What is money, and what is the Federal Reserve doing to it?

“So you think that money is the root of all evil? . . . Have you ever asked, what is the root of money?”

--Francisco D’Anconia, Atlas Shrugged

Imagine a world without money. If I have a shovel and you a kerosene lamp, and we judge them  equivalent in value, we can trade. The exchange is voluntary, and we both benefit. But if I have no shovel, and offer nothing else you prefer to your lamp, trading is more difficult. You could loan me the lamp until I acquire a shovel. This puts me in your debt, and puts you at risk. You may never see a shovel from me, or your lamp again. To reduce your risk I might give you something else, something you don’t need right now, such as a saw, as collateral. You return the saw when I deliver the shovel, or you keep the saw if I renege.

In a world without money places would arise for people to exchange goods. You’d bring goods you’re willing to trade for goods you want. To be successful, you’ll bring goods that others are likely to want. If you specialize in making kerosene lamps, and people at the exchange want kerosene lamps, you will do well, provided they bring items you want. But if they bring shovels, and you don’t want one, that’s a problem. Another problem is timing:  The people come at the wrong time, when you’re not there.

In a world without money, these problems are solved by an entrepreneur who sets up a permanent place of exchange, a trading post, where people leave their goods with him with instructions to trade. They tell the proprietor what they will accept in trade, and he agrees to be on the lookout for such trades. You leave a few lamps with the proprietor. When you return to the post some time later, he tells you, “Good news sir, we were able to exchange four of your fine lamps, for the rope and cart springs you requested.” The trading post is a sort of economic time machine, allowing trades to take place over the course of time, whether you are there or not. Naturally, you have to compensate the proprietor for his part of the trade--you actually brought him five lamps, and he traded four for you, and kept or traded one for himself.

In a world without money, eventually the proprietor creates a form of money, offering “scrip”, printed notes with his mark, which he gives you in exchange for your goods, and which you can exchange for other items. He calls them Trading Post Bucks, or “Bucks” for short. This innovation lets you make trades in Bucks, and not just with the proprietor. Suppose the trip to and from the trading post takes a day, a day you’d rather spend making more lamps. You send your lamps to the post via a courier, who returns with Bucks, keeping a portion in exchange for the transport. A trip on a fine summer day may be worth one Buck, two in the winter. Perhaps the courier gives you Bucks for your lamps immediately, using Bucks he obtained in prior trades. You learn that your neighbor has a small wagon available for trade, which you and he judge to be worth ten of your lamps. Your neighbor has no need of lamps, certainly not ten, and in any case you have none on hand having just sent them all to the post with the courier. So you make this trade in Bucks, which your neighbor can use later at the post, or in trades with other neighbors.

Who determines the value of a Buck? It seems that the proprietor does, and a successful one will develop a keen eye for value, but in reality the local market determines the value of the items traded, and therefore the value of Bucks. A proprietor who consistently overvalues saws and undervalues lamps will develop a surplus of saws and shortage of lamps. Note too that the value of an item may change over time. If a second lamp maker starts bringing lamps to the post, unless the demand for lamps increases, the value of each will fall. A lamp that was worth one Buck last week might only be worth four-fifths of a Buck this week, and three-fifths of a Buck the next. This is perfectly fine in an open market—you just need to get smarter and find a way to make better lamps, or make them more efficiently than your competitor, or switch to making something else. Conversely, your main lamp competitor could move, fall ill, or retire, in which case the supply of lamps will decline, increasing the value of lamps. Until something else happens to change the situation. Nothing ever stays the same for very long, it seems, in a competitive open market.

Let’s stop for a moment to consider the source of value underlying the trades, the trading post, and Bucks. What is it? The answer is you—your skill, your time, and how you combine them with available materials to produce things that other people value.  Lamps and saws and wagons don’t just spring into existence—you and your fellow traders create them. You are the impetus for whatever value lies in the things you create. Other people determine their absolute economic value. The value of what you create is therefore your economic value to the rest of the world.

A problem with Bucks is that they are of local value only. If you travel to another region, your Bucks will be worth nothing at a distant post, unless the proprietors have met and have established a means of trading between them.

Another problem with Bucks is that they will not survive the demise of the trading post. A raid, or a fire, or some act of God could wipe out the post and all its goods. The proprietor could become negligent, or greedy, or deranged. A counterfeiter might replicate the Buck, damaging or destroying its value.

The introduction of gold or silver solves many problems. Unlike Bucks, the value of gold and silver is recognized widely, within and beyond the universe of the trading post. The value of gold and silver stems from properties desired by its users. Both gold and silver are:  Difficult to produce, all but impossible to counterfeit, easily recognized, durable, portable, and divisible. Unsurprisingly, once gold or silver become available, traders prefer it over scrip. As a medium for exchanging value, traders recognize gold and silver as a superior form of money to Bucks.

What about banking? A bank provides two key values to their customers. First, provided a bank has excellent security, it is a much safer place to keep gold and silver—safer than on your person or in your home. Second, the bank will loan a portion of your deposits, along with that of other depositors, to borrowers who in turn repay their loans with interest. The bank chooses borrowers who are likely to make good on the loans, so your deposits earn interest. The bank is careful not to make bad loans, or too many loans, and takes great pains to never be successfully robbed, in order to preserve the trust of its depositors. Of course the bank keeps some of the interest earned from loans for itself, as payment for the service it is providing to depositors and borrowers.

Well-run banks do well for their depositors and owners. Poorly-run banks lose their depositors’ money due to bad loans or robbery. Smart depositors do business with banks with good business reputations, they pay attention to what the bank is doing, and they back up their deposits with insurance from a reputable provider. (Or the FDIC, in the non-theoretical case of the USA circa 2015.)

Even a well-run bank can experience a bank run due to circumstances beyond its control. A local event—a tornado, a flood, an earthquake, or a military threat—may cause large numbers of depositors to withdraw their gold and silver. Since the bank has some of its deposits out on loan, as it must in order to earn interest for itself and its depositors, some of the depositors cannot be paid. This is where deposit insurance comes in. Provided the event causing the bank run is smaller than the totality of insurance coverage available, the depositors will be paid.

With proper care and attention, during your life you may accumulate many things of value. Some of these will be things you created yourself. Many others will be things you traded for, value for value. Some of these things will be on your person, in your home or on your property, and some may be entrusted to the care of others, such as a bank. The latter will be monetary assets, represented by gold or silver or their equivalents.

Before going on, let's make note of these key points:

• Over the course of your life, you will create and accumulate many things of value.
• The value of what you create is determined in an open market, through voluntary trades.
• An open market rewards value, punishes failure, and distributes risk accordingly.

What about fiat currency? Fiat currency holds value solely because the sovereign who issues it says so. It is scrip writ large, issued by the sovereign. It has no intrinsic value. Fiat currency is simply pieces of paper, or digits in a computer, backed by government power. Of course, no rational person prefers fiat currency to gold or silver, so the sovereign must force trading to occur in fiat currency, and may even ban its subjects from holding significant amounts of gold or silver.

This is where the Federal Reserve comes in. Wherever a fiat currency is used, someone or something needs to control its supply and distribution. Congress created the Federal Reserve in 1913 and gave it control of our currency. The Fed’s original mission was to prevent bank failures and maintain price stability. It created a system of central banks, established a board of governors to steer policy, and issued a new national currency, the Federal Reserve Note. The Fed laid down a framework of rules to keep individual banks out of trouble, and became a “banker’s bank”, a “lender of last resort” to prevent bank failures. More recently, the Fed has focused on three objectives: Maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates. 

So how has the Fed done?  Its original mission was to prevent bank failures and maintain price stability. Maximum bank failures in one year before 1913 were 496 and afterward, 4,400. In the century before the Fed, wholesale prices fell 6%; in the century after they rose by 1,300%.  A Federal Reserve Note valued at one dollar in 1913 is now worth about four cents.

How about maximum employment? The official unemployment rate is now 5.8%, having hit a peak of 10% as recently as January 2010.  However the Bureau of Labor Statistics excludes from unemployment counts people with part-time jobs who want full-time jobs, and anyone else who it considers to no longer be in the labor force. The BLS ignores the fact that many people have either given up on finding a job, can’t find a job worth taking compared to welfare and other forms of relief, have fraudulently been put on disability, or have decided to stay in school or go back to school in a job-poor environment. If these people were counted in unemployment statistics, the unemployment rate would be closer to 15%. And that doesn’t include the 7% working part-time who would prefer a full-time job. So unemployment today, measured accurately, is somewhere north of 15%.

How about the current focus on stable prices?  The Fed controls the money supply, and has a standing target of 2% annual inflation. Not zero percent, but 2%. That may seem small, but over the course of the average working career, that’s a loss of half the original value. Moreover, although the Fed claims that inflation today is about 2%, they’re using a skewed measure that excludes the cost of food, energy, and shelter—three of the largest costs most persons and families have.

The Fed creates inflation by printing money—not in the physical sense, but by increasing the assets of its central banks. This is an electronic transaction having nothing to do with an actual increase in the value of the banks. The central banks in turn lend this new money to their member banks, at a fractional interest rate. This is guaranteed profit for the central banks—although the interest rate is very small, the sums involved are enormous, making each bank a nice profit, and funding guaranteed bonuses for the central bankers.

The Fed tells us that it must inflate the currency because if it didn’t, we would risk currency deflation, which it says would be far, far worse. The Fed says deflation would lead to a deflationary spiral, in which people stop spending money once goods start becoming noticeably cheaper over time. According to the Fed, a deflationary spiral would trigger a massive depression. But deflation is a natural result of economic progress. A good example is the personal computer: $500 buys you a more powerful computer every year, and it has since the PC was invented. So the question is whether the Fed is actually terrified of something that isn’t all that scary, or if is pretending to be afraid as an excuse for creating inflation. If you consider who benefits from inflation—borrowers—and who the largest borrower on Earth is—the US government—the question answers itself.

How about interest rates? After holding a four-decade average between 6% and 8% with significant fluctuations, in 2008 the Fed dropped the rate close enough to zero to be openly termed ZIRP, for Zero Interest Rate Policy. Remember what happened in 2008?  Years of easy money from the Fed birthed a giant housing bubble, which exploded in 2008. Afterwards housing prices crashed back to Earth, the stock market tanked, and unemployment soared. The Fed concluded from this that what the country needed most was even easier money! Not six percent, not four percent, but ZERO percent. And not for a year or two, but for six years and still counting. The only way to invest money and beat inflation in this market is the stock market, a computerized casino rigged by the biggest players with the help of the Fed. The goal of the average frugal person—to save money over a lifetime of work and live off the interest in retirement—has been completely destroyed by the Fed and ZIRP.

Let’s revisit the key points made earlier, in light of the economic system we have today, thanks mainly to the Federal Reserve:

• Over the course of your life, you will create and accumulate many things of value. Unfortunately the Feds actions have worked to destroy systematically much of the value you manage to create or accumulate. It has literally made you less valuable, economically.
• The value of what you create is determined in an open market through voluntary trades. Unfortunately the Fed has distorted the marketplace through monetary policy to punish savers, reward borrowers, and really, really, really reward central bankers.
• An open market rewards value, punishes failure, and distributes risk accordingly. Unfortunately the Fed has tilted the market to benefit a few insiders at the expense of the rest. If you happen to suffer as a result, that’s just too bad, you’re collateral damage.

A final note about money and the Federal Reserve: The proper alternative to the mess we have with fiat currency, central banks, and the Federal Reserve is to apply the open market to money itself. The production of commodity money should be left to the marketplace, regulated by profit and loss, as with the production of all other goods. This alternative is described in great detail in Jeffrey Herbener’s testimony before the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy of the U.S. House of Representatives on May 8, 2012, reproduced here. 

What is Natural Liberty? Why is it important?

Natural liberty comes from the simple fact that you exist. Your liberty does not come from another person or group. Another person or group can, of course, infringe upon your liberty, just as you can infringe upon another's. But your natural liberty belongs to you, period.

Natural rights stem from natural liberty. Because you are a free man or woman, you have the right to remain free, to defend your life against threats, and to accumulate property, provided you do so without depriving others of their rights. A natural right is something you have, something inherent to your existence, unless it is taken away from you by someone else. For example, you have the right to speak freely, unless that right is taken from you by another. You have the right to associate with other individuals of your choosing, unless that too is deprived of you.

Your most important right, at root, is to yourself. You own yourself. That may seem odd, or obvious, but it is actually quite profound, and has great implications. Because you own yourself, you own your mind, your body, and your time--the time you spend on various interests and pursuits you may have. For someone to assert that another group or person has a claim on your mind, body, or your time is to deny your right of self-ownership.

Suppose now we introduce the idea of a new right, the right to medical care. Is that a natural right? Only in the sense that you use your own time and resources to procure treatment if you become sick or injured. But if the right to medical care means that others must come to your aid when you are sick or injured, whether they want to or not, or that others must pay for you’re the aid you receive, whether they want to or not, how does your right to medical care dovetail with their rights? The answer is that it doesn't. If you have the right to medical care provided by others, that right can only come from depriving them of their rights to self-ownership, their rights to decide how to spend their time and resources. The right to medical care, a manufactured right, here trumps the right to self-ownership, a natural right. This is a profound immorality, in my view. How can a manufactured right be more important than a natural right?

It is perfectly fine, laudable even, for someone to volunteer to come to your aid. It is perfectly fine for you to engage a medical professional to treat you in exchange for something you own. But enslaving a doctor to care for you, or compelling someone else to pay the doctor to care for you, is simply might over right.

Most of the arguments about what government should and should not do are really about which manufactured rights should be allowed to trump natural rights. These arguments are usually couched in emotional language, involving needs, fairness, greed, rich versus poor, etc. The true nature of the battle, between natural and manufactured rights, is rarely, if ever discussed. Some disguise this struggle between natural and manufactured rights by calling the former “negative rights” and the latter “positive rights.” By their selection of terms you can tell which side they’re on.

In a democracy, a majority of the people decide which manufactured rights will be allowed to trump our natural rights. As unconscionable as this is, it’s routine. Natural rights should never be subject to a vote. But it happens, and it’s properly called mob rule. Over time, mob rule replaces our natural rights with manufactured rights. And it brings the tyranny needed to enforce them.

The policeman who catches the thief who stole your iPad and returns it to you has defended your right to property, but who defends you when the government seizes a third to a half of your earnings against your will, and squanders the stolen loot on stuff you disagree with? This tyranny is exercised against you every day by the government itself. And it’s called—get this—the “consent of the governed”.

Liberty today in America means that you are somewhat free when it comes to choosing your occupation, where you will live, and your preferred brand of soap, cellphone, or NFL team. And TV shows—there are plenty of those to choose from too. For many people this is enough, judging by their relative contentment. A cynic might say it’s all the liberty they can handle.

If the consequences of manufactured rights trumping natural rights were benign, maybe we could continue to look the other way. But destructive results are everywhere to see:

• A swelling hoard of government dependents ready to riot at the slightest grievance.
• A generation of dumbed-down youths with few skills besides texting and expressing their feelings.
• A growing group of voluntary and involuntary retirees nervously eyeing their pensions and savings.
• A small cadre of overlords pulling the legislative strings and reaping the benefits of confiscatory taxes and a central bank-funded stock market bubble.
• And shouldering the burden of it all, a shrinking class of the productive—workers, managers, business owners, and entrepreneurs.

In the end you retain all of the natural rights you are prepared to defend. You’d prefer to keep them by reasoning with those who would prefer to take them. But what exactly are we to do when reason is not enough?

Ebola and Self-Reliance

The government says we shouldn't worry about Ebola, they can handle it. Nobody believes them.

This is actually a sign of progress.

It's way too early to call the first appearance of Ebola within the U.S. an "outbreak". But it's entirely possible that what has begun with one case of a man desperate to get here to save himself from that dread disease could become a literally vital lesson in self-reliance for many of us.

On the one hand, we have the government's assurances that they know what they're doing when it comes to Ebola. They know how it's spread and how to stop it. They know how to care for Ebola patients. We have the best hospitals, the best doctors and nurses, the best procedures, the best equipment. Ebola is a third world disease. It can't spread here. Trust us. We got this!

On the other hand, we have comical levels of evidence of government incompetence, malfeasance, and even malevolence: Solyndra. Benghazi. IRS abuses. Doctored statistics on jobs and inflation. Fast and Furious. The VA scandal. Unchecked illegal border immigration. New EPA rules to shut down coal-fired power plants. Pretty much everything about Obamacare.

No wonder nobody believes the government about Ebola.

A few weeks ago, Obama told us it was unlikely that Ebola would reach the US. Four days later it happened. We shouldn't be surprised. How many people travel to the US?  The answer is almost 70 million in 2013. That's 190,000 people per day. So far, one person arriving in Dallas after being in Liberia became critically ill with Ebola and died, after being in contact with about 100 people. How many of them will come down with it? And how long will it be before the second Ebola patient arrives from overseas, or the third, or the tenth? For all we know they are already here. The one thing that would have kept Ebola out of the country--a border lockdown--is the one thing we can be sure will NOT be done, unless and until there is a full out-of-control outbreak with people dying by the thousands. By then it will be too late.

That pretty much leaves it up to us, ordinary people who would rather not catch a disease with an over 50% mortality rate, to protect ourselves. How exactly do you do that?

That depends on what happens. I suggest paying attention to the news (the real news, not the phony stuff served up on TV). Know if Ebola cases have been reported in the city where you live or travel. Pre-outbreak, stay away from people who are obviously sick. If I had to travel and be in confined spaces, I would bring a surgical mask and goggles, in case I found myself in an airplane near someone coughing, sneezing, or throwing up. Ebola isn't airborne (yet), but I don't want to be the one who proves that expelled droplets inhaled after a short journey through the air can pass the contagion. If I had kids in school, they would be on strict orders to leave if anyone in class is sick with flu-like symptoms, regardless of what the teacher or principal say.

That's all pre-outbreak. We can hope there is never an outbreak, but if there is, everything changes. It will be too late to prepare then, so prepare ahead of time.  Plan on staying inside your house for weeks, possibly months. That means food, of course, but also other things you really need and can't just go to the store to pick up, such as important medications. Imagine what will happen in your community if there is a serious outbreak. Will the power stay on, if electrical company workers are afraid to venture out of their own homes. Same question about police and fire fighters. You will want to be able to defend your home just in case. And you will want to be especially watchful about fire.

Basic medical supplies and first aid are important too--in an outbreak scenario. You won't be able to just pick up the phone and call the EMTs, and even if you could, you wouldn't want to--the hospitals will be overrun, not necessarily with the number of Ebola patients, but with the protocols surrounding the care of Ebola patients. And of course, where are you likely to find high concentrations of Ebola patients?  In the hospital!

One thing I would avoid--if FEMA arrives and starts herding people into trucks and buses--I would do pretty much everything necessary to avoid being taken somewhere prepared by the government "for my safety". Not exactly a great track record there.

Oh, and don't forget bleach. You should have some bleach on hand. The powdered kind used in swimming pools lasts longer. The basic formula for disinfecting any inanimate object is one half-cup per gallon of water.  An old spray bottle or pump-up garden sprayer can disinfect large surfaces quickly.

Protect yourself and your family the best you can. If this thing gets loose, God help us all.

Take the "Winter Ice Storm Challenge"--what should you have on hand in case of emergency?

Ok, here is the setting: It is the coldest week of the year, as cold as it gets where you live. An ice storm (fairly common where I live) has taken out power to your home and much of the surrounding area.

Challenge: List the items you should have on hand to ride out this situation in your home. Here are a few categories to stimulate your thinking: Light, Food, Shelter, Health, Sanitation, Safety, Security. I've deliberately left something very important off this list--what is it?

Make your list first, then come back here and read my answers.


My Answers to the Ice Storm Challenge

WATER. The big item I left off the list above was water. Normally in a power outage you can still get city water, but only if your pipes don't freeze, which they could easily do at the coldest time of the year, with temperatures in the teens and twenties. So at the start of the storm, fill bathtubs, pots, and other food-safe containers with fresh water. You should have at least ONE GALLON PER PERSON PER DAY. If you are on a private well and the power is out, you'll be without well water unless you have backup power.

LIGHT. The best answer for long-term indoor lighting without power is the candle. Get a number of 3" diameter pillar candles. One inch will take 8-10 hours to burn. So a 3x9" candle will last for at least a week of nights. They will not provide enough light to read, unless you have an array of them. But they will keep you from bumping into things, and will fill the psychological need for light, which is very powerful.

Get a half a dozen or more pocket-sized LED flashlights at a discount store. Give one to each family member, and keep a couple more in reserve. Get the kind that take one AA battery, and get a supply of lithium batteries. One lithium battery, while expensive, will last a week if used sparingly (a couple hours a night), and they won't leak inside your flashlight and ruin it, unlike those alkaline batteries will after a few years.

Camping lanterns are also a nice touch. Battery-powered is preferred for the indoors, though you can use a propane lantern if the room is well-ventilated. Please be sure about that.

Don't go to sleep with candles or propane lanterns alight.

SHELTER. At the coldest time of the year without heat, your house will become very cold, especially at night when everyone is trying to sleep. Congregate in one room, and focus on making that room as comfortable as possible. Pick the smallest room that still provides enough space, preferably with a low ceiling to reduce the volume to be heated. Body heat from you and other family members will raise the temperature significantly above what the room would otherwise be.

A small propane space heater, used carefully, can be a godsend. If you use one, pick a larger, more open and ventilated area. Even a small space heater can take the worst of the chill off a very cold night in a surprisingly large indoor area. Use it sparingly to conserve fuel. Turn it off before going to sleep--if the cold wakes you up, turn it back on and run it a while, then shut it off and go back to sleep. This really works, and is much safer and more fuel-thrifty than running it all night.

Set your faucets on trickle to help keep them from icing up. This is especially important for faucets and sinks on an outside wall.

Practice fire prevention. With candles, open flame cooking (see below) and space heaters, the opportunity for fire is greatly increased. Have buckets of water nearby and be watchful. Keep flames and hot items away from combustible papers, wood and such.

FOOD. You should always have at least one week's supply of food for the whole family in your house, at a very bare minimum. Most people do, but some don't. Eat the leftover stuff in the refrigerator first--before the house gets cold, some of the food in there could rise above 40 degrees for hours and spoil. Then go after the stuff in the freezer. Even if it gets very cold outside, the freezer will probably defrost at least partially in a couple of days. Mix in stuff from the pantry, then when the freezer has yielded its goodies, use that as your last, unperishable stores.

If you have a cooler and it is constantly below freezing outside, you could put some of your perishable food outside in the cooler. Secure the cooler and its lid carefully to prevent animals from getting inside. If your garage is securely below freezing you could put the cooler there.

Preparing food may be easy if you have a gas stove and the gas is still working. Or you could use a charcoal or propane grill, though that will be cold for the cook. A propane-fired camping stove is probably the best option if you don't have a gas stove or the gas is off.

HEALTH AND SANITATION. Keep ample stocks of prescription medications on hand, especially those for heart conditions, diabetes, and other illnesses that could quickly become medical emergencies without regular meds. Have an amped-up first aid kit on hand--not just a box of Bandaids. With open flames and use of hand tools you should expect more cuts and bruises than normal. Plus the ice storm will make emergency service much slower, or even inaccessible.

A good trick to know in case of heavy bleeding is use of a disposable diaper or even a feminine napkin. The modern absorption materials make these items amazingly effective at controlling bleeding.

Keep an ample supply of toilet paper on hand. In the event that the plumbing is out of order, you can improvise a toilet with a bucket and trash bags. The good news, if there can be good news in this situation, is that with freezing cold weather, the waste will not develop an unbearable smell piled up outside (in plastic bags) as it will be frozen, or at least very cold.

SAFETY AND SECURITY. Because of the increased potential for injury and the reduced (or prevented) access to medical services, emphasize safety to each member of your family. Use knives and other tools very carefully. If the ground and walks outside are slippery, avoid going outside, and be extremely careful when you do. Do not try to travel somewhere on foot or by car unless absolutely necessary. And do maintain fire security at all times inside the home.

COMMUNICATIONS. Land phone lines could be out. So could cellphone towers, if they lose access to power. Nevertheless, have a hand-cranked cellphone charger on hand. Have a couple of AM/FM portable radios with extra batteries. An inexpensive set of cellphone-sized walkie-talkies can be very helpful when someone does need to go outside, though effective range is limited to a block or two.

WHAT IS NOT ON THIS LIST? Conspicuously absent is a generator. That's because in most situations, a generator is not a practical substitute for normal home electrical power over a long period of time. You can certainly run your refrigerator, a well pump, and a few lights off of a big enough gas-powered generator (5,000 watts or larger), and you could probably store enough fuel to span a week's worth of periodic operation. But generators aren't a good answer for longer-term power outages. And our one-week scenario could easily become two or three, if you are a bit remote, or if the outage is sufficiently widespread.

Also missing are firearms. This is not to say you shouldn't have one or more guns for self-defense in your home or on your person. But this one-week neighborhood power outage is unlikely to heighten the security risk necessitating violent defense of your home. In fact it may objectively lower it, as criminals who might otherwise be disposed to break into your home will have ice storm-related problems of their own.

Keep in mind, as mentioned earlier, that a one-week emergency could easily stretch out significantly longer. And you don't know at the start of an emergency how long the situation will last. Prepare wisely, and conserve your consumables as judiciously as you can to make them last.