The Five Threats I'm Watching Most Closely Right Now

The world is changing faster than ever, and the biggest risks aren't always the ones making headlines. In this episode, Forrest Garvin shares the five threats he's watching most closely right now and explains why every family should be paying attention. From economic uncertainty and cyber attacks to power grid vulnerabilities, natural disasters, and growing geopolitical tensions, you'll learn how these events could affect your daily life and what practical steps you can take to prepare.

This isn't about fear—it's about becoming more prepared, more self-reliant, and more resilient. Forrest breaks down each threat in simple terms, discusses the warning signs to watch for, and shares realistic preparedness strategies that anyone can begin implementing today. Whether you're new to preparedness or have been prepping for years, this episode will help you prioritize your time, money, and resources so you're ready for whatever comes next.

If you're interested in preparedness, emergency preparedness, survival, self-reliance, homesteading, food storage, emergency planning, and protecting your family, this episode is for you.

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Transcript

Announcer 0:54

Survive, thrive, stay alive. It's time to get prepared with the Prepping Academy podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Welcome to the Prepping Academy, everyone. I am Forrest, your host, and thank you for being here. I was all alone and I'm like, I'll record to get some friends. Well, I'm kidding. Hey, welcome to the Prepping Academy. I am Forrest. Today we're gonna have a subject that I've been wanting to share. A lot of people ask me this question, and they go, What are some threats you're looking at right now, Forrest? What are you concerned about? That's what everyone always wants to know. Because if they knew what I'm concerned about, they would be ready for it. No, this is what I'm concerned about. You could be concerned about other things. I'm not an expert at this. Not many people were experts at, hey, what's the next crisis coming? Let's predict it. It's an EMP. Well, it's not an EMP. But they asked me, What's the what's the one thing you're concerned about right now, Forrest? And I'm like, I'm concerned you're getting a little close to my face here. It's a it's a fair question. I'm in this genre. People expect me to have answers. And so today I'm bringing you five threats I'm watching closely right now. I mean, like, I got my eyeball on them right now. With everything happening in the world, it's just easy to get overwhelmed. You know, is the EMP coming? We just got hacked in some, you know, water resources, you know, in Minnesota. We got Iran that we're fighting and destroying. What is it? What are you worried about for us? Because I have insight on something. No, I don't. I don't have insight on anything. But every day, the headline news, another crisis, another prediction, the world's gonna end. The truth is, I don't prepare for headlines. You shouldn't prepare for headlines. Oh man, I'm ready for this one. Did you see that? Another pandemic. Well, no, I'm ready for anything. Don't get ready for a headline. Don't prepare for headlines. I prepare for problems. You name it, they all have some of the same problems. Guess what happens with an EMP? Guess some of the problems you're gonna have. You're gonna run out of toilet paper. Really, wait, wait, what? That's just pandemics. The toilet No, you're gonna run out of toilet paper with an EMP. Well, there's a hurricane, it knocks down all the grocery stores. Wait, look, look, maybe you need some toilet paper then, too. Okay, wait. Toilet paper, common denominator. Let me write that down. Food. Ooh, food, common denominator. Let me write that down. Water. Ooh, fire, shelter. And all of a sudden you're like, oh, okay, I understand. You know, you're not gonna need, you know, a rain jacket during an earthquake, unless it's raining. But most of the things go across all disasters or crisis. So today I want to share with you five threats I'm paying close attention to right now. Not because I think they're gonna happen tomorrow, but I believe there's a realistic chance that it may happen and it may affect my family. And I'm just gonna share them with you because you're my prepping academy family. Am I right? So if maybe you're not worried about these, maybe you're smarter than me, which I'm sure you are. I'm just an ordinary Joe with a microphone in front of me that's been doing this for 26 years. Mediocre at that. But preparedness is not about worrying. Don't prepare because you're worried. Preparedness gives you confidence. That's why you prepare. And when you have confidence, you worry less. You know what I mean? You you you walk in the morning, you walk at night, you're a little bit better shape. I wouldn't say that makes you a runner, though. So, but you're the first step, you're sure you're sure closer to running, right? So, we're gonna talk about taking some actions. But here is the here are the five threats I am currently looking at. And you may not. That doesn't make me an expert, it's just me. You know? So the first one is the economy, stupid. I'm just saying that if y'all remember that. That was in an election sometime. The economy is scaring me to death. Even though inflation is low, job numbers are low, a lot of things are looking good in America, tariffs are working. You can hang up right now, turn me off. It this stuff is working. Our um GDP is great, everything is good, but you're saying, well, gas prices are high. Yeah, that's because we're bombing Iran. Let me ask you a question. So I believe you may disagree, may lose you. That's fine. I'll take four, five months of a few things like high gas prices, maybe some of my other food prices go up, to secure our nation for the rest of eternity. I'm I'm and to save American lives. I will do that. I feel like I'm being a patriot for doing that. You can don't care, but I feel that way myself. I just feel like if for three, four, five, maybe even six months, if it ensures my kids and Americans not getting randomly killed, I'm okay with that. Or a nuke possibility. You may totally disagree with that. I didn't ask, I'm kidding. I do care, but I don't. I think it's one of the most important things Americans can do right now for my kids. I'll do a little pain and suffering. I don't hear people talk about that, but you know what? If it's all everything he's saying is true, and everything is going the way it's going, I'm okay with that. So the economy, the inflation's good, job loss good, debt. We do have a little bit high interest rates right now. But it's asked your mom and dad what their interest rate on their house was, the first house they bought. Ask them. Ask them. It could have been 12, 15, 18 percent. So let's be quiet about six, okay? But here's what I want you to do. I'm gonna give you homework, and it's something you probably know nothing about, and it's gonna change your life. First of all, I know you don't use AI. Most preppers don't use IAI. I'm gonna challenge you, I'm gonna give you permission. This one time, don't put your name, just just go to and create an account, anonymous email, a password you don't even know, and open account on chat GPT. Just do that, just mean we're not gonna tell anyone, you're not an AI expert, we're not gonna tell anyone. This is just me and you, and I'm gonna tell you to look something up because you want to know the truth, you don't want biased input on this, okay? You want to know the truth, and here's what I want you to type in the chat once you open your account free of charge, chat GPT, you put your username, password, create it, verify your email. It's not your real email, so you don't care, and you're gonna go chat. Tell me now, you got to kind of write this as I as the way I'm telling you, okay? To get the best results. Go tell me about the carry trade. That's C-A-R-R-Y trade T-R A D E. Tell me about the carry trade and educate, give me a summary like a fifth grader, then tell me what is going on in Japan with their currency. We're still typing, okay. Then tell me what happens when the carry trade unwinds. So some key things, I'm gonna go over it real quick again. Chat, tell me about the carry trade. Give me all the information you can. Like I'm a fifth grader. Tell me what's going on with the yin in Japan right now, and then tell me what happens when the carry trade unwinds. That's only like three sentences. Then, if you want to go a little bit extra mile, when the carry trade unwinds, what happens in America? And then read that. And then one more last thing. Historically, what happens in America? Just add that one word, historically, because history repeats itself, it's it's a it's a measure, measurable thing. We know every single time what happens when the carry trade unwinds. We it happens every time, and you need to know. People aren't talking about this. Look it up, do that, and then just send me an email and say, Oh, oh, okay. Again, C A R R Y. Use AI because it will explain it to you like you're a fifth grader and you'll fully understand it. It will tell you about the Japanese yen. That Japan is worse, their worst financial situation they've been in in like 40 years. They're getting ready to go bankrupt. How will that affect America? And how would that when the verse the carry trade unwinds? Why is the stock market in America going to drop anywhere between 15 and 30 percent? And it's done it every single time ever in the history of this happening. Why what tell and then it will educate you and tell you we're getting ready to have a big stock market crash? Like, like within with soon, like in the month of August or September, definitely by the end of the year. The oil thing that's going on in Iran is it has really there's no there's no coming back. It's gonna happen. And because their oil prices, Japan relies on all the oil from that area, and so and they're having to buy oil like expensive. It's just making it worse. So, but ask what happens. That's why America just injected like 10 was it, 10 billion dollars. They sold euro and bought yen to try to make it stronger. It's not gonna help, it's gonna like a little band-aid on an artery. Okay, look it up, judge for yourself. The next crisis is definitely gonna be an economic crisis in America. It's gonna be short term though, it's gonna be only for a few months. You're like, what for for what only for a few months? They call it a V-shaped recovery. It happens every time. Look it up, know, get the knowledge yourself, don't rely on what I'm telling you. So that I I'm gonna encourage people right now to start reducing their debt, build energy savings devices like get a generator, get you know, get more food, just get prepared. So if something happens in the market, you're not rushing to the store and buying it as prices go up. Financial preparedness gives you options. Okay, it's like having a utility knife, like a Boy Scout knife, it's not practical. Who uses a Boy Scout knife? It's got 23 tools on it. You're like, I wouldn't even carry it. It's heavy, it's not practical. But when you need that toothpick or you need that tweezers, and you're out in the wild, and you're like, man, if I just have some tweezers to get this out, it has you're like, oh, oh wow, okay. Them tweezers are pretty handy, and scissors. I mean, you know, I don't have to, you know, cut it with a knife. So anyway, financial preparedness gives you options, okay? That we have to remember. So my first concern is the stock market turning and crashing. I believe it's gonna be short term, a few months, and it's gonna it will recover. I personally I like crypto, it's gonna go down too, but I think I think there's more money to be made in crypto right now than anything else. I do teach a crypto class, it's a free webinar. Go to garvinacademy.com and it's called The Case for Crypto. And you can, it's a free webinar once a month. You can join that. It'll be in the notes. My number two threat is the electrical grid getting hacked. I have friends in high places when it comes to the electrical grid. Jonathan Hollerman's one of them, wrote the book Survival Theory. He knows this better than anyone. He's literally on a commission to harden our electrical grid. But electrical grid, there's no internet if there's no electricity. There's no cell phone towers, no electricity, no lights, no banks, no hospitals. What can I do if power goes out at my house to survive and keep my family at a higher survival, not just at more comfortable? It might not be long term, it could be long term, but let's just do electricity going out for a month in your area, not nationwide. Nationwide, that's a whole different ball game. But in your area, brownouts, what look at Cuba, brownouts constantly. We're not Cuba, but what happens if that happens in America? What can I do to keep my food and my refrigerator and my freezer safe, keep my family, you know, as comfortable as I can? What can I do now? As you guys know, you guys know in Minnesota there were 30 water systems hacked. 30 in 12 different states. They did some crazy things, but as far as we know, they didn't like poison water. The water is bad. And if they did, they've kind of fixed it. Do you have water stored? So they could do the electrical grid, they could do water storage. They're just hacking. They're hacking, they're trying to make our life miserable. And they say that's Iran. Yeah, I got some thoughts on what we should do there, and they're not pleasant. I'm not even gonna share them. Yeah. I I'm just I'm gonna keep that to myself. But are you ready for a week? Okay, what if the okay, you got all this food and the power goes out? Do you have a solar oven? You need to go to mysolaroven.com and buy one of them right now. And when you buy one and you use it, you're gonna save so much money using that every day. It literally uses the sun to cook food. Literally, that's my family's company. One of them. My kids run that. Mysolaroven.com. Go and purchase one of them. You're you're the smell doesn't leave the oven, so people can't smell around you like you're cooking, you know, on an open fire. People smell that miles, and it uses the sun to just free energy. So in a rainstorm, you're not cooking outside anyway. So don't be doing that. But so but the sun's out, you're cooking food. Go buy a solar oven, get some solar panels. So keep food in your refrigerator and freezer from spoiling. So you need a generator or solar generator or something. That's thousands of dollars of food, possibly. I know, I think I probably have roughly a thousand dollars of food in my in my because we bought a half cow months and months ago, and I don't know if half that's gone, but that half cow cost a fortune. And but we've eaten a lot of it. We have I've eaten all the good steaks. So if you come rob me, you're getting like tongue and some hamburger meat. So, but we've eaten a good portion of it. So the third one is a cyber attack on the internet. That affects banks, that affects hospitals, retail stores, utility companies, like the water plant, few, fuel, gas stations, transports, communications. Again, there's a whole list of things you need to start preparing for that. I need gas. I need to learn communications. What if the cell phone towers go out? Well, I need some, you know, I need some power. I need supplies, I need food, I need band-aids, I need bullets, I need, you know, maybe some antibiotics, some fish antibiotics. I need maybe, you know, people always store gold and silver. Not a big fan of that. I don't think you'll ever use gold and silver ever to trade, but I guess it's good to have, okay? Because you know, people aren't gonna want gold and silver so much unless they have so if I have 45,000 rounds of nine millimeter ammo, okay, I'll take gold and silver. But if I have, you know, you know, a hundred or five hundred rounds of ammo and you only want 20, I don't want gold and silver. I want food or something else that can help me live. So our lives have become totally dependent on the internet. That increases every day as well. So having some backup plans with even your data, your photos, your your your documents, you have printed copies of important documents in a fireproof safe, offline access and backup copies. So again, the first one was economic crisis, the second one was the power grid. The third one was cyber attacks, the fourth one is supply chain distribution. It takes so much energy, power, and manpower to move trucks to get corn in North Carolina. All of North Carolina corn is like for feed for cows and pigs. I will say that South Carolina has peaches, and man, I've fallen in love with a good old peach. But if you're in Iowa, you don't ever see a peach. So that's where some freeze-dried peaches may come into play there. But my my third one, I mean, my fourth one is supply chain. What if you can't get food in your grocery store? What if you can't get certain material? What if you can't get oil for your car? Yeah, you probably should store like you know, five quarts of oil so you can change your oil in your car or something. You may have gas, but if your oil if your oil is bad, so store some gas, store, you know, may I don't know if you need spark plugs for your generator. You know, whatever you have, have have spare parts. What if all of a sudden China shuts down? We don't get anything for China. That means you're not gonna get spark plugs. I would bet that most spark plugs are made in China. Well, maybe have a few on hand before they go up to $45 for a spark plug for your chainsaw. Or like a lot of our medical stuff, they're changing this. Dr. Kennedy is changing this, which I am so thankful that a lot of our medical, you know, like vitamins and minerals and Antibiotics are made in China and they're bringing them back to America. Love that. That's awesome. You know, all the P, you know, the personal protection stuff like masks, all made in China. Well, we got American companies making them now. And that's that, and so, but we don't want to run out. So we need to just be prepared. Need to have that stuff stored and need to have it in-house. Don't go crazy. But TP, generators, gas, I mean, come on, TP. You're gonna use leaf? Your wife's gonna use no, she's not. She's gonna scream at you, you're gonna take your shirt off, and that's what she's gonna use. That's pretty disgusting. I went from zero to disgusting in like less than a sentence. There, what modern inventions are there are you using that will come obsolete at the time? Like your toilet. So that supply chain, make sure you have the right supplies, make sure you can maintain your equipment. So that's my fourth is supply chain issues, disruptions. Number five is just technology. We we depend on our phones, we depend on email, all our information now is on the computer. Well, if you don't have backup generator for power or solar because that gas is gonna run out, you can't connect to any of that stuff. People don't buy books anymore. I like books. I've got 300 books I'm staring at right now. I like books. I like to buy books, and so a lot of the technology we have though, we're just not gonna have anymore. But I've got these documents on PDFs saved on a drive, so when the grid goes down, I can bring up the PDFs and learn how to make a fire. Give me a break. Okay, let me throw one at you. A couple years ago, I was in the mountains of North Carolina. Hurricane Helena came through. I was in an Airbnb back in the middle of nowhere. I just like to stay in the middle of nowhere. There's like bears are coming through the neighborhood where I'm staying when I went up there, and all of a sudden, all the power and cell phone towers go out. And I didn't take my privacy phone. I don't, I forgot it. And I actually had someone going by my house to pick it up to bring it up the next day because that would have been the answer. But I had my regular phone up there. Cell phone towers went out. Guess what didn't work? My GPS, because it needs internet to pull up the map. I couldn't even get out of the neighborhood without trial and error because my GPS didn't work. My Google Maps didn't work. If I'd had my privacy phone, I have the maps installed on it, it'd have worked perfect. My mistake on that. Lesson learned. In Google Maps, you can download your area and have it for offline. Because the the hitting the satellites and your dot moving, that's you don't need power for that. You just the the GPS satellites make that makes that move as you move. But you do need the maps, and you can download the maps. You just gotta know how to do it. But we're so dependent on technology, even for water. I have a well, man, it just pumps all the time. What happens if that pump doesn't work anymore? Because power's out. So we we you know, we we gotta have cash. Cash is king. Gotta have some cash, store some cash, have some cash. So because even though, let's say it could be a local disaster, all the power, the bank shut down, the nearest bank or power around you is probably a hundred miles away. Having cash, the people aren't gonna take credit cards. Having cash, they're not gonna take gold and silver. Cash, you can go and buy ice, you can go and buy things that you need. You so because at that point, people feel the economy's coming back and that dollar is gonna be worth something. Read the papers to know what's going on, listen to the radio. And radio is not new technology. Radio has been around for 150 years, and they'll still be able to transmit. They have the means to do that. Even if the power goes out, even if even if EMP happens, a lot of the you know, some of the radio stations are EMP proof, or they can throw up a secondary antenna and some and reroute their their distribution, their power to you know another way in their through transmitters and transmit. But we become too dependent on technology. We need to learn how to read maps, carry cash, print important documents, keep backup copies of critical information, and keep technology from being a crutch. So, anyway, so yeah, let me tell you real quick what is not on my list. I didn't mention zombies. I don't like zombie movies. I, you know, I tried to watch The Walking Dead, I think it's The Walking Dead or whatever, and I watched it up until the scene, they're in a car, like used car lot or junkyard, and this little girl walks around in her white dress, and this guy just shoots her, and I'm like, okay, yeah. Because she's a zombie. It was okay because she's a zombie. I'm like, I just can't watch. I can't put that garbage in my mind. I just can't. I'm you know, my Bible says put things heavenly and things from above in my mind. I can't put that in my mind. I could I stopped it right there. I didn't mention asteroid strikes, I don't believe one's gonna come. I didn't mention EMP. Oh, I'm not gonna say it loud, but I'm gonna tell you, I don't believe one's gonna happen. I just don't. I I don't want to get into it right now, but I read the Bible and I don't see anywhere that something like that where power is out. And don't again don't want to get into that. But I will say though, there's a movie coming. It's called One Second After. Great movie, William Fortune, and that's coming next spring. Stay tuned because PrepperNet is the preparedness partner with that movie, and all that they're doing, PrepperNet is the preparedness partner. And if you're interested and you're in the preparedness field, you need to contact us because we're gonna do it. We are your source to get connected to that. And we're gonna be on the website, we're gonna be in the movies. I'm going up in September to watch the early release of it, but it's called One Second After. You can go find it now. One secondAthro.com. It's the movie, and yeah, we're I've been working with them for um over a month now, and yeah, it's coming, it's been shot already. The video in another country, which is kind of weird, but anyway. So, anyway, you got some actions, you got. I mean, my book is a good start as well. Don't try to sell that, but my good my book's a good start. It's called the Preparedness Roadmap, tells you what to buy, what skills you need, what you need to read. But there are the five things that I'm most concerned about, and again, I'm gonna sum them up real quick. The first one is a a financial crisis, the economic crisis. Second is the electric grid. The third one is cyber attacks on water, on banks. Maybe your money's frozen or something like that. But cyber attacks, and then the fifth one is dependent on technology too much. We need to get off that. So don't prepare for fear, prepare to be resilient. Every improvement you make strengthens your family. Store food, reduce debt, learn some skills, improve your communication, strengthen your community, get that tribe going. Get your if you're not don't have a retreat, man, get that neighborhood together, at least your couple neighbors. Those preparations will help you overcome any crisis in a better in a better way. Prepared families adapt. They literally make they they have the knowledge and the skills to solve problems, they stay calm, they move forward, and that is the prepping academy way right there. Hey guys, thanks for joining us. Go subscribe, like, go to prepping academy.com. I'll have the notes, all the links in the in the description here. God bless you guys, and we'll see you next time on the prepping academy.

Announcer 33:36

Thanks for listening to the Prepping Academy Podcast. Preppers United at www.preppingacademy.com.