For WHAT Are We Preparing?

For which contingencies are we getting ready?

Is it for a natural disaster (Hurricane Katrina;  major crop failure or drought)?

Will it be as simple (heh) as living in a Soviet-style socialist world, where bread lines are hours long, surgeries are scheduled years in advance, every item produced (except for life numbing alcohol and drugs) are shoddily made?

Will it be a world where the dollar has lost buying power: any everyday item which CANNOT be produced or grown in the U.S.  (coffee, spices, out of season foods) will be prohibitively expensive, and will have to be done without, retooled to be built in the U.S., or alternatives found?

Will it be an attack by foreign powers, i.e. an EMP which will destroy electronics- communications, vehicles, fuel pumps FOR the vehicles; a threat of attack or actual attack?

Will it be a social breakdown due to anarchy or union strikes where warehouses are robbed clean, police cannot protect, businesses are shut down, communications and food supplies are broken?

Will the Government turn on us "for our own protection" due to a real or invented crisis?

Will I stay in my own home, move in with others, or bug out at a minute's notice?

Will the effects of the event be temporary (say, a week) or will it require a complete change of lifestyle?

I'm not being conspiratorial or trying to raise fears; I want to think things out, so I can make hierarchies of lists:  short-term vs. long term supplies; what things I can (do, make, raise) vs. what are dependent on others; what is needed for one event (tornado, temporary power outage) vs. another (dirty bomb attack).  What is the likelihood of one event happening before another?

edit:  Rereading this, it sounds insane.  However:  after losing power for a week due to Hurricane Ike, it isn't. And it is no less insane than the current events which are motivating it.