national security

NATIONAL SECURITY
Much has been made of the idiocy of gutting our industrial base to deliver the lowest cost products to our consumers. I continually harp on the countries agricultural sector being vulnerable to petroleum dependence. And of course our economy is vulnerable to vast holdings of foreign debt. Together, these three problems pose a threat to our national security. Let’s see how they are going to effect you.
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High tech, high value added manufacturing is not going anywhere. Despite dismal public school performance and extreme price inflation at the college level, somehow we limp along supplying enough trained personnel to the high tech area, much of that manufacturing. The low brow manufacturing sector, where Joe Bob and Tyrone the high school drop outs get thirty dollars an hour to fasten bolts at a Ford plant ( Ford just put up the Volvo brand and some plants as collateral for a loan, its credit rating is so bad and its future so dim ) is all but over. We don’t need idiots in this country to get overpaid to do monkey work when masses of Chinese peasants are lining up outside the gates of cities to do the same job for $5 a day. The day of the blue collar worker in the US are historic fairy tales. Don’t get me wrong, I work at a job a monkey could do. But at least a Chinaman can’t so I have a bit of leeway before my pink slip.
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It is true that a lot of industries we need are now overseas. Some of it directly related to national security at a military level such as computer chips. But if everyone embargoed the US tomorrow ( don’t laugh, if we ever nuke anyone- an option seriously considered by some idiots in charge- the world could easily turn from us in fear and anger ) we could limp along by cannibalization and keep our nuclear missiles in a state of readiness. Plus over 100 million militiamen with bolt action rifles are a ready deterrent to invasion. We don’t suffer from a defense standpoint. We just suffer from a vulnerability to resupply to keep our Imperial Army occupying other countries. At a personal level there would be an underwear shortage as China makes most of our skivvies.
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Our agricultural sector is in worse straights. We are almost 100% reliant on petroleum to feed ourselves. Yes, we produce enough of our own oil that we could keep the farms going. But if our economy collapsed would that crimp on commerce chock off the farms supplies? They need credit and transportation as well as oil. In a downturn, even with abundant oil, would the whole supply system work as flawlessly as today to feed the entire population? I have my doubts. All it takes is one ghetto next to a freeway to be in a riot and some idiot will stop traffic as a protest to Whitey keepen him down. Besides the senior citizens the best bribed sector in the economy are the ghetto dwellers. But they are still not happy. No hobbies and they are bored. They will riot as soon as the liquor stores are short of MadDog 20/20. A guy with a .38 Saturday Night Special can bring the freeway ( and all supply carrying semi trucks ) to a halt or take out electrical power so they can rob the Kentucky Fried Chicken.
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The point is no one farms locally. Most produce and food stuffs are transported to areas far outside the local area. If you live outside of DogButt Montana and grow mushrooms ( specialty crops are a must as high property taxes discourage subsidence farming ) you can’t sell locally. There is no market for specialty fungus locally. You have to ship it to San Francisco where trendy uptight Yuppies eat it to be popular ( if you where gay and were balding and wore turtlenecks you would need to work at being popular ). And locally grown items such as meat are still shipped out as demand assures profits. That is why products are cheaper half way across the country than where they are grown. Profit through volume sales. But no matter the cause, the end result is that we are set up to use cheap oil to move food all over the place. If oil gets truly expensive this system is in jeopardy.
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Economically we are at the mercy of foreigners. Over half of our debt is held by them. We may think that the Japanese won’t screw us, but I would imagine that is just showing a lack of imagination. Remember, a major earthquake in Tokyo would send all needed capital home. Or, less Japanese forgot about Nagasaki than we would prefer. Perhaps if conditions were right revenge would be welcome by enough citizens. And we can all imagine China nuking us if she could get around that sticky retaliation problem. What is to say North Korea doesn’t already have some nukes ( the test was a diversion ) supplied by China or even Russia? China might well be the next worlds superpower. She might go to war some day to assure that. And why wouldn’t that war be economic? We beg for money every day, she is drowning in it. We should have their problems.
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All together these three vulnerabilities add up to trouble. Each one separately is little to concern ourselves over. The manufacturing decline is in low tech industries. The food problem can work itself out if given enough time. And being bankrupt doesn’t necessarily mean citizens are starving in the streets. Look at the gentle decline of the British Empire. Yet if they combine we could see plenty of trouble. If we stop selling debt to others our government could shut down. Or more likely inflation could skyrocket, hurting us all day after day. Then oil gets more expensive and food skyrockets in price and riots start as welfare is cut and food doesn’t get to market as truckers fear for their lives. Then China really raises prices as their home market is now sufficient and basics get very expensive. Then brownouts or blackouts and food shortages and crime out of control, etc.
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Another happy scenario for your consideration.
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alternate power

Sorry, I tried to post this morning but it was so darn cold in here ( not complaining too much, it was single digits outside ) that the computer kept shutting itself down. Hey, I'm in Nevada not friggin New England. This is about as cold as it gets. So, heres today's blog in the evening and I'll try again in the early AM to post.

THE 15 WATT POWER SYSTEM
It’s hard for most of us to escape the Petroleum Age. Even those of us that heat exclusively with wood still have gas driven chain saws. And more than likely drive to the wood source. Unless you own the woods you are cutting from and stock plenty of gas with stabilizer added you will soon be out of wood if petroleum supplies are cut off. And most folks cook with propane if they are off the grid. All of these things are great to avoid short term power disruptions but do little to address long term shortages. And since a lot of folks use generators for charging their batteries, that too is liable to face fuel problems.
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Don’t get me wrong. Wood heat and propane cooking and diesel generators are a wonderful thing to have. Much better than living in the city subject to power outages, either due to terror attacks or system failure due to overload or lack of maintenance to satisfy stockholders. But you also need to have some kind of solar back-up. Solar will not fit every situation. Yellowstone blowing or an asteroid strike or World War Three erupting after Israel bombs suspected Iranian nuclear weapons plants will fill the atmosphere with enough crap that both farming and solar power will be put on hold for a few years. But solar has a better chance of supplying you with power than a petroleum generator does. We can only play the odds.
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Solar power is still expensive. No where near as expensive as decades ago but still it is not too affordable. $6 a watt is about the best deal out there unless you buy a huge system and that is beyond most of our budgets. My solution thus far is to own a $20 solar battery charger. The kind that charges AAA, AA, C and D batteries. Then you use LED flashlights and lanterns. Which are $6 to $10 each. A very cheap solution. But of course it comes at a price. LED lighting is wonderful, as a cheap solution. Nothing comes close to providing the light as cheaply. So I always recommend it for poor folk on a budget trying to prepare. But the light output is marginal. You can read by it, if you hold the book close enough. But don’t try to do much else.
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For the past five months I lived in the Hippy Bread Van, as most of you know. Cooking was by propane camp stove and lighting was by LED’s. Putting in a fresh set of batteries I would lean the small lantern ( $10, Wal-Mart camping section ) on my upper chest and read reclining on the bed. Good enough for about twenty hours of use until it started to dim. And for playing cards we had to put up two lanterns and two hanging flashlights to see the cards comfortably. LED’s are good for emergency situations or those on a really tight budget. For a much better light you will want a small solar panel and an RV battery and an RV 15w florescent lamp. One will light up your whole 20 foot travel trailer very brightly.
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The Sportsman’s Guide ( www.sportsmansguide.com ) has a 15 watt solar panel for $99. They also have a regulator and a rack for adding more than one. But let’s focus on the one panel, as we are poor and broke. Of course the 15w is at optimal performance. And it would really suck if this was the only panel you could ever get. But, again, there is a huge difference between what we want, what we need and what we can afford. I might need preventive maintenance health care but it ain’t in the budget. I might want hundreds of watts of solar power, but it is not in the budget. Heck, 15w isn’t even really in the budget which is why I still have my LED setup. But it sure delivers a level of light that is pure heaven compared to LED’s. I just moved into a trailer park after insurmountable problems with the stepdaughter forced us to abandon parking there. I can’t afford that either, but real light and our own bathroom almost make it worth while. If you can squeeze it into your budget at all, go with a solar panel and florescent light. There is a world of difference.
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For about $100 you can buy several LED’s, several sets of rechargeable batteries and a recharger. If this is all you can afford, fine. It will keep you in light for decades. You can even spend less if you stay with only one battery size. For instance, AA. Buy three LED small lanterns ( they are electronic and will break, have back ups ) and a charger and 12 batteries. Cost is about $65. Two lanterns, one charger and six batteries are $45. And you can buy a little at a time. Buy one lantern and a mess of dollar store disposable batteries. $15. When you can afford it, the charger. Then the batteries. If you are really poor buy a $6 flashlight that uses AAA and buy some disposables. $10 total cost. But you really need a solar charger for long term emergencies. Even if you could barter for more disposables they will most likely be dead years in the future. Disposables are more for the short term preppers. They have little reason to buy solar and are only reading this because I am their new god and they love me.
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For the panel you need the panel, a regulator and a battery. Figure about $200 if you buy a marine battery at Wal-Mart. More if you don’t. I haven’t priced the florescent fixture or the bulbs. I wouldn’t imagine they would be too much if you shop around. With seven hours of strong sun light a day you can then run your light about six hours. Not bad at all. Better than going to bed at sun set. Of course, with the LED set up you need three hours of sunlight to have the lantern run 20 hours, but as we discussed the light quality is vastly reduced. You are buying quality here. Kind of like when I tell you to buy the Lee-Enfield for $150 rather than the Russian bolt gun for $75. The ammo is twice the price too. It is a vastly better step up the quality ladder. Cheapest is not always best. It will usually do in a pinch. You just might want to always do a little better if possible.
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So, $100 to do it right for LED’s. $250 for a trailer solar set up. You will need light long term. Your choice. Of course beware the shorter life of 12v batteries. Five years. A set of rechargeable batteries will last ten if they are recharged every other week and only last half of the cycles that is advertised. Potentially they could last over twenty years if you have several sets, if you fully discharge before charging and if a little luck is with you. The trade off is weak light. But the weak light does have one advantage. Unless you stare into the bulb it will not destroy your night vision. Hard to make up your mind, isn’t it? To further muddy the waters, an advantage of the 12v system is that it can be used on things other than lights. Such as a small air pump in a fallout shelter.
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Glad to have helped.
END

corn

CORN
Sometime around the Great Depression the Federales did a study on why so many Southern children were suffering from malnutrition. The culprit turned out to be in their use of corn. It was ground into meal and then used as flour. So standards were set where millers were told to add nutrients to their meal to avoid the problem of a corn heavy diet lacking certain nutrients. Alas, rather than forcing this practice on businesses they could have accomplished the same thing by educating the people about the traditional Mexican way of preparation which frees up the niacin and other needed nutrients.
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Just as potatoes need to be cooked to free up some of its nutrients, so corn must be processed with limestone or wood ash to make it more than an inferior grain. The Mexican peasants have been doing it this way for untold years. If in the future you plan on relying heavily on corn for your emergency diet ( and you should due to its low cost ) you need to learn how to properly prepare corn so it will not cause a nutrient deficiency.
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Take two pounds of corn to one half cup of calcium carbonate. This is also known as slaked lime. To that is added three quarts of water. Adjust to fit the amount of corn meal used. You also need a stainless steel or copper pan and a colander. In your kettle add the water and slowly stir in your calcium carbonate ( “cal carb” ) in the unheated water. Add corn and bring to a boil. After three minutes reduce heat and simmer for twenty minutes. Let cool and then soak overnight about ten hours. In the morning put the corn in the colander and rinse at least twice ( rinse while rubbing the corn ) to wash the lime away. Otherwise you will get a bitter taste. Grind into flour and use quickly as the corn oils can now spoil.
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I couldn’t find a recipe using wood ash, but to use lime you can buy the cal carb in powdered form at a Mexican food source. In a collapse situation the following have a good source. Seashells. Snail shells. Agricultural lime. And egg shells are 95% cal carb. If you go to the mineral source you can use chalk, limestone or marble. In a really desperate situation some types of antacids have a high content of cal carb.
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If you decide to make corn a large portion of your food storage, you are in luck. It presently sells for $5 for fifty pounds at the feed store. Almost half the cost of wheat. You can use feed corn or deer corn. Anything except seed corn which is coated with a fungicide. Corn is corn. Kelloggs cereal uses the same stuff as is feed to the chickens. And, yes, buying at the feed store you are going to encounter little rocks and bits of stalks and other grains. So what. Get over it. I remember eating my mothers home made refried beans and biting into stones that got through the packaging process. I survived without permanent harm.
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Think about it. You can grow corn and beans and potatoes for a good diet. Wheat is a little harder. The others will grow in a garden. Wheat will too but might not be enough in a small space. Stocking up on corn is half the price of wheat. You can stock as much wheat as you want but then supplement that with almost twice the corn for the same price. Four hundred pounds of wheat is $60. It is $40 for corn. Not a big deal if you are comfortable with a year supply of food. But if you think five to ten years is better you are looking at a difference of $100 to $200, enough to buy a surplus rifle and some ammo. The cost of two years worth of corn is just slightly more than a mere paltry twelve MRE meals. Two years verses twelve days.
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Take advantage of our petroleum powered farms churning out super low price food. No, not California produce. Midwest grain. Or grain from wherever as we experience a drought. It will not last forever, do it while you can. The whole point of storing food is that either the water or the petroleum can become scarce and endanger our food supply. And a lot of us are living in areas not suitable for agriculture. I’m in a desert. Most of California can’t grow crops without importing water from out of state. The entire southwest. The Rocky mountain region. There is a reason most of the population stayed back east. That is where the food is produced. And even if you live there all the farmland might be paved over. Store food. Our ability to become food self sufficient will not happen overnight. It will take a lot of famine to relearn to farm in Post-Petroleum America.
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As I have written about before it takes a mere $1,000 to stock a ten years supply of food per person if you use half wheat and half corn. Of course storage is extra, but this is less than what most survivalists spend on one friggin lousy assault rifle with magazines ( ammo extra ). After that is done you can relax. You can survive almost anything now, at least food wise. What if Yellowstone blew and we went into a “nuclear winter” from all the ash in the atmosphere. It wouldn’t matter if you had farm land. But it would if you had a good food storage. Not the perfect food storage to be sure. But better than one year of canned goods or freeze dried slop. It would keep you alive in reasonable good health.
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Or just go and buy that new assault rifle. Then you can kill and eat your fellow man. That sounds just yummy, doesn’t it?
END-buy now,time short,end is near, we'll all doomed, buy e-books www.bisonpress.com

oil weapon

OIL WEAPON
After the Soviet Union broke up and the Russian economy went into the toilet, for almost ten years western corporations and countries used them almost like any other third world country, good only to exploit for their resources. Under the guise of promoting free market trade, Russian companies were privatized and the mineral and energy wealth was given away at fire sale prices. Then in the year 2000 Putin came into power and started cleaning up the mess. He re-nationalized the companies. Now mineral and especially energy assets are used as a strategic weapon, not as a meager economic source. If looked upon from the Russian standpoint Putin is the strong leader needed to bring back national strength.
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As the US is busy keeping a dwindling resource artificially low in price so voting Seniors and Soccer Moms can drive their SUV petrol pigs around in blissfully unaware shopping sprees, Russia in conjunction with China is quietly behind the scenes making sure that they win the energy war. The US stations troops strategically close to the Caspian region which has seen seventy years of oil extraction and will most likely prove a poor prize and is keeping the bulk of its combat strength in Iraq where guerilla warfare keeps the oil fields unproductive. The Russians meanwhile go about bribing Europeans with future supply so that they remain compliant to Moscow’s wishes. And, more importantly, it is pushing to change the entire economic structure pinning up our oil supply.
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The western oil companies now have less than 10% of the oil reserves remaining under their control. More and more regions with oil are placing their oil under the control of their governments. And those governments are more hostile to Washington DC than ever before. But, historically at least, those same governments have made their oil available anyway for needed revenue. Except in the near future India and China will prove to be the only regions with healthy economies and cash that these same countries will need to worry about, as the dollar erodes in value and the American economy weakens. Now there is even more to worry about.
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Prior to the oil embargo from OPEC most oil transactions took place as long term contracts. If your supplier refused to sell to you then you couldn’t find additional supplies elsewhere globally since all production was spoken for contractually. After the embargo the US with its growing financial sector managed to switch the system to spot purchases rather than long term contracts. If Saudi Arabia suddenly stopped selling to you then South Africa buying from Saudi Arabia turned around and sold it to you. There was no possibility of an embargo as the oil joined a large virtual supply pool available to anyone with money. And the sweetest part of the deal was that the London and New York markets had a monopoly on the transactions and it was all denominated in dollars. Which meant that inflated dollars bought oil. It was like getting free energy.
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But now more and more oil contracts are going back to long term contracts. The Russians are a big player coordinating this with their energy supplies and the Chinese are putting their economic muscle behind it. South American and African ( and even middle eastern ) oil producers are being given aid and weapons to sign up for long term contracts with China and Russian is pushing this with its willingness to sell to other countries. What do you think the recent squabble in Eastern Europe was about with the gas supplies being cut off? Do you really think Russia cares what price they sell their natural gas for? Of course not. They will sell it below market value to win strategically.
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As more and more of the available oil is tied up in long term contracts, less is available in the available pool western nations and especially the US can buy if anything disrupts a regular supplier. So if, say, Nigeria has a guerrilla attack and three million barrels stops flowing, that is less oil available to the US even though the world supply stays the same. That three million is detracted from our use, not the globes. Instead of the worlds 80 million barrels a day being less 3 million, it is the US supply of 12 million barrels a day it imports that is effected.
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In the past, by eliminating fixed contracts and having control of the industries currency used in trade, supply disruptions are almost non-existent. But with more and more of the supply being taken off the market by contracts the pool of available oil to cushion supply shocks diminishes. And, this is now where the other non-dollar denominated oil exchanges come into play. We were a bit premature panicking about the Iranian Oil Bourse. But if combined with other exchanges and also the revival of long term contracts, even less oil is now under US control. The Chinese have an exchange under their currency. One of the Scandinavian countries ( Norway? ) has an exchange in Euros. Russia will open an exchange next year. And the Iranians can always come back. The less oil we control and the less that is bought in dollars means we are losing control.
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Lose of control of the oil market globally means we have lost our last economic playing card. After that we are doomed. Hello, Greatest Depression. Up to now controlling other peoples oil kept our economy going as we lived off of a housing construction boom and a military spending boom ( and to a lesser extent a consumption boom ). Without free energy to sustain that our economy goes down the crapper and China has no more incentive to loan us the money keeping us afloat. After this happens and China gives us back our trillion bucks in Treasury debt, we are all over but the crying.
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Good times.
END
I’m going to try for early AM posts instead of in the evening. We’ll see how it works in the next few days.
If for some reason you had a blond moment Saturday and didn’t read that post, the “comments” feature to this blog is now unrestricted. Anyone can post without registration. I didn’t keep this closed for a month out of criticism fears ( although I am very sensitive ) but lack of knowledge on changing the controls to the page. Sorry about that. So friggin sorry I need a day job because of you tight bastards that won’t buy my books at www.bisonpress.com and I don’t have the time to stay on the Internet all day long. So pretty please buy my books and support me in grand style and then I will think about-no promises!-turning out a customer friendly blog.

fridge & pellet guns

FIELD EXPEDIENT REFRIGERATOR & SURVIVAL PELLET GUNS
Field Expedient Refrigerator- I don’t claim any originality by posting this idea, it has been done on other survival sites. But it is a darn good idea and I present it here on the off chance that some of you haven’t heard of it before. The main appeal of this method of refrigeration is that it is ancient. Mog the Caveman could have done it if he knew about clay and pottery. You can buy this store bought now and save yourself any hassle, and if it ever breaks post-collapse you can construct another one yourself with some clay.
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This method is simplicity itself. Take one large clay pot. Place a smaller one inside of it. Fill the space in between with sand. Twice a day, wet the sand. Place a wet cloth over the top. Natural evaporation will cool the inside ingredients. If it got any simpler Corporate Police would conspire to eradicate the idea as being anti-profit and thus a danger to national security. As it is they profit both ways. We will keep using mechanical refrigerators and buy the two pots and sand and cloth and keep as a grid down back-up. Now there is no need to construct more elaborate cooling methods. Sure, a root cellar would be nice if you have a garden, but if not now you can try this method.
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Results in from Africa, a continent usual not known for its alpine climate. Crops that spoiled in a day or two lasted one to several weeks in these pots. Meat went from hours to days. Even bottles of water are left in them to cool down and sold by vendors. Instead of piling produce for sale outside and seeing them rot within hours, by placing them in one of several pots they were good for days and as a bonus didn’t contribute to a fly problem. Now, if you don’t live on the Gulf or in Florida you won’t approach these conditions. But you could use a window cold box in the winter and this pot method in the summer.
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This is going to be much easier than digging a root cellar ( again, if you don’t have a garden-if you do they really pay for themselves in unspoiled produce ). Even a simple cool box requires a well buried pipe and an insulated box. A pipe buried three to six feet runs a ways underground then up into a well insulated box ( a used refer would serve well ). Then a pipe runs straight up from that to the roof. The pipe rising from the roof is painted black. The sun heats that pipe and draws the air from the initial intake at the far end of the buried pipe and up through the box. The long buried section draws cool air up into the box. With the pot refer you save yourself a lot of digging. With the cool box you save yourself from watering sand. And by the way, you can cool your whole house the same way as the cool box by using more than one line. No more A/C in southern Arizona.
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Survival Pellet Gun- I used to read folks blathering about pellet guns for survival and pretty much turned a deaf ear. Blah, blah, another piece of equipment to buy and practice with and maintain. Something I could do without. But then I was reading about old timers and corn cribs and Grandpa paying the kids for each dead rat they popped with their pellet guns. And it hit me what a good idea it was. The usual argument for them had been target practice. I always thought that was a lame idea. Like using a .22 version of a weapon to practice with. The kick is different. The sound level is different. The training value is minimal. But when a simple story is told about ambushing rodents eating the family grain, it makes much more sense.
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If every young member of the family has their own pellet gun and if they are rewarded for kills it teaches them several things. One, guns are a useful tool. Two, it’s okay to kill for money ( so when they get drafted and sent over to Iran they have the proper mindset ). And three, they learn how to sit still and be patient. It is still useful to have cats for rodent control, but the kids with firepower can sure help.
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I don’t much information as far as the guns themselves go. There are plenty of blogs and discussion groups and sites. My idea of preparing this way would go down to Wal-Mart and spend thirty bucks and buy a pump up Crossman. I’m sure there are better ways and brands. Just make sure to really stock up on the pellets themselves. And buy the needed spare parts. There shouldn’t be that many needed. And a real scope instead of those crappy little BB gun scopes.
END--ATTENTION!!!! ATTENTION!!!! I accidentally stumbled on to the solution to the "comments" feature problem everyone was having. This feature should now be open to everyone. Sorry it took so long. Feel free to blast me in public for my lame ideas now. Or praise me to the Gods. Your choice. Thanks, Jim.

hobo stove

HOBO STOVE
Amazon.com is a great resource for the survivalist. They list books well below retail, in some states you avoid the sales tax and if you don’t buy in one’s and two’s they give you free shipping ( a major feat itself in an economy where UPS continuously increases its fuel surcharge ). Of course by listing almost any book ever published by all major or minor book publishers they do offer the occasional bomb. One fiction book I ordered, some darn thing about the New Madrid quake flooding all of the Mid west, had a huge error three quarters of the way through. The last quarter was missing and they repeated an earlier section so you don’t know how things end. A pity, as it was a good book. Another was on clothes washing the old fashion way, about $7 for a padded pamphlet. And mainly just an advertisement for their ( hopefully defunct ) pre-Y2K company selling expensive goods such as the James Washer. No mention was made of cheaper products they didn’t sell. Another clunker was a book on the Hobo Stove. I bought it since it was basically about surviving with this stove. You could probably sell me a Nazi homosexual erotic thriller if you just put the word “survival” in the title.
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Basically all that the Hobo Stove book said was to build a coffee can stove and use tuna can cardboard/wax for fuel. But it took around thirty or forty pages to do it. Was it worth the nearly ten bucks I paid for it? At the time, maybe. Now, after hearing from readers and seeing other articles on the same thing, perhaps not. One reader even got his tuna can fuel recipe printed in a magazines mail section. And it is a good idea. Take an old tuna can, clean it, remove the paper. Then take cardboard, the kind that has the reinforcing weave in the middle- corrugated. Cut it to the same height as the tuna can. When it goes into the can it should be just under the lip. Wind your strips of cardboard into the can so that you fill the whole thing ( think of a tortilla you roll up and then stand on end but rolled tight so there is nothing left out of the middle ). The open ends of the cardboard should face up.
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After you fill up your cans, melt some wax. The cheapest is to gather up old candle nubs and re-melt them together. Or buy some big blocks of candle wax. Use a double burner, the bottom pot boiling water, the pot laying on the water holding your wax. When melted take the wax and pour into the cans filled with cardboard. The reason the cardboard is faxing open end up is that the wax pours in between the holes in the cardboard and the cardboard is turned into a giant wick. Since wax is almost always paraffin it is petroleum based and will burn well. This is your fuel tablet. You can use bigger size cans if you desire. Experiment to see that they give the same heat as the smaller tuna can that burns nice and hot.
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Your stove is basically a coffee can emptied and turned open end down. Poke a few holes in it for some air to get to your fire. If you want to simplify your life poke two holes at the top and put a cloths hanger handle in it to be able to move your hot stove. The once bottom, now top end is now your cooking service. By the time your coffee can rusts away you will have emptied another one. Now you have a free stove/heater and almost free fuel tabs. Your only cost is the wax. The cardboard is from the trash and everyone eats tuna and drinks coffee. The book I was telling you about goes one with recipes and other filler material, but that is it in a nutshell. Make sure you have air coming in if used indoors. A window cracked even a half inch will work. I mostly depend on propane, having lived in trailers most of my adult life and getting a two-fer ( day to day use and good in survival situations ). But this stove is very light weight and smaller than a propane stove. And perhaps the fuel is not cheaper for the BTU per dollar delivered, but the cost saved on the stove will buy a lot of fuel.
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Do not underestimate the need for hot meals on a winter day, especially if the power goes out. And by using a lot of your used cans you can save on trash ( always good for a hug from a tree-hugger if you can find one that is not a lesbian ) and make bigger fuel tabs that will work in a pinch for heating during a power outage. Get the smallest room you can, light up a can and huddle in a wool blanket. It will keep you from freezing. Pick a cool space to store your fuel to avoid summer time melting and always construct several at a time to minimize your clean up and time spent.
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I have seen articles calling for only a single ring of cardboard on the inside of the can ( can was soup size ) and the rest filled with wax. I don’t know which is better. You will want to try both kinds. Test for longevity and heat output ( the standard test for stoves is how many minutes it takes to boil a cup of water ). And the amount of wax used. If it takes three times the wax in a single ring stove which only delivers twice the burn time, stick with the cardboard filled. If anyone can, e-mail the results and I will share it with everyone.
END
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revolvers

YET ANOTHER UNWANTED ARTICLE ON REVOLVERS VERSIS AUTO PISTOLS
Recently a reader wrote on the subject of revolvers for survival. He carried a 357 at work as a security guard and was unable financially to purchase an auto pistol. Was a revolver suitable for survival? As usual I wrote a short note back to him that contained all my accumulated wisdom in three sentences. The short answer is, of course it is. A handgun is what you use as a back up weapon. I only own revolvers for my handguns and consider them suitable for survival use. And why not. I will only use it if I must, if my rifle is broken or lost or runs out of ammunition, or, more likely, I use it because it is handy and then make my way to my rifle for serious killing.
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Mention was made of Mel Tappan. He didn’t like revolvers and only recommended the 45 auto. Now, myself, I consider the 1911A1 auto pistol the best handgun ever made. Others will disagree, foolishly pointing out how perfect a Glock is. My answer to that is, can you club a man to death with a Glock? Of course not. With old Ironsides, you can. The 45 will work in muddy and dirty conditions, then when you run out of ammunition you can turn an enemies skull into mush in short order. The plastic pistols don’t work nearly as well as a club. The same reason I like the old World War II bolt action rifles. After the ammo is gone and you broke off your bayonet in someone’s ribs then you can butt stroke them until either their body breaks or your arms get tired.
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But thinking the 45 is the best pistol out there doesn’t mean I own one. I also think the HK91 is the best battle rifle but I don’t own one of them either. The factor I like to call “too poor to pay attention”. A revolver is cheaper than an auto, just as a bolt action is cheaper than a semi-auto. You don’t buy the best there is, you buy the best you can afford. For me that means a Lee-Enfield for a rifle ( the most expensive surplus rifle, but in my opinion the best- if only the Brits made cars as good as they used to make rifles ) and a revolver for a handgun. The initial cost is about the same, $300 for a revolver and about $375 for an auto if both are foreign made. But of course the auto requires lots of magazines which easily adds $100 to the cost if you buy enough of them to last as long as your gun.
*
You may think the extra $175 is worth the price, but if you are poor and also need money for food and water filters than it is an expense you can’t shoulder. I could be a real prick and tell you all the best stuff you need and force you to sell crack to buy it all, but since Kurt Saxon is busy scratching his ass somewhere in Arkansas and hasn’t written anything new in years it falls upon me to be the lone voice in the wilderness and preach the frugal way of survival. And as that voice it is up to me to tell you things you don’t want to hear. Like you can’t afford all the toys you want. Like it is foolish to hold a thirty year mortgage with the way the economy is going and you would be better off living in a used mobile home. Like the time to prepare is now and you can’t afford an auto pistol, or a case of MRE’s ( remember, one case of twelve meals equals a years worth of wheat from the feed and grain store ). I’m so friggin sorry I have to be the one to tell you our civilization is being flushed down the toilet and you need to prepare now or die a horrible elongated death. Do you think I enjoy this? It means I’ll never get the money and recognition that is my due. Instead I’ll be shivering out in the desert with a rimfire hoping one of you passes by so I can yell “told you so!!!”, shoot you and then eat you. You’re probably stringy, taste gamey and have diseases. This is the thanks I get.
*
Well, unlike most ideas that pass through my brain like salt through a goose this one kept nagging at me. So I whipped out my trusty pirated version of Tappan On Survival on floppy disc and skimmed over the firearms section. He doesn’t hate revolvers. Or insist the best gun is an auto pistol. He says that revolvers are best for working/ranch guns and the 45 is the best for survival. Essentially it boils down to this. If you work a revolver hard enough to become proficient with it the mechanism gets sloppy and out of alignment. Then you need to bring it to a gunsmith to get it fixed. You don’t have this problem with an auto. I remember reading that the Viet Cong manufactured their own auto pistols, being much easier for amateurs to construct than revolvers. A trained monkey can fix an auto pistol. A skilled professional needs to fix a revolver.
*
If you practice firing much more than a thousand rounds of ammo through a revolver, chances are it will become a candidate for the gunsmith. This was a disturbing figure. So as much as it pains me to say this, if you rely on a revolver for survival, don’t fire it much. Every once in awhile fire it to stay familiar with it. Then clean it, load it and forget about it for awhile. It is too delicate of a flower. But it will get the job done without you being an expert at it, namely getting you to your rifle.
END
have a very happy holiday with your families- remember there is a lot to be thankful for. peace, brothers.

hunter-killer teams

HUNTER-KILLER TEAMS
I hate politically correct scumbags. Not only are they so far to the extreme politically that Stalin himself would have sent them to Siberia as threats to national security, but they are obnoxious and only buy organically grown coffee sold by collectively managed coffee farms in Central America. And they drive Volvos and I would imagine if one of their tribes women actually allowed me within stones throwing distance I would spy they had arm pit hair in profusion. If you think I am being too kind, you should see ( if you already haven’t ) the movie PCU. A friggin hilarious movie in its own right but also a very funny dig at political correctness.

And who decided to rename the War Department the Defense Department? Was it a distant relative of today’s PC movement? What has the government ever defended, other than attacks from Mexican bandits? What have we ever defended? We went to war with Britain so we could still tax but could keep the proceeds ( someone forgot to tell the participants of the Whisky Rebellion that they fought in a war for a new set of tax and spend masters ). We went to war again with them trying to get Canada. We fought with Mexico to get land. The Yankees attacked the Southern states to keep them from doing what they themselves had seventy years ago. We attacked the weakest colonial power to acquire their Pacific and Caribbean islands. We went to war in Europe the first time to enrich the new Central Bank, the second time to forestall a rebellion due to the economic depression caused by the devaluation of the dollar by the Central Bank. We left an enemy in place to give us continued war time levels of economic stimulus to avoid another Depression. Now we attacked an oil rich nation to keep from failing due to loss of oil. We have never been defensive. Always offensive.

Not that there is anything wrong with that. The best defense is a good offense. I have no problems attacking our neighbors to steal what we want. That is the true nature of the state. First you steal from those you rule, then with the proceeds you attack those other nations that have what you want. If you are on the winning side of that then society as a whole prospers and you gain more than you lose. If you are on the other team you are just plain screwed. I don’t have a problem going into a period in which we are going to be on the losing team. We were on top for a long time. It won’t be fun going from ruler to a colony status, but the cards are out for anyone to see. You might as well get used to it.

What I do have a problem with is being politically correct. We don’t have a defense department. War Department sounds cool, Offense Department sounds too much like a football team term. And after society collapses, you are going to do well by calling things as they are. If you sugar coat things you might make voters happy but you don’t do your soldiers any service. They are being asked to kill. Let them enjoy it. Give awards for the number of enemy killed, not some watered down version like “bravery in action, service to country”. And seeing as how things are going to be scaled down, form teams that go on the offensive. Don’t wait for an enemy to attack. Go out and hunt him down and kill them.

The movie “Terminator” was a great survivalist tale and I liked the term “Hunter-Killers” from the robots that went around seeking and killing humans. That was just too cool. They should be your primary means of defending yourself. After all the lone retreaters either die off after supplies run out or they are over run by Mutant Zombie Bikers, survivors will gather together for protection and trade. Societies will form again. There will be a place for lone wolves in the wilderness but the bulk of people will rejoin society. And a good tactic to defend that society is to take the offensive against potential enemies. Send out your teams and let them create a wide buffer zone around you. That is what the Soviets did, but rather than killing anyone stepping into buffer zones they let their client states do it.

You are going to want to have a good amount of teams out seeking out trespassers. If you let them kill any unauthorized trespassers they will perform their tasks with a great deal more enthusiasm. Allow them to be blood thirsty. You can let kids wander out to an inner zone, practicing the craft of stealth and woodcraft. At puberty they can join teams as an apprentice. Every kid loves playing soldier in the woods and you will be training every available male. Women and invalid males can teach school and farm. Of course you can excuse some from military service to man the arms industry. You can’t expect all males to naturally fill the military role, some will be inclined to invent and create. Send them to apprentice in the arms/chemical/manufacturing industry.

You might want to pattern your military more along the lines of American Indians ( or did I mean, Native Americans in PC speak? ) than the white boys military. A loose and decentralized structure. If things get pacified you will need to push out into new territory. Rather than annex neighbors you might consider finding land little settled farther out. If you make too many neighbors nervous they will gang up on you. Instead start colonizing land far away. This way you keep your military practiced in the real thing. Without combat eventually you lose your edge as an organization. Just don’t get bogged down in a war that drains your treasury.

Remember, take the offensive. Any defensive structure can be breached. Even primitive black powder cannon can tumble stone walls. And you don’t want to leave your old, the children or the women to weather an attack on your town.
END remember, christmas is almost here. buy e-books now and buy for yourself first www.bisonpress.com

retirement

ALTERNATE RETIREMENT
If things manage to limp along and a crash doesn’t happen, or even if a crash does occur and the government stays in power, you will need to think about a conventional retirement. The chances that the whole system will collapse is a lot smaller than things staying the same but getting worse every year. In other words, all your resources can’t go into beans and bullets. You will need to devote some time and money to supplementing Social Security.

As things stand now Social Security, Medicare and the Free Drug program is going to cripple the economy in a few short years. About 2012 a huge wave, and it’s only the first one, of Baby Boomers are going to retire. No need to panic, this does not coincide with the Mayan calendar ending ( most likely caused by the collapsing society around them being unable to support non-farmers rather than the end of time predictions ). The first wave will panic the politicians in public. In private I’m sure all but the idiots are aware of the problem now. The rates will raise again, probably a few percentage points every few years. Means testing will be introduced where double and triple dipping not allowed.

But mainly we will see more of the same. What is already taking place. The true rate of inflation is being hidden and the cost of living allowances are based on the much reduced official figure. Expect in the future to get screwed over if you are receiving benefits adjusted to inflation. Right now inflation is running about ten percent a year. The government is admitting to about 3%. Remember, inflation is nothing more than an increase in the money supply ( traditionally currency, now mostly credit ). It has nothing to do with anything else. The housing bubble was supply and demand but only after the banks artificially lowered the interest rate to stimulate that market.

So while you will in fact receive your promised Social Security, it will buy a lot less than it does now. Every year it will be harder to make ends meet. Your health care and drugs will be free ( anyone see a push for socialized medicine again after the costs go even higher? ) and unless you are totally without luck you will have some kind of shelter paid off. But expect every other aspect of living to be difficult. Food. Utilities. Transportation. It might get the point where you will be penalized by the lose of Social Security if you apply for Food Stamps or utility payments or a city bus pass because your monthly gross went too high. They will be sure to delay keeping up with inflation on those calculations.

So you are going to have to figure out some kind of supplemental income. Hopefully without working. You don’t want to be a Wal-Mart door greeter. It used to be, back in the day when they actually bought American products, the door greeter was some friendly Granpa type who just greeted you. “Hi, welcome To Wally World! My name is George and if I die while greeting you since I’m 104 years old please notify a superior!” Now, they have that same kindly door greeter but they have gotten younger. Their primary role now is to act as the shoplifting police. When the alarm goes off they all shuffle forward in a swarm and check your receipt. In the future as the economy gets worse expect a lot more shoplifters that are a lot meaner, potentially even dangerous. Not the third career path to get into after your arthritis starts to act up.

My two suggestions for supplemental income are as a room boarder and a trailer park owner. The first one, renting out rooms in your house, involves no extra money invested but also a small return. The second requires some kind of investment but surely not much more than an overpriced home on the coast if you do it cheap. Then the return can be high. Renting out your rooms only requires that your mortgage is paid. It used to be quite common as widows were left a debt free home and the only way to get income was to sell room and board to single men. The arrangement worked well. The widow was comfortable and secure and the work involved was little different than being a homemaker. The men received cheap and affordable lodging. Of course nowadays the arrangement is for kitchen privileges as few of us can cook anymore for ourselves, let alone for others.

A travel trailer park can be as cheap or expensive as you wish. You can make it fancy and charge a lot ( and have large payments ) or have folks rough it and charge little. You just need a piece of land with a road to it. You could be as cheap as having electric only and just one sewer dumping station and one water hook up. After the economy gets bad enough people will stop being so picky and not insist on luxuries. People will be unable to afford apartments and start living out of trailers. Instead of like now where only the retired tourists do. A side business might be buying up cheap trailers now ( once the economy goes bad no one will sell, just live in them ) and fixing them up enough and then renting out both the trailer and the lot. Give a handyman free rent and a low wages under the table for maintenance.

A relatively stress free way of supplementing your retirement income.
END- buy now!! imperialist running dog capatalist!! buy honorable authors e-books now!! cury my favor now before i over run your decadent society!! www.bisonpress.com

refrigeration

DOING WITHOUT REFRIGERATION
Doing without refrigeration for any length of time is going to be near impossible. For now in normal times we can rely on propane powered machines. Or even blocks of regular or dry ice if you are drydocking in an RV. But this assumes a continuing supply from civilization. In any social breakdown scenario that lasts any length of time we can assume refrigeration is going to be a distant memory. Aside from salt we need to plan for long term replacements of refrigeration. Not that it is vital. It is merely a much better way of doing things. Meat won’t be able to be shipped already slaughtered. Households won’t have a ready means of keeping dairy and vegetables as they do now ( not without a lot more trouble than it is now- although it will be cheaper in the long run ).

Canning is only a long term strategy if you can replace jars and lids. Natural rubber ( there won’t be any synthetic without petroleum ) will need to be shipped overseas or up from South America. Glass manufacturing is ancient but whether an industry springs up to provide the jars is another story. As with lids. We take metal for granted but there is a lot of material that is imported to mix with iron or steel to make the alloys we are used to. Will we be able to duplicate them after a major crash? If not this leaves drying or salting or smoking and root cellars as the main preservative methods. We can easily do these things but make sure that you plan ahead for them.

A root cellar can be built with a minimum of material and might even cost less than a new refrigerator ( assuming no flooding problems ). You can leave a dirt floor in one section for vegetables and cement in another for preserving dairy and meats ( protecting against rodents ). Regular maintenance to it will never run you a bill as expensive as the electric bill for a machine. Let alone a replacement. If you still wanted to can I would save that mostly for meats because of the difficulty of replacement containers. For winter vegetables I would sprout and have a few window grow boxes. Why can veggies if you can grow them year round?

For dairy a root cellar is going to extend the life compared to storing them in the house. Milk can be turned into cheese. Cheese can be wrapped in cheese cloth that has been lightly wetted with vinegar. Butter can be stored in a butter crock. Myself, I had always assumed butter was made as needed. I had never heard of a butter crock until I saw it in Leeman’s catalog. A subscriber from Bison set me straight and was kind enough not to laugh. You can store butter up to two weeks safely at room temperature using a crock. Get one container and fill with butter. Turn it upside down and immerse it in a larger container filled with water. The water keeps air from getting in which keeps the butter from spoiling. Wash both containers well before using again. The catalog items were $10 each and small ( you would need four to store a pound of butter ). I was told to just use a bigger and smaller glass jar to save the money. In times to come without glass you can use a ceramic one.

You might want to look into sausage making. This is an ancient method of preserving meat. I love drying, living in a desert with plenty of sun, but any fatty meats will spoil if dried. This is where sausage making comes into play. Just make sure to research the old ways. If your mail order supplier of edible plastic tubing goes up in a nuclear flash you will need to know how to turn intestines into tubing. The same with spices and seasonings. Make sure you aren’t reliant on soon to be irreplaceable items. Isn’t this the whole point of doing away with the refrigerator? So while it is true you can make your own blocks ( for an old fashion ice box ) of ice with a solar panel, a battery and an old compressor and some salt water in an insulated box, eventually a critical component is going to fail and become unavailable. Well, so will .22 ammo and well made factory shoes and eyeglasses and a depressingly long list of other items. At least with refrigeration you can easily revert back to traditional means. Heck, there might even be an ice business set up where someone stores ice over the summer for customers use. You could even do it yourself if you were so inclined but it seems more of a bother than doing without leftovers and condiments.

Another area to look into would be tin cans. Could they be duplicated easily? Canning itself is easy. They have manual machines that look like big can openers that seal a metal can closed. But could one duplicate the cans? Obviously as a future business, it would be pointless on a household level. One problem with duplicating technology from one hundred to one hundred fifty years ago. It looks easy. But at the time we were at the height of our industrial revolution in this country. There was a fabulous infrastructure set up to supply those wishing to start an industry. Sam Colt didn’t need to mine his own ore and smelt it. He just needed to tell others how to build his new kind of revolver. We won’t be so lucky after our technological society reverts back several hundred years. You need to see past protecting your petty kingdom. Trade is absolutely essential to living above a primitive level.
END

frugal living

FRUGAL LIVING
One relatively painless way to free up money for survival preps is to live frugally. Now, obviously, there are a lot of obstacles in your way. Your spouse lives as if the next paycheck is almost here and it will never stop. The house has another fifteen years to pay on. The car is new and has another five and a half years of debt on it. Gas and food are hard to substitute. If you are a hen pecked husband that doesn’t have the inclination to dictate how your money is spent, you can stop reading right now. No amount of begging will change your wife’s mind that her house ( you just pay the mortgage, it’s still hers ) will have any used furniture in it. I’m not judging too harshly. I was there before myself. Just ask yourself how important preparations are. Important enough to risk ending a relationship over? If you don’t mean the threat then your bluff will be called.

You don’t need to live in your vehicle. You don’t need to get that frugal. But so many things can be substituted with cheaper items. You can live off discards almost exclusively if you so desire. Lets start your frugal living ideas out with your most expensive bill. Your mortgage. If you want to stay where you are you won’t sell and buy cheaper elsewhere. So turn your house from an expense to an investment. Rent out a room. If those are all taken then convert the garage. If you have some property rent out a pasture to a horse owner. Cheap housing is hard to find. You will find a boarder.

Your car can be repossessed but most folks are scared of a bad credit rating. So they keep making car payments. And you don’t want to deliver pizza to pay off your car. The next purchase, buy a used car. New is over priced and going to bail out Detroit, not purchase increased quality. If you are fortunate enough to not have a car payment, keep it that way. Its only a money pit. Buy used where the value is closer to reality after depreciation. If you refuse to get rid of a car, how about moving closer to work or getting another job closer to home? Otherwise it’s the price of living in the suburbs.

You should never buy a new piece of furniture. There are oodles of used ones out there. Most furniture manufacturing is moving to China. Yet it is still expensive. Most of the markup goes to inflated overhead. And paying for idiotic schemes such as “make no payments for three years” advertising. It is cheaper to throw away your used furniture and buying more used pieces after you arrive at your new home if you are moving. U-Haul is expensive and the trucks get three to five miles to the gallon full. The same with kitchen goods and perhaps even clothing.

You shouldn’t buy new clothing other than underwear and socks. And footwear if you are worried about foot fungus. The thrift stores are full of used clothes. Slacks are three bucks each. Polo type shirts $2. Jackets are under five bucks. I spent $3.50 for my last two wool sweaters. And several polo shirts at a buck each ( going at half price days ).

Then use your wool sweaters to wear as you turn down the thermostat. Put solar troughs out at each south window to get free winter heat ( an insulated black trough covered in glass going from ground to window with the window open to let the air in-close at night to avoid losing the house heat ). If you are lazy or the Zoning Cops will get you, place a piece of black plastic in each south window, a few inches away from the glass ( hanging from the curtain rod ). The sunlight will hit the plastic and rise up into the room. If wood is cheap in your area, at least supplement your gas with a wood stove if not replace it altogether.

For entertainment, never buy new. The $26 hardback they sell today will be a buck in a year. The newest video will go down in price. The newest game system coming out drives down the cost of the older systems- get one of those ( I can’t see one of my readers buying the new PlayStation Three for $1200 on E-bay due to the shortages- wait a little and the PS2 will go under $100 and you can use it to bypass normal scrambling to copy DVD’s ).

For food, just buy all unprocessed foods. You will save lots of money, eat healthier and put the wife to work in the kitchen since she’s gotten really lazy with prepared foods and a microwave oven. Don’t buy instant mashed potatoes, always use fresh. I prepare with the skins for the vitamins and it saves skinning them ( or do peel them and then fry up the skins-yum ). For meat if I want beef I buy the brisket. $1.60 a pound, about $2 a pound after you trim the fat. Great in the crock pot but also surprisingly tasty just grilled. It is marbled with fat for a good flavor. You just need to buy it at ten or fifteen pounds at a time. Buy butter when on sale and freeze it. Margarine is foul and unhealthy. And butter is protein. If vegetables get too expensive, grow sprouts. If you can’t stand the taste just pour some tomato juice in the blender along with the sprouts. Puree. No expensive juicer to buy, no expensive vegetables to buy. And the most nutritious vegetables there are.

Make your own wine, roll your own cigarettes. Cut your own hair. Color your own hair. Perm it yourself, etc. Remove the service element from your purchases and you will save a bundle. Remember, China supplies cheap goods. We supply expensive services. Take out our services when possible to save.
END buy e-books www.bisonpress.com

crying wolf

THE BOY THAT CRIED WOLF
We all know the tale about the boy that cried wolf one too many times. In the end the wolf ate all the sheep and no one believed the boy that time. In effect we were being told that if you lie there will be dire consequences. Not a bad lesson to teach horrible little children that will lie even standing over the evidence of their wrongdoing. I mean, kids are the worse lying little bastards in the world. Even lawyers are sometime constrained by fear of being caught in too blatant of a lie. Rug-rats will assume a cherubic expression and form a dimple and look all sweet and boldly lie to your face. Did you wet yourself, Johnny dear? Why, no, mommy dearest, as his light colored pants turn dark from the spreading stain.

So, having learned our lesson from this fable ( and after being caught and beaten for it a few times ) we grow up and still continue to lie. But we are much better at it. Our technique is improved. Powerful beatings have taught us to be careful. Instead of lying about things that can be disproved now we only lie about emotions. What can’t be discovered short of a lie detector test. Why, yes Mommy, I did pee myself. I’m very sorry. I got too excited and forgot to go potty. I love you. All of which are damn lies of course. He’s not sorry, he knew exactly what he was doing and it is even doubtful if there is anything other than self love. But often times the manipulation will work. Then we enter adulthood and really master the craft.

I love you dear, lets get married. It really means, I’m really horny and don’t want to wait any more for sex. Might as well get married. I can always cheat of the bitch if she gets too ugly and fat. Oh, my darling, yes. I love you too. I accept. It means, I’m getting evicted from my apartment for not paying rent and need a place to stay, plus I’m getting tired of working. If he has a really small shlong I can always get pregnant, divorce him and get child support payments.

We even had a President give us lessons about the slippery definition of “is”. That guy was a pro. Real estate agents don’t lie, they redefine descriptive terms. Cute and homey means it is the size of a shoebox. Starter home means a piece of crap falling down. Traditional craftsmanship means an old lead painted asbestos filled wall. Lawmakers lie to us before every election but use weasel words to escape accountability. They want to help the military. When they vote down appropriations it is to make the military leaner and stronger. Balancing the budget doesn’t have to be done if they promised no new taxes. And it is always the other political parties fault.

Survivalist writers are just as bad. According to us, every potential problem is an Earth shattering event sure to disembowel civilization and sending us to the soup kitchen lines to die of disease. And we keep inventing more problems to point to. After all, if we don’t keep it fresh we lose readers and then, horrors, money. Even though, supposedly, Greenbacks are worthless and soon to be hyper-inflated. And we are usually writing from a city full of people even though they should soon flair up and dissolve in death dealing mobs. And no matter how many times they have been wrong they still feel qualified to give you more advice on another potential calamity.

So, we have no shame. We are crying wolf. To an extent we offer a valuable service. By forcing fat lazy bastards to get off their cellulite riddled asses and spend some of that PlayStation Three money on storage foods and ammunition, we prepare more folks for the inevitable rainy day period. They happen. We all know it. But the other side of this coin is people burning out over false hysterical proclamations of impending doom. After awhile you have started to cry wolf and they will stop listening. The survivalist movement lost a lot of members after the Soviet Union dissolved. Then almost everyone jumped ship after Y2K fizzled. That might attributed to the fact that the Internet, for the first time, reached out past the traditional worry-warts and brought more into the fold. And now of course we are making fools of ourselves proclaiming the Peak Oil tsunami bearing down on us.

Look, your best bet is to read survivalist writers for entertainment. Yes, by all means, prepare. Every payday put aside a certain percentage and buy your supplies. Prepare for what you feel is the most likely to happen. But don’t read survivalist writers for their future forecasters. We suck at it. And it will only cause you stress. Slow and steady wins the race. Prepare methodically, not after a warning has been sounded. I take every potential threat seriously, and pass it on to you. I can kill myself with the stress before a calamity ever occurs. Don’t be like me. I’m just crying wolf.

Keep hunting wolfs and making more arrows to slay them. Just don’t run around in circles panicking after a wolf sighting has been made.
END

costco

COSTCO, EVIL YUPPIE HEADQUARTERS
As I have opined previously, besides lawyers and politicians most of the nations evils can be traced back to Vermin Yuppie Scum. And where is the place most Yuppies hang out, practicing their Snooty French Sneer and compensating for undersized genitalia by showing off their shiny new cars? Why, Costco, of course. Now, perhaps this isn’t the fault of Costco. Perhaps the good people at Costco were taken over by an advancing hoard of unstoppable evil lemmings. Perhaps the Yuppies drove twice the speed limit ( “It’s my road, peasant, all mine!!” ) swerving ahead of any Ford or Chevy pick-up ( used of course, their kissing cousins the building contractors only buy new pick-up trucks since it is a tax write off and they can fool the unsuspecting that they aren’t part of the evil cabal ) and pulling into the store first, pushing aside the less unfortunate as if their money was somehow less good.

But, it is not to be. The corporate controllers are well aware of the demographic group they are targeting. They want Yuppie mobs to wake up at 10 a.m. after a wicked ten martini hang over, swing by the store quickly to bark at the employees and get a shopping list for the day. They use their Double Secret Entry Pass to get in an extra hour ahead of the great unwashed masses and buy dirt cheap booze and overpriced food. As most have hangovers, the only prices they are concerned with are those where the stop first, the alcohol isle. It must be a loss-leader where Costco gives away the rot-gut at below cost to entice the Rummies into the store. After their hootch selection at happy prices, they finish their shopping not giving a care in the world as to the prices.

A year ago I was awash in filthy lucre and decided I would start buying storage food in bulk. I went down to Costco and spent $50 for a membership card. I made one purchase after carefully looking at all available products. I felt violated. I felt ripped off. I felt as if a grave injustice had been perpetuated upon my person. Costco is, in short, a rip off. If you only buy name brand products, and you buy in bulk at Costco, you will save a little money. If, on the other hand you shop at Wal-Mart and buy generic brands you can actually buy much less in size and still save money. My current job is delivery driver for a food charity. I go around and pick up food donations. The food bank gets its cleaning supplies at Costco. And are they getting ripped off. Even with a discount using a Costco branded American Express card they are paying a premium of 10 to 20% over buying generic. I tried giving them a list of items and the savings but of course, who am I? I’m just a driver. A near minimum wage earner. What the heck do I know?

Don’t get me wrong, I already knew that Costco was a rip off, that’s why I stopped shopping there. I remembered enough prices shopping at Wal-Mart to know Costco was charging way too much. I had thought a non-profit organization would be interested in saving money. But they weren’t. I almost think they are getting a lot of funding from government. Now, I realize that in effect I am comparing apples to oranges here. Why compare name brand to generic? Why indeed. The last time I had a bad experience with generic was when they first got popular in the mid 1980’s. Some items were not even food they were so bad. Now, you can’t tell the difference between name brand and generic. I mean, sure, Trader Joe’s doesn’t compare to Wal-Mart house brand, but for items available in the same store there is often no difference. I fail to taste the difference between Folgers and Wal-Mart brand coffee, and the price difference is substantial.

On some items it is cheaper to buy at Costco. Their twenty five pound sack of pinto beans is about 35 cents a pound, far cheaper than the fifty cents a pound at Wal-Mart. But you would have to buy four hundred pounds just to pay for the membership card. Rice is about the same, as is flour. Meat is about the same but you must buy more at Costco to get the savings. The large rounds of toilet paper are more expensive than the small packs at Wal-Mart. Unless space is at a premium there is no need to buy them ( although, truthfully the price difference is small on this one item ). You save almost half by buying generic disinfectant compared to Pine-Sol. Unless you are buying for a large family while also storing food for your survival group it is a complete waste of money to buy a Costco membership. Just shop at Wal-Mart and buy smaller packages at a cheaper price.
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looting the eco-village

LOOTING THE ECO-VILLAGES
In Peak Oil circles there is a general consensus that we are all doomed and the sky is falling and civilization will crash and burn. Duh! But there is less agreement about the aftermath of the event after civilization fails. The hard core survivalists advocate heading for the hills to a well stocked super bunker. The Greens are already planning Ecotopia, the fictional society where we all hug trees and grow long hippie hair.

Of course both approaches are wrong. The survivalists are going to run out of supplies eventually. And the tree huggers are going to get killed the first week out. To be successful both approaches are going to have to merge. That won’t be easy as they are worlds apart as it is. But neither approach is viable on its own.

In the retreat to the mountains, bunker of doom survivalists viewpoint masses of humanity will descend on to their location and like hoards of slow moving zombies overcome any defense with overwhelming numbers alone. The only way to defeat this is to live in almost complete isolation. Stock plenty of food and water and ammunition and keep your location a secret. This is the camp I am solidly in, although in my more honest moments I can admit that this approach has more to do with my general hatred for mankind and my desire to escape the idiots that infest our society. On an individual basis about ten percent of the people you meet are not wasting oxygen. That’s it. But as a whole they are a bunch of idiots best cleansed from the gene pool.

The problem with the survivalists approach is that almost no one is wealthy enough to afford to stockpile the needed supplies. Heck, most of us die broke and in debt now since just living is too darn expensive. Throw in the need to prepare for surviving a calamity and it is near impossible. So compromises are made and you end up with less than desired. For instance you affordable buy property out in the boonies but it has no decent soil or water. You need to stockpile everything. Or you have plenty of ammo but it is to old surplus military bolt actions. Or, you have enough food but it is all wheat and you have no protein stored. You get the idea. You can’t afford to stock the best or enough but that is what you are going to have to rely on.

The eco-nut, long hair hippie tree hugger is planning on buying a farm and raising organic radishes to feed themselves. They realize that food shipments will immediately stop after the petroleum stops flowing ( either from supplies running out of lack of money to purchase ). So they buy land with decent soil and have the ability to grow their own grains and beans and go fishing nearby.

The problem here is that even with good producing soil and available water and even renewable energy, you are vulnerable to attack. The mass of the population is without farms or farming skills. They are not going to idly sit around and starve and allow you to raise your zucchini in peace. They will attack you for food, to feed their family. It was too much bother to prepare beforehand when they were busy buying 2000 square foot McMansions and making payments on a SUV. But it won’t be too much trouble to form a mob and kill you and steal your food. Each member of the mob gets about 100 calories worth of food and moves on to the next target. Even if you are armed it is just you against a mob. In a social collapse scenario you are going to need a standing military and fortifications to defend croplands. I have bad news for the back-to-landers. You are right to realize we need to rebuild a decentralized farming community but despite your skills you will most likely end up as a serf while more ruthless individuals form collectives of exploiters-by-force.

The better approach is to hide out while the general die-off happens. Then you can emerge and take up some abandoned farm land and start a militarily strong farming group. By practicing French Intensive farming methods a few people ( mostly the women and children ) can grow the crops as the bulk of the fit population goes out on an offensive search and destroy to keep the enemy away from the growing area. And even then you are going to need defensive works and food and water storage to outlast any sieges. Frankly, it is going to be the worse of both worlds. You must rejoin society to survive but not only work hard at farming but be involved in fighting all the time.

One alternative, mostly practiced in the arid West is going to be to become a herder. You raise animals that eat weeds and brush, trade some meat with farmers. Every male is armed and your nomadic existence is a defense of sorts. You can even hire yourselves out as part time mercenaries if desired. Back East where all the good farmland is a more feudal existence will come into being. There will be little choice as it is so crowded back there. You can’t use distance as a defense, so many small and weak “city-states” will form. You will be stuck in the area you were born and the warriors will form an elite. We won’t go back to the Stone Age, but most likely the Dark Ages.
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homemade wine

TRASH CAN WINE AND OTHER FINE SPIRITS
Having a spouse that is unapologetically an alcoholic, I concern myself with the frugal aspect of spirit acquisition. I did plenty of my own drinking at an earlier age and feel no desire to start on that wasted life again. I might be better off by drinking a small amount for the medicinal aspects but don’t really even want to do that. Just as there are misguided souls out there that mistakenly insist that bunny food is healthy for me, so to the wine drinkers insisting that moderate amounts of alcohol are beneficial to my health can go pack sand. Meat and potatoes are the cornerstone of my healthy diet ( I eat whole wheat bread for one meal for fiber ) and I will outlast any one of the tofu eaters out there my age. Just as I won’t hurt myself by not drinking. Good attitude is more important as far as I’m concerned, plus I’m best served by not being surrounded by temptation lest I go back to being depressed and feeling sorry for myself and making a general nuisance of myself to others.

Where I have no time to waste by being woozy and half in the bag ( having erroneously convinced myself that others out there depend on my daily pearls of wisdom that flow forth freely ), my wife sees no problem sipping on her beer all day long to keep reality at bay. I don’t need her to work so I only allow her a six pack a day ( she gets rather mean if she has much more ), being in control of the budget. At any friendly neighborhood Indian national store cases of brand name beer are just under ten bucks after tax, so beer costs me $80 a month. Not too bad considering she weighs under a hundred pounds and doesn’t eat much. However, I have already warned her that once we move out to the boonies there will not be any more beer if financial considerations rule against it.

However, I know I can’t deprive her of alcohol altogether. Both mentally and physically she is going to want to keep drinking. I can’t say no, it’s the way she was when I met her. So I have been on the look out for alternate alcoholic spirits that cost less than $2.50 a day. The two I have run across are grocery store wine and hard apple cider. The wine recipe is from an old 70’s book, Possum Living. The hard cider recipe is from the current issue of Backwoodsman Magazine.

Grocery store wine, what I call trash can wine, is just fruit juice with sugar and yeast added. The fruit gives it flavor, the sugar is what turns into alcohol and the yeast is what does that. You can use a can of concentrated grape juice, under a dollar. Five pounds of sugar make three gallons of wine. So figuring on about two bucks for the sugar the one gallon cost would be about sixty five cents. And yeast, if you only buy a small packet is about thirty three cents. I would guess that the ingredients per gallon to be about $2. A half a gallon a day would equal a six pack of beer if the alcohol volume is roughly the same. It should be if you use bread yeast.

Get a container that you can fit a stopper on, then put a length of aquarium hose down the stopper leading to a container of water. The end of the hose is in the water and the gases from the alcohol production are let out but air is not allowed in. I have read that some just use a rubber glove with a few finger holes. When the glove is no longer inflated the process is over and your wine is done. Myself, I would prefer to buy a professional rig to make sure air doesn’t get in and spoil a batch. If the upfront cost is reasonable enough. At a buck a day cost I can afford some money invested up front. Get several set ups if you plan on having a continuous production.

If it takes five or so days to brew one gallon ( done when bubbling is over, basically ) and you drink a half gallon a day you need three or four units. If you are using the plastic bottles at the water purifier section at Wal-Mart it should only run you a few bucks per container. The pet section will have aquarium hose real cheap. The stopper might need to be bought from a wine making business, or find something to improvise.
The hard cider uses apple juice with about as much sugar. You will need to experiment as it might get too sweet. Just cut back on the sugar. You can even try using no sugar. It will provide less alcohol but will be a lighter drink. Crisp and invigorating rather than packing too much of a wallop. Buy a few packages of apple juice and try it out. It only takes a few days and cost almost nothing. Try actual brewers yeast to see if the taste differs. Welcome to frugal drinking.
END
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double digit inflation

DOUBLE DIGIT INFLATION
I know a lot of you out there are bored by economics. As well you should be. Modern economics is full of dry boring math. If there is any science dryer than math, it might be economics based on math. Now, the classical economists such as Adam Smith made for much better reading. They applied real world application to the way money worked. However, classical economics would highlight the idiocy of modern banking ( inflation and deficit spending is nothing new, just the scale we are capable of and the new techniques of disguise ) and so the government controlled schools only taught economics in such a fashion that you were asleep before any knowledge sank in. Modern economics is also totally full of crap. You could read one book on the Austrian school of economics and be a better money handler than Greenspan.

For the evil conjoined twins of central banks and central governments to stay alive, inflation is an absolute requirement. Inflation gives the government more free money than would be possible with just taxes. In fact, saying the taxpayers are getting screwed is not the whole truth. Future taxpayers as yet unborn might be getting screwed. Or today’s taxpayers will be getting screwed in the future as we have the Greater Depression. But mostly as taxpayers we don’t fund much of the government. Inflation and foreign debt purchasing pay most of the government spending, about two thirds. Which is really scary since hidden taxes add at least another twenty five percent to our tax bite. We pay half of our incomes to the government and still they must borrow one third and devalue the currency for the other third.

The governments of foreign lands buy almost a trillion bucks a year of our debt. We inflate the money supply about the same amount. That means the central bank computers create that much credit as well as the currency being printed that accounts for traditional inflation. The other trillion in taxes wouldn’t operate our current government more than a few months. Now, granted, these are figures on a napkin amounts. Ball parking. It might not be as bad by a few billion here or there. And I am oversimplifying. But the general rule of thumb is that the only way we can survive is to borrow heavily. So heavily we can never pay it back. And this doesn’t even factor in unfunded liabilities such as Social Security. I had to laugh recently. In the political campaigning here in Nevada one candidate promised “ affordable medical care, taking care of our veterans and balancing the budget”. You increase spending to balance the budget. People actually buy this crap.

The main point of this article is that we are not going to have double digit inflation soon. We are already there. And there is no stopping it, I don’t care if the Republican party was outlawed and only Democrats took office and raised taxes 100%. Double digit inflation is already here. It has been for some time. And it will only get worse after the Baby Boomers start to retire. In the last seven years we have had low inflation. As admitted by the government. Three or four percent a year. Now, go look at food prices. Oil prices. Gold prices. Car prices. House prices. They have all doubled. True, not in all things. Chinese imports are cheap. They are taking a page from the Japanese and losing profit to own entire industries. But the Chinese can provide low labor costs and accept pollution, unlike the Japanese. Thus China can beat everyone at the game of market dominance. We may not have had inflation imported, but we did export our industrial base.

Everything home made good or service, proudly made in America has at least doubled in price since the turn of the century. Remember the Rule Of 72. Take the rate of inflation and divide by 72 to get the number of years until prices double. Seven years to double costs is ten percent a year. Double digit inflation. And this is coupled with negative private sector growth, outsourcing of the remaining jobs and Peak Oil ( most likely in 2005 ). We are screwed and nobody wants to admit it. My house doubled in price, I have $100,000 in home equity. You have crap if you can’t sell the thing. Except a second mortgage maybe. But my gold is worth twice what I paid for it. No, not after you account for inflation. Gold is a store of purchasing power. Not an investment. Its attraction is it holds its value no matter what. But my job pays $100,000 annually. Great, you can buy the same stuff a $50,000 a year job used to buy in the last century. And it is a rare job that keeps up with the official rate of inflation, let alone the real rate.

Do not hold on to paper currency. It is losing almost one percent of its purchasing power every month. Other than ready cash needed for emergencies or to purchase distress sale items, hold precious metals. They will preserve your wealth ( remember, only after bullets and beans ) better than any government issued currency.
END
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primitive weapons

WEAPONS AFTER ARMAGEDDON
Every once in awhile I will spray a bit of venom towards Yuppie Survivalists, perhaps at times saying something a little bit too harsh such as they are the great unwashed evil. And the blog www.survivalblog.com might come under fire. But Jim ( with a name like Jim you’ve got to be good ) does provide a valuable service. He assembles the bulk of survivalists and provides them with a forum. The amount of information these guys have available as a whole is amazing. My only personal problem with it is that most of the times it is the wrong kind of information, being of the Big Bucks kind. But by reading it every day you get those gems of useful information. Just don’t be too tight. Throw him some kind of bone to keep him in business. At least shop with his advertisers and let them know where you found them.

The latest heads up I really enjoyed was the ongoing thread about weapons after a severe collapse. The logic is that after technological and industrialized society has collapsed, what kind of weapons could be used. The detail as far as swords and bows was incredible. Metal composition, manufacturing technique, tactics, etc. was all discussed. It was very interesting. Of course by the time black powder was mentioned the discussion had pretty much run its course. That is another good thing about the blog. A moderator. Endless flame wars and petty bickering and too long of threads were the problems of the old discussion groups. Even a good one that is moderated doesn’t have the mass appeal of Jim’s blog and thus doesn’t have the meeting of minds to solve most problems.

Bows and swords are great weapons. As long as they are practiced with for a lifetime. You start young and you keep at it until you are killed. A valuable resource years in the making and needing constant practice has just been eliminated. When you need years to learn a skill and then hours a day to keep it, you are a very valuable resource. There are very few of you. You are an elite. And then you die in battle. This is very inefficient as a way to wage war. As soon as something like the crossbow was available that could be learned much quicker and didn’t need as much practice, it was readily adapted. And gunpowder allowed you to churn out soldiers in weeks. Yes, you still need to practice. At marching. That doesn’t cost much.

It is doubtful that we will ever go back to rank and file formations shooting as one to achieve a giant shotgun effect. For one thing, even primitive cannon firing grapeshot is an effective counter. Tanks can be manufactured quite crudely. And even a hand cranked black powder machine gun can disperse a formation. Plus Americans are indoctrinated with the myth of the heroic Minuteman ambushing the Redcoats from cover. No way they are going to line up for slaughter. And how many will willingly wield a sword or bow or even crossbow when black powder weapons can be made using the most primitive methods ( remember the Idaho hermit that made his own black powder rifles all from scratch? )? I wager that while interesting, the study of making or using those weapons is a waste of time.

This is even assuming that we could only make black powder muzzle loaders with flintlocks. Surely we could do better. Breechloaders. Straight cased rimmed brass ammo. Even paper cartridges. Not to mention the possibility of smokeless powder and non-corrosive primers. If primers were made in the mid 1800’s and the French made smokeless powder in the latter part of that century and the Mauser was designed before the twentieth century, doesn’t it stand to reason that it is possible to replicate some or all of that technology? Even if the national infrastructure with coal and petroleum and chemical factories and train transport was not available, couldn’t we reproduce at least some of it locally? Why would we go back to swords? The appeal of hacking at an opponent three feet away can’t match the thrill of being several hundred yards away and knowing mathematically your chances of being hit by a lead ball are pretty low.

So rather than concentrating any time or effort into learning the art of crafting swords or being able to hit anything past 25 yards with a bow, put that effort into metals and chemistry and arms making. And tactics. Did the American Indians stick with bows because they could manufacture their own? No, they bought firearms and became some of the best light shock troops seem since the Mongols. Their downfall was mostly lack of disease resistance, but also the elimination of their food source and the need to protect their camps. Keep these in mind as you plan on protecting your town or tribe. Offensive warfare, ringed defenses, arming all civilians, food storage. And have something tradable for the newest weapons or develop your own defense industry.
END
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global warming

GLOBAL WARMING
On one hand Al Gore and Hollywood celebrities tell us about global warming. On the other, corporations say there is not. Gore makes a film showing former glaciers disappearing in before and after pictures. Corporations and pro-free marketers ( not the same thing ) say some areas are getting warmer while others colder, or claim the data is flawed. Some who want to be different just say the polar ice will melt, dilute the warm water conveyor belt in the Atlantic and Europe will freeze ( along with the East Coast ). So who is right and who is wrong?

Everybody in the debate has an axe to grind. The liberal pukes want all corporations and private enterprise to vanish and a ever after happy government will peacefully run everything ( which raises two questions for Hollywood Liberals, 1-will the FedGov finance their new movies and , 2- how do they explain that the Defense Department is the countries biggest polluter ). Corporations want no government interference at all, wishing they could pollute as freely as Chinese factories and conveniently forgetting such gross corporate excesses as Enron and Worldcom. All of this stems from the wrong question. Everyone is asking what they should do because global warming is man made. Hogwash. Global warming can’t be man made. The particles in one good size volcano equal a years worth of man made pollutants world wide. That same volcano unleashes more energy than a good size number of nuclear weapons. Man is weak and puny compared to Mother Nature.

The better question to ask is, is this a natural cycle caused by, say, sunspot activity, and we will go back to normal colder temperatures, or are we in for decades or generations more of warming trends, in which case real estate in coastal Florida is way overpriced? In any case it doesn’t really matter as man can’t change it. If he could the only solution would be to turn off all the lights and shut down all the oil wells and go back to farming the land for our Feudal lords ( one presumes that the Hollywood Liberals will be willing to fill that role as they have little other useful skills ). It would be nice to know in which direction our future lies for those of us that actually do prepare rather than burying our head in the sand. But since there is too much money and politics involved in the debate we will never get honest information we can use in our calculations.

As usual in these kinds of dilemmas the answer lies in just assuming the worst and planning for it. Either global warming or cooling mean the same for us. One, the food supply is in jeopardy and two, you need more insulation and three, secure a water supply. Any excess in changes in the weather up or down temperature wise will cause massive crop failures. In today’s economy that is really not a big deal as one unaffected region just trades with another and nobody starves. In a Depression or hyperinflation however, if no one is taking your paper money, you could be a member of a starving nation. A bare minimum is one year of wheat per person. And wheat prices are only going up with current droughts. Stock up now. Either too cold or too hot shouldn’t mean you burn more fossil fuels. Their future is uncertain, both in affordability and availability.

Insulate better. Today the pay back period might be five years. If oil triples in price suddenly in takes a lot less time. Don’t wait for the rush on this one. And last, assume your water supply is in danger. After the hoards of Bastard Californian Yuppie Slim Sucking Scum left their hellhole and migrated to other western states and jacked up real estate prices beyond reason they also started ruining the water resources of other states ( and before one of you idiots writes a nasty note, I was born and raised in California but I had no part in the real estate fiasco ). Water in the ground should be suspect, both for running out and for not having the energy to pump it out.

Being poor shouldn’t be an obstacle in preparing. An earth sheltered dwelling ( not home- just a small dwelling ) should be easy and cheap enough to build with a pick and shovel and some used supplies. Just research how the local Indians used to do it. Even if you put some money into it you should be able to use it as a shed in the meantime, or a root cellar, or a fallout shelter, or a basement, etc. Come winter and a storm taking it down to five degrees, a 50 degree earth hut will sure feel nice if the power fails. Wheat even at twice the current price is a great bargain. Buy at the local feed store ( tell them its for human consumption ). As far as water the easiest thing you can do is put a catchments system on your roof and have a few plastic barrels. This system can pay for itself as you use that water to flush toilets with as well as water the lawn. Your water bill should drop.

Prepare now, as always. Don’t wait for the crowd to beat you to the supplies. And for all you pacifist types out there, get armed. The crowds will kill and eat your supplies and then you. Don’t become mob fodder.
END

caravans

POST-APOCALYPSE TRADING CARAVANS
After Peak Oil crashes the world economy, or the Yellowstone Super Volcano erupts, chances are that nation states will not retain their power. Best case scenario will have moderate local power and little or no Federal level power. Without petrol fuels modern economies and armies would be out of business and localities could look after their own best interests. Under this local economy structure it is likely we would see trading caravans again, where rail was unavailable due to multi-jurisdictional issues. In vast contested areas of land strongly armed groups could pass if they could fight. No longer will a strong central authority regulate trade. On the downside this means no protection from that state, but generally the two costs ( paying for private armed escorts or paying for permission from the state with its public security ) will roughly be equal. Although if anything it should be cheaper going the private route as no bureaucracy hinders cost cutting or efficiency measures. The coming post-apocalyptic job conditions will not favor the employee as Unions will become a curious historical footnote. Pay will be competitive and conditions dangerous ( i.e.-cheap to replace labor ).

There should be a strong need for traders. Take the case of coffee. The north is addicted to the stuff and can’t grow it. Someone is going to have to go get it. Even if ships become the cheapest form of transport again goods will still have to be moved from ports overland. So while it is unlikely that an American trade caravan will actually travel down to South America, it will travel from San Francisco over the Sierras to the Rocky Mountain area. In time private interests will arrive at wanted trade items. Perhaps the American gun industry will boom again without the Federal interference that killed it after the 1930’s ( name one good American designed gun after the Garand- and the M14 doesn’t count as it was just a Garand with a detachable magazine ). Now we have CAD programs to help us and small steel mills will thrive. We might be thrown back to horses and steam engines but some if not most of technology will remain even if it is in other countries.

So it will not really be that horses are going to be the only form of transportation but most likely the affordable one for most folks. Think back to the Great Depression. Cars were available as was plenty of oil, but most could only afford horses as you could grow the fuel yourself. We might see a return to cattle drives if meat must remain fresh due to less affordable refrigeration. But why wouldn’t we see a return to traders on horseback? The weeds along the way provide fuel. In a cash scarce economy low maintenance transport will resurface. It might even be that we see bicycles ( imported from China? ) used as transportation. The new cavalry might be on bikes.

Think about what your area lacks and what it could provide. Every area has its good and bad points. If you are on a good waterway or at a port your area could become a trading center. If you live in a fertile area with good rainfall you produce crops ( which will pay much better than they do now ). But you could also be a pioneer in setting up your areas economy. Think what a library of metal smelting and patent illustrations of firearms could turn into. Or a computer salvage yard. But if this doesn’t appeal to you the cheap way to get into business is going to be a trading horse caravan with armed guards. Plenty of over armed, underfed survivalists will be looking for work. You provide a string of mules and some horses and you are in the trading business. Typically your hired guards must arm themselves so your up front costs are minimal. A few silver coins can turn a horse ranch down the road into your supplier. Beans and flour will feed the guards. They receive a percentage of delivered goods, thus insuring completion of the assigned task.

Post-apocalypse work is going to be owning your own business or working for others under most unfavorable conditions. Prostitution, mercenary work, factory labor. None are exactly safe. Better to make plans now to be self employed. Think about what we don’t have and will need. And what you can provide. After vitamin factories shut down citrus from Florida and California will take on new meaning. What can you provide to trade for it? Or are you willing to ferry it for pay? An intriguing mental exercise. If you don’t want to play at being a merchant or business entrepreneur, enjoy the outdoors freedom of becoming a cowboy. Well, more like a Wells Fargo guard. But wouldn’t that be cool?
END
If you still prefer CD's to e-books let me know. jimd303@netzero.com I'll wait awhile before I raise the price to give you time to order ( for now just add a dollar to the e-book price ). I just wasn't making enough on them. I put a lot of effort into writting both and I am still trying to pay back the equipment cost. But as far as the ebooks, THANKS. We are off to a flying start. Until tomorrow, Jim.