Black Market Shopping
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Editor's
Note: This urban survival technique from GT is about how it will
be necessary for you to deal in the black market. The black
market is actually the free market. Governments everywhere try to
control free markets. That interference leads to the creation of
black markets. In good times, black market activity is confined
mainly to illegal products and activities such as drugs and sex.
When chaos strikes, government will enact controls dealing with
everything, which will create shortages of, and restrictions on,
even legitimate products and services. This will lead to a massive
increase in the black market. You will not be able to get many vital
products and services in the legal or so-called white market; you
will have to buy and sell in the black market.
DB
Here's what GT has to say about the black market – the free market:
The most important and the the most civilizing activity in a society is trade. Free and open trade has brought untold benefits to everybody at large. Unfortunately, governments like to interfere with free trade and so you get black markets. When the dollar finally collapses because it is worthless fiat, you are going to see an explosive boom in black markets. It is the only way you will be able to accomplish urban survival.
You may not want to participate in the Black Market. You will have no choice. Right now (~2000) Argentinian citizens are only able to survive and get the food and other stuff they need by shopping in the black market. The banks are closed. A lot of people cannot get the money they deposited to pay their bills. They barter because things are so uncertain. There is a risk markup, the sort of markup associated with black markets.
You may have already shopped in the black market. If you have ever bought illegal drugs or sex, you've shopped in the black market. Those markets are extremely violent but there is an unwritten rule. You can kill your competitor or other dealers, but the customer must be protected from the violence. I judge this from my own observations. In the business district, every day at lunch, I see yuppie businessmen buying drugs. These people want drugs and are willing to pay big bucks. They do not want the violence that comes with the drug trade. They are so wimpy they could not mentally deal with the violence. The violence is handled far away from the customer view. So no violence. What happens is you have a very quick sale – so fast if you're not looking for it, you'll miss it. Someone drives up to somebody standing on a street corner and in less than 30 seconds, a trade has been made. Drugs for cash. This is one of the urban survival techniques that will expand in all products and services when the monetary and credit collapse creates chaos.
The black market will probably be more civil and polite than you probably imagine. Yes, the potential for violence, for being ripped off and worse is there, but I don't think it will necessarily be a major factor.
What will the black market consist of? Mostly people will be buying food, medicines, and other necessities. They will spring up automatically. Let's say the local supermarket has been cleaned out. The parking lot of that store will still be a place where people will meet and barter. The people of the neighborhood are used to going there to shop, so naturally it will turn into an open air market.
As it gets harder to buy things you need legally and openly, the black market will increase. In Italy, the black market has gotten so big, it probably would turn out to be 1/3 of the economy if you could count it accurately. Things you would expect to be handled in the white market, such as light manufacturing, gets done by hundreds of thousands of individuals working out of their garages. If you have a real good workshop, you can match the quality of any mass produced product and achieve quite an output. An example: The black market research division of the drug trade can match the best research labs in the world. The latest product is "roofies" ("rufies", Rohypnol), also known as the "date rape" drug. No legitimate drug company would want to make such a product. They have enough problems with product liability. But, you can buy it on the street easily enough.
June 22, 2009
Copyright © 2009 Golden Trumpet
