Suburban Survivalism is the New Black

Actually, preparing for the apocolypse never goes out of style.  Be it nuclear holocaust, Y2K, bird flu, swine flu, SARS, global warming, zombies, or now the world financial crisis, people are always looking for an excuse to outfit their families for the end of days.  Thanks to the AP for a recent look into the survival-gear business, we now know what what we should be doing to keep up with the Joneses if total economic meltdown occurs.

A few excerpts:

"Six months ago, Jim Wiseman didn't even have a spare nutrition bar in his kitchen cabinet.Now, the 54-year-old businessman and father of five has a backup generator, a water filter, a grain mill, and a 4-foot-tall pile of emergency food tucked in his home..."

Concerning survival outfitters:

"These companies usually cater to people preparing for earthquakes or hurricanes, but informal customer surveys now indicate the bump is from first-time shoppers who cite financial, not natural, disaster as their primary concern, they say."

And it's even becoming big business on Web 2.0:

"The niche Web site SurvivalBlog.com has seen its page views triple in the past 14 months to nearly 137,000 unique visitors a week. Jim Rawles, a self-described survivalist who runs the site, calls the newcomers "11th hour believers." He charges $100 an hour for phone consulting on emergency preparedness and says that business also has tripled."

One-hundred dollars an hour for phone consulting?  Clearly it's for real this time, people.  And clearly I'm in the wrong line of work.    Anyone know where I can get a good grain mill?