time. Ice is critical to many of them and those who can produce it are in high demand. Some places only have power off and on hit and miss. Your ice box becomes useless without ice.

Potable water is often a problem in many towns currently in disaster. People with the capitolist spirit jump in to fill the void. Can you?

In short, trade what you can make again for what you can not.

[Jonas Parker]

I'm presuming that my medical skills are my "stock in trade", and I have a fair stash of OTC drugs, bandages, dressings, etc. Money will still be necessary in some cases, but probably only pre-1964 US silver coins whose silver content and value is easily recognizable would be accepted..

[411man]

Sorry for my prolonged absence.

Great observations, coments, and points.

Here is information on the History of Bartering.

http://www.alternative-doctor.com/ja...out/pbb-24.htm

The History of Bartering and Money

By James Harvey Stout (deceased). This material is now in the public domain. The complete collection of Mr. Stout's writing is now at http://stout.mybravenet.com/public_html/h/ >



Jump to the following topics:

Throughout the centuries, money has become more abstract.
Bartering is in its third cycle in the United States.
The history of money -- step by step.



Throughout the centuries, money has become more abstract. This evolution has carried us from a direct, personal trade of goods and services to an abstract system which is far removed from its roots. This chapter will show those changes -- and their dangers.




Bartering is in its third cycle in the United States. Before we go back to the beginning of money, let's look briefly at the history of money in the U.S. (More details are given later in the chapter.)

The colonial era. During the 17th and 18th centuries, money was scarce, so the colonists relied primarily on bartering, with commodities such as beaver pelts, corn, musket balls, nails, tobacco, and deer skins (from which we get our modern slang, "buck," meaning "dollar"). Colonists also used the money of other cultures -- the Native Americans' wampum, (which consisted of beads made from shells), and the coins of foreign countries.
The Great Depression. During the1930s, money was scarce. People established barter groups like The Unemployed Citizens League of Denver (with 34,000 members) and the National Development Association.
The early 1980s. During a long recession, bartering regained popularity; it was featured in many magazine articles and many new books. Hundreds of barter clubs were created throughout the nation. More companies learned about the the advertising industry's "trade-outs," and international commerce's "countertrade," and the other possibilities for bartering in business.



The history of money -- step by step. Please note the theme of this story: as our money has evolved, it has become increasingly abstracted from a basis in the tangible value of usable goods and services.

Direct barter. In the beginning of mankind, there was, obviously, no money. People traded items which had a practical value: food items (e.g., cattle, fishes), decorative items (e.g., gold, shells), apparel (e.g., furs, cloth), tools, weapons, etc. However, in direct trades, both parties must have what the other person wants. For example, the cavewoman possessed blackberries, which the caveman craved, and he had the arrowheads which she needed. However, if he wanted berries, but she didn't want his arrowheads, then no trade could occur.
"Media of value." For example, a man might have traded his handcrafted spear for a pile of corn (even though he didn't like corn) just because he knew that he could then trade the corn to a woman for some animal skins (which he wanted). These trades were a step toward the idea of abstract money; the objects weren't valued for themselves, but for what they could get.
Standard media of value. Gradually, particular commodities began to be treated as the standards against which we would determine the value of other items; for example, there might have been a "wampum standard" (analogous to a "gold standard" in modern society). To help people to understand this abstraction of value, these early forms of money were practical items; for example, the gold could be used either as a medium of exchange or it could be melted into jewelry. We can still see this type of correlation, in our terminology:
Salary. This word originates in the Latin word, "sal," from which we derive the words "salt" and "salary." Salt was used to pay the wages of Roman soldiers; today, we might say that an employee is "not worth his salt."
Pecuniary. This word originates in the word, "pekus," which refers to oxen. (Webster's Dictionary defines "pecuniary" as "taking the form of or consisting of money." )
Capital. This word originates in a word which means "cattle." (We have the same derivation for the word "chattel," which refers generally to personal property.)
Wealth. In the Chinese language, almost every word related to "wealth" is a sign for a shell (which has been form of money in many societies).
Metal as a standard of value. Metal was more practical than other forms of primitive money: it had a practical value (for use in jewelry, etc.); it was small enough to transport in one's pocket (unlike, say, an equally valuable horse); it did not die like cattle; it was durable (i.e., it did not decay or break). By 2500 BC, the Egyptians were "spending" copper rings like money; Babylonia had a well-developed barter system based on barley and uncoined silver hundreds of years before coins were adopted.
Metal in early coins. Unfortunately, gold dust, gold objects, and other metals had to be weighed each time they were "spent." To avoid that task, people began to shape the metals into standardized sizes to establish fixed values; this was the beginning of the use of coins. However, people were unaccustomed to coins, so some of them were given names and shapes which referred directly to tangible objects:
The names of coins. For example, even today, we refer to the weight of the metal in words such as lira, ruble, shekel, drachma, mark, and pound; the "pound" was originally worth one pound of sterling silver.
The shapes of coins. For example, the ancient Egyptians traded with sheep; therefore, when they began to use gold as money, they fashioned the gold into the shape of small sheep. In China, the people had been using metal tools as standards of exchange; eventually, they started to make miniaturized bronze tools to be used as a type of coin.
Standardization of coins. Coins were probably invented independently in China, India, and in a nation called Lydia, which is now a part of Turkey. Around 600 BC, those Lydian coins were bean-shaped nuggets made of a mixture of silver and gold; a stamped design on the coins indicated that they were, indeed, coins of uniform size. No longer did people in that country have to weigh their metals to determine the value. When other nations heard about this new standard for commerce, they developed coins of their own -- like the early Roman coins, which were made of silver, copper, or gold. Although coins were an abstraction of value, the metal still had a practical value of its own; for example, the gold coins could be melted down and made into a necklace. However, the abstraction of value permitted abuse: when people became accustomed to using coins, the kings who owned the mints began to reduce the proportion of precious metal in each coin. This trick, known as "debasement," would create more money for the king by putting more coins into circulation -- but it would reduce the coins' value and cause inflation. (In a "standard" coin, the face value of the coin is worth as much as the metal in it; in a ''token" coin, the metal is worth less than the face value. The U.S., and most other modern countries, issue nothing but token coins. An estimate in the mid-1970s said that the raw materials in a U.S. quarter were worth only half a cent.)
Paper money. In a huge leap toward the further abstraction of money, paper money was introduced in China around 600 AD. Marco Polo, who visited China in the 1200s, explained, apparently with a feeling of awe, "All [the Chinese emperor's] subjects receive [paper money] without hesitation because, wherever their business may call them, they can dispose of it again in the purchase of merchandise they may require."
Goldsmith's receipts. Despite Marco Polo's discovery of paper money in China, Europeans did not immediately embrace the concept. Not until the 1600s did they begin to use a simple form of paper money. During that century, many London merchants would deposit their gold in the secure storage rooms of the city's goldsmiths for safekeeping; the goldsmiths would give receipts for the deposits. As more goldsmiths began to issue these paper receipts, it became possible to take a receipt to any smith and cash it in, even if this smith wasn't the smith who originally wrote the receipt. Eventually, people were using the receipts among themselves, trading them for goods and services. People grew accustomed to this paper currency, and they began to trust its value. However, this is not much of an abstraction, because the receipts could be cashed in for gold, which had a "real" value.
Fractional reserves. The goldsmiths (like modern-day bankers) began to lend their depositors' gold. This lending had implications: At any one time, there would not be enough gold to cover all of those deposit slips. (A smith might keep only a tiny percentage of the metal in stock at any moment.) If all of the depositors had wanted to take out their gold at once, a smith would have been unable to comply. Thus, the slips were not worth the gold which they represented; they were worth only as much as the smith's promise to redeem them -- but that promise could not be honored if too many withdrawals occurred at once.
Fiat currency. Eventually paper money became popular, and so it was printed by governments -- but the money was usually not "backed" by anything tangible (like the gold in a goldsmith's vault). In the colonial United States, this "fiat" (unbacked) currency was printed freely by the federal government -- and it was also printed legally by states (such as New Jersey with its 15-shilling notes) and by individuals (such as Ben Franklin). Because the paper money had no basis in real value, inflation occurred to the point where the money was worthless. After that bad experience, the U.S. government stopped printing paper money. People returned to barter (and to banks' promissory notes); in fact, the 1810 census showed that the average income of U.S. citizens was only $2 per person. In the 1860s, the U.S. began to print money again, to pay for the Civil War; however, by the end of the war, this fiat currency had inflated such that $300 in paper money was worth only about $100. Not trusting this currency, many people hoarded their coins -- and they bartered. By 1880, the U.S. made a step backward toward a stable economy, by backing its currency with gold (and allowing people to cash in their currency for that gold). The monetary system returned to a foundation on the real substance of gold, rather than on the empty metaphor of a fiat paper note.
The end of the gold standard. During World War I, the U.S. government abandoned its gold standard, in order to pay for the war with unbacked money. Inflation went wild with all prices (except for the fixed price of gold). In 1933 the "gold standard" was officially killed in the U.S.; the government stopped minting gold coins, and people could no longer own that metal except in jewelry and coin collections. Production of silver dollars ceased two years later. Later, during the second World War, many national governments were supplementing their gold holdings with U.S. dollars; ironically, at a time when the dollar had lost its gold backing and was being crippled by the inflation of the wartime economy, other nations were turning to it for stability. The story of money's evolution suddenly became more serious, as those nations based their economies on a dollar which was not solidly based itself. Eventually the dollars overseas were worth more than all of the gold in our treasury. Like depositors who are afraid their bank might fail, some of those nations in the late 1950s began to trade in their dollar reserves for gold. This was a step backward toward a reliance upon gold instead of the paper symbol. As huge amounts of gold were traded away from U.S. reserves, some U.S. economists began to worry about this loss. The private gold market price rose above the "official" price of $35 per ounce. (Silver was in trouble, too; the silver content of coins became worth more than the coins themselves, so the U.S. Treasury stopped minting silver coins in 1965.) As the private market price of gold continued to elevate, more countries demanded gold in exchange for the U.S. dollars which they had hoarded. Finally, in 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon said that the dollar could no longer be redeemed for gold. Since that time, the dollar has been "an I.O.U. nothing" (according to former Federal Reserve Bank vice president John Exter). Or, as writer George Simpson said, "The whole system is based more or less on confidence in the stability and economic strength of the U.S.A. and the Treasury's ability to come up with the cash. If all together, we decided to convert our savings and checking accounts into money, the whole system would come tumbling down and everyone would be broke." However, there is one bright spot: The U.S. government legalized the private ownership of gold in the mid-1970s, allowing citizens to possess a time-tested medium of value and exchange.
Electronic money. Now, much of our money is so abstract that its only physical reality is in the form of electrons -- in the electronic processes of our online banking, credit cards, internet commerce, automatic teller machines, electronic funds transfers, etc.