The Smoky Mountain News headlines an article entitled, “Getting ready: Growing number of preppers work to ensure survival in case of societal collapse.” It features Carolina Readiness Supply, a store that sells food for storage and survival gear. Not too long ago, people preparing for a future disaster were ridiculed as paranoid. Now, anybody looking at the way welfare makes it easier to take than give, working Americans don’t care if they manufacture junk because it all pays the same, businesses are run by statistical analyses of absentee corporate management, compliance with government regulations eats corporate profits and then some, credit is over-extended, government and insurance bureaucracies are among the most successful of businesses, and all the rest; the burden of proof is on the non-doomsdayer to explain his extraordinary conclusions.