Columnist David Z. Morris attended a preparedness expo called Life Changes, Be Ready! in Lakeland, Florida last week, where he discovered that our concerns are the same as those of the average American.  ”LCBR gave an immediate sense of one big way that the preparedness crowd isn’t marginal at all – economically.”  He wrote:

More and more Americans are spending money to get ready for an uncertain future — gathering food, water, tools, and skills to help them weather anything from a hurricane to a pandemic. Contrary to images of deluded or gun-obsessed “lone wolves,” many preppers are average consumers reacting to concrete worries, and their way of thinking is spreading, fueling an emerging lifestyle trend. That lifestyle is generating demand for a broad spectrum of products offering survival — or even comfort — when large-scale systems go down…