Billionaires Are Buying Bunkers In New Zealand Because They Fear Vigilantes May Kill Them

The popular image of survivalists is that of right-wing preppers from “Flyover Country”; basically the most hardcore fraction of what those Comrade Obama, bless his heart, described in the following way:

It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Therefore, it may come as a surprise that the oligarch class has its share of survivalists, a trend dramatically on the rise. New Zealand is a very popular location lately. Maybe some are motivated by vague, unspecific safety concerns (“just in case”), or want extremely durable vacation homes, but there seems more to it than that. A Daily Mail article from February describes this:

Attracted by a remote First World country that has the potential to be self-sufficient and is on no one’s list of nuclear targets, the super-rich kings of Silicon Valley and Wall Street are buying up vast tracts of its land—in anticipation of the day when they may need to live there. […]
What the catastrophe will precisely be remains unclear, but possibilities include a devastating asteroid impact, giant earthquake, nuclear war, civil war, pandemic, zombie invasion and the Second Coming.
Tellingly, the geeks of Silicon Valley appear to be most worried that it will be a struggle between rich and poor in a world economy turned upside down by new technology—with them as the main targets.

 

What do they fear?

Is war what’s on their minds – or something else?

I concur with the analysis that class warfare targeting the oligarchs may well occur if all hell breaks loose. It’s considerably more probable than asteroids (bunkers probably won’t help), earthquakes (Mother Nature gives no warning), pandemics (far more modest shelters will suffice), zombies (seriously?), or the Second Coming (if Judgment Day is the real deal, they’re going to hell anyway). So we’re left with nuclear war or civil war as reasons justifying spending huge sums on extensive fortifications.

The article speculates that citizens could be angered about new inventions by tech billionaires—as it suggests further down, this could include robotics. However, anti-robot demonstrations haven’t been too common lately, and there are no groundbreaking advances just on the horizon (like actual artificial intelligence) that suddenly could put millions out of work. That scenario doesn’t explain why Wall Street types are buying hideouts in New Zealand too. So, the public becoming angry merely about disruptive technologies seems pretty improbable.
Are they afraid of political instability? As the article states further:

Local estate agents say their U.S. clients rarely intend to live in New Zealand, but cite reasons for their purchases such as the toxic presidential election and the spate of mass shootings in America.
In the first ten months of last year, foreigners—mainly Australians and Americans—bought nearly 1,400 square miles of land there, more than four times what they bought in the same period the previous year.

Indeed, 2016 was the most turbulent year since the engineered agitation of the 1960s; apparently some interesting things were afoot. Now here’s some more food for thought:

All this panic among the super-rich begs an obvious question: what do they know that the rest of us don’t?
Certainly, preparing for the Apocalypse has been a multi-billion dollar business for many years.
Polls have shown around 22 per cent of Americans believe the world will ‘end’ in their lifetime. Many right-wingers were convinced that Barack Obama would start a civil war by trying to seize citizens’ guns.
Now, there’s the unpredictable Donald Trump to disturb their dreams. More than 13,000 Americans registered to buy a home in New Zealand—17 times the usual rate—in the week after he was elected president.

That’s a very interesting statistical anomaly! A few lefty celebs promised to move to Canada if Trump got elected, but still won’t leave even though they could just drive there in a moving van. Unlike them, these guys—apparently over twelve thousand beyond the usual number of applicants—actually got serious about taking the plunge the following week. Did they get an unusually powerful case of the jitters after the election, or could there be something more—possibly even inside information—compelling them to seek a hideout in a remote part of the world?
Did they fear President Trump might push the button? That’s pretty improbable. He wishes to pursue friendly relations with Russia, the USA’s most credible potential nuclear threat. It was Hillary who was antagonizing the Russians. The sore losers are still at it with the malarkey that Putin supposedly “hacked the election”. (On that note, if it’s possible to hack an election, why aren’t they demanding a return to paper ballots before 2020?) How about other potentially hostile nuclear powers? China wouldn’t go to war over a tariff increase; besides, they’d blow up too many WalMarts. North Korea’s arsenal and delivery capabilities are still inferior to what the USA had in 1945.
Maybe they’re worried about more than The Donald himself. The groundswell that got him elected—even despite the Republican bosses trying to hamstring their own top candidate every step of the way—was spearheaded by the very same people who are calling out globalist oligarchs on their manipulations. The potentates precipitously perceived that they’re not as powerful as they presumed, and they’re panicking about what this perhaps portends. Probably the plutocratic preppers are pondering the possibilities. I certainly see why that scares the snot out of them.

 

A friendly word to the wise

The monarchs of old—even tyrants—usually acted toward what they considered the best long-term interests of their countries. The Robber Barons of the Gilded Age were notoriously cheap, but certainly realized where their wealth came from and had civic-minded moments. Today’s aristocrats are often globalists with little loyalty to their countries, acting in the best short-term interests of the next quarterly financial statement.

Every day, more people are waking up to the fact that this is a problem. If unchecked, today’s trajectory eventually will lead to international feudalism characterized by Third World conditions across the planet, immense extremes of wealth, and annihilation of unique nationalities and cultures. As time goes on, this will become increasingly obvious and unpopular.

Peace is good, so let’s keep things peaceful. Rather than buying hideouts where their supplies eventually will run out if things end badly, I have a better idea for oligarchs who have nightmares involving torches and pitchforks. They can start repairing their image. Their actions have created some public relations problems.
Sam Francis wrote an article about managerial elites selling out their people. It’s quite extensive, and

I’ve provided my own take on it. The short version is that the oligarch class is happy to send the public down the primrose path. Really, that’s not a very good way to earn admiration and respect. Maybe it’s time for them to reconsider doing things like that. It’s a win-win for everyone.
As Pat Buchanan put it:

Undeniably, Americans cherish their economic freedom and respect the men who helped make America great, inventors such as Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison and industrialists such as Henry Ford.
But they do not revere the men who make millions and billions at the big casinos of capitalism. They do not admire a George Soros for winning his billion-dollar bet shorting the British pound.

If their actions are so unpopular that they fear a public uprising, then they need to realize that they’re doing something wrong.  If they want to mend fences, those who got rich from American consumers should start showing some loyalty. They should stop bringing in H1-B workers to drive down wages, sending factories to Third World sweatshops, encouraging population replacement immigration, and the like. Another token of good faith would be to stop virtue signaling and stop promoting and funding crazy leftist causes.

It might be a lot to ask for, but it would be in their best interests to start acting prudently, while they still have a chance.