Chapter Three, continued

“So,” Reverend Schneider asked, “how will all this affect our church?”
“I don’t know exactly,” Dad said. “Some people might turn away thinking God deserted us, but for the most part, people might flock to the church like they have in the past when things go awry. As far as our individual church, no money will be coming in. It would be worthless anyway. So, there would be no pay any more for you and your staff but why would you need it? You wouldn’t have a car payment. There would be no finance company in business any more. You wouldn’t have to pay car insurance. You wouldn’t have to buy gas or oil for it or oil for your home, there isn’t any to buy. You’d have no medical bills, the hospitals are out of business. No electric bill. No phone bill. You wouldn’t have to pay life insurance or health insurance, those companies are out of business. No college tuition. Your mortgage holder, they’d be broke, you wouldn’t have to pay them either.”
Reverend Schneider said, “Gee, all those things are what cause people a lot of stress. All those things are what keep us strapped down. It would create quite a different mode of thinking, wouldn’t it?”
Dad said, “I guess it would. The only thing you’d possibly need money for is food or fuel. But there’s no place to buy any, so I imagine from the church end of it, we could bring our tithe to the temple as the Scriptures say. Bring one-tenth of our food, what we could find; then I think you could be sustained, at least in theory. You’d also become quite a busy man as your services would still be needed. There’d be a lot of people in dire straights that would need your counseling and your spiritual view on things to keep them going. And I hate to say it, you might be busy burying people, too, depending on how poorly things go. I also see you becoming an itinerant. You ride your bicycle now sometimes. Can you imagine biking from farm to house to farm, visiting the congregation members, supporting them, and doing what you can for them? And they, in return, sharing what they have with you and your family?”
Reverend Schneider said, “I guess I could see that happening. What other consequences do you see from the government failing?”
Dad answered, “The federal government, state, and local government, they all run on money. The money flow stops. No paychecks. No taxes get paid. No government workers get paid. Few services get provided. Government essentially shuts down. Maybe the fire companies, both the paid and volunteer, stay on guard but they could only operate until their fuel is depleted. Some police officers would just pack it in because they wouldn’t be paid. Others, especially in small towns, would nobly continue their profession, even though they wouldn’t be paid. But how much could they do without cars to mobilize them?”
“Horses and bicycles again,” Reverend answered. “Like you said, a regression. Things like they were 200 years ago.”
“Dad continued, “And no road workers needed. No fuel to drive. No reason to plow snow. Will need to take care of ourselves and that’s where I’m optimistic. I believe people will rally and support each other.”
“How about this talk of marshal law?” the Reverend asked.
“I think it’s a phobia,” Dad answered. “Only really a problem to the freedom at all costs individual, like the libertarians. Many people have survived over the centuries ruled by dictators, emperors, or kings.”
“Reverend Schneider said, “Like the Jews in Jesus’ time under Roman oppression.”
“Like that,” Dad answered, “but if the federal government truly goes broke, there won’t be resources to enforce marshal law, at least not nationwide. Maybe just around some critical urban centers like Washington, DC. People worry a lot about too much government. I watched Animal Farm a few weeks ago where the government indeed was overwhelmingly oppressive. I don’t see that happening. I see the opposite; them becoming ineffective, not able to do much of anything.”
The Reverend inquired, “You think there might be anarchy?”
“There might be, at some spots, but again, I still think peoples’ hearts will shine and we’ll all work together.”
“I’m all for that,” the minister responded, “But let’s hope that the other things we talked about don’t happen.”
Dad said, “Let’s pray it doesn’t happen and whether it does or not, Jesus will sustain us. We have to trust him. He is our comfort in good times and bad times, in life or death.”
As we drove away from church that Sunday dad told us that we should take any money we were saving and spend it. Not waste it, but buy something of value, something we could later eat or help us grow food. Or something we could use to see at night and to travel from place to place. Or tools that could be useful. We should spend it now, while there was something to buy.
“Let’s use our money while it’s still has some value and while there’s still things in the stores to buy,” Dad concluded.
I took his advice and bought a bicycle, the only new one I’d ever had and a hand air pump to keep the tires inflated. Really made Dad proud.
After that, things happened very quickly. China pulled the economic plug. I really don’t know what happened or why, and even Dad didn’t really understand it, but the financial capitals around the globe reacted. American companies or individuals that had foreign investments lost them. Insurance companies, retirement funds, investments all went sour. The checks stopped coming. The President reacted by mobilizing the armed forces to protect the borders, evidently feeling that there was more of a military threat than an economic one.
Everything, every resource the government had was pushed to the borders and conserved for the armed forces. No more money for the government to do the other things they were doing. No more inflated currency. The banks were done. There was no reason to go there anyway. No one was receiving any money.
Dad had made some quick decisions and stocked up on some things: 80-pound bag of salt, two five-gallon buckets of molasses, 100-pound bag of oatmeal, flashlights and batteries. Sometime after that, gas stations closed. The flow of oil stopped. We had stopped driving anyway trying to conserve every bit of fuel that we had. Some time later, the postal delivery stopped but before it did, we got notice that school would be suspended indefinitely. After that, electricity was rationed. Six hours on, six hours off. Then, they tried eight hours on, sixteen hours off, but finally, on August 17th, the lights went out.

There’s more in Chapter Four, look for it next week, Mort