So, what are you doing for Doomsday?

Unemployment is the lowest in decades, the stock market flirts with record levels (and if the recent big one-day losses there spooked you, keep it all in perspective by looking at the indexes now compared to ten years ago), and the economy is humming along.  So what does that leave the rich to talk about when they get together socially?  Why of course, “What do you plan to do for Doomsday?”

 

Bloomberg reported recently that over the past two years seven Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have purchased survival bunkers and had them transported to New Zealand.  There, they are buried 10-12 feet underground with a carefully disguised entrance that most anybody would walk past and not realize it was there.

 

I guess you chalk this up to one of two things: these folks have more money than they know what to do with; or they have so much money that they’re worried something is going to happen to it or someone is going to harm them to get to their money.  Having oodles of money and everything you want that money can buy does not add up to a carefree life.

 

So why New Zealand?  As a manager at the bunker manufacturer told Bloomberg: “New Zealand is an enemy to no one.  It’s not a nuclear target.  It’s not a target for war.  It’s a place where people seek refuge.”  And a nice faraway destination that you can charge big bucks to ship your bunkers to.

 

I wouldn’t be one bit surprised to find a savvy entrepreneur across the Pacific who knows these millionaire bunker owners are not likely to come around to check on their property and is renting the bunkers for weekend getaways.  “They’ll never know!”

 

One rich and prominent venture capitalist allegedly spelled out his big plan to friends.  He has a motorcycle in his garage with a bag of guns hanging from the handlebars.  When the Doomsday clock strikes midnight he’s going to bypass the traffic jams on his Harley, warding off thieves and zombies with the guns as he heads to his private plane which he will pilot to a landing strip in Nevada where a jet sits waiting in a hangar for the sole purpose of taking him and four billionaire friends and co-owners to New Zealand.

 

Really?  I can see a number of ways that plan could go awry.  As the article pointed out, an asteroid strike in the Pacific could cause a tsunami capable of swamping even the highest point of New Zealand. And there’s a small hint of potential trouble down the road in the fact that New Zealand lawmakers in August banned foreigners from buying homes.  It seems they may be tiring of serving as the bailout hideaway for the desperately rich.  So one more potential glitch in the Doomsday plan: an envious construction worker who helped bury the bunker gives the location to his unsavory friends who head there to shake down the millionaire the day after Doomsday. 

 

But on that day will the money do those thieves any good?  Will it do the rich any good?  Economists say we do a great job at planning for the last recession.  In other words, we learn from our economic mistakes and implement means to prevent them and head off the next recession; but the next crisis comes from an entirely different direction, and like the last one, no one is prepared.  It’s likely to be the same way if and when there’s a Doomsday.  It will come in ways unexpected and defying our plans and charts and timelines.

 

I’m not about stockpiling food, building a survival bunker, or having an elaborate escape plan beyond having two ways to exit my house in a fire.  I try to live a modest life, give to charity, and not hoard more than I need now or far in excess of what I need to fund a decent retirement.  I’m trying to live by faith that Doomsday won’t be all the bad, at least in the end.  Hopefully I won’t be worrying about money.

 

Until next time,

Roger

 

“Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.” Proverbs 11:5 NIV®*

 

*Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™
Used by permission.  All rights reserved worldwide